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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mark Ruffalo, left-wing star of Marvel’s The Avengers series, is has called out California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom, this time over Newsom’s effort to torpedo a state-wide billionaire tax.

Ruffalo blasted Newsom in an X post where he railed that the Gov. constantly “sells out the working class people for the billionaires.’

At issue is Newsom’s vocal support of Prop 42, a proposal meant to torpedo any new state wealth tax on the state’s billionaires. In his statement in support of the move to ban wealth taxation, Newsom said that he fears that wealth taxes would be a threat to people’s retirement savings.

“I am proud to stand with firefighters, blue-collar unions, veterans, seniors, and small businesses in support of Prop 42. We all agree that Californians deserve to have their retirement and life savings protected from new state taxes so those savings are there when they need them,” the governor said in a statement.

But Ruffalo is striking back at Newsom for his opposition to new wealth taxes.

“Once again. Just like the Paramount Merger Gavin Newsom does what he always does. Sells out the working class people for the billionaires again and again. Not only that but endorses a bill that will make it impossible to tax the wealthy at all.,” the actor wrote on X on Wednesday.

Ruffalo has taken aim at Newsom before, most especially for the gov’s support of the merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery.

In Sept., Ruffalo accused Newsom of working to help Donald Trump, of all people, over the merger deal.

The rabid antisemitic actor called the settlement a betrayal and a “huge win to Trump.”

Ruffalo also blasted Newsom for vetoing a state AI bill early this month.

Ruffalo slammed California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) over his veto of an AI safety bill, calling it “a mistake,” and asking the public to “follow the money” when analyzing Newsom’s decisions.

“AI is now a real-life technology, and love it or hate it, most everyone agrees it will make a massive impact on all of our real lives,” Ruffalo wrote in an op-ed for TIME magazine, titled, “Governor Newsom’s Veto on the AI Bill Was a Mistake.”

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.”

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.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom claims academic gains and student achievement, but an education analyst says the state’s results for test scores mask persistent academic shortcomings, with fewer than half of students scoring proficient or above in English language arts, math and science.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said the progress reflects state investments in education, including universal transitional kindergarten, expanded learning opportunities, literacy and math support, community schools and universal school meals.

“The continued progress we are seeing is a testament to the hard work of students, families and educators across the state,” Newsom said in a statement.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said California had expanded student support and educational opportunities but acknowledged that academic improvement remains a challenge.

“These investments have laid an important foundation, but we must do more to translate them into stronger academic outcomes,” Thurmond said in a statement.

State assessment results showed according to the governors press release that student achievement of ELA scores grew overall to 71% in ELA, 61.8% in mathematics, and 86.5% in science.

Lance Izumi, senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute in Pasadena, criticized the state’s presentation of student achievement data, arguing that combining students who are near proficiency with those who meet or exceed standards can obscure academic shortcomings.

“Near proficiency is not proficiency!” Izumi told The Center Square.

Izumi argued that grouping students approaching proficiency with proficient students could make overall results appear stronger than they are. State figures show that a majority of students did not meet proficiency standards in English language arts, mathematics or science.

Broken down, that is 49.3% of students scored proficient or advanced in English language arts, a 0.5 percentage-point increase from the previous year. In math, 38.4% met those benchmarks, up about 1.1 percentage points. In science, 36% scored proficient or advanced, an increase of 3.3 percentage points.

The English and math results remain below pre-pandemic levels recorded during the 2018-19 school year, when 51.7% of students met proficiency standards in English language arts and 39.7% did so in mathematics.

California has invested substantial public funding in education, with the figures provided estimating spending at about $150 billion, or roughly $27,000 per student.

Izumi pointed to the National Assessment of Educational Progress results for 2024 that showed achievement gaps. In California, 29% of fourth graders scored proficient in reading and 35% in math. Among eighth graders, 28% scored proficient in reading and 25% in math.

“He (Newsom) wants to make it appear that there are these huge groups of kids that are doing just fine in school when that really is masking the fact that there is still a majority of kids who are not proficient,” Izumi said. “It doesn't matter if they're going towards proficiency. They're not at proficiency. And so to claim that those kids who are supposedly near proficiency and to group those with the kids who are at or above proficient is really just a sleight of hand, meant to bolster his numbers, to make his education program look like it's a success when it really hasn't been.”

The Center Square reached out to Newsom’s office for further comment but did not receive a response.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

The Trump administration has placed California on a 48-hour clock — demanding a review of suspected noncitizen voters or a showdown in court before the midterm elections.

The Justice Department’s ultimatum came in letters Tuesday to Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Dean Logan, the registrar-recorder/county clerk for Los Angeles County. Reuters was first to report on the letters.

Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter wrote that federal officials supplied Los Angeles County with a password-protected thumb drive identifying people they believe are likely noncitizens who were sent mail-in ballots.

A Department of Justice spokesperson confirmed to the California Post that letters were sent to Weber and Logan demanding immediate action to ensure that noncitizens who received ballots do not vote in the upcoming federal election.

“This should not be controversial, as the criminal statute is clear: only American citizens may vote in federal elections. It is a federal crime for noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections, and the DOJ is asking California to ensure that is not occurring,” officials said.

The letter to Weber threatens to seek emergency court intervention if state officials don’t comply — turning a thumb drive into the latest clash between Washington and the Golden State.

“If you cannot implement this process by then, given the ongoing federal election, the United States will have no choice but to seek emergency relief,” McCotter wrote.

A separate letter delivered to Logan came with the password-protected thumb drive listing suspected noncitizens who federal officials say were sent mail-in ballots.

McCotter demanded a review within 48 hours and instructed officials to hold the questioned ballots while citizenship checks play out.

“For individuals whom you cannot independently confirm citizenship status, we request that you immediately instruct the appropriate elections official to segregate — not cancel — those individuals’ vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined,” he wrote.

Officials for the Secretary of State and Governor’s Office did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.

The Trump administration has repeatedly portrayed voter fraud and noncitizen voting as widespread, despite studies showing it is rare.

A Reuters investigation found that software glitches and clerical mistakes may have put more than 30,000 noncitizens on voter rolls nationwide since 2000, though it was unclear how many actually voted.

Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, announced 16 new criminal cases Monday involving alleged noncitizen voting or fraudulent registrations.

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.

Vandals who shattered windows, destroyed televisions and ransacked classrooms caused an estimated $200,000 in damages at the shuttered Brook Hill Elementary School in Santa Rosa, police said, and six teenagers have been arrested in connection with the break-in.

Officers were dispatched to the Vallejo Street campus about 6:15 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, after a community member reported seeing several minors entering the school that’s been closed since June 2025. When authorities arrived, the minors ran away in different directions, leading officers on several foot chases, the Santa Rosa Police Department said in a news release.

Officers detained six minors, all age 16, and arrested them on suspicion of burglary, felony vandalism and conspiracy. All were transported to Los Guilicos Juvenile Hall in Santa Rosa, though it was not known Wednesday if they remained in custody since juvenile records are not public. A seventh minor was later identified, cited and released to his parents, police said.

While examining the campus, officers logged extensive property damage to the school’s administrative offices, classrooms, the library and other facilities. Damages approached $200,000, Santa Rosa City Schools spokesperson Patrick Gannon said Wednesday afternoon

Police responded to a separate incident on campus Friday, authorities said. Officers worked to compare the reported damage earlier in the day with the destruction reported Friday evening.

“Investigators compared observations from the earlier investigation with the newly discovered damage and determined that while some damage pre-dated the evening incident, the vast majority of the destruction documented that night was newly inflicted,” the police department said in its news release.

Detectives investigated both incidents to determine whether any of the minors arrested Friday evening were involved in the earlier vandalism incident or if more people participated in either incident.

Brook Hill is one of four campuses the school district declared surplus in September following their closures over the past two school years. The district has begun the process to offload Brook Hill, Lewis Early Learning Academy, Steele Lane Elementary School and the former Doyle Park campus of Santa Rosa French-American Charter School.

Santa Rosa City Schools shuttered a total of six schools over the past two years as part of district-wide cuts to rectify a budget deficit. In addition to the four schools declared surplus, the district has also closed Biella Elementary and Santa Rosa Middle schools.

Managing the empty schools has been a challenge for the district. There have been several incidents of burglary and vandalism at campuses since they closed, including at Biella and Santa Rosa Middle School. The damage to Brook Hill, however, is the most extensive and the most expensive, Gannon said.

The district’s insurance typically covers incidents like vandalism and theft. However, incidents can impact and increase insurance rates. The district is considering adding more security cameras at the shuttered sites, but those also come at an additional cost, Gannon said.

“There is only so much we can do to prevent something without investing more funding that would take away from somewhere else,” Gannon said. “We do want to try to prevent things like this, so we’re working closely with the Santa Rosa Police Department. … In the interim, we just ask the community to please be respectful. There are very serious consequences that come from committing crimes.”

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.

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.

This year’s state test scores provided a mixed send-off for the education legacy of Gov. Gavin Newsom, with incremental gains in English and math, but results that continue to fall short of prepandemic achievement levels.

A clear marker of this mixed picture is English language arts: The percent of students scoring proficient or advanced increased by 0.5 of a percentage point to 49.3%. But that was nearly 2 percentage points below the prepandemic tests of 2019. At this pace of improvement, it would take about four more years — or about a decade — to surpass the prepandemic scores.

And, even before the pandemic, about half of the state’s students were not achieving the state’s learning goals.

The gain in math was better, 1.1 percentage points, but only 38.4% of students scored as proficient or better. Math scores would virtually catch up to prepandemic levels by next year at the current pace.

The gain in science, a relatively new test, was better still, a strong increase of 3.3 percentage points, but that brings the proficiency rate to just 36% of students.

Locally, Los Angeles Unified and Compton Unified remained bright spots, with significant sustained gains that continue their surge past prepandemic levels.

Newsom, in a statement, was looking on the glass-half-full side of the ledger.

“These results provide important evidence that our sustained investments are making a difference,” Newsom said. He listed some of those efforts, which include a new grade of school, transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds; free school meals for all; and community schools, which provide services for students and families beyond academics.

“California is working to ensure students have the resources they need to thrive,” Newsom said. “The continued progress we are seeing is a testament to the hard work of students, families, and educators across the state.”

Newsom also has forwarded record state funding to school systems, although not as much as advocates say the law requires him to provide. That issue is being litigated. Leaders say more, faster progress needed

A more measured summation was offered by Tony Thurmond, the outgoing state superintendent of public instruction.

“California has made important strides in expanding student supports and opportunities, but the pace of academic improvement reminds us that our work is far from finished,” Thurmond said.

State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond also emphasized the need for more progress, while calling attention to notable gains by African American students, Latino students, students from low-income families and students experiencing homelessness.

Black students, for example, made larger-than-average improvements across English, math and science and showed English scoring gains across almost every tested grade. But that still leaves the proficiency rates for Black students at 33.7% for English, 21.5% for math and 20.5% for science. Achievement gaps ranging from about 28 to 49 percentage points still separate them from white and Asian students.

Another area of incremental progress is the percentage of students who are chronically absent, meaning they miss at least 10% of school. The rate of chronic absenteeism was 18.3% of students, approaching 1 in 5 students — an improvement of 1.1 percentage points. But the rate in 2016-17 was 10.8%. Bragging rights for Compton and LAUSD

Scores at Compton Unified and L.A. Unified are outperforming those of the state, with higher proficiency rates in key categories.

In math, Compton students show a 46.5% proficiency rate, up 5.4 percentage points. L.A. Unified students are at 39.7% proficiency, up 3 percentage points. Both are higher than the state’s 38.4% proficiency rate.

In English, 53.8% of Compton students are proficient or better, up 2.8 percentage points from last year. LAUSD is at 48.3%. The state rate is 49.3%.

But for nearly every subset of students, LAUSD scores above the state average for the same group.

Blacks students in Compton and L.A. Unified also showed gains and are significantly higher than the state scores:

English: Compton 48.7%, LAUSD 37.6%, state 33.7%.
Math: Compton 40.7%, LAUSD 27.6%, state 21.5%.

This year, Compton’s Black students gained 4.4 percentage points in English and 6.4 in math, compared with Black students statewide at 0.9 and 1.5.

The positive picture was similar for Latino students:

English: Compton 54.8%, LAUSD 43%, state 39.6%.
Math: Compton 47.6%, LAUSD 33.7%, state 27%.

How state school superintendent candidates’ districts fared

This year, the candidates for state superintendent of public instruction are presidents of their local board of education. Both of their districts have some bragging points.

Republican Sonja Shaw leads Chino Valley Unified, a school district of about 26,000 in San Bernardino County. This school system has consistently scored higher than the state average and showed less pandemic learning loss than many other districts. Since Shaw joined the board in 2022, the district has continued to score above state averages.

Democrat Richard Barrera has been a San Diego Unified board member since 2008 and currently works as a senior advisor to Thurmond. San Diego compares favorably with other large urban school systems, although its competitors would point out that it has fewer students from low-income families than many large urban systems. San Diego’s English score declined this year, after a gain the previous year.

The U.S. Department of Justice has ratcheted up its pressure campaign on California election officials to ferret out alleged voter fraud ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election, demanding that officials statewide prove the U.S. citizenship of voters flagged by the federal government as potential noncitizens, or withhold or set aside their ballots.

Acting Deputy Atty. Gen. R. Trent McCotter made the demand — which experts called highly questionable at a time when votes are already being cast — in letters to state elections officials Tuesday, including California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office.

The letters, reviewed by The Times, call on the state officials to respond to the Justice Department within 48 hours.

McCotter wrote that the Justice Department had provided Logan’s office with a “password-protected thumb drive with a list of names the Federal Government believes are likely noncitizens who were sent a vote-by-mail ballot” for the Nov. 3 election.

“We request that you review the list within 48 hours to determine whether any citizens are listed. For individuals whom you cannot independently confirm citizenship status, we request that you immediately instruct the appropriate elections officials to segregate — not cancel — those individuals’ vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined,” McCotter wrote to both Weber and Logan.

Voters on the federal list who haven’t already been sent a ballot should not be sent one until their citizenship is verified, while ballots already returned by voters on the list should not be counted until their citizenship is verified, McCotter wrote.

Neither Weber’s office nor Logan’s office immediately responded to a request for comment Wednesday.

Weber has previously questioned the basis for a claim by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in July that there may be more than 190,000 noncitizen voters on California rolls, and rebuffed Trump administration offers to work with her office to purge state polls of such ineligible voters ahead of November without additional information on how it reached its conclusions.

Similar Trump administration lists have been shown in other states to be substantially inaccurate, and to include many voters who are indeed citizens. Election experts say that makes the demand on California — where ballots have already been mailed out — even more concerning.

“One must question why the DOJ would violate its own rules about investigating elections close to election day, and over a week after they knew the state had already mailed ballots out, particularly when their past claims have been full of errors,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Becker noted the Trump administration alleged that there were nearly 16,000 noncitizens registered in Nevada, later reduced that number to 185 after additional scrutiny, and then determined all of them were in fact citizens.

The Justice Department, in a statement to The Times, defended its demands to California — saying it “should not be controversial, as the criminal statute is clear: only American citizens may vote in federal elections. It is a federal crime for noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections, and the DOJ is asking California to ensure that is not occurring.”

McCotter wrote that if Weber cannot implement his demands for how to segregate ballots and verify voter citizenship for those on the federal list, the Justice Department “will have no choice but to seek emergency relief” — an apparent reference to seeking court intervention.

McCotter copied on the letters First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the lead federal prosecutor in Los Angeles whose office has previously sent Logan’s office a series of grand jury subpoenas for individual voter records as part of a criminal investigation into illegal voting.

Essayli’s office referred questions to the Justice Department. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office referred questions on the threat of litigation to Weber and Logan’s offices.

Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law, said he is “not aware of anything like this ever happening this close to an election,” and that it may in fact be illegal under the National Voter Registration Act, which “prevents systematic purges of voters 90 days before the election.”

He said the question of whether that preclusion against purges applies to the removal of noncitizens is an issue that is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, in an Arizona case the high court will hear in December, but that the Justice Department’s actions strike him as “legally questionable.”

Hasen said the “whole point of that 90-day rule is to prevent the inadvertent disenfranchisement of eligible voters by mistake in the rush before the election,” and that risk is increased by the inaccuracies of similar lists presented by the Trump administration in other states. “So if there is an attempt to go to court — if DOJ tries to sue over this — they might have a hard time getting a judge to agree that this is something that the registrar must do or even can do.”

The fact that elections officials are already busy receiving and pre-processing ballots would only bolster the state’s position in such a case, Hasen said.

“It’s obviously not a convenient time,” he said. “And given the fact that the lists have proven to be wildly inaccurate, at least in other states, it might be sending the registrar on a wild goose chase, when they have more relevant things to do in the election.”

But that “chaos” may be the point, Hasen said. “This is potentially another example of DOJ just making the work of state and local election administrators — which is already quite difficult and stressful — even harder,” he said.

The Justice Department in recent weeks has announced scattered arrests of alleged noncitizen voters around the country, and Trump administration officials — including Essayli — have pointed to such arrests as proof that noncitizens are voting illegally.

Such voting does happen, Hasen said, but after months of the administration aggressively searching for such voters, the relatively small number of arrests “belies the contention that it’s widespread” or criminal, with many of the few cases identified the result of “administrative error or misunderstanding” rather than an intent to illegally cast ballots.

In his letters to Weber and Logan, McCotter wrote that allowing “noncitizens to vote cancels citizen votes,” and that ferreting out illegal noncitizen voters is a joint responsibility of state and federal officials.

“States are responsible for voter registration, and the Federal Government is responsible for maintaining immigration records to enable verification of citizenship,” he wrote. “Working together, we can more effectively protect against voter dilution and promote election integrity.”