After an outcry from immigrant and civil rights advocates over plans to equip immigration officers with gloves capable of delivering electric shocks, California lawmakers on Thursday unveiled a bill that would ban the use of shock gloves by any law enforcement agent in the state.
The gloves deliver can an electrical shock strong enough to drop a strong man to his knees in an instant, and proponents say the gloves provide a fast and non-lethal way to subdue a person.
Two weeks ago, the Associated Press reported that the Department of Homeland security planned to use $10 million to $20 million to procure the gloves from Compliant Technologies of Lexington, Ky., for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The department defended its decision, saying it was “made with careful consideration” and that other law enforcement agencies in the country already use the technology.
Civil rights organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union accused the department of attempting to intimidate the public by arming agents with another use-of-force option. They noted that ICE already is contending with criticism for multiple deaths in custody and during arrests.
Assembly Bill 2760, authored by state Assemblymember LaShea Sharp-Collins (D-San Diego), would prohibit local, state and federal agencies from possessing, using or procuring electric taser gloves in the state or with state funds.
“We cannot spend state money or tax dollars on technology that is not to better our state,” Sharp-Collins said during a news conference with other lawmakers in Sacramento. “It cannot be used on our children, it cannot be used on our teachers, our business owners, it cannot be used on anyone.”
The CTG-5 G.L.O.V.E — standing for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter — resembles a thick work glove and can be activated to emit a 380-volt shock upon contact with a body. Compliant Technologies has maintained that the gloves are weaker than traditional tasers, but critics say they can be life-threatening in the hands of ICE.
“Many people try to say weapons like this are about de-escalation, but I don’t know how many people have put hands on someone and said that’s de-escalation,” state Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-Alameda) said. “There’s already a spectrum of non-lethal, less-than-violent weapons out there that exists… ICE and law enforcement don’t need another tool.”
The gloves have been adopted in detention centers, law enforcement agencies and jails across the country, though apparently none in California. Last week, AP reported that Omaha police agreed to stop using the shock gloves after parents realized they’d been adopted by departments that monitored schools.
Sharp-Collins said she prepared the legislation in consultation with the state attorney general’s office and legislative council to ensure it would withstand a challenge from the Trump administration if it became law.
The Senate voted 30-9 on Monday to approve a rule change that would allow for the bill to pass quickly before the end of the legislative session on Aug. 31.
The FBI has charged two men with scamming at least 26 women out of $1.3 million in four states. One of the alleged fraudsters posed as a San Francisco 49ers player.
Daejon Labrayae Love, 35, and Taylor Jamie Chan, 18, have been charged in federal court in Portland, Ore., with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
From February 2022 until they were arrested on Monday, Love and Chan solicited money from women in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho through lies and misrepresentations, according to the United States Attorney’s Office in Portland.
Love portrayed himself on Instagram as a 49ers wide receiver who went undrafted but worked his way onto the roster. He met most of the women through dating apps and developed romantic relationships with many of them, according to the FBI. Chan falsely posed as Love’s financial adviser.
In an Instagram Story titled “NFL Journey,” Love held a 49ers helmet while driving and said, “I’m on my way to get my mom. I know I get a lot of fans who want to know how football works or how I got involved in the league…. If you know me and see me in person I’ll explain.
“I chose SF because it was the right time. I was kind of already living in the Bay and it just worked out for me.” Love’s monologue is interrupted momentarily by beeps from his car and he says, “I’m in my new McLaren and it’s just real touch-and-go.”
Then he posts a screenshot of a webpage AI Overview that says “Daejon Love is a wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers, and information about his position, contract and teammate texting habits is available online. He is also associated with the team in various social media content and articles.”
Back on the screen, Love says, “That’s Google. That’s not me, that’s Google.”
He goes on to explain why he isn’t playing, lifting a crooked finger to the camera and saying he is injured. He concludes the story by again saying he wants “full transparency” because “people ask, what do I do? How can I afford a $500,000 car? How can I afford a $300,000 [Lamborghini] Urus? “
He repeats that he’s going to pick up his mom, then concludes by inviting those watching to reach out to him to meet in person.
“The scheme relied on Love’s creation of fictitious personas and display of a lavish lifestyle which Love presented to victims both in person and on social media websites,” federal authorities said in a press release.
“Chan and Love also hosted three-way FaceTime calls in which they showed victims falsified investment gains and encouraged victims to part with their money. Victims sent Love and Chan money due to their belief that their money would be invested in legitimate investment vehicles on the victims’ behalf.”
The FBI said Love instructed several women who did not have cash to invest to take out personal loans, assuring them they would quickly be repaid.
Love and Chan were taken into custody on Monday at the Boise (Idaho) Airport and have a court appearance Thursday in Portland.
Love, who traveled to New Mexico, California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah and Idaho since July 15, according to investigators, allegedly has used several names including Jon Love, Daejon Love, Avril Lyto Love and Jordan Love. Twenty-six potential victims have been identified, and the FBI believes there are more.
I didn’t want to feel disappointed, so I suggested we leave.
My friend Mejin countered that we should give the moon a little more time to show itself.
We’d hiked up to Five Points, where five trails meet in Griffith Park, with the goal of watching the moon rise over the nearby Los Angeles River and Elysian Valley.
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But the smog was thick, and the view was obscured. I already felt beat down by life. Now, the moon was a no-show? But as Mejin and I chatted with passersby about why we were standing around — no one seemed as hyped about the moon as we were — we spotted a flicker of golden light, low in the sky.
In this edition of The Wild, our weekly outdoors newsletter, I will recommend three night hikes around L.A. where you should have great views to watch the moon rise. Each trail offers an opportunity to still get outside despite this oppressive heat wave L.A. is experiencing this week. And this week’s full moon is extra special. On Thursday night, we’ll be able to witness a partial “blood moon” eclipse. Sounds spooky, and it isn’t even Halloween yet!
First, let’s talk through the time of sunset and the moon’s rise so you can plan your hike accordingly:
Thursday: Sunset at 7:25 p.m., moon rise at 7:16 p.m.
Friday: Sunset at 7:24 p.m., moon rise at 7:43 p.m.
Saturday: Sunset at 7:22 p.m., moon rise at 8:09 p.m.
Sunday: Sunset at 7:21 p.m., moon rise at 8:37 p.m.
A view of the super blue moon as seen from the Hollywood Hills on August 2023.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
In terms of the partial “blood moon” eclipse, here’s what you need to know, thanks to a story by Times staff writer Fedor Zarkhin:
“The main stage of the eclipse will begin at 7:34 p.m., when the moon will fall under the core, or umbra, of Earth’s shadow. It will gradually turn a reddish, copper color as sunlight bends and filters through the atmosphere to fall on the otherwise-obscured part of the moon.”
“The eclipse will peak at 9:13 p.m. — when 96% of the moon’s surface will fall under the Earth’s shadow.”
“The most visible phase of the eclipse will end at 10:52 p.m.”
“The eclipse will end entirely just after midnight.”
If you’d like to look for your own full moon hike, rather than using the list below, your hiking spot will ideally include:
Clear views to the east. The moon generally rises in the northern hemisphere in the eastern sky (at around 102 degrees on Thursday in L.A., coordinates you can find using your cellphone’s compass).
Open after hours. Several of our local parks are only open from sunrise to sunset (outside of special events). Make sure to check the hours (if there are any) if you’re planning to take a night hike not listed below.
A wide dirt or paved path. None of the hikes below are terribly technical. That’s intentional, as the best night hikes are those along a wide fire road or paved path.
The moon rising in Thousand Oaks over Simi Peak to the east in October 2021 in the phase known as waxing gibbous.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Friends. It’s best to hike in a group at night, in part because your chatter and laughter will alert any animals that you’re nearby.
Hiking poles. Although none of these trails are terribly technical, there’s still an inherent risk that comes with hiking. Consider bringing poles for the trip down, just to give yourself a bit more purchase on the sandy soil.
Extra water. We’re all slowly melting in this heat wave. Pack more water than you’d normally bring because we’re probably all a bit more dehydrated than usual this week!
The moon rises above the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains and the Los Angeles skyline as rain clouds begin to envelope the sky. The view is from Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in January 2021.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
As always, please remember to practice the seven Leave No Trace principles out on the trail, which include picking up after yourself (including orange peels) and not playing loud music. This better ensures we leave it better than we found it so everyone, including our local wildlife, can continue to enjoy our public lands.
OK, toss an extra water bottle in your pack and let’s take a look at these hikes!
Hikers sit on the ledge of the Topanga Lookout, a concrete base of a fire lookout that is believed to have been torn down in the 1970s after smog made the lookout tower irrelevant.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
1. Topanga Lookout
Distance: 2.1 miles Elevation gained: About 350 feet Difficulty: Easy end of moderate Dogs allowed: Yes Nearest to:Topanga Accessible alternative: An L.A. County beach with accessible offerings
The 2.1-mile trek out and back to the Topanga Lookout takes hikers along the Topanga Ridge Motorway (called Topanga Tower Motorway on some maps) to an iconic spot in the Santa Monica Mountains where, on a clear day, you can see dozens of miles away.
Along the way, you’ll spot massive rock slabs that look like the forgotten frisbees of Zeus and his pals. And you’ll be treated to a lush habitat of native plants, including prickly phlox, chaparral yucca, black sage, hollyleaf cherry and Coulter’s Matilija poppy.
Hikers light the path to the Topanga Lookout in the Santa Monica Mountains.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
To begin, you’ll park near the trailhead at Stunt and Saddle Peak roads. Be careful if crossing the road, as that large bumblebee you hear nearby is actually a sports car ripping along the road. From the trailhead, you’ll take Topanga Ridge Motorway for just over a mile northeast. You will pass an entry point for the Backbone Trail and a private road.
The trail starts as a wide paved path before transitioning after about a third of a mile to a dirt path of varying widths. Although it’s not overly technical — I chatted with a hiker walking it in slides — the trail has some uneven surfaces, so a headlamp or good flashlight is necessary when hiking it at night.
You will pass at least one spur trail — unofficial, user-generated — including one that’s steep and unstable. I overheard one youthful hiker tell their friends, “Dude, I almost died three times.” Not a ringing endorsement for that route. Plus, it didn’t sound like it offered any better views than you’ll get at the lookout spot.
As you approach the lookout, you’ll notice a steep path up to the concrete base. If you, instead, take the foot path to the right of the lookout, you’ll find stairs that allow you a much easier time getting to the top. You likely won’t find solitude — I interacted with a dozen hikers on a Wednesday night — but you will find incredible views of the Santa Monica Mountains and L.A. County. I was blown away.
A headlamp lights the path ahead as the stars twinkle above near the Topanga Lookout in the Santa Monica Mountains.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
I kept calling this spot the Topanga Overlook in my head, knowing that was wrong. It hadn’t clicked for me that this used to be the site of a fire lookout tower, hence the reason there’s a concrete structure here.
Believed to be built in 1934, the Topanga site was one of three fire lookout towers that the L.A. County Fire Department maintained in the Santa Monica Mountains with the other two located at Castro Peak and Triunfo Peak near the Ventura County line, according to a 1958 Times article. (For more history on fire lookouts in L.A. County, including how to hike to an existing one, you can read this article I wrote about Vetter Mountain.)
An almost full moon rises over the Santa Monica Mountains and nearby cities.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
The Forest Fire Lookout Assn. lists the reason for the Topanga Lookout’s demolition to be “unknown.” However, I think I figured out what happened.
Author Milt McAuley wrote in one of his Santa Monica Mountains hiking guidebooks that the lookout tower was removed in the 1970s but provided no further details. This was around the time that air quality was worsening in L.A. County.
The sunset as seen from the Topanga Lookout trail in the Santa Monica Mountains.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
“The County Fire Department has seen the day coming when the lookout tower would be outmoded,” Deputy Fire Chief George Brunton said in a 1969 Times article. “Too much smog cuts the effectiveness of the lookout operators and as the area becomes populated we no longer feel the need for these fixed fire spotters.”
Brunton told The Times that the county was launching a pilot program (somewhat literally) to use helicopters as fire lookouts. Officials had already closed the Triunfo tower and another at Parker Mountain near Saugus. “If the pilot program proves successful, other towers will be shuttered, according to Brunton,” the story reads.
Today, the Topanga Lookout and the surrounding area is mostly public land. Please respect any “No Trespassing” signs you see, as there remains some private land nearby, and if able, bring a trash bag with you. Unfortunately, not all visitors practice Leave No Trace!
The view from the Seco View Trail in Debs Park.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
2. Seco View and Oak Grove trails to overlooks
Distance: 1.4 to 1.86 miles Elevation gained: 600 feet Difficulty: Moderate Dogs allowed: Yes Nearest to: Northeast L.A. Accessible alternative: L.A. River trail near the Taylor Yard bridge
This short jaunt through Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in the Montecito Hills offers great views at any time of day, with a bonus of great spots to sit at the top.
To begin, park at Hermon Park, or walk from the Highland Park Metro stop, as it is about a 0.7-mile walk to the trailhead from there.
From Hermon Park, head south, crossing Via Marisol from the crosswalk. From the crosswalk, you’ll walk west to the trailhead.
You will take the Seco View Trail southwest-ish for just over a quarter of a mile before turning left (or south) on Oak Grove Trail. You will follow Oak Grove Trail for about a quarter of a mile and then continue on Oak Grove Trail as it jags to the right (or west). You’ll quickly come to a wider dirt path. Turn left (or west).
A green park bench at Debs Park.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
In just 300 feet, you’ll come to a paved path where you can turn left or right and reach benches either way. From here, the choice is yours to sit, rest and enjoy the moon rise.
On your way back, you have the option of following a wide-but-steep path down rather than returning on Oak Grove Trail.
The moon rises over Elysian Valley in late July.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
3. Five Points via Fern Canyon Trail
Distance: About 2.4 miles Elevation gained: About 475 feet Difficulty: Moderate Dogs allowed: Yes Nearest to: Atwater Village Accessible alternative: Griffith Park Observatory paved paths
This 2.4-mile journey will take you to Five Points (5-Points on some maps), where five trails meet and offer you the opportunity to extend your adventure (as long as you packed a map).
Exit the parking lot in the southeast corner and head to the Lower Beacon Trail, a wide flat dirt path parallel to the road. You’ll only be on this for about 200 feet.
At Five Points in Griffith Park, where, on a clear day, you can see Santiago Peak, the highest peak in Orange County.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Soon, you will turn left (or southwest) onto the Fern Canyon Nature Trail.
You stay on this lush shady path for just under one-fifth of a mile, continuing southwest until you reach the Fern Canyon Trail, a wide dirt path.
You will follow Fern Canyon Trail as it takes you first west, then southeast before taking you eastward to Five Points.
From Five Points, you can hang out until you spot the sturgeon moon, the name for this month’s full moon. And if it doesn’t come quickly, consider waiting.
3 things to do
A tribute will honor the life and music of Swamini Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda.
(Adam Corey Thomas / TreePeople)
1. Celebrate Alice Coltrane’s birthday in Beverly Hills TreePeople and Living Earth will host a tribute to Alice Coltrane from 7 to 10 p.m. Thursday at TreePeople’s outdoor venue in Beverly Hills. Proceeds from ticket sales will go toward the musicians, money needed to restore the ashram Coltrane established that burned in the 2018 Woolsey fire and to TreePeople, a local nonprofit that has planted more than 3 million trees in our region. Tickets range from $33 to $66 plus a $3.21 processing fee. Purchase at livingearth.la.
2. Bird-watch in a cemetery in Altadena Pasadena Humane will host a wildlife walk from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Friday through Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena. Guests will learn about local birds, squirrels and coyotes, and also the history of the graveyard. Tickets are $7.18. Register at eventbrite.com.
3. Locate lizards in Culver City Herpetologist Earyn McGee will host a lizard art walk from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Stoneview Nature Center (5950 Stoneview Drive) in Culver City. After taking a hike to observe lizards in their natural habitats, McGee will lead the group in an art activity at the nature center. Register at docs.google.com.
The must-read
A male tule elk frolics near the Tomales Point Trail, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore in Inverness.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
Point Reyes National Seashore is a stunningly beautiful 110-square-mile expanse about an hour north of San Francisco. It’s at the heart of a debate between environmentalists and ranchers over the best way to manage the landscape. Times staff writer Susanne Rust wrote that after a lawsuit brought by environmentalists over the future of ranching there, in 2025 “a settlement was announced with the National Park Service laying out how the park would function going forward. Natural landscapes and wildlife would take priority over agriculture. Eleven of 13 historic ranching families would leave and be made whole for their losses.” But the remaining two families want to continue the fight. And they’re apparently finding the ear of the high-ranking officials of the Trump administration.
Happy adventuring,
P.S.
I’ve had a handful of moments on the trail when I felt like I was in real danger. The time I accidentally went off trail and ended up on an unstable hillside, dropping my pack in a river below. The time a bear slapped my tent. And because I’m a wimp, the moment when two entangled snakes emerged from the bushes and looked at me — before returning to their tryst. If you hike often enough, you will undoubtedly run into some kind of trouble. I’d love to hear from you. I write Between a Rock, an outdoors survival series that I hope helps educate other outdoors folks about how to respond in the face of emergencies. I’ve interviewed folks who’ve faced down mountain lions and bears, and underprepared strangers. You can submit your story via this form, and I will reach out if I’d like to hear more. I love these interviews because I always learn something too.
For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.
California’s mail-in voting system has also become a particular target for Trump.
Voting by mail surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, California passed a law to automatically mail a ballot to every registered voter.
More than 80 percent of the state’s voters cast a mail-in ballot in 2024 alone.
Moreles, the Santa Clara registrar, said his county has an even higher rate. More than 90 percent of voters in his jurisdiction use mail-in ballots to vote.
His county processed more mail-in ballots in the last general election than the entire state of Texas did. While Texas accepted roughly 342,000 mail-in votes, Santa Clara County sent out more than a million.
That widespread use suggests that voters do not share Trump’s scepticism of the mail-in system, according to Moreles. “They like the accessibility of it. They must believe it’s secure as well,” he said.
But mail-in ballots can continue to trickle in after the election ends, causing vote tallies to fluctuate in the days and weeks after polling stations close. In California, all mailed ballots are valid so long as they are postmarked by election day, and must also be received no later than seven days after.
Trump has pointed to those long vote counts and shifting tallies as evidence of fraud.
Even some Democrats have pushed for the process to be faster. By law, elections must be certified within 30 days of the election. But Moreles argued that not rushing can have its virtues, too.
“For the folks who are living here and are used to it, it makes sense and, to a lot of people, is reassuring,” Moreles said. “Taking the time to get it right is something that intuitively makes sense to people.”
Still, on August 24, the Supreme Court opened the door to additional uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots.
In a six-to-three ruling, the court’s conservative majority allowed the Trump administration to begin implementing a March executive order that would impose new restrictions on mail-in voting.
The order could impact both the design of mail-in ballots and who is eligible to receive one.
But state officials have questioned the feasibility of redesigning and reprinting ballots with so little time before the midterm elections. Early voting in some states starts as early as September.
Others have speculated about whether the legal wrangling with cause confusion or discourage voters who rely on mail-in ballots.
On Wednesday, California announced it was co-leading a group of 24 state attorneys general in filing a new lawsuit to see the executive order blocked.
“Donald Trump does not run elections. States do. And his latest attack on democracy is proof of how weak he has become,” the state’s Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement accompanying the suit.
“California will continue to lead the way in defending democracy — using every tool at our disposal and every minute in our day. This perilous moment in history demands no less from us.”
A second court order pausing part of Trump’s plan for mail-in ballots remains in effect.
Production services vendor Quixote stunned Hollywood in April when it said it was winding down most of its Los Angeles soundstage business, delivering another blow to an industry already buffeted by steep losses in film and TV production.
Now, one of those facilities is attempting to stage a comeback.
Film and TV producer Manny Halley said he has taken over a 125,000-square-foot former Quixote North Valley complex on Montague Street in Pacoima under a 25-year lease with an option to buy, and plans to reopen it this fall under the name Imani Studio. The land is owned by Rexford Industrial Realty, which is not a party to the production business.
Halley’s credits include the “True to the Game” film trilogy that featured Vivica A. Fox, and the BET reality TV series “Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is,” which ran on BET from 2006 to 2008.
In an interview, Halley declined to disclose the price he paid, but said the lease is worth more than $25 million and that the cost to build the facility three years ago was about $19 million. The deal was financed with capital from his Imani Media Group.
“Right now is a unique time for independent producers because we don’t have to sit back and wait for a studio,” he said. “And in order for us to build a library and keep going, we have to keep costs down. So having your own stage is going to keep costs down.”
Producer Manny Halley has taken over ownership of one of the former Quixote North Valley studio facilities in Pacoima.
(Dae Howerton and Dallas J. Logan)
Halley said he was also motivated by the ongoing production crisis in L.A. and the continued loss of industry jobs. His company has shot 18 productions in California, 14 of which received a state production incentive.
“Somebody’s got to believe in Hollywood,” Halley said. “It’s a sad industry right now, and I want to change it.”
He is making a long bet on a market a much larger company has struggled with. Former owner Hudson Pacific announced it was shutting down most of its L.A. soundstages as well as operations in Atlanta as part of a cost-reduction move.
The Los Angeles-based real estate company bought Quixote in 2022 for $360 million, saying at the time that the acquisition would address the growing demand for soundstage space. Quixote was originally founded in 1995.
Though L.A. area soundstages had average occupancy rates of about 90% from 2016 to 2022, their business plunged in 2023 amid the work stoppages of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, according to data from the nonprofit FilmLA, which tracks on-location shoot days in the Greater L.A. area. In 2024, the average occupancy rate was 63%.
“Keeping production infrastructure active and investing in California’s capacity to support film and television is essential to our long-term competitiveness,” California Film Commission Executive Director Colleen Bell said in a statement. “Facilities like this help keep productions here, sustain good-paying jobs, and support the thousands of businesses and workers that make up our entertainment economy.”
Halley said he plans to invest $2 million to $6 million into the facility, including additional staff and LED volume walls. He retained three employees to help run operations and hopes to hire others who previously worked there.
He said he plans to use the facility, which has four soundstages, to shoot his own shows and movies, but also intends to rent out space to other productions, including student projects.
“I just want to give everybody their opportunity to shine,” he said. “I want to give them their own playing field to create and make their visions come to life with affordable stages.”
But even if outside productions don’t rent the space, he said the facility could sustain itself on his company’s projects. Imani Media Group has a distribution arm that has worked with Amazon, Tubi and the major theater chains.
By late September, Halley said he intends to start shooting a “True to the Game” TV series at the Pacoima facility, as well as the BET comedy “Lot Patrol,” which the network recently picked up for an additional five episodes.
“Supporting Black ownership and entrepreneurship across the entertainment industry remains deeply important to BET,” Brian Rikuda, BET’s executive vice president of enterprise growth strategy, business operations, and programming strategy, said in a statement. “As Manny Halley expands Imani Studios into a 125,000-square-foot production home, we’re proud to continue our partnership rooted in a shared vision to create culturally impactful entertainment and expand opportunity in our industry.”
A decade-long fight to outlaw child marriage in California is nearly at an end.
A bi-partisan bill that makes it illegal to issue marriage licenses to anyone under 18 cleared the state Assembly on Wednesday, drawing cheers from supporters who said the measure was a long overdue fix to an “archaic” piece of California law.
“The issue has evolved now because we have better stories, we have better data. We have a growing national movement … marriage is really something that can be reserved for consenting adults,” said Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz).
The bill — whose chief authors include Republican Assemblywoman Diane Dixon and Democrats Caroline Menjivar and Cottie Petrie-Norris — glided through the state Senate and Assembly without major opposition. It now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
Until the bill is signed into law, California remains one of three states in the U.S. without a minimum age to get married or enter into a domestic partnership. While the state has guardrails on the marriage process for minors, requiring them to gain judicial approval and the consent of at least one parent before receiving a license, advocates say children can still be easily pressured to wed by their parents or religious groups.
“All we’re doing with any judicial review process … is putting the onus on a terrified child,” said Fraidy Reiss, the founder and executive director of Unchained At Last, an advocacy group working on legislation to end child marriage across the U.S.
There were 88 marriage licenses issued in California where at least one party was a minor between 2019 and 2025, according to data collected by the state Department of Public Health. Some of those marriages involved weddings between girls as young as 15 and men in their 30s, according to a Senate analysis of the bill. In L.A. County, 51 licenses were issued to minors between 2014 and 2025, according to the county Registrar’s office.
“Even if the numbers are relatively small every child deserves protection,” Pellerin said. “And we don’t want to wait for a problem to become so widespread before we start protecting children.”
A 2020 study by the International Center for Research on Women shows underage marriages can have devastating long-term impacts on young girls.
“Marrying early has universally detrimental effects over a range of outcomes, including educational attainment; earnings; physical, reproductive, and mental health; experiences of violence; and likelihood of divorce, particularly for girls,” the study found.
Although consensual sex between a person over 18 and someone under that age is still considered statutory rape under California law, sex between those same two people becomes legal if they are married. Reiss said the state’s law allowing underage unions was essentially a shield for sexual abusers.
“It destroys almost any aspect of a girl’s life and it doesn’t deliver any benefit,” she said. “The only benefit it brings is to creepy guys who want to prey on teenage girls.”
The American Civil Liberties Union filed an opposition letter against the measure in June, warning the bill could have an unintended consequence of removing a minor’s autonomy over their own body.
“Just as minors have the right to decide to have an abortion or to carry a pregnancy to term (or to seek a restraining order) on their own, they should maintain the right to marry, with robust protections in place to prevent coercion and abuse,” the ACLU wrote.
But Pellerin, who previously served as Santa Cruz County Clerk, said it was the memory of a pregnant teen that helped push her to fight for the bill. She recalled issuing a marriage license to a 16-year-old girl and man in his late teens or early 20s, and felt that the girl’s parents were forcing them to wed.
Under California law at the time, Pellerin said, she had no evidence of coercion or force so she had no choice but to process the license. She hopes once Newsom signs the bill, no young girl will have to go through that again.
“I’m often haunted by that look on her face,” Pellerin said. “My kid is out at soccer practice and this girl is in here, pregnant, scared to death, signing up for a lifetime commitment.”
If signed into law by Newsom, the new minimum marriage age would take effect January 1, 2027.
Days after the top elections official in Shasta County announced that he planned to hire an election denier who served prison time for tampering with voting machines, county leaders there made an extraordinary plea to state and federal authorities: Please come investigate.
A statement released by the county Tuesday afternoon said Clint Curtis, the registrar of voters, had made “frivolous” claims and “unproven statements” about the June primary election, which he administered and certified.
“The County condemns the conduct of the Clerk-Registrar of Voters and invites all relevant state and federal agencies to review the allegations he has made and to proactively investigate his official actions and practices as Shasta County’s elections official,” read the statement released by Stewart Buettell, the county’s deputy chief executive officer.
Curtis — whose name was on the ballot, in a race he lost — has sequestered primary ballots in a room in the elections office in Redding, sealing the doors with locks, duct tape and red-lettered signs that read: “KEEP OUT PER ROV CLINT CURTIS.”
Curtis has told reporters that the ballots did not look, feel or smell right and that he had directed facilities workers to put a lock on the room and destroy the keys so that if anyone tries to gain access, they will need a warrant and bolt cutter.
Curtis said he, too, had asked the FBI to investigate.
The county fired back, saying in its statement that it wanted the FBI — as well as the California secretary of state and the attorney general — to investigate Curtis, whose short tenure as registrar has been fraught with controversy.
“Mr. Curtis was appointed to enhance transparency, strengthen election integrity, and restore trust in the democratic process,” the county wrote. “While some progress has been achieved, including the promotion of meaningful observation within the Elections Office, Mr. Curtis has failed significantly in other core responsibilities, undermining the very principles he was appointed to uphold.”
Curtis could not immediately be reached for comment. The FBI field office in Sacramento said it was unable to comment.
The new observation area at the Shasta County elections office.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson, in a statement Tuesday, said he was “aware of the controversy involving the ROV and ballots,” including claims on social media that he had been requested “to sequester alleged illegal or illegitimate ballots locked in the ROV’s office [and] addressing threats made to burn down the facility.”
Johnson said Curtis had agreed to provide a statement regarding a person who allegedly threatened the facility and that it was “an active investigation.”
“It is the Sheriff’s understanding that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is investigating the matter; therefore, Sheriff Johnson is urging members of the public to be patient and await the results of that investigation,” Johnson wrote. “At this point, launching a second investigation could complicate a process already in place.”
In an interview on Lindell TV, created by MAGA conspiracy theorist and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, Curtis said that the ballots “are being held at my office, which is kind of problematic because it’s a really old building and we have a lot of Antifa people,” including one who “once commented how easy it would be to burn that building down.”
The showdown in Shasta comes as Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — who in February used armed deputies to confiscate more than half a million ballots from last year’s special election for Proposition 50 to determine if they were fraudulently counted — is defending that seizure before the California Supreme Court this week.
The Supreme Court justices hammered Bianco, a Republican who came in fourth in this spring’s crowded California gubernatorial primary, in back-to-back hearings Monday. They appeared poised to order the ballots returned and to sharply limit the sheriff’s power to snatch election materials in the future.
Curtis had worked with the Riverside County citizens group whose fraud allegations sparked Bianco’s investigation, even traveling 600 miles south to speak on their behalf.
Potential hiring of election denier sets off alarm bells
Last week, Curtis drew national headlines by saying he wanted to hire election denier Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who was released early from prison this summer amid a pressure campaign from President Trump.
Curtis, himself a longtime election denier, told The Times in an email that he wanted to hire Peters as a consultant to “to assist with supervision of the November election.”
Tina Peters speaks at the Colorado State Capitol in downtown Denver on April 5, 2022.
(David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
“None of our consultants have access to the voting systems, so she would be insulated from false claims,” he wrote.
Peters was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to nine years behind bars for breaching her county’s voting machines as part of a scheme to show that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump, a claim that has been repeatedly debunked.
She was found guilty of helping an outside computer expert, an associate of Lindell, gain unauthorized access to Mesa County’s Dominion election equipment in 2021 and make copies of its hard drive before and after a software upgrade.
Shasta County officials told The Times that any prospective employee or consultant would have to go through the same hiring process as anyone else seeking employment with the county.
Talk of hiring Peters drew swift condemnation from California lawmakers, and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said it was looking into whether a contract with Peters violated state law.
And on Aug. 19, Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both Democrats, wrote in a letter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber that they had “grave concern” about Curtis’ plan to hire Peters.
“We are concerned that this hiring decision in Shasta County has less to do with Ms. Peters’ qualifications, and more to do with the President’s obsession with interfering in the midterm elections,” they wrote.
The senators said that if the county hires her, Weber should “provide the maximum oversight possible to ensure that Ms. Peters does not improperly access ballots, voting systems, or sensitive information that could impact the rights and privacy of the over 100,000 registered voters in Shasta County.”
Controversy and censure
Curtis, a 68-year-old attorney, was appointed by the Shasta County Board of Supervisors in the spring of 2025 to fill the position vacated by two previous registrars who resigned for health reasons.
Curtis lived in Florida then, had no previous ties to the area and had never run an election. He got the position after advocating for hand-counting ballots and bragging in a public job interview that he had worked with Lindell.
He promptly eliminated nine of the vast, mostly rural county’s 13 ballot drop boxes. He accused his predecessors, without evidence, of stuffing ballots to sabotage conservative Republicans, and repeatedly called on federal authorities to raid the office and seize ballots from previous elections.
The Board of Supervisors censured Curtis on Aug. 11 for his treatment of staff.
A ballot drop box at the Shasta Lake Visitor Center in February.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
He responded by inviting reporters to the elections office in downtown Redding, where he shared security footage that, he said, showed employees breaking into a room in the building. He allowed reporters to take video of the footage.
The county condemned those actions in an Aug. 14 news release, saying he “has repeatedly been advised of appropriate procedures for addressing and investigating personnel matters and advised of the importance of maintaining confidentiality of such matters.”
Earlier this spring, the county released the findings of two personnel investigations into Curtis’ conduct that were spurred by concerns raised by elections employees and their union representatives.
An internal investigation and an external inquiry by Oppenheimer Investigations Group found that Curtis made phone calls related to his own campaign during county work hours and casually threatened to kill, spank, slap or “throat punch” staffers.
He threatened to have one employee dragged out of the office by their hair, according to an internal investigation report by Monica Fugitt, the county’s director of support services, who wrote that he had “demonstrated a clear pattern of unprofessional and abusive conduct toward staff.”
In its statement Tuesday, the county said he “has made and continues to make unsubstantiated accusations of illegal activities against employees without due process or an investigation.”
Buettell, the deputy chief executive, told The Times that the county does not have the power to terminate Curtis’ employment because he was appointed to fill a vacancy in an elected position.
“As soon as they assume that office, it’s as if they were elected,” Buettell said. To be removed from the office, he said, Curtis would have to be recalled by voters.
A Maryland court has ruled against a proposed constitutional amendment that could have paved the way for Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the 2028 elections.
The ruling Wednesday by a judge in the state’s capital city marks another setback in Democrats’ national attempts to counter a Republican redistricting movement pushed by President Trump ahead of this year’s elections. The judge ruled that the amendment cannot appear on the November ballot, but he paused the effect of that ruling to allow for an appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Democrats already control seven of Maryland’s eight congressional seats. Democratic Gov. Wes Moore called lawmakers into a special session in August with a goal of making it easier to claim that final seat.
An amendment referred to the ballot by lawmakers seeks to sidestep a court ruling that struck down a previous Democratic redistricting plan in 2022. It would declare that a constitutional requirement for districts to be compact and take into account “natural boundaries” applies only to state legislative districts, not congressional ones.
That would allow Democratic state lawmakers to draw congressional districts that cross the Chesapeake Bay, reshaping a district east of the bay that is held by Republican Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Robert Thompson ruled that lawmakers violated their own deadlines for ballot measures. Earlier this year, lawmakers passed a law signed by Moore that set a July 1 deadline for the secretary of state to certify summaries of all statewide ballot questions to the Maryland State Board of Elections.
The state attorney general’s office argued that deadline didn’t apply to the redistricting amendment because lawmakers wrote their own ballot summary for it, using their constitutional authority. The judge disagreed, instead siding with arguments by the conservative Oversight Project and Republican state lawmakers who sued.
Earlier this year, the Virginia Supreme Court also invalidated a redistricting ballot measure because of procedural violations by state lawmakers. In that case, voters had already approved an amendment in April authorizing mid-decade redistricting when the court ruled that lawmakers last year had waited too long to take an initial step necessary to qualify it for the ballot.
Virginia and Maryland both were seeking to follow the path of California, where voters approved a Democratic-backed amendment authorizing mid-decade redistricting. Democrats hope to gain as many as five congressional seats from California’s redrawn districts, plus an additional seat from new districts in Utah.
But Republicans hope to win as many as 16 additional seats from new U.S. House districts enacted in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.
Redistricting typically happens near the beginning of each decade, after new census data is released. But a mid-decade redistricting battle broke out after Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw congressional districts in hopes that it might help Republicans hold onto a slim House majority in this year’s midterm elections.
California and a coalition of other Democratic-led states sued again Wednesday to block the U.S. Postal Service from implementing new nationwide rules for mail ballots, arguing they usurp state authority over elections at President Trump’s behest, expose voter information unnecessarily and threaten chaos in the rapidly approaching November election.
The Postal Service formally issued a 95-page “final rule” on Friday asserting that it was amending its mailing standards for mail ballots in federal elections to comply with Trump’s March executive order.
Trump demanded the rule changes as part of a broader plan to combat what he alleges — without evidence — is widespread voter fraud in the U.S., including by noncitizens voting through the mail. Election experts say there is zero evidence of such problems existing at scale.
“This mail-in voting rule is an unlawful overreach that shows just how far President Trump will go to control elections, but as I’ve said before, this fight is far from over and we are confident that the facts and the law are on our side,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in a statement.
“Donald Trump does not run elections. States do. And his latest attack on democracy is proof of how weak he has become,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom. “California will continue to lead the way in defending democracy — using every tool at our disposal and every minute in our day. This perilous moment in history demands no less from us.”
The new postal rules require states to submit lists of eligible voters — including their names and addresses — to the Postal Service, and to use new ballot envelopes with digital barcodes that would allow the Postal Service to identify and reject ballots that don’t match those lists.
The rules do not give the Postal Service authority to dictate which voters may appear on state lists. However, the rules do acknowledge that the lists would provide state voter data to federal law enforcement for the first time, and would put those authorities in “a better position to identify any potential issues regarding compliance with federal law that may merit further investigation.”
Trump’s March executive order also required the Department of Homeland Security to use available federal data to compile its own state lists of eligible citizen voters, ostensibly to compare them with the mail voter lists provided by the states to the Postal Service, and identify and pursue any ineligible voters.
Wednesday’s lawsuit follows a Monday decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that found an earlier challenge from the states was premature, in part because it sought court relief to a rule-making process that required nothing of the states and before the Postal Service had moved to implement any changes.
“On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to fully close the door on the President’s attempt to interfere in our election administration. Today, we’re taking legal action to stop this unlawful rule in its tracks and ensure that voters can exercise their constitutional right to vote,” Bonta said.
The White House did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the latest lawsuit.
However, it has defended Trump’s executive order as overdue and badly needed to secure U.S. elections, and hailed the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing the rule-making to proceed as “a major win for the security of American elections.”
“These are commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans are electing American leaders,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.
The high court allowed the Postal Service to move forward with its work to comply with Trump’s order, but explicitly noted that it had reached no conclusions as to the legality of the pending rules.
Trump administration officials have said they are pursuing fraudulent voters, and have warned state election officials that they could face legal consequences personally if they don’t do everything in their power to prevent voter fraud, including by noncitizens.
Critics contend Trump’s executive order was devised as an end run around laws and a slew of recent court rulings blocking the Trump administration’s demands for state voter rolls — which states, including California, have refused to provide.
States have argued the administration’s demands are in bad faith, intended to bolster Trump’s baseless claims that U.S. elections are compromised rather than enhance election security.
In issuing its new rules, the Postal Service rejected a slate of concerns from critics who submitted comments on the proposed rules, including that the changes are being proposed far too close to the November election and will cost states and localities a huge amount of money to comply with.
It also rejected concerns that creating a single nationwide voter database — which has never existed before — will provide a massive new target for foreign adversaries and other bad actors interested in disrupting U.S. elections.
The Postal Service concluded that the cost to the states is outweighed by the benefits of the changes. It said it has sufficient staffing to implement the changes, and is ready to safeguard the database it builds using “multi-layered security controls.”
The lawsuit, brought by 24 state attorneys general and the governor of Pennsylvania, asks for immediate court intervention to halt the Postal Service changes from being implemented while the litigation continues.
“Let’s be clear: the U.S. Constitution gives states the power to regulate elections — not the President and not USPS,” Bonta said. “Ballots are an extension of our voices and we’re asking the court to ensure that every person has the right to make theirs heard.”
Independent voting rights groups have also sued to block the Postal Service rules from being implemented.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta made it clear Tuesday he holds the power to extract major concessions in the battle over the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger.
A day after canceling settlement talks, Bonta said he remains open to meeting with Paramount Skydance executives to find remedies to resolve the antitrust lawsuit stalling David Ellison’s $111-billion takeover, but called on the company to end its “amateur hour” conduct.
“If you want to have an adult, legitimate, serious settlement discussion — no problem,” Bonta said during an appearance in Los Angeles. “But if you want to play games, we’ve got better things to do.”
That wasn’t the issue, Bonta said, specifically pointing to leaks about the settlement talks that appeared in various news outlets.
Some reports suggested Bonta’s office sought the negotiations amid withering political pressure. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for governor, have separately urged a settlement to end the antitrust fight.
Bonta set the record straight: “Paramount reached out to us to have settlement discussions,” he said. “They asked for them.”
Bonta’s beef was that the substance of the nascent negotiations appeared in newspaper articles despite both sides agreeing to hold confidential talks, Bonta said, adding that crossed the line. The Wall Street Journal reported that California’s top prosecutor planned to ask Paramount for agreements to keep Warner Bros. and the Paramount Pictures film studios separate units as well as an agreement to sell some cable channels.
“We thought they were reaching out to us in good faith … unfortunately, they violated the rules of engagement,” Bonta said. “They leaked lies to the press while we were in settlement negotiations. That’s not okay … That is amateur hour.”
Paramount declined to comment. On Monday, Paramount denied it was the source of the leaks.
Bonta’s comments appeared as a show of strength after major court wins.
The coalition of attorneys general, who also represent New York, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon, last month won a temporary restraining order that blocked Paramount from closing the deal. Rather than lose in a hearing over a more consequential preliminary injunction, Paramount voluntarily agreed that it would not finalize the transaction until after the trial or by June 1, whichever date comes first.
U.S. District Court Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín set a March 2 trial, which was in line with the plaintiff states’ request. Paramount had lobbied for a November date.
“We are winning in this lawsuit,” Bonta said. “They have eight of the biggest law firms in the country, making every imaginable argument under the sun. And they lost, the judge said: ‘You are likely to lose this case’… the states are likely to succeed on the merits.”
“If they are willing to clean things up, put a lid on their lying leaks and engage in a way that is sincere and in good faith, we will be where we always are … happy to meet,” Bonta said.
Staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.
Undaunted by reality, and likely law, Bianco announced he was going to have his deputies recount the votes, even though this kind of interference in the chain of custody of ballots never had occurred anywhere in the United States.
This unprecedented seizure of ballots — something election-denier-in-chief President Trump has been hinting at trying himself for years — quickly became a national news story, and a national concern.
With midterms looming and more than one MAGA sheriff out there, what would stop another conspiracy-minded, badge-wearing maverick from doing something similar this November, potentially throwing our national election into turmoil?
The specter of Bianco setting a precedent for like-minded conspiracists to follow prompted two significant lawsuits — one led by the election experts at the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the other from state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.
The state Supreme Court heard arguments in those cases Monday, and while we’ll have to wait for the official rulings, things did not seem to go well for the sheriff.
What surprised me most, or maybe just relieved me, was how thin Bianco’s arguments were to support his actions. In the end, his legal team came with little more than contortions and cartwheels, trying to twist Bianco’s overreach into existing law.
His lawyer, Bradley Hertz, attempted to argue that legislators, when crafting laws protecting ballots, meant different rules to apply to investigations of elections preceding formal prosecutions. If that sounds confusing, it’s because it is.
Hertz seemingly was trying to convince the court that Bianco legally could pull his shenanigans as long as he didn’t actually find criminal wrongdoing, which would trigger a different set of rules.
“That seems bizarre,” Justice Goodwin H. Liu said during a back-and-forth with Hertz.
Indeed.
But it was Justice Joshua Groban who hit at the national implications of what Bianco had done — and what it could mean for the midterms if this court ruled in his favor.
“It seems like under your broad view of the warrant power … the sheriff could could seize ballots even before election day, right?” Groban asked. “Even before they were counted.”
It’s terrible to have ballots seized after they’re counted. It’s devastating if they were to be taken before there was an official tally, because how would anyone trust that there hadn’t been tampering? Simply seizing uncounted ballots, no matter what happens next, would create such paranoia and uncertainty that the election results almost certainly would be called into question — something that could play into the favor of, say, a wannabe authoritarian who fears he’s likely to lose a fair vote count.
Even Hertz seemed to acknowledge such a scenario was bad.
“If search warrants were allowed during the election or preelection, that would obviously wreak havoc,” he said. “There would be, kind of, a cat out of the bag, so to speak. You can’t count ballots if they’re not in the possession of the registrar.”
But then Hertz tried to come up with logic that what Bianco was arguing wouldn’t mean that ballots could be seized anytime, anyhow, and that instead courts could find a way to allow seizing only after the official count. The court did not seem convinced that this was a good idea, or that that is what the law should or did allow.
If that case didn’t go well for Bianco, it was the second case brought by Bonta that really might end up being a hard loss.
For years, decades really, in California and across the country, there has been a group of sheriffs who have argued they are a law onto themselves because they are elected, not hired or appointed. Some of these sheriffs argue that they are literally above federal law.
In California, there has at times been momentum to rein in this line of thinking by creating clear boundaries in law, but the state Legislature always has backed down in the face of opposition from law enforcement.
One potential curb on sheriffs’ power comes from a single line in our state Constitution that seems to say the state attorney general has supervisory power over them. But the meaning and power of this particular clause has long been debated and seldom invoked.
Bonta, however, invoked it against Bianco, claiming the the sheriff had to back off the ballot-seizing because Bonta had authority to order him to stop. Bianco did stop, to his credit. But the standoff was heard by the court Monday and likely will force clarity on an issue that has long lacked it.
Here again, the justices seemed amenable to Bonta’s argument that sheriffs, at least to some extent, answer to him as the state’s chief law enforcement officer. But the justices seemed far more cautious on this issue, and even the state’s attorney conceded that “it’s actually pretty remarkable how little our Constitution says about county sheriffs.”
If Bianco loses on this issue, it would be huge. It would mean that Bianco not only overstepped his power by seizing the ballots, but that he also had forever lessened the power of California sheriffs by clarifying they do answer to the attorney general. I’m sure that will be very popular with other sheriffs.
We’ll see what the justices say, but at least it seems likely that this embarrassing chapter of California election history will end in favor of the law, and democracy.
Maybe Bianco really does believe his conspiracy theories. After all, “there are some people who believe they had breakfast with Elvis on Sunday,” pointed out Chad Dunn, who argued the case for the Voting Rights Project.
“We can’t satisfy them,” Dunn warned.
More importantly, we shouldn’t — even when they wear a badge. Our laws already have robust protections for elections, and rogue sheriffs aren’t one of them.
California Supreme Court justices hammered Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco over his seizure of hundreds of thousands of Proposition 50 ballots in a pair of back-to-back hearings on Monday, appearing poised to order the ballots returned and sharply limit the sheriff’s power to snatch similar election materials in the future.
Bianco, a Republican who came in fourth in this spring’s crowded California gubernatorial primary, carted off truckloads of ballots from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters in February, after securing a warrant based on claims that the office allowed fraudulent votes in the special election to redraw California’s congressional districts last fall.
According to a sworn declaration by one of Bianco’s sergeants, armed deputies from Riverside County’s Special Investigations Bureau, Emergency Response Team and SWAT unit were sent to sweep up pallets of sealed votes and bring them to the Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station on Feb. 26 — a day after California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber ordered Bianco to stand down.
In the days that followed, deputies began their own ad hoc recount — an activity they’d never been trained for, and which state officials and civil liberties groups say flies in the face of the plain language of the state’s election law that says “in no event shall ballots be moved.”
Voters sued. So did Bonta. In oral arguments on both cases Monday morning, California‘s seven Supreme Court justices appeared at times flabbergasted by claims that the move was not only permitted but blessed under state law — and that California’s top cop had no power to block it.
“I’m just wondering … why didn’t the sheriff’s office contemplate the available routes under the elections code for resolving the alleged disparity?” asked Associate Justice Goodwin H. Liu. “Isn’t there a procedure for resolving this?”
“Certainly there are other paths,” said Bianco’s attorney, Bradley W. Hertz.
Hertz, who argued the sheriff’s case after Riverside’s county counsel largely sided with the plaintiffs, said Bianco simply exercised his legal discretion.
“This wasn’t come in with guns blaring and take the documents,” Hertz said.
The dispute began over handwritten notes made as part of an experimental program to increase voter confidence in the county’s election procedures. That informal tally fell about 46,000 votes short of the official count, prompting accusations of fraud.
Officials contend the discrepancy between the computer count and the paper tally is “a good deed that went punished” — the result of exhausted officials being handed an extra-credit project they couldn’t quite execute.
“It was a pilot program that the registrar implemented at the request of the public, on top of all their other duties, to do these handwritten logs to try to track 350,000 pieces of mail that come in,” said Dale Larson, who represented Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco at the hearing.
Both times it was attempted, the hand tally produced a significant undercount, prompting officials to cancel the pilot, Larson said.
Bianco and his allies insist the difference is evidence of maleficence, and that criminal law authorizes the sheriff to sidestep the state’s detailed election code and the attorney general’s sweeping authority to get to the bottom of it.
The justices repeatedly pressed on Hertz to explain how the general authority conferred to the sheriff under criminal law could trump the specificity of the state’s election rules — a position that would seem to upend foundational rules of American law.
They also cast doubt on Bianco’s “counterintuitive” claim that Bonta’s “supervisory” role over the state’s elected sheriffs was merely advisory and did not carry the authority of law.
“It’s not just counterintiitive — again, we’ve said a million times, we’ve got to just look at the plain language,” said Associate Justice Joshua P. Groban. “Nobody would think that’s what ‘supervised’ means, so why should we think that here?”
For the record:
4:55 p.m. Aug. 24, 2026An earlier version of this story said a lawsuit against Bianco was brought by the ACLU. It was brought by the UCLA Voting Rights Project.
The court battle has played out with the UCLA Voting Rights Project bringing the suit on behalf of voters, and the Riverside County district attorney’s Office and the California State Sheriffs’ Assn. backing many of Bianco’s claims. But it has also pitted the sheriff against the registrar, who was named as a co-defendent in the UCLA suit despite siding with plaintiffs in all but a narrow subset of its claims.
In court filings, Riverside County Counsel Minh C. Tran co-signed claims that Bonta and the voters had it right, carving out a narrow disagreement over whether Tinoco should have ignored the sealed warrant and faced arrest rather than allow ballots to be taken. They also questioned whether he was obligated to go to court himself to stop the seizure.
UCLA hit back at that claim, saying it was “the responsibility of the registrar to go to jail rather than hand over the ballots.”
“I know that’s strong medicine,” said Chad W. Dunn of the UCLA Voting Rights Project. “The registrar has a duty to announce publicly and get into court immediately, or at least allow the public to get into court immediately to contest the movement of ballots before it occurs.”
The decision looms as the Trump administration has moved to restrict mail-in voting and signaled it could contest results of the upcoming midterms — partisan flash points UCLA urged the court to address.
“This is bound to be repeated again,” Dunn said. “These are the public’s ballots, that’s why the election code is crafted the way it is, so that the public have a right to weigh in.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s sprawling Sacramento-area mansion is up for sale.
The 12,700-square-foot mansion in Fair Oaks — an unincorporated community in Sacramento County bordering the American River — has been listed for $7.5 million.
News of the listing, which is being handled by Sotheby’s International Realty, was first reported by the Sacramento Bee on Monday.
The listing describes the seven-bedroom home at 7640 Tobia Way as a “showcase of Santa Barbara-inspired architecture” that is “privately positioned along the bluffs on 8.2 acres.” It boasts of amenities including a resort-style pool, hot tub, cold plunge, tennis court and 5,000-bottle wine cellar.
The Newsoms purchased the mansion in December 2018 for $3.7 million shortly before Newsom took office as the 40th governor of California in January 2019, The Times reported. The state’s first family had quickly ditched the historic governor’s mansion.
In 2024, the family bought in Marin County, where they previously lived. They purchased a $9.1-million estate, which is where they now primarily live and their four children attend school. Newsom and his wife also spend time in the Fair Oaks home while working at the state Capitol.
Newsom was raised in San Francisco and was the city’s mayor from 2004 to 2011.
Newsom was California’s lieutenant governor — a mostly ceremonial role that includes positions on several higher-education boards — from 2011 to 2019. During a 2012 interview, he famously described Sacramento as “just so dull.”
Newsom has been eyeing a 2028 presidential run. In June, he accused the Department of Justice of launching a baseless investigation of him and his wife at Trump’s direction. Siebel Newsom is a documentary filmmaker and in 2011 founded a nonprofit advocating for more women in leadership roles.
In July, the Newsoms allowed reporters to view, but not copy, their tax returns from 2019 through their most recent filings for 2024. The returns showed they had earned at least $11 million since he took office.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for President Trump to seek new limits on the use of mail ballots, but they are not likely to take effect this year.
Acting by a 6-3 vote, the court’s conservatives granted an emergency appeal from Trump’s lawyers and set aside a judge’s order that blocked new federal regulations on states and their use of mail ballots.
It’s not clear, however, what happens now, since the midterm elections are less than three months away.
About 30% of the nation’s voters — and 80% of Californians — cast their ballots by mail in 2024. Trump, however, has long maintained the voting by mail leads to fraud, including voting by noncitizens.
The court’s order stressed the new regulations do not put new requirements on the states this year.
Trump’s executive order “is internal directive from the President to his subordinates mandating that certain agencies pursue certain policies. It neither requires nor forbids anything of anyone outside the Executive Branch,” the court said.
The Department of Homeland Security will compile state-by-state lists of citizens who are over 18 and eligible to vote.
“States are not required to use the Lists,” the court said, although they could lead to future prosecutions.
The most disputed provision could have authorized the Postal Service to restrict mail ballots to those who are on the Homeland Security lists, but that is a future proposal, not a rule that will take effect this year.
The unsigned order spoke for the six Republican appointees. The three liberals, all Democratic appointees, dissented into two separate opinions.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said Trump’s order was unlawful and should have been struck down. “It needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections,” she said.
“Today’s decision does not address whether the President’s attempts to interfere with States’ administration of the November 2026 elections are lawful,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Elena Kagan. “Nor does it suggest that the Executive Branch has any constitutional or statutory authority to implement the President’s directives. Instead, today’s decision merely postpones adjudication of those challenges.”
Trump issued his executive order on March 31 with the aim of “ensuring citizenship verification” in federal elections. California and 22 other Democratic-led states sued a few days later and said Trump sought to use the Postal Service to impose new restrictions on voting by mail. They also argued the Constitution gives states and Congress the power to regulate elections, not the president.
A federal judge in Boston and 1st Circuit Court agreed with the challengers and blocked Trump’s executive order from taking effect for the November elections.
The case on appeal was Trump vs. California because California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta was a leader of the Democratic state attorneys who sued.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta walks to speak to press in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on November 5. On Sunday, he accused Paramount of leaking details about a meeting the state had with the company on Friday. File Photo by Annabelle Gordon/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 24 (UPI) — California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he canceled a planned sit-down meeting with Paramount to discuss the company’s attempt to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery after details from an earlier meeting leaked.
Bonta accused Paramount of acting in bad faith in a statement issued Sunday night to The New York Times and Deadline.
“Not only did Paramount leak the alleged substance of settlement discussions, but they misrepresented these discussions, demonstrating a lack of good faith,” he said. “As soon as Paramount stops playing games and engages sincerely, my office is happy to meet again.”
Bonta is one of 12 attorneys general who sued in July to block the proposed $111 billion merger of Paramount and Warner Bros., saying it would undermine competition in the entertainment industry, increase costs for consumers and put jobs at risk.
The lawsuit came one month after the Justice Department approved the planned merger, saying it doesn’t harm consumers in the United States.
State officials met with Paramount representatives on Friday to set the agenda for Monday’s scheduled meeting. California Gov. Gavin Newsom confirmed the meeting happened Friday, Deadline reported. The entertainment news outlet said it learned of the meeting from multiple sources.
The Times reported that state officials and Paramount representatives sought to work toward negotiations after the company threatened to leave California and Newsom said he wanted a settlement in the case.
NTT IndyCar Series Drivers Scott Dixon (R) and Graham Rahal (L) pose with first lady Melania Trump during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House on Thursday. The first lady announced that a $2 million donation from IndyCar and Fox Corporation will fund Fostering the Future scholarships at Indiana University and Purdue University to expand academic opportunities for individuals transitioning from foster care. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta abruptly pulled out of a planned mediation session Monday to seek a resolution to the antitrust lawsuit that has stalled Paramount’s blockbuster $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Bonta, in a statement, cited Paramount’s alleged leaking and misrepresenting information the two sides discussed during a preliminary session Friday.
Representatives of Bonta and Paramount Skydance came together late last week to set ground rules for Monday’s meeting, which was to involve Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison.
One of the rules had been confidentiality of the mediation process.
“I have pulled down this meeting,” Bonta said in a statement. “As I have said before, generally for all cases, I prefer to resolve disputes in the boardroom, not the courtroom. As I’ve also said, if the opposing party in litigation wants to meet in good faith to make a sincere effort to resolve the case.”
Bonta went on to say “Not only did Paramount leak the alleged substance of the settlement discussions, but they misrepresented these discussions, demonstrating a lack of good faith.
“As soon as Paramount stops playing games and engages sincerely, my office is happy to meet again.”
Dean Herrington won his first game as football coach at St. Bernard last week, but the story you had to see to believe was the 6-foot-9 kid who came in to boot extra points.
Garang-Garang Macham is a basketball player from Sudan who joined the football team as a kicker. Soccer is the most popular sport in Sudan, so it’s no surprise he knows how to kick a ball with his big leg. He made two PATs in his first game.
“He wanted to kick last year but couldn’t,” Herrington said.
The question is, was there a uniform for a 6-9 football player?
“The extra large pants fit him,” Herrington said.
And what about trick plays using his height?
“I asked him, ‘You want us to throw the ball up at the goal line and you can outjump them?’ He told me he can’t catch.”
Basketball coach Bernard McCrumby was skeptical of his kicking ability. “Coach, I can kick,” he said.
Now McCrumby and his basketball teammates are out there cheering him on.
“I’m nervous every time he gets out there, but he loves it,” McCrumby said.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
When the Booker Prize longlist was recently announced, it included a book with the memorable title “May We Feed the King.” The debut novel by British author Rebecca Perry isn’t yet available in the U.S., and when it does hit shelves, it will be coming from Transit Books, a small Bay Area publisher run by the husband-and-wife team Adam Z. Levy and Ashley Nelson Levy.
Cited by the Booker committee as “a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling” about a curator and a king, the book “has been an early favorite with indie booksellers,” Ashley says.
“May We Feed the King” by Rebecca Perry
(Transit)
“We knew the book was special when we acquired it,” Adam adds. “Ever since, we’ve been crossing our fingers and knocking on wood and sending up flares to the Booker gods, and sent the book to the printer a little earlier than usual just in case.”
Transit, known for publishing intelligent international fiction, began about a decade ago, when Ashley and Adam were convinced that great works of literature were being passed over by New York publishers, and that those books should have a place in America.
There were, Adam says, “really great authors who might have incredible reputations elsewhere not finding publishing houses here that are able to champion them in a way that gets them to access to a broader readership.”
The two were working full-time jobs while talking about their literary dreams over the dining room table. They had met at Columbia in New York and both worked in publishing there before moving to California, where Ashley is from.
Adam Z. Levy and Ashley Nelson Levy, co-publishers of the Bay Area nonprofit publisher Transit Books.
(Jennifer Baquing)
They carefully set out to connect with the international literary community and went through the slow process of launching Transit as a nonprofit. They now have a small staff, an office in Berkeley and count a Nobel Prizewinner, Jon Fosse, among their authors.
For the record:
9:20 a.m. Aug. 19, 2026An earlier version of this article stated that Transit’s office is located in Oakland. It is based in Berkeley.
At the same time Transit was starting out in Northern California, a pair of not-married friends in Los Angeles saw the same possibilities. Chris Heiser and Olivia Taylor Smith were convinced that they could begin a publishing house, starting with international noir.
Smith, who is now a senior editor at Simon & Schuster and lives in Germany, recalled those early days for me over Zoom. “We launched it at a time when it was almost the golden age of independent, small publishing, a lot of which was translation-focused,” she says.
They jumped right in, came up with a name, Ricochet, and a logo. Then they got a cease-and-desist letter — a small poetry press was also starting as Ricochet. “We had to change names,” Heiser says. “We were literally unnamed.” That’s how they launched Unnamed Press.
“A Certain Hunger” by Chelsea G. Summers
(Unnamed Press)
“I’m very grateful to the litigious poets who forced us to change our name,” Heiser adds. Their original crime-fiction focus rapidly expanded. Science fiction? Nonfiction? Feminist cannibal fiction? Yes, yes, yes.
That last was “A Certain Hunger” by Chelsea Summers, which Smith acquired. “I really loved that it is violent and intense and so visceral,” Smith said. “The prose is incredible and it absolutely was a cut above. Not to use a cannibalistic meat pun.” To date, the 2021 novel has been Unnamed Press’ biggest seller.
Where many literary novels from small presses sell fewer than 2,500 copies, “A Certain Hunger” has sold close to 200,000. “We’re a hits-driven business, you know — you have to have a book that does well enough to keep you going,” Heiser says.
Heiser remains with Unnamed as its publisher, and continues to guide it to unpredictable destinations. In 2022, the press opened North Figueroa Bookshop in Highland Park with fellow L.A. publisher Rare Bird Books — it stocks all publishers’ titles, not just their own.
Guests gather at the North Figueroa gallery for Unnamed Press’ launch of “Four Nose Jobs a Day,” a poetry book with an accompanying vinyl album by Devendra Banhart, center.
(Hoda Mallone)
And next door is the gallery they opened late last year. In June they held a gala launch for Devendra Banhart’s new collection of poems, “Four Nose Jobs a Day” in the North Figueroa gallery, published by Unnamed as both book and record album. The party was a little livelier than your typical book launch: Heiser says it “featured a reading backed by an excellent jazz trio, ceramic noses, a scent-maker, mimes and speed therapy, among many other things.”
Where Unnamed often makes unexpected turns, Transit has stuck close to its original mission: to translate a handful of books a year, often works of translation themselves, with a certain aesthetic.
For readers in sync with Transit’s sensibility — literary, bold and with an edge that feels fresh — they offer subscriptions. Their biggest swerve was adding children’s books. “The quality of the writing is really important, first and foremost,” Ashley said on a Zoom call with Adam and their executive editor, Lizzie Davis.
“We’re really attracted to literature that takes risks on the page,” Adam said. They began publishing acclaimed Norwegian author Jon Fosse’s work three years before he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Transit is the American home of Fosse’s big and bold “Septology,” translated into English by Damion Searls.
“Septology 1-VII,” by Jon Fosse
(Transit Books)
Despite years of a cohort within the publishing community advocating for international literature, such as the National Book Awards’ translated literature prize being relaunched in 2018, translated works remain only 3% of the U.S. publishing market. Transit has remained committed to publishing works in translation, and has had genuine success.
Small publishers can be caught in a catch-22 when they have a sudden success. They have to pay to print books and get them distributed, then wait months before the profits (or unsold returns) come back. An author winning the Nobel Prize in literature is about as big a bonanza of demand as you can imagine.
When Fosse won the Nobel in 2023, that meant publishing a big run of his almost 700-page masterwork. “It was a bit of a cash crunch for us,” Adam admits, “but I think we were also lucky in a lot of ways.” The year before they had published “I Who Have Never Known Men” by Jacqueline Harpman, a Belgian novelist who died 20 years before — hardly a guaranteed success.
“Stories, Like Illnesses” by James Elkins
(Unnamed Press)
The publishers themselves can’t fully describe what happened — it was well-reviewed, it went viral, it kept selling, it went viral again. Now, the novel has sold more than 450,000 copies. “I feel like for a small press you really need to, not just catch a break, but catch a break every time,” Adam said, “if you want to last.” Those two pillars — the Fosse and Harpman — allowed the Levys to open their office in Oakland in 2024.
Transit recently released another Harpman book, “We Were Forbidden,” a trio of never-before translated novellas. In September, in addition to Perry’s book, they’ll also be publishing two novels by esteemed French writer Marie Darrieussecq.
Unnamed Press’ fall schedule includes James Elkins’ “Stories, Like Illnesses,” the third installment of a multivolume work called “Five Strange Languages.” Unnamed is publishing in five volumes over five years, “an epic publishing project for any publisher,” Heiser says. Luckily, the first volume got a boost when Jacob Elordi was photographed reading it during a marathon Frankenstein makeup session.
The Levys and Heiser all maintain that there was something about being in California that gave them the creative space to launch their publishing houses.
From their similar visions a decade ago, Transit and Unnamed were born separately, and have taken very different paths to sustainability. The Levys were deliberate and focused; Unnamed spontaneous and evolving. Both are flourishing and show what a little freedom can do.
WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement is taking more and more steps to avoid oversight by local and state authorities of immigration detention centers amid growing complaints alleging unsanitary and unsafe conditions at the facilities.
The efforts to sidestep laws in California and elsewhere take many forms. In some instances, contracts have been changed to declare that the centers are simply not subject to certain local or state laws.
In other instances, ICE has purchased facilities owned and operated by private companies. Though the companies continue to run the centers holding thousands of detainees, federal ownership could aid their defense in the event of legal action.
George Zoley, the chief executive of GEO Group, which contracts with ICE to run detention centers in California and across the country, said as much to company shareholders this year. In an earnings call in May, he said that ownership bolsters the facilities’ protection from “unwarranted litigation” around medical care and other detention conditions.
The federal ownership strategy has become particularly crucial, he said, “as some blue states are considering more active involvement in oversight of facilities.”
Local oversight has taken on greater significance since the Trump administration hollowed out federal offices that were charged with investigating civil rights and safety issues at detention centers and began restricting visits by members of Congress. A recent analysis by the Project on Government Oversight found detention center inspections under the second Trump administration have increasingly resulted in “superior” grades.
Eunice Cho, a former American Civil Liberties Union attorney and an expert in immigration detention, called ICE’s efforts a “naked strategy” to evade local scrutiny of detention centers.
“This is a huge sea change in the way that immigration detention is expanding and hardening in the United States,” she said, adding that “this was every advocate’s nightmare scenario.”
In California, state leaders once attempted to shut down privately run detention centers and, after losing, resorted instead to proposing other oversight measures. California is home to eight ICE detention centers with a combined capacity of nearly 9,000 people.
State laws allow monitoring and investigation of the facilities by the California Department of Justice and local health authorities.
A 2021 law allows people to sue for damages when private detention center operators fail to follow the care standards laid out in their contracts. Starting in January, another law will require independent medical investigations into deaths in law enforcement custody, including in immigrant detention facilities.
Several bills are being considered by the California Legislature that would further regulate detention centers. Among them are bills that would authorize the California attorney general to bring civil action and impose fines to protect detainees’ constitutional rights and require the disclosure of public records, such as 911 calls from the facilities.
Recent attempts to limit California’s oversight actions haven’t been successful. CoreCivic turned San Diego health inspectors away from the Otay Mesa Detention Center in February, but after legal action the visit took place in June.
Another oversight battle concerns the rights of detainees who work at a facility, perhaps as a janitor, for $1 per day.
GEO Group recently settled with California regulators after a years-long fight over workplace health and safety violations. The settlement affirmed that immigrants who perform work while detained are considered employees.
Weeks earlier, ICE released new detention standards in June declaring that detainees who participate in the voluntary work program aren’t employees “and are not entitled to wages or benefits under applicable wage laws or labor regulations.”
Because the new standards will take effect as contracts are established or modified, the rules don’t yet apply to existing facilities in California, though they were implemented at a new facility in Minnesota.
An ICE spokesperson did not respond to questions but said the agency consulted with a variety of stakeholders, including facility operators, while revising its standards. The spokesperson, who did not provide their name in an emailed statement, said the agency consistently looks for ways to improve detention facilities to ensure they provide detainees the best care.
“ICE is regularly audited and inspected by external agencies to ensure that all ICE facilities comply with performance-based national detention standards,” the spokesperson wrote, adding that “ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”
An oversight battle involving changes to contracts is also playing out in other states.
For the last three years, GEO Group has blocked Washington health officials from inspecting the Northwest ICE Processing Center near Seattle despite 3,500 complaints from detainees about black mold, unsafe drinking water and substandard medical care.
A previous contract for the facility stated that services must comply with “federal, state and local laws and standards. Should a conflict exist between any of these standards, the most stringent shall apply.”
But in March, ICE and GEO Group established a new contract that says the opposite — that “applicable or more stringent state or local laws or regulations shall not apply.”
A federal district judge, rejecting that contract provision, ruled last month that GEO Group must let health inspectors in, writing that “GEO’s new contract cannot preempt state law, even if it purports to.” That decision is now paused under appeal.
But this week, GEO Group had a court victory in Colorado, where a federal judge prevented the state from enforcing a law that requires unannounced public health inspections of detention facilities and stiff penalties for refusal. Colorado health officials wanted to investigate a tuberculosis case at the Aurora ICE Processing Center near Denver, but have been refused entry and records.
The judge wrote that GEO Group’s contract with ICE “plausibly” requires the company to follow only state laws that existed when the contract was signed. At GEO Group’s suggestion, the judge’s order remains in effect until Oct. 15, when the contract expires.
Meanwhile, ICE appears to be trying a different route to apply the same restrictive contract language to the facilities near Seattle and Denver, among others.
Last month, the agency posted a solicitation with draft contract terms seeking 5,500 detention beds in Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania and Washington. The locations and requirements match four existing GEO-owned facilities where operating contracts are set to expire in the coming months. During a shareholder call earlier this month, Zoley, the GEO Group CEO, indicated that the four facilities could also be sold off to the federal government while the company would continue to operate them.
The facilities would be governed by the new 2026 detention standards and include terms that mirror those from the Northwest facility’s contract, that stricter state or local laws “shall not apply.”
Zoley said ICE is contemplating buying more than 10 facilities, and that number “could continue to grow.”
GEO Group’s main competitor, CoreCivic, recently sold four detention centers to ICE — two of them in California — for a combined $2.2 billion. Spokesman Ryan Gustin said the facilities were valuated using independent appraisers and federal acquisition standards “to determine objective fair market value.”
ICE paid for them using $45 billion approved by Congress for ICE detention last year, enough for the agency to meet the administration’s goal of 100,000 detention beds. ICE is about 30,000 beds shy of meeting that goal.
Among more than 200 facilities ICE now relies on nationwide (most being local jails) are 36 privately owned detention centers. Those facilities hold the vast majority of detainees.
A Homeland Security spokesperson previously told The Times that it’s crucial for ICE to own detention centers on the West Coast so the agency can maintain the detention capacity it needs.
“Unlike in states like Florida and Oklahoma, ICE can not rely on local state and county partners for detention space in California,” the spokesperson said last month. “The state’s sanctuary politicians continue to push legislation to outlaw or make private prisons financially [unfeasible].”
GEO Group didn’t respond to a request for comment. Gustin, of CoreCivic, said its facilities operate under substantial government oversight, including “on-site government personnel, regular audits and inspections, detention-standard reviews, independent accreditation processes, and routine visits by government officials, attorneys, families and community representatives.”
How much power the federal government would be required to grant states is an open question if more facilities become federally owned, even if private companies continue to run the day-to-day operations.
Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former Homeland Security official who led efforts to reform detention standards, said federal ownership of detention facilities isn’t, on its face, a bad idea. If the goal was to own facilities that would be needed long term, she said, the agency could slowly transition to staffing those facilities with its own employees and cut out the need for private contractors.
Trickler-McNulty said federal ownership of detention centers could make state oversight “slightly more complicated.” But that doesn’t mean the centers can be operated without any review.
“I don’t think it shields the government from liability in total,” she said. “If the government owns a facility whose negligence causes harm or death in the government’s custody, I don’t think you can just buy away liability.”
Nico Iamaleava became a household name among college football fans.
Not because of his five-star, blue-chip status, leaving Warren High as the second-ranked prospect in the 2023 class and top-ranked recruit out of California.
Not for leading Tennessee to its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance and a 10-3 record — tying for the Volunteers’ second-best finish since 2001.
Instead, Iamaleava is remembered for his tumultuous exit from Knoxville, a parting characterized by head coach Josh Heupel that the program would move on without its starting signal-caller, leading the Long Beach product to UCLA.
More than one year removed after his departure, Iamaleava reflected at preseason media day on his time with the Volunteers, the effect last season had on his mental health and his mindset heading into 2026.
“In Tennessee, I was in a rough mental state as far as being far from home, but that’s what came with me growing and maturing,” Iamaleava said Wednesday. “So coming back home has been a great transition, and I can’t wait to play this year.”
While returning to Southern California brought the Bruins’ starting quarterback closer to his roots and family, the social media ridicule chased him cross-country, targeting not just him, but his parents too.
To combat the animosity centered on his family, Iamaleava focused on his support system, leaning on those around him and strengthening relationships with the people that he loved.
“Mental health is huge, and having a great support system with you definitely helps. I’ve had that with my parents, going to them whenever I need something,” Iamaleava said. “I have brothers that I can go and rely on, and coming back home to my family has been easy. I don’t really focus on the outside noise.”
While the majority of Iamaleava’s criticism stemmed from his departure from Knoxville, it reignited after UCLA started out the season 0-4 and finished the 2025 campaign 3-9 — a program worst since 2018.
Iamaleava could have allowed the disparagement to compound, but the starting signal-caller is using it as fuel for a 2026 season where many have the Bruins painted as a potential dark horse.
“Everybody counted us out. Last year wasn’t a great year for us, so we’re not on anybody’s radar,” Iamaleava said. “That fuels us, and really playing for each other is going to be the main thing.”
Being one of the few returning starters, Iamaleava has embraced a “vet” role, and has subsequently taken the mantle and burden of being the team’s leader.
And despite all of the negative sentiment surrounding Iamaleava and his time at Tennessee, it was with the Volunteers when he learned how to effectively lead and cultivate camaraderie.
“I learned a lot of that in Tennessee. I had a great vet in Joe Milton. He was a great quarterback,” Iamaleava said. “He’s at the Cowboys now, so learning under him, and then my whole O-line from Tennessee, I love them boys, and they helped me a lot too.”
Iamaleava is building on everything — the good and the bad — he learned from his time in Knoxville and his first year in Westwood entering the new season.
And as he enters his senior season with professional football aspirations on the horizon, Iamaleava has learned to not let external voices interfere with his internal confidence.
“I like to let people assume. Not a lot of people know me on a personal level, so it’s kind of hard to really focus on what they have to say,” Iamaleava said. “Those who know me in this locker room, those who know me in the building, those are the people I care about.”
I spent my 10-year-old niece’s last week of summer freedom with her, jumping into and swimming in our family’s lake and overall being feral in nature.
She told me after our trip that she was dreading her return to school, communicating her Gen Alpha feelings via a simple broken heart emoji. It felt too soon for me too.
That energy is what inspired this week’s edition of The Wild, our weekly outdoors newsletter. Below I outline three great hikes around Los Angeles that are kid-friendly and great options to decompress after your family’s first week back to school (including if you’re a kid-free household with a tired educator). I hope you find these trails as rejuvenating as I did!
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Before we dive in, a few quick reminders:
You will not have cellphone reception for at least two of these hikes. Download trail maps ahead of time on your hiking navigation app, and also download an offline map of your driving route on your phone’s GPS navigation app.
Pack extra water, especially if traveling to the San Gabriel Mountains, as mountain weather can be hard to predict, and it can be hotter than you anticipate.
Take your time on twisting mountain roads; use paved vehicle turnouts to let faster traffic pass you, and watch out for cyclists; turn on your headlights when entering Angeles National Forest, regardless of the time of day.
Let someone know where you’re going, including what time you’ll be back. Place a completed version of this form (or something like it) on your vehicle’s dashboard — just in case!
And practice Leave No Trace principles, including not feeding any wildlife, picking up after yourself (including toilet paper) and not playing any loud music, as it bothers grumpy hikers like me and also the wildlife (the latter being more important than the former).
OK, now that you’re prepared to be safe and good to nature, let’s talk about those hikes!
The view of the L.A. area and our local mountains from Bee Rock in Griffith Park.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
1. Old Zoo — Bee Rock Loop (Griffith Park Explorer Segment 7)
Distance: 5 miles Elevation gained: 930 feet Difficulty: Moderate Dogs allowed: Yes Nearest to: Atwater Village Accessible alternative: Rio de Los Angeles Park loop
The Old Zoo — Bee Rock Loop is a 5-mile hike that takes you up to Bee Rock, an epic lookout point in Griffith Park. The route is part of Friends of Griffith Park’s Griffith Park Explorer, which organizes official trails into 15 hikeable segments (rather than you getting lost or ending your hike far from where you parked — not that I’ve ever experienced that).
I have passed Bee Rock at least a dozen times and each time told my hiking companion, “I really need to hike up there sometime!” I finally did last week, and I am already itching to return.
After leaving, I wanted to know how this local monolith got its name. I went to The Times’ archives, where I couldn’t find a precise answer.
Bee Rock as seen from the Bill Eckert Trail in Griffith Park.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
“Bee Rock acquired its name from the millions of bees which store their honey in its tiny caves which honeycomb it,” a March 1940 Times story read. Seems reasonable.
Retired ranger Bill Eckert told hikers per a 1985 story that Bee Rock got its name “because bees were attracted to the sweets at the old zoo’s refreshment stands and made their homes in the rock’s crevices.”
Eckert has a trail named after him, so I did feel inclined to believe his story.
As I searched for a clear answer, I felt better when I discovered that even experts like Gerry Hans, president of nonprofit Friends of Griffith Park, aren’t sure.
“There are theories and legends,” Hans wrote in a blog post in 2022. “The first is that the outcrop simply looks like a beehive. Another tale describes maintenance workers at the Old Zoo dumping spoiled soda syrup off the cliff, which lured swarms of bees. A third theory suggests that bees naturally take up residence in the holes and pocks on the cliff side overlooking Spring Canyon.”
Hans wrote that he had seen bees in the rock’s small caverns, but to do so, you must have good binoculars.
Armed with those facts and maybe some binocs, you can head out on the trail.
To begin your hike, you’ll park at Merry Go Round Lot One and head to the Lower Beacon Trail just past the southeast corner of the parking lot. Take good care in selecting where to start, as there are about five different paths you could take here.
You will head west on the Lower Beacon Trail, briefly walk southwest along the Fern Canyon Trail before taking the Upper Zoo Trail for much of the way. You’ll reach the Bee Rock Trail at 1 mile into your hike.
Views from the Bee Rock Trail around golden hour in Griffith Park.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
You will follow the Bee Rock trail northwest for a short jag before you come to what might feel like a dead end.
The Bee Rock Trail narrows and heads south. You will take a few switchbacks up, wondering how you suddenly became surrounded in tree canopy. Hopefully the sky is helicopter-free and you can hear the local chatter of acorn woodpeckers and California scrub jays.
You’ll arrive at a chain-link fence where you can take a narrow dirt path to the rocky outcropping atop Bee Rock. If hiking with children, it’d be good for the adults to go first, as there are a few spots where the fence has been cut, and the allure of venturing farther than one should out onto boulders is high.
The view is stunning, and on a Thursday evening, I had it all to myself as the sun lowered near the horizon. It was a clear day, and I could see a large swath of Glendale and nearby Mt. Thom and Tongva Peak in the Verdugos and farther away Josephine Peak, Strawberry Peak and several other summits in the San Gabriel Mountains.
From here, you can turn around and head back to your car, especially if the smaller hikers among you are tired, or continue onward to complete the loop. The rest of the trail is not challenging, as you’re either walking on a flat trail or headed downhill. And it’s generally not crowded. If you’re hiking with a teenager, the rest of the trail offers a quiet few miles to talk together about the school day.
One of the pools along Soldier Creek.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
2. Lewis Falls
Distance: About a mile out and back Elevation gained: About 300 feet Difficulty: Easy, but requires proper footwear Dogs allowed: Yes Nearest to: North of Azusa Accessible alternative: West Fork National Scenic Bikeway
The 1-mile out-and-back trek to Lewis Falls offers hikers a gorgeous journey along Soldier Creek, lined with California bay laurels, oak trees and hulking old conifers. The trail runs mostly parallel to the creek until you reach its end, where you must cross the creek, rocks and logs to reach Lewis Falls.
You will start by finding parking, its own adventure, as there is no lot. Rather, you will need to find a spot along Highway 39 near the trailhead. I didn’t have any trouble on a weekday, but on a weekend, it might be more challenging. That is essentially the only real downside of this trail.
A large old conifer provides shade along Soldier Creek.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
You will hike slightly northeast for about half a mile before reaching the falls. Along the way, you’ll have ample opportunity to take a dip in Soldier Creek, as multiple pools remain, even this late in our summer.
If you find yourself saying, “Wow, this trail is really steep,” you are likely on the wrong path. You will spot multiple spur trails, likely created by either an impatient human or dexterous deer. You can identify them mostly by looking them over and realizing they offer a quicker, more dangerous option than the trail before you.
Soldier Creek features several shorter waterfalls as well as nearby Lewis Falls.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Although it is generally called Lewis Falls by hikers, the cascade historically had a different name.
“Longtime San Gabriel Mountains visitors and old maps refer to Soldier Creek Falls as ‘Lewis Falls,’ in honor of forest ranger Anselmo Lewis, who once patrolled these parts,” former Times outdoors writer John McKinney wrote in a 1998 article.
Although this trail is short, it does require a bit of technical expertise but nothing too tricky. You will find yourself navigating boulders and, at one point, using a root to step down onto the rest of the trail. It requires just a little patience and looking ahead of yourself to determine the safest route.
I was greeted by small blue dragonflies as I hiked along the creek. Instead of racing back to my car, I lay down on a log and listened to the sounds of rushing water and chirping birds. Soldier Creek provides any hiker willing to slow down with an opportunity to reset, regardless of whether you have homework waiting for you at home.
And if you aren’t ready to go home, consider heading five miles north on Highway 39 to the Crystal Lake Recreation Area, where further adventure — and a snack at the Crystal Lake Cafe — awaits.
Once you reach Mt. Hillyer, you’ll be greeted by large rocks that are fun to scramble along.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
3. Mt. Hillyer via Silver Moccasin Trail
Distance: 5.8-mile lollipop loop Elevation gained: About 1,100 feet Difficulty: Moderate Dogs allowed: Yes Nearest to: About 45 minutes northeast of La Cañada Flintridge Accessible alternative: Paved paths through Chilao Campground
This 6-mile jaunt along the Silver Moccasin Trail, which is just over 50 miles when fully open, takes you through high desert and pine trees.
Shaped like a lollipop, the trailhead sits about half a mile northwest of the Chilao Visitor Center, which is typically open on the weekend. You will head north for a mile before turning left (or west) off the Silver Moccasin Trail.
You will follow Horse Flats Road to the Rosenita Saddle trailhead, where you’ll take the trail southwest to Mt. Hillyer.
Views of the San Gabriel Mountains from the trail to Mt. Hillyer.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Keep an eye out for Jeffrey pines, which will have deeply furrowed bark and round prickly cones. Their bark smells like butterscotch or vanilla, which I always love pausing to sniff.
The trail also features Coulter pines that produce massive cones nicknamed widowmakers because of their size. The Coulter pine cones can weigh up to 11 pounds. If you’re in the area when it’s windy, please watch your head.
To reach Mt. Hillyer, you’ll follow a short spur trail about half a mile southwest from the Rosenita Saddle trailhead. Mt. Hillyer features several large boulders, perfect for kids to scramble and play on. It’ll also offer you sweeping views of the San Gabriel Mountains.
A hiker takes the path to Mt. Hillyer in the winter in Angeles National Forest.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
You can make the trail a loop by continuing south until it jags back east, meeting back up with the paved road you previously took.
And for the ultimate weekend adventure, grab a first-come, first-served campsite at Chilao Campground, and then you can hike and check out the Chilao Visitor Center, which is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday through November. As a bonus, there’s a short, flat nature trail at the east end of the nature center parking lot where you can typically find massive Coulter pine cones to inspect. A seasonal creek flows through this area too.
Regardless of which option you choose, I hope you make great memories in our local public lands.
3 things to do
The Milky Way is seen in the western night sky near Mt. Pinos in the Los Padres National Forest.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
1. Ponder astrophysics in Pasadena Caltech will host a stargazing lecture from 8 to 10 p.m. Friday at the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (1216 E. California Blvd. in Pasadena). Philosophy professor Charles “Chip” T. Sebens will lecture about basic questions that remain regarding atoms. A Q&A and then guided stargazing will follow. The event is free, and no registration is required. Learn more at events.caltech.edu.
2. Improve insect habitat near Altadena The Invertebrate Club of Southern California needs volunteers from 8 to 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Eaton Canyon. Participants will yank invasive plants to help restore the canyon. Volunteers must be 14 years or older. Registration is required. Sign up at signupgenius.com.
3. Peek at sandpipers in Pacoima The San Fernando Valley Audubon Society will host a bird walk from 8 to 10 a.m. Saturday. Guests will meet at the ranger station (10965 Dronfield Ave. in Pacoima) before heading out on a 1- to 3-mile walk through riparian areas, grassy lawns and unique rock formations. Birders can expect to see 30 to 50 species. Learn more at the group’s Instagram page.
The must-read
Johnson’s Beach, along the Russian River, is one of the most popular spots along the lower Russian River.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The lower Russian River and the small communities along the watercourse in Sonoma County offer visitors every kind of adventure, whether you want to stay in a tent and simply float or you want a high-end outdoors experience. That’s what I gleaned from reading Times staff writer Christopher Reynolds’ article about how to get the most out of a visit to the Northern California sylvan paradise. “On summer weekends, thousands show up in Guerneville with kayaks, canoes, inner tubes — just about anything that will float, preferably with a cooler attached,” Reynolds writes. “Then they spend hours gliding downstream past scenery that might as well be a Northern California highlight reel: vineyards, redwood forests and eventually a beach scene full of driftwood and sea stacks.”
After finishing the piece, I immediately searched online for how far away L.A. is from Guerneville. It’s a long drive, but my colleague makes it sure feel worth it.
Happy adventuring,
P.S.
Everyone should feel safe to recreate and work in outdoor spaces. To better ensure Deaf and Hard of Hearing folks feel supported wherever you recreate or volunteer, consider taking CorpsTHAT‘s upcoming “ASL for the Outdoors” virtual classes. Classes run from September to November and range from beginner to advanced. The fee is $250 per student. You can learn more, including how to register, at the organization’s website.
For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.
Californians are more concerned about the Trump administration interfering in the state’s midterm elections than they are about voter fraud, noncitizens voting illegally or foreign interference, according to a new poll.
A majority of voters — 61% — identified potential federal interference as a “major concern” heading into November, slightly more than the 59% who cited possible foreign interference as such, according to the poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times.
By comparison, 41% of California voters identified voter fraud and 37% identified noncitizens voting as major concerns, the poll found.
The polling reflects the liberal leanings of the state, where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, as well as the nation’s hyperpartisan divide on voting issues and vulnerabilities.
That divide has been driven for years by President Trump’s relentless criticism of U.S. elections, particularly in large blue states such as California, and recently by his administration’s attempts to wrest control over voting processes from the states based on unverified claims of widespread fraud and the fierce pushback against those claims from California Democrats and other liberal leaders around the country.
The White House has dismissed concerns about interference and accused Democrats of obstructing its efforts to protect American elections from fraud, including through the proposed SAVE America Act — which would enforce strict new ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements for voters nationwide.
While 80% of Democratic respondents to the poll said potential federal interference in the state’s elections was a major concern, just 28% of Republican respondents identified it as such.
Voter fraud was identified as a major concern by 84% of Republican voters but just 21% of Democratic voters, the poll found. Noncitizens voting illegally also was identified as a major concern by 85% of Republicans but just 12% of Democrats.
Republicans also have substantial concerns about the security of mail ballots and how slowly California counts its vote, while Democrats were far less concerned about those issues, the poll found.
Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director, said it clearly reflects the partisan divide around election issues and “shows that in this state, federal interference is a big deal — more so than in other places around the country.”
He called that a “big finding” in line with previous polls that found “Californians are very concerned about prioritizing efforts to defend democracy and to protect election systems,” including in the face of threats from Trump — who routinely has focused on the state in his regular attacks on election integrity.
“For 61% of Californians to say that’s a major concern to them in terms of the threats to the election system, I think that’s very newsworthy,” DiCamillo said.
He also noted the particularly stark difference between state Democrats and Republicans on the issue of noncitizens voting.
“Nearly 90% of Democrats say that’s not a concern, whereas 85% of Republicans feel it is,” he said. “Californians have a lot of noncitizens in the state, but Democrats don’t think they’re infecting the voter rolls, so they’re not concerned about it.”
That was striking, DiCamillo said, given how much Trump has pointed to California to claim that noncitizens are voting.
“Obviously, the Democrats are very strongly opposed to the president, what he’s trying to do, and the Republicans are supportive,” DiCamillo said.
Other findings in the poll also support that conclusion.
For instance, while Trump has claimed without evidence that mail ballots are a major source of fraud and their use should be reined in, the poll found that 72% of Californians approve of mail ballots as a primary method for voting in the state — with 58% saying they strongly approve.
California law requires every registered voter in the state to be sent a mail ballot, and more than 80% of voters have used such ballots in recent elections.
Trump also repeatedly has accused California officials of failing to secure state elections against fraud and of cheating as they count later-arriving mail ballots. But the poll found that Californians by greater than a 2-to-1 margin — 65% to 31% — are confident local election officials are accurately and fairly counting ballots. However, the poll did find that more than half of respondents, 53%, had concerns about delays in California’s vote-counting process.
Overall, 64% of respondents were confident in the integrity of the state’s election system, compared to 34% who were not.
Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, downplayed the threats of voter fraud and noncitizens voting in the state, but acknowledged they are real concerns for some voters — which is a problem in itself.
“I see election security as both a matter of actual security and perceived security. And the truth is that we have a great deal of actual security in California elections, but, unfortunately, that security is not being perceived by some voters,” she said. She attributed that in part to the “constant drumbeat that we’ve had now for a decade, coming from the occupant of the White House, that our elections are rigged.”
Alexander said California law requires registering voters to prove and attest to their identity and has multiple verification measures to ensure people casting ballots are who they say they are. She said there are “common sense” reasons why noncitizens do not try to vote — including that it requires them to turn over personal information and could be grounds for criminal charges and deportation, which is “a huge disincentive.”
Alexander also said Trump administration interference in the midterms is a real concern, but so is overhyping the threat to the point it discourages voters from casting ballots.
“Not to dismiss the threats — the threats are real — but the more we talk about them, the more we scare voters,” Alexander said. “I’ve encountered voters who’ve said this to me: ‘What’s the point in voting when they’re just gonna cheat?’ Or, you know: ‘It’s all rigged.’ And that’s part of the play here — is to scare people into thinking that voting doesn’t matter.”
To counter that, Alexander said it is “really important that people be aware that there are threats, but to not let those threats be debilitating or to allow them to dissuade people from wanting to participate.”
The poll surveyed 4,207 registered voters in California from Aug. 3 to 9, online in English and Spanish, and has an estimated margin of error of about 2.5 percentage points in either direction.
