Cost

After two years of a grinding war, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are observing the holy month of Ramadan during an unabating economic catastrophe as Israel continues to impose restrictions on the entry of food and other supplies despite a “ceasefire” reached in October.

For most families, the daily struggle to secure a mere loaf of bread has replaced the traditional festive atmosphere before the war. An analysis by Al Jazeera, based on official data, reveals that skyrocketing prices for basic commodities have made a complete iftar meal to break the daily fast a distant dream for the vast majority of the population.

Skyrocketing costs

During periods when Israel tightened its siege or completely closed the crossings into Gaza, food prices spiked by more than 700 percent. While prices have retreated slightly since the “ceasefire” began in October, they remain significantly higher than pre-war levels.

According to Mohammed Barbakh, director general of policy and planning at the Ministry of Economy in Gaza, official data tracking prices from before the war began on October 7, 2023, to the first days of this Ramadan show staggering increases.

Al Jazeera’s analysis of the ministry’s price data reveals the following hikes:

• Chicken: Prices rose from 14 shekels ($4.49) to 25 shekels ($8.01) per kilogramme (2.2lb), an 80 percent increase.
• Frozen fish: Prices jumped from 8 shekels ($2.56) to 23 shekels ($7.37) per kilo, a 190 percent increase.
• Frozen red meat: Prices rose from 23 shekels ($7.37) to 40 shekels ($12.82) per kilo, a 75 percent difference.
• Eggs: A tray of 30 eggs now costs 35 shekels ($11.22) compared with 13 shekels ($4.17), a 170 percent increase.

Vegetables, a staple of the Palestinian diet, have also seen dramatic surges. Tomatoes have doubled in price while cucumbers have jumped by 300 percent, rising from 3 shekels ($0.96) per kilo to 12 shekels ($3.85). Cheese prices have increased by up to 110 percent, directly impacting the cost of suhoor, the predawn meal before the daily fasting during Ramadan begins.

The cost of a meal

Based on data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Al Jazeera estimated the cost of a basic iftar for a family of six. The meal includes two chickens, rice, salad, appetisers, a soft drink, cooking gas and oil.

The price of the meal has risen to about 150 shekels ($48), up from 79 shekels ($25.32) before the war, an increase of 90 percent.

For suhoor, a simple meal of cheese, hummus, falafel and bread now costs 31.5 shekels ($10.10), compared with 18.6 shekels ($5.96) previously.

The combined daily cost to feed a medium-sized family now stands at 181.5 shekels ($58.17), an 88 percent jump from pre-war figures.

Economic obliteration

These price hikes coincide with a collapse in purchasing power. A United Nations report released in late 2025 indicated that the annual per capita income in Gaza plummeted to $161 (503 shekels) in 2024, down from $1,250 (3,900 shekels) in 2022.

The labour market has essentially vanished. In a statement issued in October, Sami al-Amsi, head of the General Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions, said unemployment stood then at more than 95 percent as workshops, farmland and fishing fleets were destroyed.

“The worker is no longer looking for a job because there is no work at all,” al-Amsi said. “Today, the Palestinian worker is looking for a food parcel to survive.”

Blockade and monopoly

Economic researcher Ahmed Abu Qamar attributed the inflation to Israel’s restrictive entry policies and “coordination fees” imposed on trucks.

“The humanitarian protocol stipulates the entry of 600 trucks daily, yet the Israeli occupation effectively allows only between 200 and 250 trucks,” Abu Qamar told Al Jazeera, noting that the Strip actually requires 1,000 trucks daily to meet minimum demand.

He also highlighted a monopoly system under which only about 10 merchants are authorised to import goods through four Israeli companies, restricting competition and keeping prices artificially high. He called for a return to a free market system and the full opening of crossings to alleviate the burden on a population already crushed by conflict.

United States President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on European goods, made a bid to take over Greenland and demanded Europe foot the bill for its own defence. European leaders now fear the era of US-led security protections may be over. They’re accelerating efforts to reduce their military and economic dependence on the US.

At the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted his nation is not walking away from its allies. But few in the room were convinced. Instead, leader after leader took to the podium with the same message: Europe must stand on its own.

BRITS will have to carry a little more cash with them on holiday if they want to lounge about on this resort’s beautiful beaches.

The popular Spanish resort of Palma in Majorca has hiked the price of its sunbeds and parasols this summer.

Majorca has always been a popular destination with Brits – it sees between 2.3 to 3.6million tourists each year.

Holidaymakers flock to the island for sunshine in the peak months with daytime highs ranging from 25C up to highs of 40C.

The capital of the Spanish resort, Palma, is known for its huge cathedral, pretty streets filled with ice cream shops and boutiques as well as its beautiful beaches.

Now, local media has revealed that the price of sunloungers on some of Palma’s most popular beach spots has been upped to as much as £60 per day.

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Sunbed and umbrella prices will rise substantially from 2026 – the daily rate for both items will increase to €10 (£8.66), up from €6 (£5.20) in 2019.

Meanwhile, premium loungers will climb from €30 to €45 (almost £40) per day.

However, a picture on the sands of Cala Major reveals prices of premium loungers are as high as €70 (£60.87).

One of the few items to avoid a rise is the foldable canvas parasol, which remains at €30 (£26.12).

Along with the rise in cost of sunloungers, the number of them has actually been reduced.

In mid-2025, the Palma de Mallorca council announced it was planning to remove nearly 1,700 sun loungers from its beaches by 2026.

This is to increase free space for locals and address complaints about overtourism.

The reduction of sunbeds will be on Palma’s four main beaches; Playa de Palma, Cala Major, Ciutat Jardi and Cala Stancia.

The one with the largest reduction will be on Playa de Palma – the number of sunbeds will decrease from 6,000 to 4,436.

Another of its beaches, Can Pere Antoni, which isn’t managed by Palma council, will also have its sunbeds reduced from 200 to 94.

According to Mallorca Zeitung, the council also plans to let beachgoers reserve loungers and umbrellas via an online app by 2027.

Plus, one writer said they found the best kept secret in Majorca which was right by my hotel.

And this Balearic resort town is billing itself as a great winter sun destination – with £15 flights & 25C highs.

Connor Cipolla, an Eaton wildfire survivor, last year praised Southern California Edison’s plan of burying more than 60 miles of electric lines in Altadena as it rebuilds to reduce the risk of fire.

Then he learned he would have to pay $20,000 to $40,000 to connect his home, which was damaged by smoke and ash, to Edison’s new underground line. A nearby neighbor received an estimate for $30,000, he said.

“Residents are so angry,” Cipolla said. “We were completely blindsided.”

Other residents have tracked the wooden stakes Edison workers put up, showing where crews will dig. They’ve found dozens of places where deep trenches are planned under oak and pine trees that survived the fire. In addition to the added costs they face, they fear many trees will die as crews cut their roots.

“The damage is being done now and it’s irreversible,” homeowner Robert Steller said, pointing Maiden Lane to where an Edison crew was working.

For a week, Steller, who lost his home in the fire, parked his Toyota 4Runner over a recently dug trench. He said he was trying to block Edison’s crew from burying a large transformer between two towering deodar cedar trees. The work would “be downright fatal” to the decades-old trees, he said.

Altadena resident Robert Steller stands in front of his Toyota 4Runner that he parked strategically to prevent a Southern California Edison crew from digging too close to two towering cedar trees.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

The buried lines are an upgrade that will make Altadena’s electrical grid safer and more reliable, Edison says, and it also will lower the risk that the company would have to black out Altadena neighborhoods during dangerous Santa Ana winds to prevent fires.

Brandon Tolentino, an Edison vice president, said the company was trying to find government or charity funding to help homeowners pay to connect to the buried lines. In the meantime, he said, Edison decided to allow owners of homes that survived the fire to keep their overhead connections until financial help was available.

Tolentino added that the company planned meetings to listen to residents’ concerns, including about the trees. He said crews were trained to stop work when they find tree roots and switch from using a backhoe to digging by hand to protect them.

“We’re minimizing the impact on the trees as we [put lines] underground or do any work in Altadena,” he said.

Although placing cables underground is a fire prevention measure, consumer advocates point out it’s not the most cost-effective step Edison can take to reduce the risk.

Undergrounding electric wires can cost more than $6 million per mile, according to the state Public Utilities Commission, far more than building overhead wires.

Because utility shareholders put up part of the money needed to pay for burying the lines, the expensive work means they will earn more profit. Last year, the commission agreed Edison investors could earn an annual return of 10.03% on that money.

Edison said in April it would spend as much as $925 million to underground and rebuild its grid in Altadena and Malibu, where the Palisades fire caused devastation. That amount of construction spending will earn Edison and its shareholders more than $70 million in profit before taxes — an amount billed to electric customers — in the first year, according to calculations by Mark Ellis, the former chief economist for Sempra, the parent company of Southern California Gas and San Diego Gas & Electric.

That annual return will continue over the decades while slowly decreasing each year as the assets are depreciated, Ellis said.

“They’re making a nice profit on this,” he said.

Tolentino said the company wasn’t doing the work to profit.

“The primary reason for undergrounding is the wildfire mitigation,” he said. “Our focus is supporting the community as they rebuild.”

It’s unclear if the Eaton fire would have been less disastrous if Altadena’s neighborhood power lines had been buried. The blaze ignited under Edison’s towering transmission lines that run down the mountainside in Eaton Canyon. Those lines carry bulk power through Edison’s territory. The power lines being put underground are the smaller distribution lines, which carry power to homes.

A power line outside the home of Altadena resident Connor Cipolla.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

The investigation into the fire’s cause has not yet been released. Edison says a leading theory is that one of the Eaton Canyon transmission lines, which hadn’t carried power for 50 years, might have briefly reenergized, sparking the blaze. The fire killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes, businesses and other structures.

Edison said it has no plans to bury those transmission lines.

The high cost of undergrounding has become a contentious issue in Sacramento because, under state rules, most or all of it is billed to all customers of the utility.

Before the Eaton fire, Edison won praise from consumer advocates by installing insulated overhead wires that sharply cut the risk of the lines sparking a fire for a fraction of the cost. Since 2019, the company has installed more than 6,800 miles of the insulated wires.

“A dollar spent reconductoring with covered conductor provides … over four times as much value in wildfire risk mitigation as a dollar spent on underground conversion,” Edison said in testimony before the utilities commission in 2018.

By comparison, Pacific Gas & Electric has relied more on undergrounding its lines to reduce the risk of fire, pushing up customer utility bills. Now Edison has shifted to follow PG&E’s example.

Mark Toney, executive director of the the Utility Reform Network, a consumer group in San Francisco, said his staff estimates Edison spends $4 million per mile to underground wires compared with $800,000 per mile for installing insulated lines.

By burying more lines, customer bills and Edison’s profits could soar, Toney said.

“Five times the cost is equal to five times the profit,” he said.

Last spring, Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, told Gov. Gavin Newsom about the company’s undergrounding plans in a letter. Pizarro wrote that rules at the utility commission would require Altadena and Malibu homeowners to pay to underground the electric wire from their property line to the panel on their house. He estimated it would cost $8,000 to $10,000 for each home.

Residents who need to dig long trenches may pay far more than that, said Cipolla, who is a member of the Altadena Town Council.

An oak tree stands tall in an area impacted by the Eaton fires. Homeowners worry such trees could be at risk in the undergrounding work.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Last week, Cipolla showed a reporter the electrical panel on the back of his house, which is many yards away from where he needs to connect to Edison’s line. The company also initially wanted him to dig up the driveway he poured seven years ago, he said. Edison later agreed to a location that avoids the driveway.

Tolentino said Edison’s crews were working with homeowners concerned about the company’s planned locations for the buried lines.

“We understand it is a big cost and we’re looking at different sources to help them,” he said.

At the same time, some residents are fuming that, despite the undergrounding work, most of the town’s neighborhoods still will have overhead telecommunications lines. In other areas of the state, the telecommunications companies have worked with the electric utilities to bury all the lines, eliminating the visual clutter.

So far, the telecom companies have agreed to underground only a fraction of their lines in Altadena, Tolentino said.

Cipolla said Edison executives told him they eventually plan to chop off the top of new utility poles the company installed after the fire, leaving the lower portion that holds the telecom lines.

“There is no beautification aspect to it whatsoever,” Cipolla said.

As for the trees, Steller and other residents are asking Edison to adjust its construction map to avoid digging near those that remain after the fire. Altadena lost more than half of its tree cover in the blaze and as crews cleared lots of debris.

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1. A pedestrian walks past Christmas Tree lane in Altadena. Christmas Tree Lane was officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. 2. A “We Love Altadena” sign hangs from a shrub on Christmas Tree Lane. 3. Parts of a chopped down tree rest on a street curb in Altadena.

Wynne Wilson, a fire survivor and co-founder of Altadena Green, pointed out that the lot across the street from the giant cedar trees on Maiden Lane has no vegetation, making it a better place for Edison’s transformer.

“This is needless,” Wilson said. “People are dealing with so much. Is Edison thinking we won’t fight over this?”

Carolyn Hove, raising her voice to be heard over the crew operating a jackhammer in front of her home, asked: “How much more are we supposed to go through?”

Hove said she doesn’t blame the crews of subcontractors the utility hired, but Edison’s management.

“It’s bad enough our community was decimated by a fire Edison started,” she said. “We’re still very traumatized, and then to have this happen.”

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom sat onstage at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday and described one of the primary ways he is responding as the Trump administration shifts federal climate priorities.

“I’m showing up,” he said.

In recent months, that has meant trips to Brazil, Switzerland and now Germany, where he has repeatedly positioned California as a global climate partner. The travel has also revived a recurring question from critics and watchdog groups: Who pays for those trips?

In many cases, the costs are not borne by taxpayers. The governor’s office said his international travel is paid for by the California State Protocol Foundation, a nonprofit that is funded primarily by corporate donations and run by a board Newsom appoints.

For decades, California governors have relied on nonprofits to pick up the tab for official travel, diplomatic events and other costs that would otherwise be paid with taxpayer funds.

“The Foundation’s mission is to lessen the burden on California taxpayers by reimbursing appropriate expenses associated with advancing the state’s economic and diplomatic interests,” said Jason Elliott, a former high-ranking advisor to Newsom, who the governor added to the foundation’s board.

While the arrangement helps the state’s pocketbook, critics say it is another avenue for corporate interests to gain influence.

“The problem with the protocol foundation and others like it is that donors to these foundations receive access to the politicians whose travel they fund,” said Carmen Balber, executive director of the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.

When did nonprofits start paying for gubernatorial travel?

The protocol foundation was created as a tax-exempt charity during Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration in 2004.

Similar nonprofits have existed since Gov. George Deukmejian created one in the 1980s. In the early 2000s, Gov. Gray Davis dramatically increased the use of nonprofits to cover travel, housing and political events.

When Schwarzenegger left office, his supporters turned the protocol foundation over to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s backers, who in turn handed it over to Newsom’s camp. The foundation describes its mission in federal tax filings as “relieving the State of California of its obligations to fund certain expenditures of the Governor’s Office.”

Newsom appoints members to the foundation board, which then is responsible for determining what expenses to cover in the governor’s office. In its most recent tax filing covering 2024, the foundation lists its board chair as Steve Kawa, who served as Newsom’s chief of staff when he was mayor of San Francisco. The foundation’s secretary in those filings is Jim DeBoo, who was Newsom’s chief of staff in the governor’s office until 2022.

The foundation reported total revenue of $1.3 million in 2024 and, after expenses, had a balance of less than $8,000.

What is the foundation paying for?

Publicly available records are vague, but annual financial disclosure forms show the foundation paid more than $13,000 for the governor’s 2024 trip to Italy, where he delivered a speech on climate change at the Vatican.

That same year, the foundation paid nearly $4,000 for his trip to Mexico City to attend the inauguration of Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum. The cost of both trips included flights, hotel and meals for his “official travel,” according to the disclosure records, which are filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission and known as Form 700s.

Newsom has reported receiving $72,000 in travel, staff picnics and holiday events from the protocol foundation since he took office in 2019, according to the disclosures.

The foundation paid $15,200 for the governor’s 2023 trip to China, where he visited five cities in seven days during an agenda packed with meetings, sightseeing and celebrations, including a private tour of the Forbidden City.

In 2020, the foundation paid $8,800 for Newsom to travel to Miami for Super Bowl LIV — where he said he was representing the state as the San Francisco 49ers faced the Kansas City Chiefs.

The governor’s office said it did not yet have the amount picked up by the foundation for Newsom’s travel to Brazil to attend the United Nations climate summit known as COP30 or to Switzerland for the World Economic Summit.

Who are the donors behind the foundation?

In some cases, the well-heeled funders behind the foundation’s cash flow are easy to identify on state websites.

Donations to the foundation that are solicited directly or indirectly by Newsom are recorded with the Fair Political Practices Commission as behested payments. A behested payment occurs when an elected official solicits or suggests that a person or organization give to another person or organization for a legislative, governmental or charitable purpose.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation donated $300,000 in a 2023 behested payment earmarked for the California delegation traveling to China for the meetings on climate change. UC Berkeley gave $220,000 for the governor’s office’s trip to the Vatican in 2024.

Most donations simply indicate that they are directed for “general operating support” of the foundation. That includes two donations from the Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company Zoox Inc. cumulatively worth $80,000.

Two charities set up to pay for Newsom’s inaugurations in 2019 and 2023 moved more than $5 million to the protocol foundation since 2019. The financial backers behind those inaugural charities include powerful unions, corporations, tribal casino interests, trade associations and healthcare giants — organizations with significant financial stakes in state policy decisions.

Past spending by the foundation has been criticized

During Schwarzenegger’s administration, his office avoided fully disclosing $1.7 million in travel costs paid for by the foundation, instead relying on vague internal memos and, in some cases, oral accounting, according to a 2007 Los Angeles Times investigation.

Schwarzenegger’s expenses picked up by the foundation included leased Gulfstream jets costing up to $10,000 per hour and suites going for thousands of dollars a night. The Times’ investigation found among the costs was $353,000 for a single round trip to China on a private jet in 2005.

The foundation also paid for Schwarzenegger’s travels to Japan, Europe, Canada and Mexico.

At the time, Schwarzenegger’s representatives told The Times the governor did not have to report the travel costs on his annual disclosure forms because the payments for the jets and suites were gifts to his office, not to him.

Newsom’s office said the governor travels commercially, not on private jets.

MILAN — He popped the quad axel. He stumbled across the ice. He tried to hide the pained expression.

Ilia Malinin fell apart in the men’s free skate, tumbling from near lock to win the gold medal to eighth place after a disastrous performance Friday. After his music ended, Malinin covered his anguished face. He put his hands on his knees, shook his head in disbelief and scrunched his face, hoping to hold back the tears.

It was the first time since November 2023 that he hadn’t won a competition.

“I just thought that all I needed to do was go out there and trust the process that I’ve always been doing with every competition,” Malinin said with tear-stained cheeks. “But, of course, it’s not like any other competition. It’s the Olympics.”

American Ilia Malinin reacts after stumbling through the men’s singles free skate at the Winter Olympics on Friday in Milan.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Malinin skated four times at the Milan-Cortina Games, helping the United States to a team gold medal with a clutch free skate that clinched the one-point win. But the 21-year-old had just one clean skate in his first Games experience. He explained his slow start during the team event as “Olympic nerves.”

There was no explaining away Friday’s flop.

“I think people only realize the pressure and the nerves that actually happen from the inside,” said Malinin, whose technical advantage was supposed to be insurmountable for his opponents. “It was really just something that overwhelmed me. I just felt like I had no control.”

After Malinin’s score was announced, Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov covered his mouth in shock. He was the new Olympic champion. Shaidorov claimed his country’s first Olympic gold in figure skating. His coach held his arm up like a boxing champion as a legion of Kazakh fans seated in the corner above the kiss-and-cry booth where skaters wait for their score waved their country’s teal and yellow flags. Malinin hugged him. He pointed to Shaidorov’s chest.

“You deserve it,” Malinin said.

Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama shook off several falls in his program to fight for his second consecutive Olympic silver. His countryman Shun Sato was in tears after learning he took the bronze.

Ilia Malinin’s father, Roman Skorniakov, reacts during his son’s performance at the men’s singles free skate at the Winter Olympics on Friday in Milan.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The United States’ Andrew Torgashev finished 12th with his season’s best 259.06-point total. Maxim Naumov stumbled through several jumps in his free skate to finish 20th overall with a 223.36 point total. The 24-year-old who lost both parents in a plane crash last year earned a standing ovation from actor Jeff Goldblum, who was in the stands behind the judges.

As the groups progressed toward the medal contenders, the crowd filled Milano Ice Skating Arena to the brim. Fans in suites in the rafters leaned over glass panes to get a better look. Volunteers and arena workers stood at the top of the concourse with no open seats left to claim.

While rising to the top of the sport with his stunning jumps and crowd-pleasing backflip, Malinin said his mission was to boost the popularity of figure skating to get this kind of attention outside of just the Olympic stage.

But standing at the center of the ice as fans waved U.S. flags from every corner, Malinin, the “Quad God” who looked invincible just three months ago when he became the first person to land seven quadruple jumps in one program, felt scared.

“Especially going into that starting pose, I just felt like all the just traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding my head,” Malinin said. “It was just like so many negative thoughts that just flooded into there, and I just did not handle it.”

He started off the program with a strong quad flip. Then he bailed mid-air on his signature quad axel that he had yet to attempt in the Olympics. The crowd gasped. Panic started when Malinin downgraded a planned quadruple loop to a double two jumps later.

American Ilia Malinin falls while competing in the men’s singles free skate at the Winter Olympics in Milan on Friday.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Behind the boards, his father and coach, Roman Skorniakov covered his face. Coach Rafael Arutyunyan, who has worked with Malinin part-time since 2021, paced back and forth. He hit the padded boards for encouragement before Malinin lined up for a three-jump combination.

Malinin fell again.

The program couldn’t end soon enough just to allow the 21-year-old a chance to hide after years of being in the spotlight as the presumed next Olympic champion.

“Being the Olympic gold hopeful is really just a lot to deal with,” Malinin said, “especially for my age.”

Malinin’s free skate music includes self-narrated voiceovers telling the story of his personal journey growing in the sport. As it begins, he uncovers his face. His words echo over the speakers.“The only true wisdom,” Malinin says in the program, “is in knowing you know nothing.”

After this result, that couldn’t be more true.

SACRAMENTO — As massive federal cuts are upending the healthcare system in California, analysts and healthcare professionals are urging state lawmakers to soften the blow by creating new revenue streams and helping residents navigate through the newly-imposed red tape.

“It impacts not only uninsured but also Medicare and commercially insured patients who rely on the same system,” said Dolly Goel, a physician and chief officer for the Santa Clara Valley Healthcare Administration. “People will die.”

Goel was among more than a dozen speakers this week at a state Assembly Health Committee hearing held to collect input on how to address cuts enacted by a Republican-backed tax and spending bill signed last year by President Trump. The committee’s Republican members — Assemblymembers Phillip Chen of Yorba Linda, Natasha Johnson of Lake Elsinore, Joe Patterson of Rockin, and Kate Sanchez of Trabuco Canyon — did not attend.

The so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” passed by Republicans shifts federal funding away from safety-net programs and toward tax cuts and immigration enforcement. A recent report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which advises the state Legislature on budgetary issues, estimated this will reduce funding for healthcare by “tens of billions of dollars” in California and warned about 1.2 million people could lose coverage through Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the federal Medicaid program providing healthcare coverage to low-income Americans.

Congress allowed enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire, which is dramatically increasing the cost of privately-purchased health insurance. Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, estimates hundreds of thousands of Californians will either be stripped of coverage or drop out due to increased cost.

Sandra Hernández, president of the California Health Care Foundation, said the federal legislation creates administrative hurdles, requiring Medicaid beneficiaries to meet new work or income requirements and to undergo the eligibility re-determination process every six months instead of annually.

“We are looking at a scenario where otherwise eligible working parents lose their coverage simply because they aren’t able to navigate a complex verification process in a timely way,” she said.

California should move aggressively to automate verification instead of putting the burden of proof on beneficiaries, Hernández said. She advised legislators to center new healthcare strategies around technology, like artificial intelligence and telehealth services, to improve efficiency and keep costs down.

“While the federal landscape has shifted, California has enormous power to mitigate the damage,” said Hernández. “California has had a long tradition of taking care of its own.”

Hannah Orbach-Mandel, an analyst with the California Budget and Policy Center, said legislators should establish new revenue sources.

“A common sense place to start is by eliminating corporate tax loopholes and ensuring that highly profitable corporations pay their fair share in state taxes,” she said, adding that California loses out on billions annually because of the “water’s edge” tax provision, which allows multinational corporations to exclude the income of their foreign subsidiaries from state taxation.

One proposal to raise money for state healthcare benefits already is raising controversy. Under the Billionaire Tax Act, Californians worth more than $1 billion would pay a one-time 5% tax on their total wealth. The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the union behind the act, said the measure would raise much-needed money for healthcare, education and food assistance programs. It is opposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, among others.

During last week’s legislative hearing in Sacramento, other speakers stressed the importance of communicating clearly with the public, collaborating with nonprofits and county governments and bracing for an influx of hospital patients.

Those who lose health insurance will skip medications and primary care and subsequently get sicker and end up in the emergency room, explained Goel. She said this will strain hospital staff and lead to longer wait times and delayed care for all patients.

The federal cuts come at a time when California is struggling with its own budgetary woes. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates the state will have an $18-billion budget shortfall in the upcoming fiscal year.

At the start of the hearing, Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Alameda) criticized the federal government for leaving states in the lurch and prioritizing immigration enforcement over healthcare.

The Republican-led Congress and the president provided a staggering funding increase to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. The agency’s annual budget has ballooned to $85 billion.

“The federal dollars which once supported healthcare for working families are now being funneled into mass deportation operations,” said Bonta, who chairs the committee. “Operations that resulted in tragic murders — this is where our healthcare funding is going.”

In a state that’s home to nearly 40 million people and the fourth largest economy in the world, the race for California governor has been lost in the shadow of President Trump’s combustible return to office and, thus far, the absence of a candidate charismatic enough to break out of the pack.

For the first time in recent history, there is no clear front-runner with less than five months before the June primary election.

“This is the most wide-open governor’s race we’ve seen in California in more than a quarter of a century,” said Dan Schnur, a political communications professor who teaches at USC, Pepperdine and UC Berkeley. “We’ve never seen a multicandidate field with so little clarity and such an absence of anything even resembling a front-runner.

“There’s no precedent in the modern political era for a campaign that’s this crowded,” Schnur said.

Opinion polls bear this out, with more voters saying they are undecided or coalescing behind any of the dozen prominent candidates who have announced bids.

Former Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) led the field with the support of 21% of respondents in a survey of likely voters by the Public Policy Institute of California released in December. Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, also a Democrat, and former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton, a Republican, won the support of 14% of poll respondents. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, also a member of the GOP, won the backing of 10%, while everyone else in the field was in the single digits, though some Democratic candidates who recently entered the race were not included.

Recent gubernatorial campaigns have been dominated by larger-than-life personalities — global superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger, eBay billionaire Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown, the scion of a storied California political family.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who vaulted into the national spotlight after championing same-sex marriage while he was mayor of San Francisco, has become a national force in Democratic politics and is pondering a 2028 presidential run. Newsom won handily in the 2018 and 2022 races for California governor, and easily defeated a recall attempt during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is barred from running again due to term limits.

Porter cheekily alluded to California’s political power dynamic at a labor forum earlier this month.

“Look, we’ve had celebrity governors. We’ve had governors who are kids of other governors, and we’ve had governors who look hot with slicked back hair and barn jackets. You know what?” Porter said at an SEIU forum in January. “We haven’t had a governor in a skirt. I think it’s just about … time.”

Gubernatorial contests in the state routinely attract national attention. But the 2026 contest has not.

Despite California being at the center of many policies emanating from the Trump administration, notably the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, this year’s gubernatorial race has been overshadowed. Deadly wildfires, immigration raids, and an esoteric yet expensive battle about redrawing congressional districts are among the topics that dominated headlines in the state last year.

Additionally, the race was frozen as former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso weighed entering the contest. All opted against running for governor, leaving the field in flux. San José Mayor Matt Mahan’s entry into the race on Thursday — relatively late to mount a gubernatorial campaign — exemplifies the unsettled nature of the race.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in San José, but getting to the next level requires bold leadership in Sacramento that’s going to take on the status quo,” Mahan said in an interview before he announced his campaign. ”I have not heard anyone in the current field explain how they’re going to help us in San José and other cities across the state end unsheltered homelessness, implement Prop. 36 [a 2024 ballot measure that increased penalties for certain drug and theft crimes], get people into treatment, bring down the cost of housing, the cost of energy.”

A critical question is who donors decide to back in a state that is home to the most expensive media markets in the nation. Candidates have to file fundraising reports on Feb. 2, data that will indicate who is viable.

“I know from first-hand experience that there comes a day when a candidacy is no longer sustainable because of a lack of resources,” said Garry South, a veteran Democratic strategist who has worked on national and state campaigns.

“You have to pay the bills to keep the lights on, let alone having enough cash to communicate with our more than 23 million registered voters,” he added. “They don’t have much time to do it. The primary is just months away.”

The state Democratic and Republican conventions are quickly approaching. A Republican may be able to win the GOP endorsement, but it’s unlikely a Democrat will be able to secure their party’s nod because of the large number of candidates in the race.

Political observers expect some Democratic candidates who have meager financial resources and little name identification among the electorate to be pressured to drop out of the race by party leaders so that the party can consolidate support behind a viable candidate.

But others buck the orthodoxy, arguing that the candidates need to show they have a message that resonates with Californians.

“There’s a lack of excitement,” Democratic strategist Hilda Delgado said. “Right now is really about the core issues that will unify Californians and that’s why it’s important to choose a leader that is going to … give people hope. Because there’s a lot of, I don’t want to say depression, but hopelessness.”

Jan. 28 (UPI) — Deploying National Guard and other military troops in U.S. cities cost taxpayers nearly $500 million in the second half of 2025, the Congressional Budget Office reported Wednesday.

The cost breakdown includes the cost to activate, deploy and pay National Guard personnel; related operational, logistical and sustainment costs; and other direct and indirect costs of deploying National Guard and other military units, such as the U.S. Marine Corps, the CBO report shows.

Since June, the CBO said the Trump administration deployed National Guard troops and active-duty Marines to the nation’s capital, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis and Portland, Ore.

The administration also kept 200 National Guard personnel deployed in Texas after they left Chicago.

“CBO estimates that those deployments (excluding the one to New Orleans, which occurred at the end of the year) cost a total of approximately $496 million through the end of December 2025,” the CBO said in a letter to Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

“The costs of those or other deployments in the future are highly uncertain, mainly because the scale, length and location of such deployments are difficult to predict accurately,” the CBO said.

“That uncertainty is compounded by legal challenges, which have stopped deployments to some cities, and by changes in the administration’s policies.”

Merkley is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Budget and asked the CBO to provide a cost breakdown of National Guard deployments in U.S. cities.

“The American people deserve to know how many hundreds of millions of their hard-earned dollars have been and are being wasted on Trump’s reckless and haphazard deployment of National Guard troops to Portland and cities across the country,” Merkley said Wednesday in a prepared statement.

The CBO further estimated the cost for continuing such deployments would be $93 million per month, including between $18 million and $21 million per month per city to deploy 1,000 National Guardsmen in 2026.

The cost breakdown includes healthcare, military pay and benefits, plus lodging, food and transportation costs.

“CBO does not expect the military to incur significant costs to operate and maintain equipment during domestic deployments,” the report said.

“So far, such deployments appear to mainly involve foot patrols conducted by small units, without the extensive types of supporting forces or heavy equipment associated with operations in combat zones.”

CBO officials also do not expect the Department of Defense to incur new equipment costs for the deployments.

The U.S. Air Force general who oversees America’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force sees a long future ahead for the new LGM-35A Sentinel after it eventually enters service. At the same time, he has acknowledged challenges surrounding the Sentinel program, which is still being restructured nearly two years after huge cost overruns triggered a full review. Northrop Grumman, the prime contractor for the missile, says it is now working with the Air Force to try to re-accelerate the program, which is now years, if not decades, behind schedule.

Air Force Gen. Stephen Davis, head of Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC), recently discussed Sentinel, as well as the existing Minuteman III ICBMs the new missile is set to replace, among other topics, with TWZ‘s Howard Altman. This was Davis’ first interview since taking command of AFGSC in November.

Today, there are 400 Minuteman IIIs loaded in silos spread across five states. The Air Force’s goal is to replace them, one-for-one, with new Sentinels. In 2020, the Air Force declared Northrop Grumman as the winner of the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) competition that led to Sentinel.

“Sentinel is probably the biggest program going on in the Department of War right now, certainly in the Department of the Air Force,” Davis said. “Sentinel brings some important new capabilities that we actually have to deliver for the warfighter, for USSTRATCOM [U.S. Strategic Command].”

Much about the new LGM-35A is classified. The Air Force and Northrop Grumman have talked broadly in the past about it offering greater range and improved accuracy, as well as reliability and sustainability benefits, over the aging Minuteman IIIs. The stated plan is for each Sentinel to carry a single W87-1 nuclear warhead inside a Mk 21A re-entry vehicle, but that loading may change in the future, as you can read more about here.

Enabling Peace Through Deterrence

Gen. Davis also called attention to the benefits that are expected to come from Sentinel’s use of open-architecture systems and a supporting infrastructure that is more digital in nature. In general, open architectures, especially software-defined ones, are intended to make it easier to integrate new and improved capabilities and functionality down the line.

“I think Sentinel is going to be a bit easier with some of the things we’re designing into the program, the digital infrastructure, the open architecture,” Davis said. “I think it will make it easier to upgrade and keep that missile relevant. I don’t have any worries about being able to do that in the future.”

The Minuteman III, also known by the designation LGM-30G, first entered operational service in 1970. The missiles, as well as their supporting infrastructure, have received incremental upgrades since then. The design is an evolution of the earlier Minuteman I and II types that entered service in the 1960s. The Air Force did field a newer ICBM, the LGM-118 Peacekeeper, in the 1980s, but withdrew the last of those missiles from service in 2005 as a result of U.S.-Russian arms control agreements. 

LGM-118 MX Peacekeeper ICBM

“We have the challenge of continuing to sustain Minuteman III until we can get Sentinel up online,” Davis said. “We’ve continued to modernize that to keep it relevant. It will continue to sustain it until Sentinel comes on.”

The original program timeline for the Sentinel called for it to begin entering service in 2029. The Minuteman III would continue to serve into 2036 as the Air Force transitioned fully to the new missile.

What the current timeline for Sentinel is now is unknown. In 2024, delays and cost overruns triggered a formal legal requirement for a review of the program, referred to as a Nunn-McCurdy breach, as you can read more about here. This, in turn, prompted an effort to restructure the program that was expected to take 18 to 24 months. At that time, the Pentagon’s Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) projected the total acquisition costs could soar to approximately $140.9 billion, an 81 percent increase over the original estimates, even with the restructuring.

Even then, it had begun to emerge that the bulk of the issues with the Sentinel program were tied to the ground-based infrastructure rather than the missile itself. It has since become clear that the Air Force did not have a full understanding of the magnitude of the physical construction that would be required. This has been compounded by the determination that reusing existing Minuteman III silos is no longer viable, and that entirely new silos will have to be built.

The understanding that it would be possible to reuse substantial parts of the existing Minuteman III infrastructure factored heavily into the original basing plan for Sentinel. The Air Force had considered and rejected a wide range of alternatives, including launchers positioned at the bottom of lakes or in tunnels.

With the Nunn-McCurdy breach, the timeline for replacing Minuteman III has fallen into limbo, at least publicly. Last September, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional watchdog, released a report saying the Air Force was considering options for extending the service life of Minuteman III out as far as 2050.

During a quarterly earnings call today, Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden discussed Sentinel and said that the restructuring effort is still underway, creating continued timeline uncertainty.

“We are in the middle of supporting the U.S. Air Force as they restructure the Sentinel Program,” Warden said. “Coming out of that, they will firm [up] a schedule that both locks in new time ranges for milestone B [entry into the engineering and manufacturing development phase], initial operating capability, final operating capability.”

“I don’t want to get ahead of the Air Force in talking about that, but certainly, as I have shared, and the Air Force has, as well, we are working to accelerate the timelines that were published coming out of the Nunn-McCurdy breach two years ago,” she continued. “So that is the goal, and we’re making good progress to identifying options to do so. We still believe that the program will be in development for several years and not transitioning into production until later in the decade, and that production will very much be guided by the milestone achievement during development.”

Overall, the Air Force and Pentagon leadership continue to view the Sentinel program as a top national security imperative. The announcement of the GBSD effort to replace Minuteman III and the selection of Northrop Grumman’s design had prompted new discussions about the utility of the ground-based leg of America’s nuclear triad. As it stands now, the primary purpose of America’s silo-based ICBMs is to act as a ‘warhead sponge’ that would force any opponent to expend substantial resources on trying to neutralize it in a future nuclear exchange. It also stands as the fastest nuclear response option in the Pentagon’s strategic portfolio. A the same time, the deterioration in the security situation around the globe, with China drastically expanding its nuclear arsenal and Russia at war with its neighbor in Europe, among other proliferation and strategic weapons development concerns, have bolstered the case for Sentinel and nuclear modernization as a whole.

As AFGSC’s Gen. Davis has now told us, the hope is also that the benefits the Sentinels will bring when they finally do enter service will ensure they remain on guard for decades to come.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com