gaining

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Republican legislative leaders completed their remapping of the state’s U.S. House districts on Wednesday, intent on picking up one more seat to help President Trump’s efforts to retain GOP control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

The new boundaries approved by the state House could thwart the reelection of Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis, who currently represents more than 20 northeastern counties. The state Senate already approved the plan in a party-line vote on Tuesday.

Republicans hold majorities in both General Assembly chambers, and Democratic Gov. Josh Stein is unable under state law to use his veto stamp on redistricting maps. So the GOP’s proposal can now be implemented unless likely litigation by Democrats or voting rights advocates stops it. Candidate filing for 2026 is scheduled to begin Dec. 1.

Republican lawmakers made the intent of their proposed changes crystal clear — it’s an attempt to satisfy Trump’s call for GOP-led states to secure more seats for the party nationwide, so that Congress can continue advancing his agenda. Democrats have responded with rival moves in blue states. A president’s party historically loses seats in midterm elections, and Democrats currently need just three more seats to flip House control.

“The new congressional map improves Republican political strength in eastern North Carolina and will bring in an additional Republican seat to North Carolina’s congressional delegation,” GOP Rep. Brenden Jones said during a debate that Republicans cut off after an hour.

Democratic state Rep. Gloristine Brown, an African American who represents an eastern North Carolina county, made an impassioned floor speech in opposition, saying “You are silencing Black voices and are going against the will of your constituents.”

“North Carolina is a testing ground for the new era of Jim Crow laws,” Brown said.

Republican-led Texas and Missouri already have revised their U.S. House districts to try to help Republicans win additional seats. Democratic-led California reciprocated by asking the state’s voters to approve a map revised to elect more Democrats, and Jones accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of ramping up the redistricting fight.

“We will not let outsiders tell us how to govern, and we will never apologize for doing exactly what the people of this state has elected us to do,” Jones said.

North Carolina’s replacement map would exchange several counties in Davis’ current 1st District with another coastal district. Statewide election data suggests this would favor Republicans winning 11 of 14 House seats, up from the 10 they now hold, in a state where Trump got 51% of the popular vote in 2024.

Davis is one of North Carolina’s three Black representatives. Map critics suggested this latest GOP map could be challenged as an illegal racial gerrymander in a district that has included several majority Black counties, electing African Americans to the U.S. House continuously since 1992.

Davis is already vulnerable — he won his second term by less than 2 percentage points, and the 1st District was one of 13 nationwide where both Trump and a Democratic House member was elected last year, according to the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Davis on Tuesday called the proposed map “beyond the pale.”

Hundreds of Democratic and liberal activists swarmed the legislative complex this week, blasting GOP legislators for doing Trump’s bidding with what they called a power grab through a speedy and unfair redistricting process.

“If you pass this, your legacy will be shredding the Constitution, destroying democracy,” Karen Ziegler with the grassroots group Democracy Out Loud, told senators this week. She accused the state GOP of “letting Donald Trump decide who represents the people of North Carolina.”

Democrats said this map is a racial gerrymander that will dismantle decades of voting rights progress in North Carolina’s “Black Belt” region. Republicans counter that no racial data was used in forming the districts, and the redrawing was based on political parties, not race.

Based on last week’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in a Louisiana redistricting case, the Democrats may lose this line of attack. A majority of justices appears willing to neuter a key tool of the Voting Rights Act that has protected political boundaries created to help Black and Latino residents elect favored candidates, who have tended to be Democrats.

State GOP leaders say Trump won North Carolina all three times that he’s run for president — albeit narrowly last year — and thus merits more GOP support in Congress. Senate leader Phil Berger called it appropriate “under the law and in conjunction with basically listening to the will of the people.”

Robertson writes for the Associated Press.

Google parent Alphabet‘s (GOOGL 1.13%) (GOOG 1.04%) stock received a boost from an unexpected source: the courts. The stock rose 8% on Sept. 3 after a federal district judge ruled it would not have to sell its Chrome browser.

Although it will have to share data with its rivals, investors saw this ruling as a win. Additionally, with the rising share price, the artificial intelligence (AI) stock seems to have gained momentum in earnest, possibly igniting a long-awaited bull market in Alphabet.

Image source: Alphabet.

The state of Alphabet

Perhaps one of the more surprising investment stories over the last two years is Alphabet’s perceived lack of AI success. It has utilized the technology since 2001 and was widely seen as an industry leader. However, the release of GPT-4 in early 2023 seemed to catch the Google parent off guard, and the release of Gemini did little to win back investor confidence.

The ruling ensures Chrome will remain a platform for Google’s AI. Still, with or without Chrome, Alphabet was still set to move away from digital ad revenue in favor of driving its growth from other technologies. While Google Cloud is the only major source of non-ad revenue right now, its other businesses, such as autonomous driving platform Waymo, could become significant AI-driven revenue sources.

Judging by its valuation, investors may have only begun to appreciate Alphabet’s potential recently. It trades at a 25 P/E ratio, up from a 16 earnings multiple on “Liberation Day” in early April. Although that is a significant gain, it still has the lowest valuation among “Magnificent Seven” stocks, indicating the stock is still a bargain.

GOOGL PE Ratio data by YCharts

Alphabet’s financials

That P/E ratio is arguably low when looking at Alphabet’s financial situation. Alphabet retains $95 billion in liquidity. Amid such optionality, it pledged $75 billion in capital expenditures (capex) for 2025, authorized a $70 billion share repurchase program, and raised its dividend.

It can afford to do all that because its digital ad business and Google Cloud have become major cash generators. In the first half of 2025, its $96 billion in revenue grew 14% from year-ago levels. Approximately 74% of revenue came from digital ads, down from 76% the previous year. Also, Google Cloud now makes up 14% of revenue for the year.

Additionally, costs and expenses increased by 11% during that time, lagging the revenue growth rate. Thus, its $63 billion in net income for the first two quarters of 2025 increased by 33% compared to the same period a year ago.

That is not much less than the $67 billion in free cash flow over the last 12 months. However, the difference is due to Alphabet’s heavy capex spending, which it subtracts out of the free cash flow calculation, and the fact that it can afford such levels of spending is a testament to the company’s financial strength.

Furthermore, despite negative perceptions, Alphabet stock has generally trended higher since the beginning of 2023. The latest surge of momentum came after the sell-off that culminated in Liberation Day.

Since the low in early April, Alphabet stock is up nearly 60%. When one also considers its massive cash reserves, rapidly rising profits, and low valuation, the momentum could easily continue.

Consider Alphabet stock

Amid a favorable antitrust ruling, Alphabet stock is gaining momentum.

Despite worries that it was behind in generative AI weighing on the stock, it has produced increasingly positive returns while retaining the lowest P/E ratio among the Magnificent Seven stocks.

The news that its browser will remain part of its AI strategy is a significant boost for this stock. Moreover, its cash reserves and ability to invest heavily in capex should keep it competitive in AI. Now that the antitrust ruling has added some certainty to its strategy, it is likely time to capitalize on the discounted valuation and consider buying Alphabet stock.

SACRAMENTO — After a long string of losses in California, the tobacco industry is on the verge of some rare victories as industry allies in the Legislature prepare to block new restrictions on smoking and perhaps even succeed in easing current laws.

Aiding the industry are Republican allies who control the Assembly and oppose new limits on tobacco. At the same time, the industry has shifted its political strategy, and it now doles out far more campaign money to Republican legislators than Democrats, especially in the Assembly.

Consider, for example, the Republican chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, Brett Granlund. A first-term lawmaker from Yucaipa, Granlund accepted a $20,000 check last month from Philip Morris Inc., the world’s largest cigarette maker. During his short tenure in Sacramento, Granlund has received at least $44,500 in campaign contributions from the tobacco industry.

In February, Granlund introduced a bill to make cigarette vending machines more accessible. The bill would weaken a new state law that bans cigarette vending machines anywhere other than in an estimated 5,000 bars in the state.

“I’ll take free enterprise over political correctness any time,” Granlund said in an interview.

Granlund’s bill, which faces its first committee vote today, would allow vending machines in up to 30,000 restaurants around the state and in factories. Supermarkets also could have vending machines, so long as the machines are equipped with locking devices, to guard against minors buying cigarettes.

“I am a free-enterprise, no-tax, smoker,” Granlund added. “It doesn’t matter if I’m chairing the Health Committee. Those [anti-smoking] people don’t have a right to tell everybody else how to live.”

While Granlund’s bill is not assured of passage, it represents a significant change from the days when Democrats controlled the Assembly. Democratic Health Committee chairmen made a practice of refusing tobacco industry campaign money, routinely voting against industry-backed bills, and carrying legislation aimed at restricting cigarette makers.

Under Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle, who selects committee members, every GOP health committee member accepts tobacco money, as do most Democratic members.

“Some of the legislative changes [to limit tobacco] swung the pendulum too far in one direction,” Pringle said, adding that he has “no hesitation” in taking tobacco money. He intends to oppose new anti-tobacco bills and support rollbacks of some restrictions. “That’s what our battle has been on a variety of business bills.”

Tobacco industry spokesmen and their lobbyists in Sacramento do not discuss strategy in any detail, but companies defend their political contributions. They say the money is not intended to buy influence, but rather to support lawmakers who side with them. Even though the tobacco industry has spent millions over the past decade on lobbying and campaigns in California, this state has led the nation in anti-tobacco efforts.

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It started in 1988 when voters approved Proposition 99, which added a 25-cent per pack tax on cigarettes. In 1994, Gov. Pete Wilson signed legislation making California the first state to ban smoking in restaurants and most other indoor workplaces. That same year, voters overwhelmingly rejected a 1994 tobacco industry-backed initiative to roll back the restrictions. Now, however, there are indications that California no longer is at the fore of the anti-tobacco fight:

* Seven states have sued the tobacco industry to recoup state money spent on smoking-related illnesses. California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren has balked at bringing a similar suit, though he is “monitoring” the litigation in other states, a spokesman for the Republican attorney general said.

Assemblyman John Burton (D-San Francisco) is pushing a resolution urging Lungren to sue the tobacco industry. But Pringle opposes such litigation, suggesting that Burton’s resolution may fail when it comes up for a vote.

“Isn’t this opening the door to [the state suing over] swimming pools, or automobiles, or second-story balconies, or child cribs?” Pringle asked.

* For three years running, Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature have tried to use a portion of the money raised by the 25-cent per pack cigarette tax for health programs not specifically related to tobacco. Anti-smoking activists have sued, and trial courts have ruled in their favor, saying that the money must be spent on anti-tobacco advertising, education and research.

Wilson has appealed those decisions, and he has no plans to spend $100 million of the disputed money until the cases are resolved. In his new budget, the governor has yet to allocate an additional $81 million in cigarette tax money. He intends to “look for the wisest investment of taxpayer dollars” before spending it, a Wilson spokesman said.

In past years, Democratic legislators agreed with Wilson on diverting the tobacco tax money to other health programs. But this year, Assembly Democratic Leader Richard Katz of Sylmar and state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) are carrying legislation to fully fund the anti-tobacco research and education programs.

* California’s anti-tobacco advertising program, funded by Proposition 99 money, once was the richest in the nation. The campaign was so aggressive that one tobacco company threatened to sue over a TV commercial, which featured clips of industry executives testifying before Congress that tobacco is not addictive. The ad campaign also has powerful critics in the Capitol.

“Taxpayer dollars should not be used to bash an industry,” Pringle said. “They should be used to provide health information, instead of making it a personal attack on an industry.”

State spending on the high-profile advertising effort has been frozen at $12 million annually for three years, or roughly 40 cents per Californian, down from a peak of $16 million.

Massachusetts now leads the few states that fund anti-tobacco ad campaigns, spending $14 million a year, or $2.33 per resident, according to a study by Connie Pechmann, associate professor of marketing at UC Irvine. Pechmann notes that the tobacco industry spends almost $1 billion a year on promotions and advertising.

* A provision of California’s landmark 1994 workplace smoking ban, which Wilson signed into law, is under attack. That provision required the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration to develop safe standards for secondhand tobacco smoke by 1997, or else the smoking ban would be extended to bars and casinos. However, the agency has concluded that setting a standard would be impossible.

Noting that strong fans and suction would be needed to clear bars and card rooms of smoke, Louis Bonsignore, spokesman for the Department of Industrial Relations, said, “You’d need cards made out of lead to stay on the table.”

Assemblyman Sal Cannella (D-Ceres) is carrying the bill to extend Cal-OSHA’s deadline for setting the standards to the year 2000. The bill appears to have significant support from lawmakers in both parties.

The tobacco industry, long among the largest campaign donors, gave most of its money to Democrats in the 1980s and early 1990s, during Democrat Willie Brown’s tenure as speaker. In his 15 years as speaker, Brown was by far the largest recipient of tobacco money in Sacramento, raising more than $500,000.

But starting in 1994, the flow of money has shifted. On the Sunday before the November 1994 election, Philip Morris gave $125,000 in a single donation to Republican Assembly candidate Steven T. Kuykendall of Rancho Palos Verdes.

Kuykendall used the money to help upset the Democratic incumbent, Betty Karnette, who was an anti-tobacco legislator. With Kuykendall’s victory, Republicans gained a 41-to-39 seat majority in the lower house.

Brown left the Legislature to become San Francisco mayor, and another large Democratic recipient of tobacco money, Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood), is leaving this year because of term limits.

Without Brown and Tucker, there will be only a handful of Assembly Democrats who take tobacco money. But as the number of friendly Democrats decreases, tobacco industry money increasingly finds its way to Republicans.

In 1995, Philip Morris gave $148,400 to Republicans who hold state office, compared to $83,000 to Democrats. A closer look shows that the difference is even more drastic. The company gave 37 of 41 Assembly Republicans a total of $85,000. Assembly Democrats got a total of $53,500, $50,000 of which went to Brown and Tucker.

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Although Democrats hold a majority in the state Senate, Philip Morris last year gave more to Senate Republicans–$34,665–versus $29,500 for Democrats. The company in 1995 gave $22,000 to Republicans who hold statewide office, including the attorney general, treasurer, insurance commissioner and secretary of state, but none to Democrats in statewide office, campaign finance reports show.

The same pattern held for R.J. Reynolds, the nation’s second-largest tobacco company. Reynolds gave a combined $8,000 to Tucker and Brown and $6,000 to other Assembly Democrats, versus $52,250 for Assembly Republicans in 1995. Altogether, Reynolds gave almost $80,000 to Republican state officials and $25,000 to Democrats.

Philip Morris would not discuss its political strategy. A spokeswoman for Reynolds said its “position is to support those candidates whose positions are similar to ours. That’s not surprising.”

Whether campaign money translates into legislative gains this year for the industry remains to be seen. At a minimum, though, chances of new anti-tobacco legislation making it out of Sacramento seem slim, especially in the Republican-controlled Assembly. Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) is pushing a bill to force state pension funds to divest themselves of tobacco stocks, valued at $750 million, but has little hope that it will survive its first committee vote this week.

Two years ago, Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood), a former Health Committee chairwoman, carried a bill signed into law by Wilson adding a two-cent per pack tax on cigarettes to fund breast cancer research. This year, she introduced bills to permit local government to tax cigarettes, and to bar tobacco companies from passing out cigarettes in promotions. But she has no plans to seek votes on the measures.

“I’m not taking up any bills on tobacco. It’s obvious they’re going to be killed,” Friedman said.

The Trump administration is forging ahead with a plan that is sure to fuel alarm across California’s immigrant communities: handing over the personal data of millions of Medicaid recipients to federal immigration officials who seek to track down people living in the U.S. illegally.

The huge trove of private information, which includes home addresses, social security numbers and ethnicities of 79 million Medicaid enrollees, will allow officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement greater latitude to locate immigrants they suspect are undocumented, according to an agreement signed this week between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security and obtained by the Associated Press.

“ICE will use the CMS data to allow ICE to receive identity and location information on aliens identified by ICE,” the agreement says.

The plan, which has not been announced publicly, is the latest step by the Trump administration to gather sensitive information about people living in the U.S. as it seeks to deliver on its pledge to crack down on illegal immigration and arrest 3,000 undocumented immigrants a day. It is certain to face legal challenges.

Critics have sounded the alarm ever since the Trump administration directed the CMS last month to send the DHS personal information on Medicaid enrollees, including non-U.S. citizens registered in state-funded programs in California, Illinois, Washington and Washington, D.C.

These states operate state-funded Medicaid programs for immigrants who are otherwise ineligible for federal Medicaid and had committed not to bill the federal government.

California Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff warned last month of potential violations of federal privacy laws as Trump officials made plans to share personal health data.

“These actions not only raise ethical issues but are contrary to longstanding HHS policy and raise significant concerns about possible violations of federal law,” the Senators wrote in a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz.

“We are deeply troubled that this administration intends to use individuals’ private health information for the unrelated purpose of possible enforcement actions targeting lawful noncitizens and mixed status families,” Padilla and Schiff said in a statement. “The decision by HHS to share confidential health information with DHS is a remarkable departure from established federal privacy protections that should alarm all Americans.”

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin declined to answer questions about whether immigration officials are now accessing the personal Medicaid data or how they plan to use it.

“President Trump consistently promised to protect Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “To keep that promise after Joe Biden flooded our country with tens of millions of illegal aliens CMS and DHS are exploring an initiative to ensure that illegal aliens are not receiving Medicaid benefits that are meant for law-abiding Americans.”

Undocumented immigrants are not permitted to enroll in Medicaid, a joint federal and state program that helps cover medical costs for low-income individuals. The program also limits benefits for other lawfully present immigrants, with some required to undergo waiting periods before they can receive coverage.

However, federal law requires states to offer emergency Medicaid, coverage that pays for lifesaving services in emergency rooms to everyone, including non-U.S. citizens.

A 2024 Congressional Budget Office report found that a total of $27 billion was spent on emergency Medicaid for non-citizens between 2017 and 2023. That number represents less than 1% of overall spending on Medicaid during that time period. Nevertheless, Trump and other federal leaders have pushed to reduce spending on Medicaid, alleging that undocumented immigrants have been taking advantage of the program.

Hannah Katch, a CMS advisor during the Biden administration who previously worked for California Medicaid, told The Times that the Trump administration’s plan to turn over Medicaid data represented “an incredible violation of trust.”

The data that states send to CMS has certain protections and requirements in statute and also by custom, Katch said. For CMS to share the information of Medicaid enrollees outside the agency, she said, would have a devastating impact on people who depend on emergency Medicaid to access critical care.

“Making people afraid to seek care when they are experiencing a medical emergency, or when their child is experiencing a medical emergency, it is an incredibly cruel action to take,” Katch said.

Elizabeth Laird, the director of equity in civic technology at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said the sharing of such data would further erode people’s trust in government.

“By turning over some of our most sensitive healthcare data to ICE, Health and Human Services has fundamentally betrayed the trust of almost 80 million people,” she said in a statement to The Times.

“This jaw-dropping development proves that the Administration’s claim of using this information to prevent fraud is a Trojan horse that instead will primarily advance their goal of deporting millions of people,” she said. “Over 90 percent of entitlement fraud is committed by U.S. citizens, underscoring the false pretense of sharing this information with ICE.”

The plan to share Medicaid data is not the first time the Trump administration has sought to share personal information across departments. In May, the Department of Agriculture told states they had to turn over data on the recipients of SNAP food benefits.

Last month, the California Medical Assn. warned that the Trump administration’s sharing of personal Medicaid data would put nearly 15 million patients and their families at risk statewide.

Dr. René Bravo, CMA’s president elect, said that sending sensitive patient information to deportation officials “will have a devastating impact on communities and access to care that all people need.”

“Our job is not protecting the borders, it’s protecting our patients and providing the best health care possible, “ Bravo said in a statement. “When patients come to us it’s often the most vulnerable times in their lives, and we offer a safe space for their care.”

Orange County’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs notified the public last month that the CMS had been directed to send DHS personal information of Medicaid enrollees, including non-citizens.

“This data, provided for the purpose of administering healthcare, may now be used to locate individuals for immigration enforcement or to challenge their future immigration applications,” the statement read.

The agency wrote that it had already heard of increased anxiety among clients who are fearful that their personal information could be used against them if they seek health care services.

“We are concerned this will further erode trust in public institutions and care providers,” the agency wrote.

Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who represents a large Latino population that includes Santa Ana and portions of Anaheim, said the families enrolled in Medi-Cal did so with the reasonable expectation their information would be kept private.

He called the action a “cruel breach” that erodes people’s trust in government.

“These actions discourage participation in healthcare and mean that some individuals may not seek needed medical services,” he said in a statement. “This hurts the overall community, creates serious public health concerns, and increases costs for our healthcare system.”

Jose Serrano, director of Orange County’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, said certain information about those who sign up for benefits has long been shared with the state, which passes it along to the federal government for research, funding and eligibility purposes.

“The one thing that is different during this time is that the information is being used against people, especially those who are immigrants,” he said.

The situation has already caused anxiety among immigrant populations in Orange County, Serrano said. Some have reached out to the agency asking whether they can un-enroll from programs or change their addresses for fear that they or their families may be targeted by immigration officials.

“The truth is immigrants spend more and invest more in our communities and the economy then they take away,” Serrano said, adding that it’s unfortunate that this medical information is “going to be used against the same families that are already investing in our communities through the taxes they pay on a yearly basis.”