April 6 (UPI) — Two Democratic lawmakers concluded a trip to Cuba on Monday by calling for the United States and Cuba to begin “real negotiations” and denouncing the Trump administration’s “economic bombing” of Havana.
Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal, of Washington, and Jonathan Jackson, of Illinois, returned to the United States following a five-day visit to Cuba. They said they spoke with officials and witnessed the effects of President Donald Trump‘s monthslong de facto oil blockade of the island nation.
The lawmakers said they saw premature babies in incubators put at risk due to Cuba’s energy crisis, children out of school because teachers have no fuel to travel to school and cancer patients being denied treatment because of a lack of medicine.
“This is cruel collective punishment — effectively an economic bombing of the infrastructure of the country — that has produced permanent damage,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.
“It must stop immediately.”
The Trump administration has been enforcing a monthslong policy of choking off oil supplies to Cuba, plunging the socialist nation into a worsening energy and humanitarian crisis. On Jan. 29, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency with respect to Cuba and created a process to penalize countries that provide it with oil. According to a recent U.N. system action plan, citing Cuban authorities, no fuel imports have been recorded since Dec. 13.
“This disruption has triggered a severe energy shock, characterized by a critical fuel shortage affecting electricity generation, transportation and essential logistics across the country,” the U.N. report published last week said.
Widespread blackouts, fuel rationing and electricity shortages have been reported, it said.
The two Democratic lawmakers said they met with Cuba leaders in religion, civi society and the government, as well as dissidents, and all agreed that the blockade — which they called illegal — must end.
“We do not believe that the majority of Americans would want this kind of cruelty and inhumanity to continue in our name,” they said.
The pair met with President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, who said in a statement that he denounced to them the “energy siege decreed by the current U.S. government” and reiterated “the willingness of our Government to sustain a serious and responsible dialogue and to find solutions to the existing differences.”
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez of Cuba said in a statement that he also told the lawmakers about the situation facing his country and their “willingness for serious and responsible dialogue to try to find solutions to bilateral problems.”
The Democrats said the Cuba government has sent signals that the country is ready for reform, pointing to its pardoning last week of more than 2,000 prisoners and efforts to liberalize its economy, while arguing the remaining obstacles to its progress is U.S. policy, which they called “outdated” from the Cold War-era.
“True reform will only come from charting a new course,” they said.
Trump has turned his attention to Cuba after detaining Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, in early January in a clandestine military operation.
He has said it is “a failing nation” and described it as on the precipice of collapse.
“As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” he said on March 7 during the Shield of the Americas Summit.
HAVANA — Two U.S lawmakers called for a permanent solution to Cuba’s crises after witnessing the effects of a U.S. energy blockade during an official visit to the island.
Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and members of Parliament during a five-day trip that ended Sunday.
Díaz-Canel wrote on X Monday that upon meeting with Jayapal and Jackson, he “denounced the criminal damage caused by the #blockade, particularly the consequences of the energy embargo imposed by the current US administration and its threats of even more aggressive actions.”
Díaz-Canel added: “I reiterated our government’s willingness to engage in serious and responsible bilateral dialogue and find solutions to our existing differences.”
Both the U.S. and Cuba have acknowledged recently that talks are ongoing at the highest level, but no details have been disclosed.
Jayapal told reporters she believes that recent steps taken by Cuba, such as opening the economy to certain investments by Cuban Americans living abroad; the recent announcement that more than 2,000 prisoners would be pardoned; and the arrival of an FBI team to collaborate in the investigation of a fatal shooting involving a U.S.-flagged boat, “indicate that the moment is here for us to have a real negotiation between the two countries and to reverse the failed U.S. policy of decades, a Cold War remnant that no longer serves the American people or the Cuban people.”
Cuba’s government has released the pardoned prisoners who were accused of a variety of crimes, although none so far appear to be political prisoners.
In late January, President Trump threatened to impose tariffs on any country that would sell or provide oil to Cuba, although he made an exception for a Russian ship that reached the island last week with 730,000 barrels of crude oil. It was the first petroleum shipment in three months to dock in Cuba, which produces only 40% of the oil it needs.
“This is cruel collective punishment — effectively an economic bombing of the infrastructure of the country — that has produced permanent damage. It must stop immediately,” Jayapal and Jackson said in a statement released Sunday.
Critical oil shipments from Venezuela were halted after the U.S. attacked the South American country in early January and arrested its leader, Nicolas Maduro.
Cubans already suffering from five years of economic crisis have acutely felt the impact of the fuel shortage: national blackouts, gasoline shortages and rationing, lack of public transport, cuts in working hours, paralyzed hospitals and surgeries, and suspension of flights, among other things.
Russia has promised a second delivery of petroleum, although it’s not clear when it might arrive. Experts have said that the first shipment could produce about 180,000 barrels of diesel, enough to feed Cuba’s daily demand for nine or 10 days.
Jayapal said that while such shipments are critical, they are only temporary solutions: “We need a longer, permanent solution for the Cuban people and the American people.”
Meanwhile, Jackson compared the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast to the oil blockade in Cuba, adding that the island “is the most sanctioned part of Earth.”
“Our government is fighting to keep the Strait of Hormuz open so there is a free flow of oil around the world. We want, for humanitarian reasons, a free flow of oil, fuel, and energy in our own hemisphere,” he said.
Jackson and Jayapal said they would prepare a report and continue to work on initiatives proposed by fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives to lift sanctions against Cuba to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
Mesquita and Rodríguez write for the Associated Press.
ATLANTA — The Georgia General Assembly ended its annual session early Friday without a plan for new equipment to overhaul the state’s voting system by a July deadline, plunging into doubt the future of elections in the political battleground.
The lawmakers’ failure to offer a solution after months of debate raises uncertainty about how Georgians will vote in November and leaves confusion that could end in the courts or a special legislative session.
“They’ve abdicated their responsibility,” Democratic state Rep. Saira Draper said of inaction by Republicans who control the legislature.
Currently, voters make their choices on Dominion Voting machines, which then print ballots with a QR code that scanners read to tally votes. Those machines have been repeatedly targeted by President Trump following his 2020 election loss, and Trump’s Georgia supporters responded by enacting a law in 2024 that bans using barcodes to count votes.
But state law still requires counties to use the machines. No money has been allocated to reprogram them, and lawmakers failed to agree on a replacement.
“We’ll have an unresolvable statutory conflict come July 1,” said House Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Victor Anderson, a Cornelia Republican who backed a proposal to keep using the machines in 2026 that Senate Republicans declined to consider.
House Republicans and Democrats backed Anderson’s plan, which would have required that Georgia choose a voting process that didn’t use QR codes by 2028. Election officials preferred that solution.
“The Senate has shown that they’re not responsible actors,” Draper said. She added that Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Trump-endorsed Republican running for governor, seemed more interested in keeping Trump’s backing than “doing right by Georgia voters.”
A spokesperson for Jones didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment early Friday.
Joseph Kirk, Bartow County election supervisor and president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, said he’ll look to the secretary of state for guidance and assumes a judge will rule to instruct election officials how to proceed.
“This is uncharted territory,” he said.
Robert Sinners, a spokesperson for Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is also running for governor, said officials are “ready to follow the law and follow the Constitution.”
Republican House Speaker Jon Burns told reporters that his chamber was seeking to minimize changes this year.
“You can’t change horses in the middle of the stream,” Burns said.
Burns said he would meet with Gov. Brian Kemp and “take his temperature” on the possibility of a special session. A spokesperson for Kemp didn’t answer questions about what the outgoing Republican governor would do.
Anderson said without action, the state could be required to use hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots in November.
Election officials say switching to a new system within just a few months, as advocated by some Republicans, would be nearly impossible.
“They made no way for this to happen except putting a deadline on it,” Cherokee County elections director Anne Dover said of the switch away from barcodes. Dover said one problem under some plans is that a very large number of ballots would have to be printed.
Lawmakers seemed more concerned about scoring political points than making practical plans, Paulding County Election Supervisor Deidre Holden said.
“If anyone is resilient and can get the job done, it’s all of us election officials, but the legislators need to work with us, and they need to understand what we do before they go making laws that are basically unachievable for us,” Holden said.
Supporters of hand-marked paper ballots say voters are more likely to trust in an accurate count if they can see what gets read by the scanner.
Right-wing election activists lobbied lawmakers for an immediate switch to hand-marked paper ballots, but the House turned away from a Senate proposal to do so.
Anderson said he wasn’t sure if a special session could escape those political crosswinds, but said Georgia lawmakers must fix the problem.
“This is a legislative problem,” Anderson said. “It’s a legislative solution that has to happen.”
As a prominent labour organiser, Chavez helped lead a major strike against Delano grape growers in the 1960s, which sparked boycotts across the country, in order to gain better wages and conditions for workers. His mantra, “si, se puede” – which means “yes, we can” in Spanish – has been adopted by activists and politicians who came after him, and was even used by Barack Obama’s presidential campaign during his first run for office.
BRUSSELS — The European Parliament voted Thursday to approve a trade deal between Washington and Brussels but with amendments added to protect European interests should the United States fail to hold up its end of the bargain.
The deal was negotiated last July in Turnberry, Scotland, by President Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. It set a 15% tariff on most goods in an effort to stave off far higher import duties on both sides that might have sent shock waves through economies around the globe.
New language now says that the deal can be suspended if Washington “undermined the objectives of the deal, discriminated against EU economic operators, threatened member states’ territorial integrity, foreign and defence policies, or engaged in economic coercion.”
That clause was forged because of the tensions over Greenland, said Bernd Lange, a German lawmaker and head of the EU’s parliamentary trade committee.
Trump drew widespread condemnation across the 27-nation bloc by threatening to take control of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. He has backed away from the threat, at least for now.
“If this would happen again, then immediately the tariffs would be installed,” he said at a news conference after lawmakers voted. He said the protective modifications were “weatherproofing” the Turnberry deal.
The deal will now be further negotiated by EU trade representatives Maroš Šefčovič and his U.S. counterpart Jamieson Greer, who are meeting Friday on the sidelines of the World Trade Organization meeting in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
“We need the EU-U.S. deal in force on both sides — delivering real certainty for EU businesses and showing that genuine partnership gets results,” Šefčovič said after the vote in Brussels.
There were formally two votes to introduce clauses to the deal. One passed 417-154 and the other 437-144 with dozens of abstentions each.
The U.S. Ambassador to the EU Andrew Pudzer said the vote would provide “stability and predictability” for U.S. and EU businesses and drive economic growth. “We encourage all parties to think to the future and the importance of unleashing opportunities for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic,” he said.
Malte Lohan, CEO of American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union, said the vote is “the right signal for businesses that have been stuck in limbo over the past year” and “a necessary step towards a more predictable transatlantic marketplace.”
Croatian lawmaker Željana Zovko said that despite the trade spat between Brussels and Washington, trade across the Atlantic had grown over the past year. “This resilience proves the trans-Atlantic trade works, and if it works, we should strengthen it, not hold it back.”
EU lawmakers on Thursday approved the EU-US trade deal struck in Turnberry, Scotland, in 2025, while attaching a set of conditions to the agreement.
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A broad majority of political groups backed the deal, which cuts EU tariffs on most US industrial goods to zero, with 417 votes in favour, 154 against, and 71 abstentions.
The European Commission and Washington had pushed for the deal’s implementation, but MEPs delayed backing it until last week amid tensions over Greenland and fresh US trade investigations that raised fears Washington could undermine the deal with new tariffs.
Initially criticized by MEPs as unbalanced and defended by the Commission as the best possible outcome, the deal sets US tariffs on EU goods at 15%, while the EU eliminates duties on most US industrial products.
MEPs introduced safeguards to rebalance the pact in the event of future threats from US President Donald Trump or violations by the United States.
“Of course, that’s imbalanced, but if we could improve it, maybe we can live with it,” Socialist German MEP Bernd Lange said ahead of the vote.
The European Parliament will now work with EU member states to find a common position and enable the tariff cuts, with the attached safeguards expected to be the main point of contention.
These include a “sunset clause” under which the deal expires in March 2028 unless both sides agree to extend it. It also includes a “sunrise clause” which would make tariff preferences conditional to the US respecting its Turnberry commitments.
Lawmakers moved to shield the deal from fresh US tariffs after the Supreme Court struck down 2025 US tariffs in February, prompting the White House to impose new duties on EU goods and launch an investigation into alleged unfair trade practices that could lead to further tariffs.
MEPs also linked the tariff cuts on steel and aluminium to equivalent actions by the US.
IMPERIAL — Whenever the weather changes suddenly, or the skyline becomes shrouded in a windy haze, Fernanda Camarillo braces herself for an asthma attack.
Her condition has become more manageable, but the 27-year-old said it’s still scary when her chest tightens and she starts to wheeze. It was one of her first thoughts when she heard about plans to develop a massive data center next to her home in Imperial County, a farming community near the border of Mexico that struggles with poor air quality.
“A lot of people in the county are asthmatic,” she said, explaining that she worries the new center would add more pollution. “I’ve been anxious — so many of us are voicing our concerns.”
Data centers have existed for decades but are rapidly changing and expanding due to the worldwide boom in artificial intelligence, or AI as it’s known. States and communities nationwide havestarted pushing back, citing concerns that the projects could strain power grids, increase utility bills and have negative health and environmental impacts.
In California, state legislators are debating how to protect residents and natural resources without creating so much red tape that developers go elsewhere, taking their jobs and taxable earnings with them.
No Data Center signs are posted in the front yard of a home that is right behind the proposed site.
“We can be supportive of innovation and a technology that is needed but also protect our communities and our health and our environment,” said state Sen. Steve Padilla (D-San Diego). “We can do both at the same time.”
The California Legislature is considering bills to prohibit the projects from being exempted from the state’s stringent environmental law and to impose new tariffs on new major energy users that strain power supplies. Lawmakers also have proposed restrictions on new data centers, requiring companies to provide verifiable estimates on expected water and energy usage before they can be granted a business permit.
Imperial resident Fernanda Camarillo, who is an asthmatic, holds some of her medications.
Members of Congress also expressed concerns. Rep. Ro Khanna, speaking at a town hall about AI last month at Stanford University, said legislators must ensure data centers serve the communities that power them.
“We live in a new gilded age,” said Khanna (D-Fremont). “What kind of future are we going to build?”
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Eric Masanet, a professor at UC Santa Barbara specializing in sustainability science for emerging technologies, described the facilities as the “brains” of the internet. The sprawling centers are filled with banks of specialized computers that process online shopping orders, stream movies, host websites, encode Zoom and other videoconferencing apps, store data and serve as switching stations for the digital world that’s now woven into daily life.
Data centers, particularly those that power AI, use significant amounts of water and energy. The facilities accounted for about 4.4% of the nation’s total electricity consumption in 2023, up from 1.9% in 2018, according toa report provided to Congress from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The researchers projected that figure will reach 6.7% to 12% by 2028.
Many companies, including big tech giants like Meta, Google and Amazon, are making major investments in AI.
“We are building a lot more data centers faster than we ever did — and a new AI data center is 10 to 20, maybe 30 times, the size of the largest data centers we had before,” Masanet said.
The proposed site of the 950,00-square-foot data center is on a dusty parcel that is next to the Victoria Ranch housing community and adjacent to farmland in Imperial, Calif.
It’s unclear how many data centers are in the state. A California Energy Commission spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times it does not track this information. Data Center Map, a nongovernmental website that tracks data centers across the world, lists 289 facilities in California, with more than 4,000 nationwide.
The federal government has, so far, largely left it to states or localities to regulate data centers.
The facilities can generate significant revenue for local governments due to sales and property taxes.
But some new proposals are sparking a backlash. More than 200 community and environmental organizations, including a dozen from California, sent an open letter to Congress in December calling for a national moratorium on new data centers.
Robert Gould, a pathologist with San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, one of the organizations that signed the letter, explained data centers are causing a shift away from renewable energy and back toward fossil fuels because the facilities need a reliable and constant stream of power.
Cornell Universityresearchers last year estimated that AI growth could add 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually by 2030, unless steps are taken to change course.
Gould said fossil fuel emissions are associated with various cancers, an increase in hospitalizations for older adults due to respiratory conditions, and asthma attacks or stunted lung growth in children. Particulate matter from fossil fuel emissions is also linked to cardiovascular events and negative effects on maternal fetal health.
Gould’s organization has noticed an alarming trend.
“These are generally placed in communities that are the least able to defend themselves,” he said.
Farmworkers toil in the noon heat to pick vegetables in Imperial. Agriculture is an important part of the Imperial Valley economy.
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The debate over data centers is heating up in the Imperial Valley, a rural desert region in southeastern California where a proposed center faces fierce opposition from residents.
The county in 2025 granted the project an exemption for the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. The landmark 56-year-old state law has been credited with helping to preserve California’s natural beauty and protecting communities from hazardous impacts of construction projects — but also blamed for stymieing construction.
Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing, a California-based limited liability company that started two years ago, plans to develop a 950,000-square-foot facility in the county that’s designed for advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning operations. The company says it will use reclaimed wastewater and EPA-certified natural gas generators, and create 2,500 to 3,500 construction jobs and 100 to 200 permanent positions.
“We are committed to Imperial County and to creating lasting economic opportunity,” the company website states. “The project will generate $28.75 million in annual property tax revenue for local schools, fire departments, libraries, and essential services.”
The Imperial County Board of Supervisors is moving toward finalizing the proposal.
Farmland spreads out in front of the Imperial Valley Fair near a proposed data center in Imperial.
Sebastian Rucci, an attorney and chief executive officer of Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing, said he commissioned multiple studies assessing the proposed center’s potential effect on issues like traffic or the environment that found no or minimal harms. He threatened to pull his proposal if a CEQA review was required.
“CEQA leaves you in an unknown territory — some of the environmental groups have used it for extortion, they sue, they have no basis for the suit but they delay you, and then they can squeeze money out of you for settling the lawsuit,” said Rucci.
The exemption, however, has alarmed residents, who have spoken up at county board meetings and launched a community organization, Not in My Backyard Imperial, to protest the data center and demand a CEQA review.
“It feels like it’s us against the county,” said Camarillo, adding that many feel the board has dismissed their questions and concerns.
None of the Imperial County Board of Supervisors responded to requests for comment.
Resident Fernanda Camarillo’s home is right behind the proposed site of the data center in Imperial.
The center would be a neighbor to Camarillo’s house in Victoria Ranch, a family-friendly area with beige stucco homes topped with terracotta tile roofs. She worries about noise, pollution and spiking utility bills. Power companies that have to upgrade grids to meet data centers’ energy demands sometimes seek to recoup that cost by hiking up rates for all consumers.
Camarillo, a substitute teacher, is also scared for her students. The air quality in Imperial Valley is already so poor that schools use a system of color-coded flags to signal whether it’s safe for children to go outside during gym or recess, she said.
“I think they see [the valley] as easy pickings because we are a low-income community and we have such a large population of Latinos here,” Camarillo said.
A quick drive around the neighborhood shows others share her concerns. Signs protesting the data center pop up throughout the community, displayed on front lawns or nestled into rocky garden beds.
Victoria Ranch was quiet and peaceful on a sunny Sunday in late February. Francisco Leal, a resident and lead organizer for NIMBY Imperial, said that’s a major part of its appeal.
The colorful dusk sky hovers over a Little League baseball game at Freddie White Park in Imperial. The debate over data centers is heating up in the Imperial Valley, a rural desert region in southeastern California.
Leal wants answers about everything from potential health hazards and impacts on the local water supply to whether the fire department is equipped to handle a large-scale electrical blaze. But without a CEQA review, he says residents are left to trust assurances from the developer or privately hired consultants.
Leal plans to sell his property if the project goes forward, but the thought makes him emotional.
“It’s not just a house; it’s a home,” he said. “This is the only home my kids have ever known and all of our family memories are here.”
Gina Snow, another resident, isn’t necessarily against bringing a data center to the county. But she wants the proposal to undergo a CEQA review.
“Clearly we understand that there is economic development and the potential for that to be positive for the county, but at what cost?” she said.
Daniela Flores, executive director of Imperial Valley Equity and Justice, a nonprofit that works for social and environmental equality, stands on the site of the proposed data center.
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Daniela Flores, executive director of Imperial Valley Equity and Justice, a nonprofit that works for social and environmental equality, said the community has good reason to be wary. Various industries have come into the region over the years and made grand promises that never panned out.
“We became a sacrifice zone,” she said, adding industries use the area’s resources while ultimately doing little to permanently improve the lives of most residents.
Flores said the community continues to struggle with a range of problems, including poor air quality, high poverty rates, weak worker protections and crumbling infrastructure. She believes a data center could add new and potentially dangerous challenges.
The valley has long, brutal summers with temperatures that swell to 120 degrees. If the data center strains the grid and causes a lengthy blackout, or low-income residents have their power shut off because they can’t afford the rising bills, Flores fears the situation could quickly turn deadly.
The city of Imperial also has concerns. The city hasfiled a lawsuit calling on the county to halt the project, arguing it should not have received a CEQA exemption.
The controversy has drawn attention from Padilla, whose district includes Imperial Valley. Padilla has echoed residents’ calls for more transparency from the county and introduced Senate Bill 887, which would ban data centers from receiving exemptions from CEQA.
“I am not anti-data center or anti-artificial intelligence,” Padilla said. But, he added, we need to “find a way to do this right and make sure there is adequate review and understanding.”
A dusty haze settles over the city of Imperial at dusk near the site of a proposed data center.
Another measure from Padilla, Senate Bill 886, would direct the Public Utilities Commission to create an electrical corporation tariff to cover the cost of data center-related grid upgrades.
Other related legislation this year includes Assembly Bill 2619 from Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San Mateo) that would require data center owners to provide an estimate about expected water usage and sources before applying for a business license, and Assembly Bill 1577, by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), which would require data center owners to submit monthly information to a state commission about water and fuel consumption and energy efficiency.
While lawmakers weigh new policies at the statehouse, Camarillo said she hopes the priority will be protecting communities.
“Innovation is important, but innovation for the sake of innovation has never really been something that hasn’t had negative impacts,” she said. “Think about human lives.”
“State programs cannot simply substitute for the kind of global, federal and competitive tax incentives that are needed to bring production back to American soil and stop its offshoring,” U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said during a news conference Friday morning.
“We must act, and the urgency could not be greater,” he said. He revealed he is working on a bipartisan federal film incentive proposal that would be competitive with what other countries are offering for film productions.
He said the program isn’t about Hollywood’s stars; it’s about the jobs that productions create, including roles for set designers, carpenters and lighting crews.
“These are the people who make that magic happen. We want to keep those jobs here, and many of us are deeply concerned about what this potential merger will do to those jobs,” Schiff said.
Earlier this week, the California Film Commission revealed that 16 shows had recently received tax credits for filming in the state. The projects represent $871 million in qualified in-state spending and are expected to generate $1.3 billion in economic activity in California. Schiff said the state tax credit has generated more than $29.1 billion in motion picture production wages and supported more than 220,000 jobs.
Even as shows start to see gains in Southern California, Los Angeles film activity was still down 13.2% from July through September when compared with the same period in 2024. The downward trend extends the loss of 42,000 jobs in L.A. between 2022 and 2024, the continued suffering of local sound stages and the offshoring of productions internationally.
“Federal policymakers must act to level the playing field and make the U.S. film and television industry more competitive on the global stage,” said Matthew Loeb, the president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. “A globally competitive labor-based and tax incentive is. For us, production that supplements state incentives is essential to return and maintain film and television jobs in America.”
HBO Max’s medical drama “The Pitt” is filmed at one of Warner Bros. soundstages in Burbank and it’s one of the shows benefiting from California’s tax incentive.
Noah Wyle, the star and executive producer of the show, said during the news conference that “it’s really hard to shoot a TV show in Los Angeles, and it’s really expensive, prohibitively” — so adopting an economic model that allows productions to take full advantage of the California tax incentive was essential to “The Pitt” filming in L.A.
“As an Angeleno with generational roots to this city and as a seasoned member of its creative community, advocacy for Los Angeles-based production is something that is very close to my heart,” Wyle said.
“‘The Pitt’ has blessedly become proof of that speculative concept. I’m happy to report we’ll commence shooting season three this summer, and that a rising tide has indeed lifted all boats in season one under the 3.0 tax program,” he added.
The show received a 20% tax rebate on many above-the-line costs. The budget for one episode was approximately $6.6 million, so the show received a rebate of about $760,000 per episode. By the end of season one, the production was able to save over $11 million. Wyle estimated that the first season of “The Pitt” contributed around $125 million toward California’s gross domestic product.
Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), who is working with Schiff on production tax incentives, said that because California is already seeing benefits from the current program, there’s no reason it wouldn’t work nationally. Friedman added that tax incentives are a common practice among many industries in the U.S.
“Hollywood is not asking for special treatment. Whether it is computer chips, the energy sector or pharmaceuticals, this is something that is standard in the United States,” said Friedman. “In terms of our nation, Hollywood and its ability to tell the story of America, it is something worth saving.”
WASHINGTON — Republican and Democratic senators vented their frustrations with the lack of progress in funding the Department of Homeland Security, which is resulting in more Americans enduring long lines at airports around the country. It’s a problem that is expected to intensify as the impasse enters its fourth week.
Democrats stressed they were willing to fund some of Homeland Security, but not Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection, without changes in their operations. Republicans made clear that some of the Democratic demands were a non-starter. The result was that each party blocked the other’s proposal for temporarily resolving the standoff during an hours-long debate Wednesday on the Senate floor.
The stark divide over a shutdown that began on Feb. 14 was acknowledged by members on both sides of the political aisle.
“We are in a negotiation. However, we are not close,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said at one point. “You may think this is some issue that we think we’re going to turn to our political advantage, but I promise you, when we saw Renee Good and Alex Pretti killed, this became an issue that was beyond politics.”
“And there are a lot of us who are not going to provide resources to this agency that is acting in such a ways that makes citizens of the United States so unsafe.”
Some Republicans were just as adamant that they oppose some of the changes Democrats are seeking to make.
“Let me be clear, we are going to do nothing — nothing — that kneecaps ICE’s ability to enforce our immigration laws,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.).
Following the longest federal shutdown in the country’s history last year, Congress completed work on 11 of this year’s 12 appropriations bills. Only the bill for Homeland Security remains outstanding.
Democrats are seeking several changes at the department that include prohibiting ICE enforcement operations at sensitive locations like schools and churches, allowing independent investigations into alleged wrongdoing, requiring warrants to be signed by judges before federal agents can forcibly enter private homes or other nonpublic spaces without consent, and requiring agents to wear identification and remove their masks.
A push for more talks
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said his side has made repeated overtures to Democrats on a funding bill. He said the last offer on Homeland Security funding came from the White House nearly two weeks ago and there has been no response from the Democrats.
“Usually, around here, in order to get a deal, there has to be a negotiation where the two sides sit down together,” Thune said. “And my understanding is that has been completely rebuffed by the senator from Washington.”
The senator Thune was referring to, Sen. Patty Murray, the lead Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she’s continued to talk with Republican colleagues, but those aren’t “real negotiations.” The White House needs to be at the table for that to occur. She said she needed assurance that Stephen Miller, the influential White House deputy chief of staff, would not upend any agreements that senators reach.
“I am willing to talk to people, but I’m not willing to sit in a room, have coffee, give away a few things and have Stephen Miller override whatever we all agree to,” Murray said. “ … We need to know the White House is serious.”
Homeland Security has been central to President Trump’s sweeping changes in immigration enforcement. Under Trump, the number of people ICE arrests and detains each month has climbed dramatically. The tactics that ICE has employed have generated alarm among Democrats, and some Republicans have also called for a more “strategic” approach.
During bipartisan negotiations earlier this year, appropriators agreed to a Homeland Security funding bill that did include more resources for de-escalation training and $20 million to outfit immigration enforcement agents with body-worn cameras. But that deal unraveled after the Pretti shooting in Minneapolis.
“My side was not going to stand down and say, ‘oh well, nothing happened,’” Murray said.
For the second time in two weeks, Murray offered a proposal to fund all of Homeland Security except for ICE and Customs and Border Protection, but Republicans objected.
Similarly, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) offered a proposal to fund all of Homeland Security for two weeks so that federal workers could get paid and government operations could continue while the two sides negotiate their differences on immigration enforcement. This time, Democrats objected.
The result was the standoff continues, but lawmakers were at least talking to each other, perhaps one small sign of progress.
Shutdown strains air travel
The large majority of the more than 260,000 employees at Homeland Security continue to work but are going unpaid. It’s the second time in recent months they’ve had to work without pay after last fall’s record, 43-day shutdown. The most visible sign of the shutdown has been a shortage of Transportation Security Administration screeners at airports.
Houston’s secondary airport weathered the worst problems, with lines consistently lasting over three hours for much of Sunday and Monday. Passengers also had to wait more than an hour to get through security at several other airports, including in New Orleans and Atlanta.
Homeland Security in a social media post Wednesday blamed Democrats for a shutdown that “has led to HOURS long security lines at airports across the country, leading Americans to miss their spring break flights.”
Trade groups are also worried about the economic impact of the travel delays. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called on Congress to quickly approve a funding bill and end the department’s shutdown.
“Blocking operational funding and paychecks for those who help us travel safely is wrong and strains the air travel system,” said Neil Bradley, the business group’s executive vice president and chief policy officer.
