There are about 2,000 safety-net clinics in California that deliver primary care to underserved populations. Proposition 44 would set limits on how these federally qualified health centers spend their money.
The basics
Proposition 44 asks voters to require federally funded community health centers to spend at least 90% of their total annual revenue on “program services advancing their charitable purpose.”
The impact
If the proposition passes, the state attorney general will be responsible for determining what services fall into that category. If spending on administrative or non-healthcare functions exceeded 10% of total revenue, a clinic would have to pay a penalty equal to the amount it overspent.
Dig deeper
Proposition 44 was backed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the same union that is pushing Proposition 40, the controversial billionaire tax. The union appears to be the main supporter of the proposal and says the restrictions would prevent excessive spending on executive salaries, fundraisers and other administrative expenses.
There is a diverse array of opponents, including the California Medical Assn., the California Teachers Assn., the Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, the state Democratic Party and the state Chamber of Commerce. They say the proposition’s vague wording could result in vital services being excluded from the list of program expenses permitted. A study commissioned by the California Primary Care Assn. found that clinics could face up to $1.7 billion in collective penalties in the first year of the measure’s implementation.
Xabi Alonso’s side would be in the EFL Cup quarter-finals had he scored, but they crashed out as defender Wesley Fofana sent one in sudden death high into the Kop at Anfield.
Both were shown how to do it by Liverpool defender Joe Gomez – a player who has never scored a senior goal in 319 professional appearances – who rifled the winning penalty into the top corner after a simple run-up.
Players opt for the stutter in a bid to trick the goalkeeper into giving them a clue as to which way they will dive.
The problem is it can backfire spectacularly if the goalkeeper holds their nerve or – in Barco’s case – the taker fails to hit the target.
Former Chelsea defender Cesar Azpilicueta told ITV: “Every player picks his style where he feels confident, and for Valentin Barco, I believe that is his way of shooting it. I don’t believe that was his first time, I hope not!”
The ‘stutter’ penalty became a theme of this year’s World Cup. There were 26 at the summer’s tournament but 11 were missed.
The stop-start run-up technique does not have a strict definition but a player is allowed, under Fifa rules, to stop or feint in the run-up as long as they don’t do it directly before kicking the ball.
Even Harry Kane tried it in the summer and missed. His stuttering run-up led to Croatia goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic saving his penalty in England’s 4-2 win.
But because Livakovic came off his line early, Kane got a retake and smashed it home with a straightforward approach.
Arsenal and Brazil midfielder Guimaraes was one of those 11 to miss at the World Cup but did not change his approach at Fleetwood.
Some players have used it to their advantage. Brazil icon Pele was famous for it while Cristiano Ronaldo has used it with both success and failure.
“I wouldn’t allow it if I was a manager,” former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy told TalkSport on Wednesday after Arsenal‘s defeat the night before.
“It is ridiculous, self-indulgence, a player trying to be the centre of attention.
“When they do the stutter they think the keeper might go, but they aren’t going that early, they aren’t being tricked any more. It is naive.”
But former Liverpool and Chelsea full-back Glen Johnson had a different view and pointed to the fact that Barco missed by mere inches.
“I like the technique,” he told ITV. “It gives the players a bit of time.
“W what confused me about that one [from Barco] is usually players are watching the keeper. He has moved, he has got it right and gone the right way but lifted it in the air for no reason.
“You have the whole goal to shoot at and that is the surprising part. He has already beaten the goalkeeper, he doesn’t have to hit it into the top corner.
“If he puts that ball three inches to the right you would say it is the best penalty you have seen.”
In the most complimentary way, I ask: What the heck was that first half, UCLA?
Yes, really. With Saturday’s 28-10 victory over Michigan State, Bob Chesney has the Bruins football team 7-0 for the first time since 2005. Still undefeated and still the only team in the Big Ten — and SEC — conferences that can say so. Ranked No. 9 in the nation and moving on up.
And so I ask: Two lost fumbles before halftime? Two drops? Two holding penalties? A meager 84 yards through the air and a modest 14-7 halftime lead? Against a majorly depleted Michigan State team fielding a freshman third-stringer at quarterback — that also lost two more of its best players to injury in the first half?
These Bruins are too good to be letting the wounded Spartans (2-6, 0-5 Big Ten) hang with them for even a half.
And yet, for a hot moment, doubt started to creep back in: Was this the day Chesney’s chariot turned back into a pumpkin? Was the last petal from the enchanted rose about to fall, this beauty of a season due to turn ugly? Was the fairy tale almost over?
No. The nation’s best second-half team gathered itself — “at halftime in the locker room, guys coming over, ‘Let’s go, man. We got you!” quarterback Ty Dieffenbach said — exerted its will and outscored the Spartans 14-0 in the third quarter. They mercifully ran out the clock with a commanding 28-7 lead going into the fourth and improved to a tidy 5-0 in the Big Ten.
It’s what Chesney’s teams do.
Last season at James Madison, the Dukes led the nation in second-half scoring, averaging 20.9 points per game.
And this charmed season at UCLA, the Bruins came into Saturday’s game averaging the second-most second-half points in the nation (20.8).
Being able to bear down and wear down opponents is a sign of a good team.
Being able to jump on them at the outset would be the sign of a great one.
Let’s fast-forward a year. You’ve stopped pinching yourself to make sure you aren’t dreaming and the Bruins — who were unranked and unheralded to start the season after so many years of ineptitude — really are in control of their own College Football Playoff destiny.
UCLA linebacker Donavyn Pellot celebrates with linebacker Sammy Omosigho, left, after a 67-yard interception return against Michigan State on Saturday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
A year from now, you’ll have been conditioned to expect them to win these games, and you’ll no longer be worried about whether this was all a dream.
But you would be concerned about slow starts. You’d bemoan sluggish opening acts and fret about how that might bite the Bruins in the big games that are looming.
Chesney doesn’t have to make that imaginative leap into the future.
He’s worried about it now. And that’s why his Bruins are legitimately a team to contend with, because he’s coaching them to be that. He expects it: “When you walk on that field on Saturday, you walk out and know that you’ve done it the right way, and that’s how you treat something that’s important. Not special, but important.”
And so I ask: Why didn’t UCLA treat the first half like it was important Saturday?
“Two fumbles, two drops, two holding penalties? You can’t do it, you just can’t do it if you want to win really close games,” said Chesney, the first-year UCLA coach, who said he’d spend the week before the Bruins host Nevada in a nonconference Halloween game by emphasizing ball security at practice and that he’d watch the tape to determine what triggered the holding penalties.
“We’re taking three, four touchdowns off the board by doing that,” Chesney added. “Never going to let this happen again.”
UCLA can’t because it doesn’t have any room for error.
UCLA coach Bob Chesney works with players before a 28-10 win over Michigan State at the Rose Bowl on Saturday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
If the Bruins win out, Chesney will have directed an underdog to a surprise CFP berth for the second consecutive season. But if the Bruins lose a game, it gets dicey.
Never mind the rows of recruits at Saturday’s victory, and forget for a moment about the fans who are slowly finding their way back to the Rose Bowl for Bruins football games. UCLA needs to continue to impress the computers and the pollsters and CFP committee members who could eventually determine UCLA’s fate if the Bruins don’t do it themselves.
And though no fault of Chesney’s, UCLA is playing a soft schedule. Per ESPN, the Bruins’ slate was the 51st easiest coming into the season and what remains of it is the 64th easiest.
And UCLA, which is winning behind a backup quarterback, which went 3-9 last season and which had so much ground to cover after starting the season outside of the top 25 — won’t likely get anyone’s benefit of the doubt if a first-half lull leads to a loss.
The Bruins are proving themselves probably the best team in the nation after halftime.
If they can do that, why not aim to be the best team in the nation?
LAS VEGAS — Mitch Marner scored a power-play goal from the high slot at 2:41 of overtime to give Vegas a 2-1 victory over the Kings on Saturday on a night in which the Golden Knights paid tribute to their past.
Trevor Connelly scored the other goal for the Golden Knights. Connelly, Marner and Mark Stone each had two points, with Stone getting both of his on assists. Carter Hart made 26 saves.
Artemi Panarin scored for the Kings and Darcy Kuemper made 30 saves.
Vegas (5-1) is off to a quick start this season, and the Kings (0-2-2) are still searching for their first victory.
Each club swapped power-play goals in the second period, with the 20-year-old rookie Connelly scoring after Stone’s pinpoint cross-ice pass. Panarin answered with a shot from the high slot later in the period.
In overtime, the Golden Knights quickly took advantage of a tripping penalty on Kings center Scott Laughton. Marner skated from near the blue line toward the slot, scoring just seven seconds into the penalty.
The Golden Knights, in their 10th season, paid tribute throughout the game to their inaugural “Misfits” team that reached the Stanley Cup Final. Gerard Gallant, who coached that team, was in attendance along with several players from that squad. Fan-favorite Ryan Reaves, who retired last month after 16 NHL seasons, cranked the pregame siren.
Referee Furman South briefly went down to the ice early in the third period when Vegas center Nic Dowd collided with him. South got up holding his midsection, but remained in the game.
Up next for the Kings: vs. Edmonton at Crypto.com Arena on Tuesday night.
Pope Leo XIV describes capital punishment as an ‘attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person’ in post on X.
Published On 10 Oct 202610 Oct 2026
Pope Leo XIV has declared that the death penalty is “inadmissible” while his home country, the United States, announces plans to livestream an execution by firing squad.
Marking World Day Against the Death Penalty on Saturday, the pope reiterated the Catholic Church’s teaching on capital punishment, writing on X that it was “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”.
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“The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment,” his post said.
“Effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption,” added the leader of the Catholic Church.
The American Pope’s comments come days after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that the firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan on December 3 will be livestreamed.
Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in a shooting at the Fort Hood military base in 2009.
Pope Leo did not specifically refer to the planned execution, or last month’s botched execution attempt on Christa Pike, who survived two doses of the lethal injection in Tennessee.
But his post came hours after his top deputy, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, told Vatican News that the plan to livestream Hasan’s execution was “unacceptable”.
It was Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, in 2018 who first amended official Catholic teaching to declare capital punishment “inadmissible” in all circumstances.
Previously, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the official compendium of church teaching, said the church did not exclude recourse to capital punishment “if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”
The planned livestream of Hasan’s execution has sparked outrage across the US political divide. Republican representative Austin Scott said he supported executing Hassan but that “livestreaming executions is what Jihadists do. America is better than that.”
Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Hasan should “face justice”, but that public executions are “the kind of thing that Iran and the Taliban do. Is this who we want to be associated with?”
On Thursday, a Pentagon official confirmed the plans, but on Friday, Vice President JD Vance, who is a practising Catholic, expressed doubt on whether the livestream would be going ahead, telling reporters that if it is, “I’m not going to be watching it.”
Witnesses say Tennessee officials were unable to execute Christa Pike after a lethal injection attempt.
Published On 1 Oct 20261 Oct 2026
Officials in the United States have failed to put a Tennessee woman to death for a murder she committed in 1995, after the lethal injection was halted for hours as courts considered a last-minute appeal to stay her execution.
Christa Gail Pike, 50 had been scheduled to die on Wednesday for a killing she committed at age 18, after the US Supreme Court overturned an appeals court ruling that stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start.
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Her death would have been Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in at least 200 years.
Following the top court’s ruling, officials attempted to go ahead with the execution as planned and appeared to give Pike two doses of the sedative pentobarbital, according to media witnesses.
At 7:46pm local time, prison officials closed the curtain separating Pike from the media viewing room. It was raised three minutes later, when witnesses said Pike could be heard loudly snoring.
The curtain was closed again at 8:06pm. Witnesses continued to hear Pike snoring until the microphone was switched off at about 8:53pm, when they were told to leave the area. The Associated Press news agency reported that emergency vehicles were seen coming and going from the prison.
The Tennessee Department of Correction did not immediately explain why the execution had not been completed.
Supreme Court ruling
Pike had initially been scheduled to die on Wednesday morning, and witnesses had already gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville when the 6th Circuit US Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to issue a stay.
The appeals court said a delay was needed to consider whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered during her sentencing.
Later on Wednesday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to proceed. Its conservative majority did not explain the decision, while the three liberal justices dissented.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that vacating the stay “unnecessarily prevents” the appeals court from giving due consideration to Pike’s claim.
Tennessee’s attorney general had argued that delaying the execution traumatised the family of Pike’s victim, Colleen Slemmer, and rewarded what it called “abusive delay tactics”.
1995 killing
Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, were convicted of the fatal stabbing and beating in 1995 of 19-year-old Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville.
Shipp was 17 when the crime happened and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only one sentenced to death.
Pike does not deny committing the killing, but her supporters argue the state should consider her age at the time, her mental illness and her allegations of severe sexual abuse, including that she was raped from early childhood.
“It is inconceivable that in the 21st century, the criminal justice system is poised to execute a survivor of rape and child sexual abuse whose jury never had the opportunity to consider those facts in weighing the defendant’s moral culpability,” her lawyers wrote in a filing.
After the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In her clemency petition, she said she had initially intended to fight Slemmer but killed her in a frenzied attack when she could not “put the brakes on”.
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realise the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement.
Slemmer’s mother has said she wants Pike’s death sentence carried out after waiting decades for the execution.
Tennessee has not executed a woman for at least 200 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been executed in the US, representing about 1 percent of all executions, according to the centre.
