Politics

Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban government have agreed to an immediate ceasefire, mediated by Qatar and Turkiye. The agreement was reached after a week of deadly clashes and strikes along their disputed border.

SACRAMENTO — Thousands of rebels gathered outside the state Capitol on Saturday, mindlessly trampling the lawn in their Hokas, even as the autumnal sun in Sacramento forced them to strip off their protective puffer vests.

With chants of “No Kings,” many of these chaotic protesters spilled off sidewalks into the street, as if curbs held no power of containment, no meaning in their anarchist hearts.

Clearly, the social order has broken. Where would it end, this reporter wondered. Would they next be demanding passersby honk? Could they dare offer fiery speeches?

The answer came all too soon, when within minutes, I spotted clear evidence of the organized anti-fascist underground that U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi has been warning us about.

The “Raging Grannies of Sacramento” had set up a stage, and were testing microphones in advance of bombarding the crowd with song. These women wore coordinating aprons! They had printed signs — signs with QR codes. If grandmothers who know how to use a QR code aren’t dangerous, I don’t know who it is.

Ellen Schwartz, 82, told me this Canadian-founded group operates without recognized leaders — an “international free-form group of gaggles of grannies,” is how she put it, and I wrote it all down for Kash Patel.

Within moments, they had robbed Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews of their most famous duet: “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” mutilating it into “super callous fragile racist narcissistic POTUS.”

Ellen Schwartz, 82, is a member of the “Raging Grannies,” a group that protested at the “No Kings” rally in Sacramento on Saturday.

(Anita Chabria / Los Angeles Times)

Not to be outdone by the Silent Generation, 2-year-old Rhea also showed up, first clinging to her mom, then toddling around on her own as if she owned the place. This is a kid to keep an eye on.

Since Rhea cannot yet speak about her political beliefs, her parents gave me some insight into why she was there.

“I’m not sure if we’ll still have a civilization that allows protest very long, so I want her to at least have a memory of it,” said her dad, Neonn, who asked that their last names not be used. Like many Americans, he’s a bit hesitant to draw the eye of authority.

Kara, Rhea’s mom, had a more hopeful outlook.

“America is the people, so for me I want to keep bringing her here so that she knows she is part of something bigger: peace and justice,” she said, before walking off to see the dinosaurs.

Kara holds her 2-year-old daughter, Rhea, at the rally in Sacramento.

(Anita Chabria / Los Angeles Times)

Dinosaurs, that’s right. And tigers. And roosters. And unicorns. Even a cow hugging a chipmunk, which I believe is now illegal in most of the South.

Yes, folks, the Portland frog has started something. The place was full of un-human participants acting like animals — dancing with abandon, stomping around, saying really mean things about President Trump.

Meanwhile, the smell of roasting meat was undeniable. People, they were eating the hot dogs! They were eating the grilled onions! There were immigrants everywhere selling the stuff (and it was delicious).

I spoke to a Tyrannosaurus Rex and asked him why he went Late Cretaceous.

“If you don’t do something soon, you will have democracy be extinct,” Jim Short told me from inside the suit.

Jim Short, left, and his wife, Patty Short, donned dinosaur costumes at the “No Kings” rally in Sacramento.

(Anita Chabria / Los Angeles Times)

His wife, Patty, was ensconced in a coordinating suit, hers brown, his green. Didn’t they worry about being labeled anti-American for being here, as House Speaker Mike Johnson and others have claimed?

“I’m not afraid,” Patty said. “I’m antifa or a hardened criminal or what’s the other one?”

“Hamas?” Jim queried. “Or an illegal immigrant?”

“I think people need more history,” Patty said.

I agree.

And the day millions of very average Americans turned out to peacefully protect democracy — again — may be part of it.

Oct. 17 (UPI) — Chinese President Xi Jinping has expelled nine of his top military generals from the People’s Liberation Army for what China says is corruption, including the country’s number two general.

Gen. He Weidong, one of the two vice-chairs of the Central Military Commission, was fired by Xi. He was the third in command of the PLA and a member of the Chinese politburo.

“The removal of He Weidong is one of the biggest shake-ups within the PLA in decades,” said Lyle Morris, an expert on the Chinese military at the Asia Society Policy Institute, the Financial Times reported. “He was on a fast track to become the next senior vice-chair of the [Central Military Commission], possibly replacing Zhang Youxia, and skipped a grade when he was elevated to the CMC during the 20th Party Congress.”

Another high-ranking official removed in the purge is Miao Hua, the army’s top political officer. He had been suspended in November 2024.

A statement from Xi said those removed are suspected of “grave official misconduct, involving exceptionally large sums of money. The nature of their offenses is extremely serious, and the impact is profoundly detrimental,” Newsweek reported.

Eight of the nine removed were members of the Central Committee, which is scheduled to meet next week to discuss the coming five-year development plan.

When Xi took over the party in 2012, he launched a sweeping corruption probe, and more than 4 million members have been investigated. The campaign accelerated in 2023 as it began focusing on the military and procurement.

Though the crackdown is popular in China, it has also allowed Xi to expel his rivals, Newsweek reported.

Oct. 17 (UPI) — The United States delayed the adoption of an international requirement for commercial cargo ships to reduce their greenhouse emissions or be subject to fines that is widely supported globally.

Using threats of sanctions and tariffs, and backed by Saudi Arabia and Russia, the Trump administration forced representatives of more than 100 countries to table the International Maritime Organization’s Net-zero Framework, which would have set a mandatory marine fuel standard.

The draft framework, agreed to in April and aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from cargo ships to net-zero by 2050, would have gone into effect in 2027 for all ocean going ships weighing more than 5,000 tons, according to the IMO.

President Donald Trump has referred to nearly all efforts to reduce human impacts on the environment as a “green scam.”

In an Oct. 10 statement meant to put “IMO members on notice,” Trump’s secretaries of state, energy and transportation said that the United States would employ a series of penalties “against nations that sponsor this European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations.”

“President Trump has made it clear that the United States will not accept any international environmental agreement that unduly or unfairly burdens the United States or harms the interests of the American people,” Secs. Marco Rubio, Chris Wright and Sean Duffy said in the statement.

The new regulation would have gone into effect in 2027 after a standard for ships to reduce their annual gas fuel intensity — the amount of greenhouse gases released for each unit of energy a ship uses — and economic measures and penalties were established at meetings planned for 2026.

The IMO plan was widely supported — Britain, Canada, the European Union, Japan and China were all in favor — and was expected to pass by most of the roughly 100 countries represented at Friday’s meeting.

Although a handful of countries were not in favor of delaying talks about the regulation for a year, the United States persuaded several countries, including China, to join it, Russia and Saudi Arabia to push off negotiations on the deal.

“We are disappointed that member states have not been able to agree [on] a way forward at this meeting,” International Chamber of Shipping secretary-general Thomas Kazakos told reporters.

“Industry needs clarity to be able to make investments,” he said, reiterating the already known overall support the shipping industry reportedly has for the global standard.

Liberal Democratic Party leader Sanae Takaichi appears back on track to become Japan’s first female prime minister.

Japan’s governing party and the main opposition are set to form a coalition government, setting the stage for Sanae Takaichi to become the country’s first female prime minister, local media report.

Sanae Takaichi, the leader of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and Hirofumi Yoshimura, the head of the smaller right-leaning Japan Innovation Party (JIP), known as Ishin, are set to sign an agreement on their alliance on Monday, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday.

Takaichi became leader of the governing LDP earlier this month, but her bid to become Japan’s first female premier was derailed by the collapse of her governing coalition.

Since then, the LDP has been working to cobble together a different political alliance, putting her chances for the top job back on track.

“The LDP has entrusted Takaichi with handling the coalition matter, while the JIP will hold an executive board gathering in Osaka on Sunday and a plenary meeting of lawmakers the following day before giving final approval to the agreement with the LDP,” Kyodo reported.

Japan’s leading Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper also said that Takaichi and Yoshimura were “likely to sign a coalition agreement after talks on Monday”.

Reports of a new coalition come after the LDP’s junior partner, the Komeito party, left the governing coalition after 26 years, plunging the country into a political crisis.

The sealing of an alliance between the LDP and JIP could lead to Takaichi’s election as premier as early as Tuesday, but the parties are still two seats short of a majority to pass the vote.

Should the vote go to a second-round run-off, however, Takaichi would only need support from more MPs than the other candidate.

The moves to form a coalition come just days before the expected arrival in Japan of United States President Donald Trump.

Trump is scheduled to travel to Japan before the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea.

Mnangagwa allies push for a term extension to 2030 as ZANU-PF factions split and opposition promises a legal fight.

Zimbabwe’s governing ZANU-PF has said it will begin a process to extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term by two years, potentially keeping him in power until 2030.

The plan was endorsed on Saturday at the movement’s annual conference in the eastern city of Mutare, where delegates instructed the government to begin drafting legislation to amend the Constitution, Justice Minister and ZANU-PF legal secretary Ziyambi Ziyambi said.

Mnangagwa, 83, is constitutionally required to leave office in 2028 after serving two elected terms. Any change would require a constitutional amendment – and potentially referendums – legal experts say.

Delegates erupted in applause after the motion passed, reinforcing ZANU-PF’s pattern of securitised rule since independence in 1980. The party controls parliament, giving it significant leverage, though some insiders warn that a legal challenge would be likely.

Mnangagwa has previously insisted he is a “constitutionalist” with no interest in clinging to power. But loyalists have quietly pushed for a prolonged stay since last year’s disputed election, while rivals inside the party – aligned with Vice President Constantino Chiwenga – are openly resisting an extension.

Blessed Geza, a veteran fighter from the liberation war and a Chiwenga ally, has been using YouTube livestreams to condemn the push, drawing thousands of viewers. Calls for mass protests have gained little traction amid a heavy police deployment in Harare and other cities.

The president made no mention of the extension during his closing remarks at the conference. Chiwenga has not commented on Mnangagwa’s term extension bid or the protests.

Dire economic situation

Mnangagwa came to power in 2017 amid promises of democratic and economic reforms following the toppling of the longtime President Robert Mugabe.

Mnangagwa has presided over a dire economic collapse marked by hyperinflation, mass unemployment, and allegations of corruption. Critics accuse ZANU-PF of crushing dissent, weakening the judiciary, and turning elections into a managed ritual rather than a democratic contest.

Legal opposition figures have warned that any attempt to rewrite the Constitution will face resistance in court.

“We will defend the Constitution against its capture and manipulation to advance a dangerous unconstitutional anti-people agenda,” opposition lawyer Tendai Biti said in a statement on X.

Ten elderly activists – most in their 60s and 70s – were arrested in Harare on Friday for allegedly planning a protest demanding Mnangagwa’s resignation.

They were charged with attempting to incite “public violence” and remain in custody pending a bail hearing on Monday. Earlier this year, authorities detained nearly 100 young people in similar circumstances.

The renewed manoeuvring has exposed an accelerating power struggle inside ZANU-PF. One faction wants Mnangagwa to remain until 2030; another is preparing the ground for Chiwenga, the former army general who helped topple Robert Mugabe in the 2017 coup.

Bosnia’s Serb entity names an interim president after separatist Milorad Dodik is barred from politics by a state court.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb-majority entity has appointed Ana Trisic Babic as interim president, marking the first formal acknowledgement that Milorad Dodik is stepping aside after being barred from politics by a state court.

The Republika Srpska parliament confirmed Babic’s appointment on Saturday, saying she would serve until the early presidential elections scheduled for November 23.

Lawmakers also annulled several separatist laws passed under Dodik that had challenged the authority of an international envoy and Bosnia’s constitutional court.

Dodik, a pro-Russian nationalist who has pushed for Republika Srpska to break away and join Serbia, had refused to vacate office despite receiving a political ban. He has continued to travel abroad and claim presidential powers while appealing the court’s ruling.

The US Department of the Treasury announced on Friday that it had removed four Dodik allies from its sanctions list, a move he publicly welcomed as he campaigns to have sanctions against himself lifted.

Dodik is currently sanctioned by the United States, United Kingdom and several European governments for actions that undermine the Dayton peace agreement that ended Bosnia’s 1992–95 war.

Separatist moves

Bosnia’s electoral authorities stripped Dodik of his presidential mandate in August following an appeals court verdict that sentenced him to one year in prison and barred him from political office for six years.

The Central Electoral Commission acted under a rule that forces the removal of any elected official sentenced to more than six months in jail.

A Sarajevo court had convicted Dodik in February for refusing to comply with decisions issued by the international envoy, Christian Schmidt, who oversees implementation of the Dayton accords.

Dodik dismissed the ruling at the time, saying he would remain in power as long as he retained the backing of the Bosnian Serb parliament, which his allies control. The Republika Srpska government called the verdict “unconstitutional and politically motivated”.

Dodik maintains strong support from regional allies, including Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He has repeatedly threatened to separate Republika Srpska from Bosnia, raising fears among Bosniak communities and prompting previous US administrations to impose sanctions.

Bosnia remains governed by the US-brokered Dayton Accords, which ended a devastating war that killed about 100,000 people. The agreement created two largely autonomous entities – Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation – with shared national institutions, including the presidency, military, judiciary and taxation system.

Tensions have surged in recent years as Dodik openly rejects the authority of the international envoy, declaring Schmidt’s decisions invalid inside Republika Srpska.

Oct. 18 (UPI) — Senate Democrats and Republicans are not budging on their demands to temporarily fund the federal government and end the shutdown as key dates approach.

The shutdown is the federal government’s third-longest and entered its 18th day on Saturday after the Senate failed to approve a temporary funding measure for the 10th time on Thursday and adjourned for the weekend.

More votes are expected to be held next week, but if the Senate stalemate continues, active federal workers won’t receive their full paychecks on Friday for the first time during the current shutdown, according to The Hill.

Those federal workers who are still on the job also received only partial pay on Oct. 10, which affected an estimated 2 million employees and their families.

Federal workers are guaranteed back pay when the shutdown eventually ends and the government is funded, in accordance with a 2019 federal law.

While active federal workers could miss their first full paychecks on Friday, military personnel are slated to be paid a week later on Oct. 31.

President Donald Trump earlier announced his administration has located $8 billion in unused research-and-development allocations from the 2025 fiscal year that ended on Sept 30.

He used that money to pay 1.2 million military personnel on Wednesday, but several congressional lawmakers question the legality of doing so.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., intends to hold a vote to pay military personnel and other “excepted” federal workers.

“We’re going to give [senators] a chance to pay the military next week,” Thune told media.

Senate staffers also are slated to be paid on Monday and House staffers on Oct. 31, but the funds are not available.

Another pressing issue is the Affordable Care Act’s annual open enrollment period starting on Nov. 1.

A House-approved continuing resolution that would fund the federal government through Nov. 21 does not include an extension of ACA tax credits, which expire at the end of the year.

The 18-day shutdown will last at least into Monday and only has been surpassed by a 21-day shutdown from Dec. 16, 1995, to Jan. 6, 1996, and a 35-day shutdown that started on Dec. 22, 2018, and lasted until Jan. 25, 2019.

Senate Democrats mostly have refused to approve the continuing resolution and instead offered an alternative funding measure that would fund the federal government through Oct. 31 and would include an extension of the ACA tax credits and Medicaid eligibility.

Senate Republicans mostly prefer to negotiate such things in the 2026 fiscal year budget, though.

Another pressing date is Nov. 21, which is the Friday after Thanksgiving and one of the busiest travel weekends in the United States.

If the shutdown extends into the Thanksgiving weekend, a shortage of air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration workers would greatly affect air travel.

The president has cited the shutdown when laying off federal workers, but U.S. District of Northern California Judge Susan Illston has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from continuing to lay off federal workers who are represented by two public sector unions.

On Friday, Illston said she might expand the injunction to include members of three more labor unions, Roll Call reported.

Former President Bill Clinton appointed Illston to the federal bench in 1995.

Does grassroots organising have the power to hold governments and corporations accountable for genocide? And where does the US labour movement stand today?

This week on Upfront Marc Lamont Hill speaks to labour organiser and activist Chris Smalls, who cofounded Amazon’s first US labour union.

Smalls has also been a vocal critic of the United States’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza and argues that labour unions in the country have a role to play to stop Israel:

“If our dock workers did the same as our brothers and sisters overseas, we wouldn’t see a genocide,” he says.

President Biden, in one of his first moves in office, reversed the immigration restriction put in place by the Trump administration covering five Muslim-majority nations — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen — as well as North Korea and some government officials from Venezuela.

The Trump administration was forced to revise its original order twice to resolve legal problems over due process, implementation and exclusive targeting of Muslim nations.

Jake Sullivan, who will be Biden’s national security advisor, said the ban “was nothing less than a stain on our nation. It was rooted in xenophobia and religious animus.”

Biden also extended to June 2022 temporary legal status for Liberians who fled civil war and the Ebola outbreak.

Biden sent a broader immigration plan to Congress on Wednesday that includes a pathway to U.S. citizenship for an estimated 11 million people.

The bill also proposes an expansion of refugee admissions and increases in per-country visa caps.

Oct. 18 (UPI) — Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has apologized for backing President Donald Trump possibly sending the National Guard to San Francisco, where the tech company is based.

Benioff had complained about crime problems outside the company’s annual Dreamforce conference in downtown San Francisco from Tuesday through Thursday, which drew about 45,000 attendees.

“We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” Benioff told The New York Times on Tuesday, noting he had the pay for several hundred off-duty law enforcement to help patrol the Moscone Center.

On Friday, he changed his stance.

“Having listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials, and after the largest and safest Dreamforce in our history, I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco,” Benioff wrote in a post on X in a post on X.

“My earlier comment came from an abundance of caution around the event, and I sincerely apologize for the concern it caused. It’s my firm belief that our city makes the most progress when we all work together in a spirit of partnership. I remain deeply grateful to Mayor [Daniel] Lurie, SFPD, and all our partners, and am fully committed to a safer, stronger San Francisco.”

The Trump administration already has deployed the National Guard to Portland, Ore.; Memphis, Tenn., and Chicago in a crackdown on illegal immigration and crime. Lower courts blocked the deployments of the troops.

On Tuesday, Trump told in the Oval Office that “we have great support in San Francisco” for sending troops to the city, apparently a reference to Benioff. He urged FBI Director Kash Patel to make San Francisco “next” for deployment.

Benioff’s suggestion was condemned by politicians, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, investors and those associated with the company.

Newsom, who was mayor of San Francisco, is a friend of Benioff and appeared at last year’s company convention.

More than 180 Salesforce workers, alumni and community members wrote an open letter on Friday that was published online. They said his comments have “revealed a troubling hypocrisy.”

“Salesforce was built on empowering communities — not deploying the National Guard into them,” they wrote. “Last week, that’s exactly what you endorsed.’

The letter added: “Walking back your words doesn’t undo the damage.”

Startup investor Ron Conway resigned from the board of the Salesforce Foundation on Thursday. Conway told Benioff in an email that their “values were no longer aligned,” according to the New York Times.

Conway donated around $500,000 to at least two funds tied to Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful 2024 presidential election campaign.

Benioff has donated to both political parties but has supported Harris, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for president. He attended a state dinner by King Charles for Trump at Windsor Castle in England on Sept. 15.

His family and Salesforce have given more than $1 billion to Bay Area causes, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Benioff, who acquired Time magazine in 2018, has a net worth of $8.8 billion, ranking 381st in the world, according to Forbes.

Laurene Powell Jobs, a pre-eminent philanthropist, criticized Benioff for his remarks.

“When wealth becomes a substitute for participation, giving is reduced to performance art — proof of virtue, a way to appear magnanimous while still demanding ownership,” she wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “That’s the quiet corruption corroding modern philanthropy: the ability to give as a license to impose one’s will. It’s a kind of moral laundering, where so-called benevolence masks self-interest.”

Conservatives have rallied behind the Salesforce CEO.

Venture capitalist David Sacks, who is now Trump’s artificial intelligence and crypto czar, wrote on X : “Dear Marc @Benioff, if the Democrats don’t want you, we would be happy for you to join our team. “Cancel culture is over, and we are the inclusive party.”

Benioff has previously complained about crime in the city. In 2023, he threatened to relocate Dreamforce to Las Vegas over concerns about drug use, crime and homelessness.

Salesforce has attempted to get on the good side of the Trump administration as the company seeks regulatory approval for its proposed $8 billion acquisition of Informatica, an AI-powered cloud data management company.

Salesforce a few weeks ago announced a new line of business, Missionforce, for more revenue from defense, intelligence and aerospace agencies.

The New York Times also reported that Salesforce has offered its services to increase Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s capabilities.

Salesforce is a cloud-based software company founded in 1999 by Benioff, a former Oracle executive.

The company has a market capitalization of $238 billion with $38 billion in revenue in 2025 and 76,453 employees. The public company is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

SACRAMENTO — California will close part of Interstate 5 on Saturday after military officials confirmed that live-fire artillery rounds will be shot over the freeway during a Marine Corps event, prompting state officials to shut down 17 miles of the freeway in an unprecedented move expected to cause massive gridlock.

Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized the White House for failing to coordinate or share safety information ahead of the Marine Corps 250th anniversary celebration, which will feature Vice President JD Vance.

The closure will stretch from Harbor Drive in Oceanside to Basilone Road near San Onofre and will be in effect from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Amtrak also is shutting down train service between Orange and San Diego counties midday.

“The President is putting his ego over responsibility with this disregard for public safety,” Newsom said in a statement Saturday. “Firing live rounds over a busy highway isn’t just wrong — it’s dangerous.”

The freeway closure comes despite the Marine Corps and White House saying it is unnecessary. It also underscores the deepening strain between California and the Trump administration — which has been escalating in recent months after the White House deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles to clamp down on protests, ramped up immigration raids and pressured California universities to comply with his agenda.

The Marine Corps said in a statement that Saturday’s event will be a “historic Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration, showcasing the strength and unity of the Navy-Marine Corps team and ensuring we remain ready to defend the Homeland and our Nation’s interests abroad.”

A spokesperson for the Marines said artillery was shot from Red Beach into designated ranges on Friday evening as part of a dress rehearsal.

“M777 artillery pieces have historically been fired during routine training from land-based artillery firing points west of the I-5 into impact areas east of the interstate within existing safety protocols and without the need to close the route,” the statement said. “This is an established and safe practice.”

The governor’s office said it was informed earlier in the week that the White House was considering closing the freeway and when no order materialized by Wednesday, state officials began weighing whether to do so themselves. Driving that decision, they said, were safety concerns about reports that live ordnance would be fired over the freeway and onto the base.

Newsom’s office said Thursday it was told no live fire would go over the freeway, only to be informed Friday that the military event organizers asked CalTrans for a sign along I-5 that read “Overhead fire in progress.”

Earlier Saturday morning, the state was told that live rounds are scheduled to be shot over the freeway around 1:30 p.m, prompting California Highway Patrol officials to recommend the freeway closure because of the potential safety risk and likelihood it would distract drivers.

The military show of force coincides with “No Kings” rallies and marches across the state Saturday challenging President Trump and what critics say is government overreach. Dozens of protests are scheduled Saturday across Southern California, with more than 2,700 demonstrations expected across the country.

During “No Kings” protests in June, President Trump held a military parade in Washington, D.C., which included a 21-gun salute, to celebrate the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary.

“Using our military to intimidate people you disagree with isn’t strength — it’s reckless, it’s disrespectful, and it’s beneath the office he holds,” Newsom said in a statement. “Law and order? This is chaos and confusion.”

The Marine Corps said in a statement to The Times on Thursday that a detailed risk assessment was conducted and “no highways or transportation routes will be closed” for the event titled “Sea to Shore — A Review of Amphibious Strength.”

Capt. Gregory Dreibelbis of the I Marine Expeditionary Force said that no ordnance will be fired from a U.S. Navy ship during the event, but Marines will fire high explosive rounds from artillery known as M777 Howitzers into designated ranges “with all safety precautions in place.” Simulated explosives and visual effects will also be used, he said.

William Martin, the communications director for Vance, said the Marine Corps determined the training exercise is safe and accused Newsom of politicizing the event.

“Gavin Newsom wants people to think this exercise is dangerous,” Martin said in a statement.

Caltrans said in a press release that the closure is “due to a White House-directed military event at Camp Pendleton involving live ammunition being discharged over the freeway” and that drivers should expect delays before, during and after the event.

CalTrans advised drivers in San Diego County that the detour to head north will begin at State Route 15 in southeast San Diego. Travelers west of SR-15 along the I-5 corridor in San Diego are advised to use SR-94, SR-52, SR-56, or SR-78 to I-15 north.

Drivers heading from San Diego to Los Angeles County are advised to use I-15 north to State Route 91 west into Los Angeles. For those starting in Los Angeles and heading south to San Diego, use SR-91 east to I-15 south.

To get to Orange County from San Diego, drivers should take I-15 north to SR-91 west, then SR-55 south. If heading from Orange County south to San Diego, drivers should use SR-55 north to SR-91 east to I-15 south.

The Trump administration previously had plans for a major celebration next month for the 250th anniversary of the Navy and Marines, which would have included an air and sea show — with the Blue Angels and parading warships — to be attended by Trump, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Plans to host that show in San Diego have been called off, the paper reported.

Camp Pendleton is a 125,000-acre base in northwestern San Diego County that has been critical in preparing troops for amphibious missions since World War II thanks to its miles of beach and coastal hills. The U.S. Department of Defense is considering making a portion of the base available for development or lease.

WASHINGTON — Protesting the direction of the country under President Trump, people gathered Saturday in the nation’s capital and hundreds of communities across the U.S. for “ No Kings ” demonstrations.

This is the third mass mobilization since Trump’s return to the White House and comes against the backdrop of a government shutdown that not only has closed federal programs and services, but is testing the core balance of power as an aggressive executive confronts Congress and the courts in ways that organizers warn are a slide toward American authoritarianism.

Trump himself is away from Washington at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

“They say they’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” Trump said in a Fox News interview airing early Friday, before he departed for a $1-million-per-plate MAGA Inc. super PAC fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago. Protests were expected nearby Saturday.

More than 2,600 rallies are planned Saturday in cities large and small, organized by hundreds of coalition partners.

Republicans are countering the nationwide street demonstrations by calling them “hate America” protests.

A growing opposition movement

While the earlier protests this year — against Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts in spring, then to counter Trump’s military parade in June — drew crowds, organizers say this one is building a more unified opposition movement. Top Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and progressive leader Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are joining in what organizers view as an antidote to Trump’s actions, including the administration’s clampdown on free speech and its military-style immigration raids in American cities.

“There is no greater threat to an authoritarian regime than patriotic people-power,” said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of Indivisible, among the key organizers.

As Republicans and the White House try to characterize the mass protests as a rally of radicals, Levin said the sign-up numbers are growing. Organizers said rallies are being planned within a one-hour drive for most Americans.

Rallies were also held in major European cities, where gatherings of a few hundred Americans chanted slogans and held signs and U.S. flags.

‘Crooks and con men’ and fears of police response

Retired family doctor Terence McCormally was heading to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to join up with others Saturday morning and walk across the Memorial Bridge that enters Washington directly in front of the Lincoln Memorial. He thought the protests would be peaceful but said the recent deployment of the National Guard makes him more leery about the police than he used to be.

“I really don’t like the crooks and con men and religious zealots who are trying to use the country” for personal gain, McCormally said, “while they are killing and hurting millions of people with bombs.”

Republicans denounce rallies

Republicans have sought to portray participants in Saturday’s rallies as far outside the mainstream of American politics, and a main reason for the prolonged government shutdown, now in its 18th day.

From the White House to Capitol Hill, GOP leaders disparaged the rallygoers as “communists” and “Marxists.”

They say Democratic leaders, including Schumer, are beholden to the far-left flank and willing to keep the government shut down to appease those liberal forces.

“I encourage you to watch — we call it the ‘Hate America’ rally — that will happen Saturday,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

“Let’s see who shows up for that,” Johnson said, saying he expected attendees to include “antifa types,” people who “hate capitalism” and “Marxists in full display.”

In a Facebook post, Sanders said, “It’s a love America rally.”

“It’s a rally of millions of people all over this country who believe in our Constitution, who believe in American freedom and,” he said, pointing at the GOP leadership, “are not going to let you and Donald Trump turn this country into an authoritarian society.”

Democrats in Congress have refused to vote on legislation that would reopen the government as they demand funding for healthcare, which has been imperiled by the massive GOP spending bill passed this summer. Republicans say they are willing to discuss the issue only after the government reopens.

But for many Democrats, the government closure is also a way to stand up to Trump and try to push the presidency back to its place in the U.S. system as a coequal branch of government.

The situation is a potential turnaround from just six months ago, when Democrats and their allies were divided and despondent, unsure about how best to respond to Trump’s return to the White House. Schumer in particular was sharply criticized by many in his party for allowing an earlier government funding bill to sail through the Senate without using it to challenge Trump.

In April, the national march against Trump and Musk — who was then leading the White House government-slashing group known as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — had 1,300 registered locations. In June, for the first “No Kings” day, there were 2,100 registered locations.

“What we are seeing from the Democrats is some spine,” Levin said. “The worst thing the Democrats could do right now is surrender.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said he wasn’t sure if he would join the rallygoers Saturday, but he took issue with the Republicans’ characterization of the events.

“What’s hateful is what happened on Jan. 6,” he said, referring to the 2021 Capitol attack, in which a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the building in an attempt to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden. “What you’ll see this weekend is what patriotism looks like.”

Mascaro, Riddle and Freking write for the Associated Press. Riddle reported from Montgomery, Ala. AP writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.

Oct. 18 (UPI) — Several million people plan to participate Saturday in more than 2,500 “No Kings” rallies throughout the United States in what organizers are billing as the largest single-day protest in modern history.

The first “No Kings’ events, in opposition to President Donald Trump, was on June 14, when there were more than 2,000 events drawing more than 5 million people. A military parade in Washington, D.C., also took place that day.

“I think what you’ll see on No Kings II in October is a boisterous, joyful crowd expressing their political opinions in a peaceful, joyous way,” Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin told USA Today. “People with dogs, people with kids, people with funny signs, music, dancing, laughing, community building, and a sense of collective effervescence that comes when you gather with a lot of people with a shared purpose.”

The events are being run by a coalition of organizations that also include the American Civil Liberties Union.

“No thrones. No crowns. No Kings,” states the “No Kings’ website, which lists event locations. “Millions of us are rising again to show the world: America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people.”

The first events are scheduled for 11 a.m. EDT, including a march in New York City. One in Washington is set for noon and in Chicago at 1 p.m. EDT. Hours later, events will take place in western time zones.

Events also occurred in Europe, including outside the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Germany.

Britannica lists the largest single-day protest in the United States as occurring on April 22, 1970, drawing an estimated 20 million on the first Earth Day. Hands Across America drew 5 million to 7 million on May 25, 1986, with the first “No Kings” listed as third. The Women’s March, one day after Trump first became president on Jan. 21, 2017, drew an estimated 4.6 million.

Nonprofit organizer Indivisible Project said the protests will be “nonviolent action” with people trained in safety and de-escalation.

The Department of Homeland Security has warned law enforcement agencies across the country about the potential for certain events to become violent. According to an intelligence report obtained by CNN, police should look out for demonstrators “with a history of exploiting lawful protests to engage in violence” and attendees with who are perceived to have had paramilitary-like training.

Some state leaders are calling up additional law enforcement.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said he’s activated the National Guard to support police “to help keep Virginians safe.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, wrote on X on Thursday, that he “directed the Dept. of Public Safety and National Guard to surge forces into Austin” ahead of the rallies.

“Texas will NOT tolerate chaos. Anyone destroying property or committing acts of violence will be swiftly arrested,” Abbott wrote.

Republican leaders describe the protests are a series of”Hate America” rallies.

“And I encourage you to watch — we call it the ‘Hate America Rally’ that will happen Saturday,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Wednesday. “Let’s see who shows up for that. I bet you see pro-Hamas supporters. I bet you see Antifa types. I bet you see the Marxists in full display, the people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic.”

“The truth is — what Democrats really want is something Republicans can’t give them. And that is the approval of their far-left base,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday.

Organizers say the Republican stance will backfire.

“I think, if anything, it will increase turnout,” Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer of the ACLU, told ABC News. “I think Americans can really see through these sad attempts to distract attention from the failure of these Republican Congress people and Republican Trump administration to actually address what most Americans want and need from their government.”

Trump, who is spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., said in a Fox Business Network interview that aired Friday: “You know, they’re saying. They’re referring to me as a king. I’m not.”

During Trump’s 11th visit to his county of residence since he became president again, events are planned in Palm Beach Gardens, West Palm Beach, Lake Worth Beach and Boca Raton.

A June rally was at the Meyer Amphitheater in downtown West Palm Beach.

The events are coming on the 18th day of the U.S. government shutdown. Senators on Thursday failed for the 10th time to resolve the impasse in votes on Thursday.

“We’ll be in the streets for immigrant families under attack and for voters who are being silenced,” the Progressive Change Campaign Committee wrote in an email obtained by ABC News. “For communities being terrorized by militarized policing. For families who are about to lose their health insurance. And for every single person whose rights are threatened by this administration’s cruelty.”

The political action committee said celebrities will include Jane Fonda, Kerry Washington, John Legend, Alan Cumming and John Leguizamo.

The protests are occurring amid a backdrop of immigration enforcement and a crackdown on crime.

Trump ordered National Guard deployments to Illinois; Memphis, Tenn.; Portland, Ore.; and Washington, D.C. In June, the guard and Marines were deployed to Los Angeles amid protests.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Rebecca Ellis, Noah Goldberg and the esteemed Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.

For nearly three years, Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia has been trying to use his office to dig deep on the city’s homelessness programs — how they’re run and, more importantly, how effective they are.

The road so far has been a bit bumpy.

Early in his tenure, Mejia sent staffers to the Westside to monitor Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program, which moves unhoused people into hotels and motels. He quickly pulled back after facing resistance within City Hall.

A year later, Mejia offered to have his office conduct a court-ordered audit of the city’s homelessness programs. The work went to a private firm instead, at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $3 million.

Mejia also promised to produce a “focused audit” on Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature homelessness initiative, which has not materialized.

At one point, he even posted an Instagram video of himself and his staff doing choreographed moves to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” to explain why he hadn’t audited the program. The video displayed the words: “We tried. We tried. We tried.”

But this week, the city’s top accountant got his big break, securing a plum role in the high-stakes legal battle over homelessness between the city and the nonprofit L.A. Alliance for Human Rights. That fight hinges on whether the city is living up to its commitment, enshrined in a legal settlement, to clear encampments and build more homeless beds.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter assigned attorney Daniel Garrie, an expert in cybersecurity and computer forensics, as a new third-party monitor to determine whether the city is truly on track to open 12,915 new homeless beds and remove nearly 10,000 encampments, as required by the settlement.

Carter tapped Mejia to serve as a liaison between Garrie and the city, calling him the “most knowledgeable person” on homelessness funding. In a six-page order, the judge said the city controller would support Garrie by “facilitating data access.” He also said Mejia would be less expensive than former City Controller Ron Galperin, who was also under consideration and expected to charge $800 an hour.

The judge’s order was well-timed, coming at a moment of heightened scrutiny over homelessness initiatives in L.A. and across the region.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors accused two real estate executives of misappropriating millions of dollars in state funds allocated in the region’s fight against homelessness. According to prosecutors, one of them engaged in bank fraud, identity theft and money laundering — purchasing a property on L.A.’s Westside and quickly flipping it for more than double the price to Weingart Center Assn., a nonprofit housing developer that received city funds to build interim homeless housing.

Mayoral candidate Austin Beutner, the former schools superintendent who spent some time at City Hall, also turned up the heat, calling this week for Bass to let Mejia audit the city’s homeless programs. He made that pitch after Rand researchers concluded that the region’s yearly homeless count is not accurately tracking homeless people who don’t live in tents or cars.

“The Mayor is blocking the elected Controller from auditing the City’s efforts,” Beutner said on X. “We need an immediate audit to tell us how much is being spent, on what, and whether it’s having any impact.”

Bass spokesperson Clara Karger, in an email to The Times, said the mayor and the city controller “work well together” on various issues, including a recent audit of the city’s housing department.

Asked whether Bass refused to participate in Mejia’s planned Inside Safe audit last year, Karger replied: “A city elected official should not conduct a performance audit of another elected official.”

“Inside Safe has robust oversight systems in place,” she said. “There are hundreds of pages of publicly available reports on Inside Safe and an assessment of Inside Safe was completed under the Alliance settlement.”

City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto declined to weigh in on Carter’s order. But she has previously pointed to a 16-year-old legal ruling barring the city controller from conducting performance audits of other elected officials.

“The legal advice from the City Attorney’s Office is known to our clients and has not changed over the years,” said Feldstein Soto spokesperson Karen Richardson.

The judge’s order may only be the beginning.

Mejia has been urging the city’s Charter Reform Commission to propose language that clearly gives him the power to audit programs overseen by his fellow elected officials. Such a move would erase any doubts about whether he has the legal standing to scrutinize Inside Safe.

The debate over the powers of the city controller goes back decades. In 2008, then-City Controller Laura Chick clashed with City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo over her attempt to audit his office’s workers compensation unit. The following year, right before Chick left office, a judge sided with Delgadillo and found that the controller lacked the authority for the audit.

In the short term, Carter’s order could give Mejia new leeway to identify lax oversight of L.A.’s homelessness programs, offering the public fresh insight into how closely they are tracked, and possibly identifying waste or fraud.

Mejia declined interview requests from The Times. Last month in federal court, he dazzled Carter with his office’s online dashboards, which show expenditures not just for Inside Safe but many other homelessness programs.

Carter praised the work of Mejia and his team, according to a transcript of the proceedings. Mejia, in turn, said his office enjoys the work but sometimes struggles to carry it out with its existing staff.

“Some of these contracts are 400 pages,” he said. “And so right now, we have a two-person team who is doing all of that and putting all this together.”

Attorney Elizabeth Mitchell, who represents the L.A. Alliance, welcomed the selection of Mejia, saying he’s clearly been pushing to get more involved in the case.

“My only concern is, I don’t know if he will engender a lot of cooperation from the city, because they don’t seem inclined to cooperate with him,” Mitchell said.

That wasn’t the message from Councilmember Tim McOsker, who voiced alarm in recent months over the costly bills submitted by the outside law firm handling the L.A. Alliance case for the city. McOsker, who spent several years in the city attorney’s office, expressed confidence in Mejia’s abilities and said the decision to pick him would be cost effective.

“It is imperative that we give value to the taxpayers of the city of Los Angeles,” he said.

State of play

— BEUTNERPALOOZA: After weeks of speculation, Beutner jumped into the June 2026 race for mayor. His team got off to a choppy start last weekend, uploading “Austin for LA Mayor” images to his social media accounts before he had even made a formal announcement, then abruptly taking them down. Hours later, Beutner formally went public, blasting Bass over the city’s handling of the Palisades fire, which destroyed his mother-in-law’s home and severely damaged his Pacific Palisades home.

By Monday, Beutner had released a video announcing his campaign, which assailed Trump over his immigration crackdown. Two days later, he appeared with supporters in San Pedro, repeating his warning that the city is “adrift.”

— DEFINE ADRIFT: The following morning, Bass joined former Councilmember Mike Bonin, director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, to discuss politics, leadership and her tenure. She took issue with Beutner’s characterization of L.A. as “adrift,” saying the city has been through “multiple shocks this year,” including a catastrophic firestorm and “being invaded” by federal authorities in June.

The talk took place on the 72nd floor of the U.S. Bank Tower, offering a staggeringly beautiful post-rain city view, which offers a good excuse to revisit former California poet laureate Dana Gioia’s classic poem, “Los Angeles After the Rain.”

— FIERCE AMBITION: Is L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath running for mayor of Los Angeles? The former West Hollywood mayor hasn’t ruled it out — and moved to the city a few months ago.

— WE’RE NOT IN TEXAS ANYMORE: Two more plaintiffs in L.A. County’s $4-billion sex abuse settlement have come forward to say they were told to invent their claims in exchange for cash. The allegations follow a Times investigation published earlier this month that found seven plaintiffs who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse. Downtown LA Law Group, which filed cases for the plaintiffs, has denied involvement with the alleged recruiters.

— BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: Meanwhile, the county is preparing to pay out an additional $828 million to another group of plaintiffs who say they were sexually abused in county facilities.

— GETTING OUT THE VOTE: Real estate developer Rick Caruso, the is-he-or-isn’t-he potential mayoral/gubernatorial candidate, is sending mailers to more than 45,000 voters who lived in fire-damaged sections of Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Altadena and now have temporary addresses. He advised them on how to update their voter registration by listing a temporary mailing address while also remaining in their original voting district, according to a Caruso spokesperson. Caruso is paying for the effort, which is nonpartisan and doesn’t mention any specific election. His team declined to provide the cost.

—SPEAKING OF CARUSO: Politico took a look at the mall magnate’s recent travels around the state, which have fueled speculation that he’s leaning toward a gubernatorial bid. The outlet reported that Caruso, who self-financed his 2022 mayoral campaign, recently met with Democratic megadonors Haim Saban and Ari Emanuel.

— THREE’S COMPANY: East Hollywood resident Dylan Kendall filed paperwork this week to challenge incumbent Hugo Soto–Martínez in next year’s race to represent Hollywood, Silver Lake, Echo Park and other neighborhoods. Kendall, a business owner who previously worked at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, cited quality-of-life issues as the impetus for her candidacy. Political consultant Michael Trujillo and fundraiser Kat Connolly have joined her campaign. (One of Soto-Martínez’s upstairs neighbors, Colter Carlisle, is also running.)

— MORE FALLOUT FROM G: L.A. County Chief Executive Fesia Davenport received a $2-million payout this summer after telling the county supervisors she had experienced professional fallout from Measure G, a voter-approved ballot measure that will soon make her job obsolete.

— 1,000 DAYS LEFT: Bass reminded Angelenos on Friday that the start of the 2028 Olympic Games is just 1,000 days away. Appearing in Venice, she signed an executive directive streamlining preparations for the international event.

— BYE, JULIA: We are super bummed to report that this was erstwhile City Hall reporter Julia Wick‘s last week at The Times. She will miss all of you. But she says please keep in touch!

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness went to Hollywood this week, focusing on the area around Santa Monica Boulevard and Heliotrope Drive in Soto-Martínez’s district.
• On the docket next week: The council’s public works committee takes up the issue of long-delayed sidewalk repairs, including the city’s obligations to make them wheelchair accessible.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

WASHINGTON — The very first thing you notice about the senior senator from West Virginia is that voice.

There is no doubt about it: Robert C. Byrd has the best voice in Washington.

It’s a deep yet tremulous 74-year-old voice that seems to descend upon the listener from on high, as if Byrd is somewhere above you, uttering eternal truths that are immediately being hammered into granite.

As he talks, Byrd dances through the octaves, carefully playing with his articulation of each vowel and consonant, surrounding his audience in the sweet darkness of sound.

Long, crafted pauses break his sentences, and during those silent moments time seems suspended; Byrd is then like nothing so much as a Shakespearean actor warming to the task.

The thought occurs that America is a safer place because Robert Byrd went into politics rather than into door-to-door sales.

Or is it?

“My voice, a political tool? I have never used my voice as a political tool,” insists Byrd in the sliding baritone that he has so often utilized as a political tool.

As he speaks, Byrd’s ornate Victorian-Era office in the Capitol Building is transformed into a personal stage. Beneath murals glorifying the Republic, Byrd paces the room, moves toward a shaft of sunlight and strikes a heroic pose beside a tall window.

He is a short, compact man, but his size belies the power of his presence. With his carefully coiffed silver hair, his high forehead and piercing eyes, and impeccably dressed in a vested dark suit, Byrd has the look of an important person not to be messed with, a fundamentalist preacher or a hanging judge.

Slowly, Byrd gets down to business. He moves to his desk, opens a drawer and pulls out a large black book. It is the Bible. Byrd turns to a coffee table in front of his audience, lifts the Bible and with sudden force slams the book down.

He slaps his hand onto the Bible. “Has Robert Byrd ever twisted arms to get the CIA to move jobs to West Virginia?”

His question to himself thunders through the room.

“Has Robert Byrd twisted arms at the FBI to move jobs to West Virginia?

“I swear on the Holy Bible that I have not!”

It is a bravura performance by the Senate’s premier dramatist.

Byrd, a Democrat, is here for some serious damage control. The former Senate majority leader and current chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee is under attack as Congress returns later this month, and he wants to get his side told.

The charge that Byrd is answering: that he has used his sway over the appropriations process, the flow of money, in the Senate to move–no, his real foes would say steal–thousands upon thousands of government jobs and take them to his depressed Mountain State.

Byrd’s pork-barrel deals have prompted the kind of shock and outrage from his colleagues that has rarely been seen here since Jimmy Stewart filibustered Claude Rains’ crooked dam project in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

“Everyone in this body knows what’s going on,” Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) warned darkly in a recent emotional rebuke to Byrd on the floor of the House. “We all know what’s taken place. I believe that actions like this . . . are disgraceful.”

Byrd’s efforts to move FBI and CIA facilities and thousands of jobs to West Virginia–immediately transforming rural hamlets there into international centers of law enforcement and intelligence gathering–have drawn special fire.

The attacks have come from such diverse sources as right-wing House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (“It makes no sense at all except as a pure abuse of power,” Gingrich blasted) to Tom Clancy, best-selling novelist and friend of the CIA (“The Duke of West Virginia,” Clancy wrote in The Washington Post, “. . . is taking serfs from one fiefdom and moving them to another–his–in return for which he will deign to grant favors to those willing to support his legislative kidnaping”).

To be sure, pork has never gone out of style in Washington. There is a good reason, after all, why Congress seems so reluctant to cut the bloated defense budget, even after the collapse of the Soviet Evil Empire; it’s because the Pentagon and the nation’s military contractors have been so efficient at spreading their largess (factories and jobs) throughout almost every congressional district in the country.

So when others in Congress say they are shocked–shocked!–to find pork-barrel politics going on, their protestations may be just a wee bit disingenuous.

Still, Byrd has been catching flak because he seems to have gone beyond the pale, the accepted norms of pork. At least by the standards of modern Washington, that is, where special interests usually bring home the bacon through less showy practices–and without leaving so many tracks.

Indeed, perhaps Byrd’s biggest mistake was that he failed to follow convention and work through a bunch of shadowy lobbyists; he has instead done pork the old-fashioned way–by dint of his brute power over the legislative process.

Byrd denies that he has abused his power or exerted undue pressure to persuade federal agencies to locate jobs and facilities in West Virginia, yet he remains quite open in his desire to do more for his state.

He has, in fact, publicly devoted himself and the remainder of his Senate career to the cause of stimulating the moribund West Virginia economy through a massive injection of government money and jobs. He even set a goal: to bring $1 billion home with him in the space of five years.

He has already exceeded that objective in just three years, and the way he has gone about it is a lesson in congressional power.

In 1989, Byrd surprised official Washington by stepping down as Senate majority leader to become chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. To most political pundits, it was a puzzling move; after all, as majority leader Byrd was a national figure. He was trading in the status of statesman for the grubby world of an obscure committee post, and few outside the Senate saw the logic in it.

Yet Byrd, a senator since 1959 (and a congressman even before that, dating to 1953) understood where real power lay in Congress.

At least the kind of power that was useful to West Virginia.

A master of parliamentary procedure and a self-taught expert on the history of the Senate, Byrd knew that while the highly visible majority leader could control the scheduling and the legislative pace in the Senate, the real substance of the Senate’s business was conducted at the committee level. Arguably the most powerful committee of all was Appropriations; while other panels could create new programs, Appropriations controlled all the money to run those programs.

“I had been in the leadership for 22 years, and that’s a long time,” Byrd says. “I had been spending all my time on the floor and on matters affecting the nation. I felt it was time to move on. I’m glad I walked away from it.”

And so, after a career in the Senate leadership, what better way to help West Virginia than to take the helm of Appropriations, where Byrd would be in a position to pick and choose which government spending programs to ship back home?

Today, Byrd doesn’t deny the obvious benefits his committee post offers West Virginia. What is good for West Virginia, Byrd explains, is good for America.

“Naturally, my state is part of this union. A highway in West Virginia versus another state . . . one shouldn’t look at it as if it is a highway in Mexico. All of these states are part of the same country.” Byrd adds that others shouldn’t begrudge West Virginia. Quoting Daniel Webster, he notes: “We don’t put lines of latitude on what public works do or don’t benefit us.”

The result: By last fall, more than $500 million in proposed federal spending for West Virginia for fiscal 1992 alone was moving through the Appropriations process in the Senate, according to Congressional Quarterly, a Washington journal that tracks Congress. A list of Byrd’s West Virginia-bound pork, compiled by Congressional Quarterly in the middle of the fall’s congressional session, was impressive; it ranged from $165 million in highway improvements to $600,000 in research grants for the study of a replacement for lime fertilizer.

More visible projects included the transfer of a 90-worker data processing division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; an Internal Revenue Service center employing 300, and a 700-worker office of the Bureau of Public Debt.

But his greatest coup was the FBI’s national fingerprinting laboratory, bringing as many as 2,600 workers to Clarksburg, W.Va.

Byrd didn’t win so much for his depressed home state by relying on friendships with his fellow senators; on the contrary, he has been successful almost exclusively because of the power of his position and his unrivaled grasp of the legislative process in the Senate–and in spite of the fact that many of his colleagues view him as cold and aloof.

“I don’t have close friends in the Senate,” Byrd quietly acknowledges. He adds, with a measure of pride: “I don’t socialize with anybody. I haven’t played a round of golf in my life.”

But with few allies to rely on, Byrd’s West Virginia-first campaign finally ran aground late in 1991 in the face of mounting congressional opposition. Thus, when Byrd tried to take the CIA, or at least a big chunk of it, to West Virginia, the rest of Congress put its foot down.

The CIA and Byrd had earlier agreed to transfer 3,000 workers to a new CIA office center to be built in West Virginia, consolidating a series of smaller offices scattered throughout the Washington area.

But this time, Byrd’s critics had seen enough.

Quickly, the House Intelligence Committee labeled the plan a “covert action.” Condemnation spilled out of Congress: “If this wasn’t so pathetic, it would be funny,” complained Rep. David O’B. Martin (R-N.Y.).

Wolf, a Republican from the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington whose district includes CIA headquarters, noted that Byrd’s actions would mean the agency would have to change its name to the “Decentralized Intelligence Agency.”

Eventually, the full House defied Byrd and has at least temporarily blocked the move.

In the face of so much criticism, Byrd repeatedly has insisted that the CIA followed a legitimate site selection process in choosing West Virginia; he also stresses that he believes his honor was impugned in the House debate over the CIA project.

How has he responded to such personal attacks?

He insists–dramatically, of course–that he remains above the fray.

“Those are innuendoes, willful misrepresentations of the facts,” Byrd says.

The lawyerly words flow slowly but steadily, as if he is pulling warm licorice from his mouth.

“I have turned my cheek to all of the innuendoes,” Byrd says.

He says again, more emphatically: “I have turned my cheek.”

SAN FRANCISCO — About 24 hours after President Trump declared San Francisco such a crime-ridden “mess” that he was recommending federal forces be sent to restore order, Manit Limlamai, 43, and Kai Saetern, 32, rolled their eyes at the suggestion.

The pair — both in the software industry — were with friends Thursday in Dolores Park, a vibrant green space with sweeping views of downtown, playing volleyball under a blue sky and shining autumn sun. All around them, people sat on benches with books, flew kites, played with dogs or otherwise lounged away the afternoon on blankets in the grass.

Both Limlamai and Saetern said San Francisco of course has issues, and some rougher neighborhoods — but that’s any city.

“I’ve lived here for 10 years and I haven’t felt unsafe, and I’ve lived all over the city,” Saetern said. “Every city has its problems, and I don’t think San Francisco is any different,” but “it’s not a hellscape,” said Limlamai, who has been in the city since 2021.

Both said Trump’s suggestion that he might send in troops was more alarming than reassuring — especially, Limlamai said, on top of his recent remark that American cities should serve as “training grounds” for U.S. military forces.

“I don’t think that’s appropriate at all,” he said. “The military is not trained to do what needs to be done in these cities.”

Across San Francisco, residents, visitors and prominent local leaders expressed similar ideas — if not much sharper condemnation of any troop deployment. None shied away from the fact that San Francisco has problems, especially with homelessness. Several also mentioned a creeping urban decay, and that the city needs a bit of a polish.

But federal troops? That was a hard no.

A range of people on Market Street in downtown San Francisco on Thursday.

“It’s just more of [Trump’s] insanity,” said Peter Hill, 81, as he played chess in a slightly edgier park near City Hall. Hill said using troops domestically was a fascist power play, and “a bad thing for the entire country.”

“It’s fascism,” agreed local activist Wendy Aragon, who was hailing a cab nearby. Her Latino family has been in the country for generations, she said, but she now fears speaking Spanish on the street given that immigration agents have admitted targeting people who look or sound Latino, and troops in the city would only exacerbate those fears. “My community is under attack right now.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said troop deployments to the city were “completely unnecessary” and “typical Trump: petty, vindictive retaliation.”

“He wants to attack anyone who he perceives as an enemy, and that includes cities, and so he started with L.A. and Southern California because of its large immigrant community, and then he proceeded to cities with large Black populations like Chicago, and now he’s moving on to cities that are just perceived as very lefty like Portland and now San Francisco,” Wiener said.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, defended such deployments and noted crime reductions in cities, including Washington, D.C., and Memphis, where local officials — including D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat — have embraced them.

“America’s once great cities have descended into chaos and crime as a result of Democrat policies that put criminals first and law-abiding citizens last. Making America Safe Again — especially crime-ridden cities — was a key campaign promise from the President that the American people elected him to fulfill,” Jackson said. “San Francisco Democrats should look at the tremendous results in DC and Memphis and listen to fellow Democrat Mayor Bowser and welcome the President in to clean up their city.”

A police officer shuts the door to his car after a person was allegedly caught carrying a knife near a sign promoting an AI-powered museum exhibit in downtown San Francisco.

A presidential ‘passion’

San Francisco — a bastion of liberal politics that overwhelmingly voted against Trump in the last election — has been derided by the conservative right for generations as a great American jewel lost to destructive progressive policies.

With its tech-heavy economy and downtown core hit hard by the pandemic and the nation’s shift toward remote work, the city has had a particularly rough go in recent years, which only exacerbated its image as a city in decline. That it produced some of Trump’s most prominent political opponents — including Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris — has only made it more of a punching bag.

In August, Trump suggested San Francisco needed federal intervention. “You look at what the Democrats have done to San Francisco — they’ve destroyed it,” he said in the Oval Office. “We’ll clean that one up, too.”

Then, earlier this month, to the chagrin of liberal leaders across the city, Marc Benioff, the billionaire Salesforce founder and Time magazine owner who has long been a booster of San Francisco, said in an interview with the New York Times that he supported Trump and welcomed Guard troops in the city.

“We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” Benioff said, just as his company was preparing to open its annual Dreamforce convention in the city, complete with hundreds of private security officers.

The U.S. Constitution generally precludes military forces from serving in police roles in the U.S.

On Friday, Benioff reversed himself and apologized for his earlier stance. “Having listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials, and after the largest and safest Dreamforce in our history, I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco,” he wrote on X.

He also apologized for “the concern” his earlier support for troops in the city had caused, and praised San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, for bringing crime down.

Billionaire Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, also called for federal intervention in the city, writing on his X platform that downtown San Francisco is “a drug zombie apocalypse” and that federal intervention was “the only solution at this point.”

Trump made his latest remarks bashing San Francisco on Wednesday, again from the Oval Office.

Trump said it was “one of our great cities 10 years ago, 15 years ago,” but “now it’s a mess” — and that he was recommending federal forces move into the city to make it safer. “I’m gonna be strongly recommending — at the request of government officials, which is always nice — that you start looking at San Francisco,” he said to leading members of his law enforcement team.

Trump did not specify exactly what sort of deployment he meant, or which kinds of federal forces might be involved. He also didn’t say which local officials had allegedly requested help — a claim Wiener called a lie.

“Every American deserves to live in a community where they’re not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted or shot, and that’s exactly what our administration is working to deliver,” Trump said, before adding that sending federal forces into American cities had become “a passion” of his.

Kai Saetern, 32, was playing volleyball in Dolores Park on Thursday. Saetern said he has never felt unsafe living in neighborhoods all over the city for the last 10 years.

Crime is down citywide

The responses from San Francisco, both to Benioff and Trump, came swiftly, ranging from calm discouragement to full-blown outrage.

Lurie did not respond directly, but his office pointed reporters to his recent statements that crime is down 30% citywide, homicides are at a 70-year low, car break-ins are at a 22-year low and tent encampments are at their lowest number on record.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Lurie said. “But I trust our local law enforcement.”

San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins was much more fiery, writing online that Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had turned “so-called public safety and immigration enforcement into a form of government sponsored violence against U.S. citizens, families, and ethnic groups,” and that she stood ready to prosecute federal officers if they harm city residents.

Attendees exit the Dreamforce convention downtown on Thursday in San Francisco.

“If you come to San Francisco and illegally harass our residents … I will not hesitate to do my job and hold you accountable just like I do other violators of the law every single day,” she said.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — whose seat Wiener is reportedly going to seek — said the city “does not want or need Donald Trump’s chaos” and will continue to increase public safety locally and “without the interference of a President seeking headlines.”

Newsom said the use of federal troops in American cities is a “clear violation” of federal law, and that the state was prepared to challenge any such deployment to San Francisco in court, just as it challenged such deployments in Los Angeles earlier this year.

The federal appellate court that oversees California and much of the American West has so far allowed troops to remain in L.A., but is set to continue hearing arguments in the L.A. case soon.

Trump had used anti-immigration enforcement protests in L.A. as a justification to send troops there. In San Francisco, Newsom said, he lacks any justification or “pretext” whatsoever.

“There’s no existing protest at a federal building. There’s no operation that’s being impeded. I guess it’s just a ‘training ground’ for the President of United States,” Newsom said. “It is grossly illegal, it’s immoral, it’s rather delusional.”

Nancy DeStefanis, 76, a longtime labor and environmental activist who was at San Francisco City Hall on Thursday to complain about Golden Gate Park being shut to regular visitors for paid events, was similarly derisive of troops entering the city.

“As far as I’m concerned, and I think most San Franciscans are concerned, we don’t want troops here. We don’t need them,” she said.

Passengers walk past a cracked window from the Civic Center BART station in downtown San Francisco.

‘An image I don’t want to see’

Not far away, throngs of people wearing Dreamforce lanyards streamed in and out of the Moscone Center, heading back and forth to nearby Market Street and pouring into restaurants, coffee shops and take-out joints. The city’s problems — including homelessness and associated grittiness — were apparent at the corners of the crowds, even as chipper convention ambassadors and security officers moved would-be stragglers along.

Not everyone was keen to be identified discussing Trump or safety in the city, with some citing business reasons and others a fear of Trump retaliating against them. But lots of people had opinions.

Sanjiv, a self-described “techie” in his mid-50s, said he preferred to use only his first name because, although he is a U.S. citizen now, he emigrated from India and didn’t want to stick his neck out by publicly criticizing Trump.

He called homelessness a “rampant problem” in San Francisco, but less so than in the past — and hardly something that would justify sending in military troops.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “It’s not like the city’s under siege.”

Claire Roeland, 30, from Austin, Texas, said she has visited San Francisco a handful of times in recent years and had “mixed” experiences. She has family who live in surrounding neighborhoods and find it completely safe, she said, but when she’s in town it’s “predominantly in the business district” — where it’s hard not to be disheartened by the obvious suffering of people with addiction and mental illness and the grime that has accumulated in the emptied-out core.

“There’s a lot of unfortunate urban decay happening, and that makes you feel more unsafe than you actually are,” she said, but there isn’t “any realistic need to send in federal troops.”

She said she doesn’t know what troops would do other than confront homeless people, and “that’s an image I don’t want to see.”

Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.

Oct. 17 (UPI) — The Palm Bay City Council in central Florida censored council member Chandler Langevin after controversial remarks about the local Indian community on social media, including a call to “deport every Indian immediately” and “Indians are destroying the South.”

The 3-2 decision Thursday restricts his ability to introduce agenda items, speak during council reports and serve on city-appointed committees and boards. Langevin now has to receive majority approval from the council to place an item on the agenda.

Langevin voted against the measure.

Palm Bay, with a population of 142,000, is located about 50 miles south of the Kennedy Space Center.

Langevin is a 33-year-old Republican elected to a four-year term in November after serving in the U.S. Marines.

He has targeted others with incendiary, racist and xenophobic statements online though his X account.

Regarding Indians in the community, he wrote: “Indian migration has to cease immediately.”

He also wrote: “There is not a single Indian that cares about the United States. They are here to exploit us financially and enrich India and Indians.”

“I not only have a constitutional right, but I personally believe that I have a duty and an obligation to engage other elected officials, to have dialogue with my constituents and to drive policy in a matter that I deem best,” Langevin said, in describing the situation as a witchhunt.

Langevin, wearing a U.S. Flag around his neck during the meeting, said he would sue, alleging a violation of the First Amendment.

Anthony Sabatini, an attorney and Lake County commissioner, posted on X: “This textbook first amendment retaliation & totally illegal -tomorrow we will file a lawsuit and now they will pay.”

“The government cannot punish and limit your rights just purely based on your viewpoint,” Sabatini said in a report by WKMG-TV. “You can pass a censure motion, that’s fine, but you can’t limit his ability to speak based on his opinion.”

The council also voted 4-1 to look into hiring an outside attorney to investigate whether Langevin made any ethics violations.

Two weeks earlier, the commissioners wrote a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis asking to have Langevin removed from his elected seat.

Commissioners, as well as Mayor Rob Medina, said his comments are serious misconduct.

“I think if we represent the population at large, there’s some issues then we need to tailor our speech,” Medina said. “We represent everyone, right, so it is conduct unbecoming.”

Councilman Richard “Mike” Hammer voted against the censure. Hammer posted on Facebook that he did not agree with the things Langevin said about Indian Americans, but he did not agree with the restrictions placed on him, he said.

Indian American Chamber of Commerce President Jan Gautman told Spectrum News that he was satisfied with an apology.

“After meeting with several community leaders, he came to understand the tremendous value the Indian American community brings to this country — especially through business ownership, job creation, and contributions as one of the strongest economic drivers in our nation,” Gautman said. “Our community appreciates his apology and chooses to move forward with positivity, focusing on unity, understanding, and the betterment of our shared future.

“We wish him well and look forward to continued collaboration in building stronger communities together.”

On Oct. 6, Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in a statement: “Chandler Langevin’s comments towards the Indian American community are vile and reprehensible. The people of Palm Bay deserve better leadership than someone who so proudly displays his hateful ignorance through divisive and racist rhetoric.

“The Florida Democratic Party proudly stands in solidarity with our Indian American neighbors and is grateful for their contributions to our State. We look forward to beating bigots like Mr. Langevin at the ballot box to ensure Florida’s elected officials represent the best of our shared values.”

Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott wrote on X on Oct. 1 that there is “no place for this kind of hate in Florida. As Governor and now as U.S. Senator, I’ve been proud to stand with our state’s incredible Indian American community, who are proud Americans and value the ideas that make our country great.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener is a strategic and effective legislator who rarely lets emotion make his decisions — much like Nancy Pelosi, whose congressional seat he would like to take.

It has been a wide-open secret for years that Wiener wanted to make a run for federal office when or if Pelosi retired, but he’s also been deferential to the elder stateswoman of California politics and has made it equally clear that he would wait his turn in the brutal and parochial machine of San Francisco politics.

Until now.

The San Francisco Standard broke the news Thursday that Wiener is running on the 2026 ballot, though he has yet to formally announce.

It is news that shocked even those deep in the dog-eat-dog world of S.F. politics and ignited the inevitable news cycle about whether Pelosi (who was instrumental in removing President Biden from the 2024 race for age-related issues) is being Bidened herself. It also ensures a contentious race that will be nationally watched by both MAGA and the progressive left, both of which take issue with Wiener.

Oh, the drama.

Take it for what you will, but a few months after having hip replacement surgery, Pelosi is (literally) back in her stiletto heels and raising beaucoup dollars for Proposition 50, the ballot initiative meant to gerrymander California voting maps to counteract a GOP cheat-fest in Texas.

Yes, she’s 85, but she’s no Joe. She is also, however, no spring chicken. So the national debate on whether Democrats need not just fresh but younger candidates has officially landed in the City by the Bay, though Wiener remains both practical and polite enough to not frame it that way.

He’ll leave that to the journalists, who have hounded Pelosi for months to announce whether she will seek another term, a question she has declined to directly answer. Instead, her team has focused on the looming election for Proposition 50 and said any announcement on her future has to wait after the ballots are counted.

To be fair to Pelosi, she’s gone all-in to both fundraise and campaign for the redistricting effort, and its passage is essential to Democrats having even a shot at winning back any power in the midterms.

If Prop. 50 fails, there is no non-miracle path, except perhaps an unexpected blue wave, through which Democrats can retake a chamber. So Nov. 4 isn’t an arbitrary date. It will determine if there is any possibility of checking Trump’s power grab, and preserving democracy. Personally, I don’t fault Pelosi for being engaged in that fight.

To also be fair to Wiener, his decision to announce now was probably driven more by money and political momentum than by Pelosi’s age.

That’s because Pelosi already has a challenger — the ultra-wealthy progressive Saikat Chakrabarti, a startup millionaire who served as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign manager during her first upset win for Congress in 2018. Chakrabarti has long been an antagonist to Pelosi, and recently announced his candidacy, positioning himself as a disrupter.

In 2019, before the House impeached Trump over his questionable actions involving Ukraine, Chakrabarti tweeted, “Pelosi claims we can’t focus on impeachment because it’s a distraction from kitchen table issues. But I’d challenge you to find voters that can name a single thing House Democrats have done for their kitchen table this year. What is this legislative mastermind doing?”

Chakrabarti, who was born the year before Pelosi was first elected to Congress in 1987, has self-funded his campaign with $700,000 and has the financial ability to spend much more. Wiener, in his on-the-down-low shadow campaign, has raised a bit over $1 million, not nearly enough. The primary will be in June and it will be expensive.

Though we have yet to reach Halloween, a stroll down the aisles of any big box store can tell you that Christmas is neigh, a season when fundraising becomes harder — putting pressure on Wiener to raise money as quickly as possible before the winter freeze.

Add to that pressure the fact that Chakrabarti has political skills and growing popularity. He was the tech architect behind a successful push to activate volunteers for both AOC and Bernie Sanders.

An internal poll released a few months ago (and any internal poll must be viewed skeptically) showed Chakrabarti drawing 34% of voters to Pelosi’s 47%. His numbers increased as voters learned more about him — a few have even compared him to New York’s socialist wonder-kid Zohran Mamdani, currently running for mayor against Andrew Cuomo.

The problem with that is that Wiener is not Cuomo. He’s a progressive himself, and one with an established track record of getting stuff done, often progressive stuff.

I’ve watched him for years push ambitious agendas through the statehouse, including bills where I would have bet against him.

Most recently, he wrote the state’s ban on cops, including ICE, wearing masks. Although the feds have said they will ignore the new law, recently signed by Newsom, and it will almost certainly end up in court, it is a worthy message to send about secret police in America.

Wiener also this term passed a controversial housing bill that will increase density around transit hubs, and spearheaded a bill to regulate artificial intelligence.

In past terms, he has successfully forced insurance companies to cover mental health the same way they cover physical health; pushed large companies to disclose their climate impact; and been one of the major proponents of “YIMBY” policies that make it easier to build housing.

He has also passed numerous laws protecting immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights, which has made him a favorite target of the far right. He has received death threats on a regular basis for years, including one from an anti-vaxxer who was convicted on seven counts in 2022 after threatening Wiener and being found in possession of weapons. Wiener doesn’t have Pelosi’s charisma, but he has receipts for getting the job done and handling the vicious vitriol of modern politics.

Unlike Chakrabarti, Wiener has also been a part of San Francisco’s insular community for decades, and has his own base of support — though he is considered a moderate to Chakrabarti’s progressiveness. This is where San Francisco gets wonderfully weird. In nearly any other place, Wiener would be solidly left. But some of his constituents view him as too developer-friendly for his housing policies and have criticized his past policies around expanding conservatorships for mentally ill people.

But still, a recent poll done by EMC research but not released publicly found that 61% of likely primary voters have a favorable opinion of Wiener. That vastly outpaces the 21% that said the same about Chakrabarti or even the 21% who liked Pelosi’s daughter, Christine Pelosi, who has also been mentioned as a possible successor.

Which is all to say that Wiener is in a now-or-never moment. He has popularity but needs momentum and cash. The Democratic Party is in a mess, and the old rules are out the window, even in San Francisco.

So waiting for Pelosi had become a little bit like waiting for Godot, a self-imposed limbo that was more likely to lead to frustration than victory.

Standing behind a lectern emblazoned with the words “Cutting Utility Bills,” Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law last month a package of energy bills that he said “reduces the burden on ratepayers.”

Tucked into one of those bills: a paragraph that could allow Southern California Edison to shift billions of dollars of Eaton fire damage costs to its customers.

Among other things, the bill allows Edison to start charging customers for any Eaton fire costs exceeding the state’s $21-billion wildfire fund.

“I was shocked to see that,” said April Maurath Sommer, executive director of the Wild Tree Foundation, which tracks state government actions on utility-sparked fires. “It’s effectively a bailout.”

Other amendments in the 231-page bill known as SB 254 helped not just Edison, but all three of the state’s biggest for-profit utilities, further limiting the costs that they and their shareholders would face if the companies’ equipment ignited a catastrophic wildfire.

Previous legislation championed by Newsom, a 2019 bill known as AB 1054, already had sharply limited the utilities’ liabilities for wildfires they cause.

Staff in the governor’s office declined a request for an interview. In a statement, Daniel Villasenor, a spokesman for Newsom, called SB 254 “smart public policy, not a giveaway.”

Newsom’s staff noted that the state Public Utilities Commission would later review Eaton fire costs, determining if they were “just and reasonable.” If some costs billed to customers were rejected in that review, Edison shareholders would have to reimburse them for those amounts, the governor’s office said.

According to the legislation, that review of costs isn’t required until all Eaton claims are settled, leaving the possibility that customers would have to cover even costs found to be unreasonable for years.

“That will be expensive news to a lot of people,” said Michael Boccadoro, executive director of the Agricultural Energy Consumers Assn. “It is unfortunately what happens when major policies are done in the final hours of the Legislature with little transparency.”

Damages for the Eaton fire have been estimated to be as high as $45 billion — which could greatly exceed the $21-billion fund.

Homes in Altadena lay in ruins after the Eaton fire.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Sheri Scott, an actuary at Milliman, told state officials in July that insured losses alone range from $13.7 billion to $22.8 billion. That estimate doesn’t include payments to families who were uninsured or underinsured, or compensation for pain and suffering.

The bill allows Edison to issue bonds secured by new payments from its electric customers for Eaton fire costs that can’t be covered by the $21-billion fund.

Kathleen Dunleavy, an Edison spokeswoman, said the company supported the bill’s language because the bonds secured by customer payments provide a lower cost of borrowing than if the company used traditional financing. “Every dollar counts for our customers,” Dunleavy said.

“There are a lot of variables here,” Dunleavy added. “The investigation is ongoing and there is not an estimate of the total cost of the Eaton fire.”

Newsom’s office noted that under the amendments the utilities won’t get to earn a profit on $6 billion of wildfire prevention expenditures. Customers will still have to pay for the costs, but they won’t be charged extra for shareholders’ profit.

Since early this year, Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric had been lobbying Newsom and state legislative leaders, urging them to bolster the $21-billion fund because of concerns it could be exhausted by the Eaton fire’s extraordinary cost.

Videos captured the Jan. 7 inferno igniting under a century-old transmission line that Edison had not used for 50 years. The wildfire swept through Altadena, destroying 9,400 homes and other structures and killing at least 19 people.

Edison now faces hundreds of lawsuits filed by victims. The suits accuse Edison of negligence, claiming it failed to safely maintain its equipment and left in place the unused transmission line, which lawyers say Edison knew posed a fire risk.

“We’ll respond to the allegations in the litigation,” Dunleavy said, adding that the company inspects and maintains idle lines in the same way as its energized lines.

Even though the government’s investigation into the cause has not been released, Edison announced in July that it was starting a program to directly pay victims for damages.

The company has also begun settling with insurance companies that paid out claims for properties they insured in Altadena that were destroyed or damaged.

Limiting Edison’s liability for Eaton fire

The utility is expecting to be reimbursed for most or all of the settlements and the costs of the fire by the $21-billion wildfire fund that Newsom and lawmakers created through the 2019 legislation, according to a July update Edison gave to its investors.

The first $1 billion of damages is covered by an insurance policy paid by its customers.

After state officials warned that the Eaton fire could deplete the state fund, Newsom said in July he was working on a plan to create an additional fund of $18 billion.

Two days before the Legislature was scheduled to recess for the year, three lawmakers added complex language to SB 254 to create what Newsom called the new $18-billion wildfire “continuation account.” Before the bill was amended, consumer groups had been supporting it because it aimed to save electric customers money.

The late amendments required the Legislature to extend its session by a day to meet a state constitutional rule that says proposed legislation must be public for 72 hours before a final vote.

“It’s impossible to believe that legislators could have understood all of this in 72 hours,” Maurath Sommer said. She noted that Newsom’s 2019 law, AB 1054, was introduced and quickly passed in a similar manner. “And it is clear now how poorly that effort fared in achieving the claimed objective of protecting public safety.”

Boccadoro said he believed the amendments were added to a bill favored by consumer groups to give it “some political cover.”

Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine), one of bill’s authors, said she believed utilities needed protection from wildfire liabilities because of a legal doctrine in California known as inverse condemnation, which makes them responsible for damages even if they weren’t negligent in starting it.

“This is the best possible deal for ratepayers as we navigate the truly devastating impacts of the climate crisis,” Petrie-Norris said of the legislation. The other two authors — state Sens. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) and Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward) — did not respond to requests for interviews.

After the bill passed, both Edison and PG&E praised its provisions in presentations for investors.

Edison called the bill “a key action” that demonstrated lawmakers’ support of its “financial stability.”

The amendments added to the protections that utilities gained in 2019 through Newsom’s AB 1054. At that time, PG&E was in bankruptcy proceedings. It had filed for protection after its transmission line was found to have ignited the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed most of the town of Paradise.

PG&E explained in a September presentation that before Newsom and lawmakers changed the law in 2019, utilities that wanted to pass fire damage costs to customers “bore the burden of proving” that their conduct related to the blaze was reasonable and prudent.

Newsom’s 2019 law changed that standard, PG&E said, so that the utility’s conduct was automatically deemed reasonable if state regulators had granted the company what the law called a safety certificate.

Since 2019, the state has regularly issued the companies these certificates — even when regulators find maintenance and safety problems.

Edison received a safety certificate less than a month before the Eaton fire, even though it had thousands of open work orders, including some on the transmission lines in the canyon where the fire started.

To get a certificate, the utilities must submit a plan to state regulators for preventing their equipment from sparking fires. They also must tie executive pay to the company’s safety performance, with bonuses expected to take a hit when more fires are sparked or people are killed.

Even though Edison failed at key safety measures last year, The Times found that cash bonuses for four of its top five executives rose. The company said that was because of their performance on responsibilities beyond safety.

With a safety certificate in hand, Edison told investors in July that the maximum it would pay for the Eaton fire under the law’s limit was $3.9 billion, a fraction of the expected costs. The utility said the wildfire fund would reimburse it for all the costs, unless an outside party can raise “serious doubt” that it had not acted reasonably before the fire.

The SB 254 amendments also clarified key language in the 2019 law — clarifications that Edison told investors in September were “constructive for potential Eaton fire losses.”

That language allows utilities that cause repeated major wildfires within a period of three years to reduce what they must pay back to the fund for a second fire if they are found to have acted imprudently.

“This certainly does not seem to encourage utilities to stop causing fires,” Maurath Sommer said of the provision.

Edison’s Dunleavy dismissed concern about the provision. “Safety remains our top priority,” she said.

Campaign contributions to Newsom

The three utilities have long been generous political donors to both Democrats and Republicans in California, including to Newsom and current legislative leaders in Sacramento.

Edison, for example, gave $100,000 to Newsom’s campaign last year to pass the mental health initiative known as Proposition 1.

This summer Edison gave $190,000 to the state Democratic Party, which is helping Newsom campaign for Proposition 50, which would redraw congressional districts.

Newsom’s staff didn’t respond to questions about the contributions.

Dunleavy said that the company’s political donations are not charged to customers. She said Edison gives contributions to politicians who share its commitment to “safely serve our customers.”

Newsom said in 2019 that the bill capping utilities’ fire liabilities would “move our state toward a safer, affordable and reliable energy future.”

He and lawmakers said the law would make the public safer by requiring the utilities to do more to prevent fires, including aggressive tree trimming and the installation of more insulated wires.

Even though the utilities have raised electric rates to charge customers for billions of dollars of fire prevention work, their electrical equipment continues to spark blazes.

According to Cal Fire statistics, if the Eaton fire is confirmed to have been ignited by Edison’s transmission line, at least seven of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires would have been caused by the three utilities’ power lines. Two of those utility-sparked fires happened after the 2019 law passed.

Edison’s lines ignited 178 fires last year — 45% more compared with 2019. The company attributed last year’s increase to weather conditions that created more dry vegetation.

The governor’s staff said they disagreed with claims that the legislation reduced utilities’ accountability. They pointed to a measure in the 2019 law that requires a utility to reimburse the wildfire fund for all damages from a fire if its actions are found to constitute “conscious or willful disregard of the rights and safety of others.”

Advocates for utility customers have repeatedly said they believe that standard is too high to keep California utilities from causing more fires.

“Instances of utility mismanagement could easily fall short of the ‘conscious or willful disregard’ standard yet nonetheless cause a series of catastrophic wildfire events,” wrote the commission’s Public Advocates Office in a filing soon after the 2019 law passed.