SACRAMENTO — The state Legislature on Monday passed a pair of bills to address industrial accidents in the wake of a massive blaze at a cold storage facility in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights neighborhood.
Assembly Bill 817 by Assemblymember Mark González (D-Los Angeles) would prohibit the approval of a building permit for a cold storage facility unless the owner or operator of the facility establishes and maintains a contingency fund.
González sought the creation of the fund for air purifiers, masks and other health essentials for neighbors in the wake of an accident.
The bill would apply to Boyle Heights in the short term and would go into effect statewide July 1, 2028.
The bill also would ensure that anyone who sues over the fire doesn’t have to pay state taxes on any settlement.
A June 17 fire at cold storage operator Lineage’s 500,000-square-foot food warehouse left the community with noxious smoke and an influx of rats and flies attracted to rotting meat.
Senate Bill 716 by Sen. María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), also passed Monday, would raise the amount of fines that can be levied by local agencies against companies who pose a threat to health and safety. Under the legislation, companies could face fines of up to $50,000 per violation.
Durazo said current rules limit the fines to just a few hundred or thousand dollars.
“The fines are too small to matter,” said Durazo, describing the “massive fly and rat infestation” and “stench of rotting food” at the Lineage site.
The law would apply only to Los Angeles County and expand statewide starting July 1, 2028. It includes several exemptions for business categories, including institutional and educational.
Scores of business groups, including those representing agriculture, opposed the bills.
Some Republican legislators expressed sympathy for the Boyle Heights community, but questioned the financial ramifications for businesses.
“One terrible incident should not automatically translate into a new statewide financial burden on every similarly situated facility,” said state Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares (R-Acton) during a Monday discussion of Assembly Bill 817. “Especially when those costs can ultimately ripple through our food supply chain and contribute to higher costs for families.”
The bills now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom for consideration.
WASHINGTON — Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is stepping down after 18 months on the job, the White House said Monday, in the latest departure of a top military leader during the Trump administration.
No reason was given for the departure of Driscoll, who is a friend of Vice President JD Vance, but tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been widely reported. It marks the latest in a series of shakeups of the military leadership, with the Army especially seeing major upheaval.
“Secretary Driscoll has been highly effective in advancing President Trump’s agenda to Make America Strong Again at the Department of the Army by providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations, restoring an emphasis on readiness and lethality, assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and more,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement.
“The United States Army is more powerful than ever thanks to his work alongside the Commander-in-Chief and Secretary of War,” she added.
A U.S. Army official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Driscoll spoke with President Trump on the current state of the Army and submitted his resignation. The official did not provide additional details. The Pentagon referred questions to the Army. Driscoll’s resignation was reported earlier Monday by The Wall Street Journal.
Exit follows other Army departures, rollback of drone program
Driscoll’s departure follows the ouster of one of his allies from the Army as well as the rollback of a drone program he had championed. Hegseth had suddenly ousted the service’s top uniformed leader, Gen. Randy George, in April, while the Army’s commander in Europe and Africa, Gen. Christopher Donahue, unexpectedly stepped down in June.
Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who has made a meteoric rise under Hegseth, took George’s place as the Army’s acting chief of staff. Under LaNeve, the service is pulling the plug on a drone modernization program. An Army unit based in Europe was building its own drones before LaNeve directed it to end its efforts and return to being a traditional infantry battalion, officials said in August.
Driscoll was a George ally and lamented his departure, along with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. He told Congress in April that he and his family drove to George’s house following his resignation “and we all gave him a hug.”
“That being said, the civilian leadership, the design of our system, is that they get to pick the leaders that they want,” Driscoll added.
Republicans and Democrats respond to departure news with praise for Driscoll
Rep. Steve Womack, an Arkansas Republican who had served in the Army National Guard, said on X that Driscoll is “a transformative leader who brought common sense and discipline to the Department of the Army.”
“I had the pleasure of working with him closely, and appreciated how engaged he was from mentoring cadets at West Point to leading the Army at the Pentagon,” Womack wrote. “The Army is better equipped and prepared to tackle emerging threats because of his leadership that strengthened the force while putting our Soldiers first.”
Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and former Army Ranger, told reporters that he worked well with Driscoll despite their policy differences.
“It was actually nice, I will say, having somebody who was smart, that knew the policy, that wanted to do the work, that had a background in these issues,” Crow said, adding that “it’s unfortunate that somebody like that can’t last in this administration.”
Crow, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and co-chairs the House Army Caucus, said the “Pentagon right now is, in some cases, rudderless,” with so many senior leaders gone. “So, I’m gravely concerned about it,” he said.
Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that Driscoll “worked to transform the Army for the battlefield of the future, and he engaged with Congress candidly and consistently.”
“Secretary Hegseth is cultivating a culture where dissent is punished and competence is secondary to personal allegiance,” said Reed, a former Army officer, while noting that “hundreds of thousands of soldiers are deployed around the world, many in combat zones.”
Driscoll was an unlikely negotiator in Ukraine-Russia war
Driscoll is an Iraq war veteran, tech investor and former adviser to Vance, whom Driscoll met at Yale Law School. When nominating Driscoll in 2024, Trump called him “a disruptor and change agent.”
As Army secretary, Driscoll was tapped for the unusual role of key negotiator to try to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. He was also a major force behind trying to cut the red tape for military contractors to quickly develop more drones and counter-drone capabilities as warfare rapidly changes around the world.
The Senate confirmed him in February 2025, voting 66-28, following an Armed Services Committee hearing that was largely unconfrontational and focused on how the Army could modernize its systems, improve recruiting and beef up the military industrial base.
Driscoll noted that his father and grandfather served in the Army, and he vowed to be a secretary focused on the needs of soldiers. According to the Army, Driscoll served as an armor officer from August 2007 to March 2011, deploying to Iraq from October 2009 to July 2010.
He also ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for a North Carolina congressional seat in 2020, getting about 8% of the vote in a crowded field of candidates.
His departure comes after Hegseth ousted several other generals and admirals, including the head of the Navy.
The Pentagon abruptly announced in April that Navy Secretary John Phelan was leaving the job, becoming the first head of a military service to depart during Trump’s second term.
Finley and Madhani write for the Associated Press.
The U.S. Postal Service is poised to launch a hastily built, error-riddled computer system that could jeopardize the process of mail voting relied upon by one-third of all voters, according to a whistleblower statement released Tuesday by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
The effort is part of the implementation of President Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting and has been temporarily halted by a federal judge. The ruling is being appealed by the administration and the directive may ultimately end up back before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The disclosure from the unidentified whistleblower contends that the Postal Service has been scrambling to try to build a complex system that would normally take a year or more in only three months, sometimes in defiance of the judge’s orders halting work. The goal is to have it ready for use in the midterm elections.
The disclosure contends that, due to the new procedures, a single scanning error in a batch of tens of thousands of ballot envelopes could prevent any from reaching voters. It details a system that election officials have already warned could not be implemented before the first mail ballots begin going out Friday in North Carolina.
“The Postal Service has designed a system to disenfranchise millions of Americans,” Blumenthal told reporters in advance of releasing the whistleblower information. “This administration seems hell-bent on changing the framework on casting ballots in this country clearly for political reasons.”
Executive order is subject to furious court action with midterms nearing
Trump’s executive order, signed in March, directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration to develop state citizenship lists and then required the Postal Service to send mail ballots only to voters who are on such a list. Ballot envelopes would have to comply with new Postal Service rules and include bar codes.
The online portal that is the subject of the whistleblower complaint is intended for states to deliver their lists of verified voters to the Postal Service.
The Postal Service did not comment on Monday night. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. The White House has called the mail voting provisions “commonsense measures” necessary to combat fraud.
Trump has long opposed voting by mail, even though he has repeatedly used the method to cast his own ballot. He falsely blamed mail voting for his 2020 election loss and has spent years spreading conspiracy theories about it. A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that mail voting fraud occurred in only about four cases out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.
Since returning to office, Trump has said Republicans should be “taking over” vote counting in Democratic areas and launched a sweeping attempt to reinvestigate the 2020 election, despite a mountain of evidence that he lost fairly to Democrat Joe Biden.
Until Trump came out against mail voting in 2020, the system was used equally by both parties. Since then, it has become more common among Democratic voters. More than 29% of all voters in 2024 cast their ballots through the mail.
After Trump issued his executive order, Democrats and civil rights groups sued and eventually won a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani in Boston barring implementation of the system before the November midterms. But without ruling on the legality of Trump’s order, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority last week found that was premature and overruled Talwani, momentarily clearing the way for its implementation.
On the night of Aug. 21, the Postal Service released a final rule outlining how it would implement the order.
It said it would only send mail ballots for states that got approval for the design of their envelopes and submitted a list of voters receiving them through the still-not-active online portal. That rule gave plaintiffs a chance to sue again, and Talwani on Thursday night issued a 14-day restraining order against implementation of the measure.
Whistleblower complaint says portal development is rushed and sloppy
The letter from Blumenthal and an accompanying summary of the whistleblower’s statements says the Postal Service began work on the portal on June 15 and stopped on June 25 after Talwani’s initial order. Then on July 29, the Postal Service restarted the work. That was when the administration appealed the judge’s order to the Supreme Court. The high court did not strike Talwani’s injunction down until Aug. 24.
Talwani last week found the Postal Service violated her order by continuing to work on the final rule, but she imposed no sanctions on the government. On Monday, she issued a ruling refusing to lift the restraining order that also said the Postal Service could continue work on its portal, as long as it wasn’t forcing states to use it.
In its summary of the whistleblower’s statement, the group Whistleblower Aid says the hurried construction of the portal, with a goal of being active on Tuesday, meant it did not undergo full testing.
“The apparently sloppy and rushed manner in which the Federal Ballot Mail Portal and supporting IT systems are being built poses significant risk,” the group wrote. “Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all.”
The statement also says the Postal Service is implementing a “zero percent” rule in which any errors in any mail ballots sent out by an election office could lead to all of them being discarded — even if it’s simply one problem amid tens of thousands of legitimate ballots.
The rule requires ballots to be handled in a physical post office by an election official. Those will then be scanned to ensure they match the voter database. During three layers of checks, a single apparent error could cause the whole batch to be rejected, the statement says.
Blumenthal said he has “a very strong hope and some faith that our system of justice will strike down this unconstitutional and unconscionable rule.” But, he added, if it somehow goes into effect for the midterms, he would not advise voting by mail.
Riccardi writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this story.
Los Angeles County announced Monday that it had filed a lawsuit against State Farm General after hundreds of victims of last year’s devastating wildfires complained that their claims had been delayed, denied or underpaid.
The lawsuit alleges that State Farm engaged in illegal and deceptive business practices that kept victims of the Palisades and Eaton fires from receiving what they were entitled to under their policies.
County officials said their investigation into the complaints found unreasonable delays in processing claims, as well as “systematic underpayments.”
Officials said they also found that State Farm had illegally suppressed smoke damage claims.
“Survivors are just asking for what’s right,” L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, said at a Monday news conference.
Bob Devereux, a State Farm spokesman, said in a statement that the company would respond to the lawsuit through the legal process.
“State Farm General strongly disagrees with Los Angeles County’s characterization of our wildfire claims response,” he said.
Devereux said that State Farm has so far paid more than $6.2 billion on claims related to the two wildfires, including about $1 billion for smoke-related damage. About 78% of the claims have been closed, he said.
“We continue working directly with customers whose claims remain open and evaluating each claim based on the facts of the loss and the coverage provided by the customer’s policy,” he said.
“Our focus remains on helping customers recover,” he said.
Wildfire victims praised county officials for the lawsuit, which was filed in L.A. County Superior Court.
Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, said at the news conference that, in the months after the fires, it became apparent in talking to victims that those with State Farm policies were not getting the benefits they had paid for.
She said for those families, insurance had become “a barrier to recovery” rather than a safety net.
“Nineteen months after the fires, families are still suffering,” she said.
The county’s investigation included looking at complaints that Chen’s group and others had collected, as well as hundreds of other documents from State Farm policyholders.
County officials said that State Farm “failed to substantially comply” with their requests for documents and information during their investigation.
With more than 2.8 million residential and commercial policies, State Farm is California’s largest private insurer.
The county’s lawsuit includes dozens of complaints of L.A. County fire victims.
“After six decades of paying thousands a year for insurance, we expect them to honor their agreement,” said one family.
Many families say the insurer refused to test their homes for toxins left by smoke.
The lawsuit claims that State Farm “drastically lowballed” estimates of financial losses for destroyed or partially damaged homes.
“They offered us $11,000 to remediate our five-bedroom house,” complained one family. ”That’s only 13% of the actual cost.”
According to the California Department of Insurance, 11,300 State Farm policyholders filed homeowner claims arising from last year’s L.A. County fires.
The lawsuit asks the court to require State Farm to pay full restitution to policyholders, as well as civil penalties for violating state law.
California lawmakers have approved a bill that seeks to throw a lifeline to the state’s struggling journalism organizations.
Assembly Bill 2222, which would create refundable tax credits for California local news organizations based on the number of journalists they employ, joins a litany of bills on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
The state Senate passed the bill on Sunday and the Assembly narrowly approved its amendments on Monday to send the bill to the governor’s desk, with some Republican lawmakers pulling their previous “yes” votes.
The approval comes just as the Legislature is set to adjourn its two-year session early this week.
The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego) would work by assigning a “job retention credit” of $20,000 per journalist for up to five positions, and after that $15,000 for every additional journalist. Part-time positions would be awarded half-credits. It also stacks an additional $15,000 credit for each new hire, to incentivize expanding journalist head counts.
“This measure is a safety net for news outlets on the verge of closure,” said former state Sen. Steve Glazer, who is a proponent of the bill and during his Senate term pushed similar legislation.
Proponents may face an uphill battle persuading Newsom to sign the bill, which creates a unique revenue stream to pay for the program. Newsom typically spurns laws that make changes to the state budget after those fiscal discussions conclude in the first half of the calendar year.
AB 2222 represents the latest attempt by California lawmakers to bolster the news business, with governments globally discussing similar efforts. Canada implemented newsroom payroll tax credits in 2019 amounting to about $13,750 per journalist in an eligible newsroom.
AB 2222 would create the largest relief plan in the U.S. to date, with the state tax board estimating it would make more than $40 million available to the state’s newsrooms annually.
The California Taxpayers Assn. and groups representing business interests such as the California Chamber of Commerce opposed the bill because it raises taxes on employers.
The governor’s finance office issued an analysis opposing the bill for failing to outline a cap on tax credits and for seeking to subsidize existing jobs rather than encouraging the creation of more journalism jobs.
The bill is supported by the California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has made a surprise appearance at United States-hosted G20 finance talks in North Carolina, sparking frustration and dismay among European ministers and officials.
Siluanov’s appearance at the talks in Asheville on Monday marks the first time the minister, who was appointed in 2011, has attended a G20 meeting in person since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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He held a bilateral meeting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, with Russia’s Ministry of Finance saying the two men discussed financial cooperation within the G20 framework.
A US official said the meeting focused on US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine.
Asked about the invitation to Siluanov, Trump told reporters: “We like getting along with everybody. One of the reasons I’m so successful, I get along with everybody.”
European officials, however, criticised the move.
Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski said he was unhappy to see Moscow represented, although he recognised the right of G20 hosts to invite guests.
“We do not trust Russia. They lie constantly, and you need to be really, really cautious while discussing with them,” he told the Reuters news agency, stressing that Russia was the aggressor in its conflict with Ukraine.
“So for me, it would be very difficult to have any kind of conversation with Russia.”
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon and CEO of Goldman Sachs David M Solomon attend a plenary session as finance ministers and central bank governors from G20 countries meet in Asheville [Sam Wolfe/Reuters]
‘Troubling’ signal
German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said the US’s decision to welcome Siluanov sent a “signal I find troubling”.
He said he told Siluanov during a plenary session that Moscow had to end the war and “that we clearly support Ukraine”.
He also said Europe was preparing a further package of sanctions against Russia and hoped for close cooperation with Washington on the measures.
European ministers and central bankers also opposed appearing with Siluanov in the traditional G20 “family photo”, European officials said. The photograph was ultimately taken without the Russian minister.
Klingbeil said European officials, including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, had discussed Russia’s involvement on Sunday and agreed that maintaining an avenue for dialogue could allow them to deliver a frank message to Moscow.
“However, the mere fact that the Russian finance minister is back – after, I believe, four G20 meetings without Russian participation – indicates an attempt at normalisation, and that makes it all the more important for us to push back,” he said.
Siluanov’s appearance marked a sharp contrast with the G20 meeting in Washington, DC, in April 2022, when his virtual participation prompted officials from Canada, the United Kingdom, the US, and the European Central Bank to walk out.
White House defends talks with Russia
Asked about Siluanov’s attendance, White House spokesman Kush Desai told the AFP news agency that the Trump administration had been working with Russia to push for a deal that “would stop the endless bloodshed that the president has really condemned”.
“The president and the administration will never shy away from talking with the folks we need to talk to, to further that,” he said. “That’s what we’re working on here at the G20.”
Separately, Reuters and AFP, citing sources familiar with the Washington-Moscow talks, said Bessent had made clear that the US would not provide Russia with economic relief until war in Ukraine was over.
Trump has pushed Moscow and Kyiv to reach a deal to halt the fighting, but an initial 28-point plan that largely adhered to Russia’s demands was criticised by Ukraine and European governments.
The US, which currently holds the rotating G20 presidency, did not invite South Africa, last year’s G20 host, to the gathering. Poland, which is not a permanent G20 member, was invited.
Certain reporters from major US newsrooms, including The New York Times and Bloomberg News, were not granted credentials to cover the gathering.
The decision was condemned by the National Press Club, which said that “no administration should be allowed to handpick the press corps that scrutinizes it”.
The two-day meeting comes as global debt levels have reached a record of nearly $353 trillion and the global economy faces an energy shock triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran. The talks also come amid rising tensions over China’s large trade surplus and uncertainty over the effects of a surge in artificial intelligence investment.
A woman has been shot dead by police in New York’s iconic Times Square. Police say the woman, who was armed with two large knives, had stabbed two people, one fatally. A warning this video could distress some viewers.
SACRAMENTO — Long the epicenter of the global tech industry, California is taking more action to shield its children, communities and workers from the threats posed by the very industry that’s become central to the state’s identity and enviable economy.
State lawmakers on Monday passed new safeguards around social media and artificial intelligence — and are poised to approve restrictions on data centers — at a time when technology has become intertwined with people’s daily lives.
Efforts to rein in the power of Big Tech extend beyond concerns that TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms are harming young children.
Unions and workers worry that AI will take their jobs, and lawmakers are trying to tackle privacy and safety issues as AI features get added into smart glasses and toys. Californians are concerned that the proliferation of data centers will increase their electricity bills and strain water supplies.
“There’s a heightened level of tech anxiety right now, and that manifests itself from social media to data centers to AI taking jobs,” said Assemblyman Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach). “People are coalescing and they’re demanding that policymakers make change.”
The Democratic governor has acknowledged the challenge of adopting regulations that protect the public without going too far and potentially stifling the technology industry’s growth, which brings critical revenue to the state budget.
“I think that’s the constant tension,” Newsom said in an interview earlier this summer. “We’re constantly sort of fighting that balance.”
The governor, who has close relationships in the technology industry from his time in San Francisco, said only a couple other states have attempted to regulate artificial intelligence like California. The state, he said, leads on regulation of social media.
“We’re not rolling over, certainly,” Newsom said. “We’re leaning forward, and we’re iterating. We will push the boundaries and litigate.”
The looming restrictions on social media follow a landmark Meta Platforms legal settlement aimed at making social media safer for young people. Parents, politicians and child advocacy groups are worried that social media is contributing to depression, anxiety, eating disorders and other issues.
The actions being pushed in the California legislature are more sweeping than that settlement, however. One of the bills passed by lawmakers on Monday, Assembly Bill 1709, would bar certain online platforms from providing an “addictive feature” to users under 16 years old and add ways to verify users’ ages.
Under the bill, prohibited addictive features include autoplay and feeds that display recommended content.
The addictive nature of autoplay and other features is “harmful, full stop, and that they’re not appropriate for the developing brain,” said Lowenthal, who authored the bill.
After watching technology “run free” in California for years, legislators are now seeking to “pump the brakes a little bit,” said Samantha Vigil, a UC Davis researcher who built a registry tracking social media legislation in states across the country.
“They want to reevaluate what is working,” said Vigil. “What is healthy and beneficial, and what is progress just for the sake of having a new iteration of something?”
All 50 states have introduced or passed some type of digital media or technology-related legislation, tackling smartphone use in schools, social media and chatbots, Vigil said.
Other countries have taken more stringent steps to limit social media use among young people. Australia banned social media use for those under 16, but enforcing the law has been challenging because young people have tried to get around the restrictions.
California isn’t trying to ban social media; instead, it’s trying to limit how platforms design their features.
Parents and state attorneys general have not waited for policy makers to act. They have sued Meta, Google and other tech companies over the alleged harms their products have done to young people.
In late August, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, agreed to pay up to $17 billion and make child-safety changes to resolve a multi-state lawsuit alleging the tech company designed and deployed harmful features while misleading the public about potential harms. Meta and YouTube also lost a social media addiction lawsuit earlier this year in Los Angeles.
Assembly Bill 1709 goes further. For example, Meta’s settlement gives teens the option to pick a non-algorithmic feed and turn off autoplay but, unlike in the legislation, it’s not mandatory. The bill would also apply to other platforms outside of Meta. Meta declined to comment.
Tech industry and business group opposing the bill say it is too blunt and could cut off access to social media’s benefits, according to the bill’s analysis.
“The durable path is to enforce the targeted laws California already has and to strengthen parental tools rather than an overlapping framework whose scope can be redrawn by regulation,” said Robert Boykin, TechNet’s Executive Director for California and the Southwest.
California lawmakers passed another Lowenthal bill aimed at holding social media liable for harm caused to children. Under Assembly Bill 2, social media companies could face fines of up to $1 million per child for negligent harm.
California lawmakers this year also attempted to tackle two other perils of the technological world — the rapid development and implementation of artificial intelligence and the proliferation of the massive data centers that are essential to sustaining the AI universe.
National and state union leaders have urged California legislators and Newsom to protect workers from the threats of AI to replace workers, saying it posed an existential threat to the foundation of a healthy, productive democracy.
“AI must remain a tool controlled by humans, not the other way around,” said Sen. Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton).
The state Legislature on Monday approved McNerney’s bill, Senate Bill 947, which would bar employers from “solely” using automated decision-making systems to discipline or fire employees. If an employer primarily relies upon this system, a human must verify the decision.
Lawmakers also approved Senate Bill 951, introduced by Sen. Eloise Gomez Reyes (D-Colton), which would require employers to provide a 60-day advance notice to workers and local and state governments before AI-related layoffs. Lawmakers also approved Assembly Bill 1609, which requires large private businesses that serve customers to provide access to human customer service representatives and to disclose to use of chatbots.
They passed another bill by Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista) that enacts a four-year moratorium on the sale and manufacturing of AI-chatbot powered toys over concerns that the technology can harm children.
On Friday, lawmakers agreed on a compromise on proposed legislation to regulate energy use by California’s growing data center industry, measures prompted by community fears about the massive complexes. Lawmakers say the legislation would help protect consumers from growing electricity costs driven upward by the sprawling facilities and to track the centers’ immense energy and water consumption.
At a June hearing on Senate Bill 886 to regulate data centers’ energy use, Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo (D-Chatsworth) said it’s just “a handful of companies that are gonna make trillions of dollars” from AI. They should pay for related utility infrastructure upgrades, she added.
“People, I would argue, are not even begging to use AI,” she said. “They’re struggling to figure it out to keep up with the times, but don’t even really want it.”
The California legislature is expected to vote on two of the bills to regulate the controversial industry within the next day.
Whether Newsom will embrace the legislature’s efforts to corral big Tech in California — in part of in whole — remains unclear.
Newsom last year vetoed a similar AI bill from McNerney to ban automated decision-making systems to discipline employees over worries that it could restrict companies’ ability to use customer ratings. That element was dropped in this year’s legislation.
Newsom last year signed Assembly Bill 56 that required social media platforms to display mental health warning labels to users under 18 starting in January 2027. But he also vetoed Senate Bill 771 that aimed to hold social media platforms liable if they amplified content that contributed to hate crimes and other violent acts, saying that the legislation was “premature” and current civil rights laws might be adequate.
Lowenthal said he’s heard from California families who are anxious about social media and seeking “relief” from their concerns about how the platforms are affecting their children.
“This is a kitchen-table topic,” he said. “I’ve yet to find a family with school-age children in the state of California, any corner of the state, that is not going through this right now.”
Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Trump administration officials announced that they had invoked executive authority to shut down 110 commercial driving schools that they said are connected to more than 5,000 truck drivers who failed English language proficiency tests.
During a news conference Monday in Detroit, leaders of the departments of Transportation and Homeland Security singled out California as the biggest problem state.
The federal officials were joined by Marcus Coleman and his 7-year-old daughter Dalilah, who in 2024 was critically injured when the driver of an 18-wheeler — an immigrant from India — crashed into their vehicle in the Mojave Desert.
“By far, the worst abusers are in California under [Gov.] Gavin Newsom’s leadership,” said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
“A lot of the licenses unlawfully issued come from California, New York, a lot from Illinois,” added Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. “We see a lot of the violations when trucks are pulled over in the Midwest because they travel through the Midwest, and so though a license might be issued unlawfully in California, that driver doesn’t stay in California.”
The emergency school closures were part of a federal partnership to crack down on fraud and illegal practices in the commercial trucking industry. Mullin and Duffy did not say how many of the closures are in California.
Federal officials are also launching a nationwide audit of third-party testers who are authorized by states to verify commercial driver’s license applicants’ skills.
Homeland Security investigators, meanwhile, were conducting a coordinated sweep Monday of more than 200 training schools in 23 states.
Investigators with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration have also issued notices seeking to shut down another 160 training schools where they said they found unlicensed instructors, missing documentation and inadequate space for drivers to learn necessary maneuvers.
Federal officials said that drivers certified by those schools were linked to 239 commercial motor vehicle-related deaths.
The Trump administration has revoked the commercial licenses of more than 28,000 drivers over English language proficiency failures since June 2025.
On Monday, Derek Barrs, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, cited Platinum Plus Truck Driving School in Fresno, which certified 36 drivers who were later cited for English language proficiency violations.
“One of these trainees killed someone in Oklahoma that should have never been on the roadway,” he said.
At another school in California, Barrs said, operators said their classroom was the back end of an open semi-trailer, and their primary instructor was out of the country.
The Transportation Department didn’t respond to a request from The Times asking how many of the 110 trucker schools were in California. But the agency told Fox News that 11 are in California, 10 in Florida, 13 in Pennsylvania and 13 in Texas, with smaller numbers in other states.
The announcements follow a longstanding effort by the Trump administration to target immigrant commercial truck drivers — especially those from California.
Soon after returning to the White House, President Trump signed an executive order requiring commercial truck drivers to prove they are proficient in English. In early August, the Motor Carrier Safety Administration moved to codify those language requirements through the federal rulemaking process.
Deadly accidents in Florida and San Bernardino County last year brought scrutiny to Sikh Punjabi truck drivers, who make up an estimated 20% of the U.S. trucking workforce.
New federal guidelines this year began limiting commercial driver’s licenses to certain visa holders and requiring states to verify an applicant’s immigration status through a federal portal. Federal officials also ordered California’s Department of Motor Vehicles to cancel about 13,000 licenses due to a clerical error that allowed them to remain valid past a work permit’s expiration date.
The federal government withheld $160 million in transportation funding after California delayed revoking the licenses.
Most states have allowed immigrants who have legal work authorization — including visa holders, asylum seekers and recipients of Temporary Protected Status — to drive commercial vehicles.
Critics of the rule say the Trump administration hasn’t provided data to back up its claims that foreign commercial drivers pose a particular safety threat.
In 2024, about 5,200 large trucks were involved in fatal crashes, a 3% decrease from 2023 but a 30% increase in the last 10 years, according to the National Safety Council.
Immigrant rights groups say the new rules exacerbate a truck driver shortage and inflame anti-immigrant bias by perpetuating the myth that all such drivers are unqualified. They say many affected drivers are legally authorized to work and have strong safety records.
The Asian Law Caucus and Sikh Coalition sued California’s DMV on behalf of drivers who faced cancellation of their licenses.
In March, an Alameda County judge declined to halt the cancellations but required the DMV to establish a process so they could reapply. The DMV also found that some 7,000 cancellations had been issued in error.
Also Monday, U.S. Border Patrol announced that it had arrested 95 truck drivers who are in the country illegally and possessed state-issued commercial driver’s licenses, including 76 with California licenses.
WASHINGTON — The highest-ranking officer in the U.S. military says there are no plans to send troops to polling places during November’s midterm congressional elections, addressing concerns among Democrats that the Trump administration could use the military to interfere with the vote.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the statement in a letter to Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who recently asked Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to confirm they won’t send troops to the polls.
“The Joint Force has no plans to send Federal military personnel or Federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2026 elections,” Caine said in the letter to Slotkin, which was obtained Monday by the Associated Press. “Likewise, the Joint Force has no plans to use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election-related material.”
Caine, who advises Hegseth and President Trump on military matters, also wrote: “I have neither received nor anticipate receiving any unlawful order concerning the role of the Joint Force in the upcoming November 2026 midterm elections.”
Anxiety among Democrats that the Trump administration could try to meddle in the midterm elections has grown, particularly after the president deployed federal agents in Democrat-led states over the objections of local leaders.
Slotkin told the AP earlier in August that Trump has been laying the groundwork to claim the elections were stolen. She noted that Trump contemplated using the military to seize voting machines after his loss in 2020 and has deployed the National Guard to cities against the wishes of Democratic leaders. He also deployed active-duty Marines to Los Angeles during his immigration crackdown in 2025.
Federal law prohibits the deployment of armed federal forces to election locations unless “necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” If any element of the military were to get involved, it would probably be the National Guard under state control.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles denied in a Vanity Fair interview last year that Trump would use the military to suppress voting in the midterms.
Sonja Thrasher, Slotkin’s press secretary, said Hegseth has not replied to the letter asking him to confirm troops won’t be deployed to the polls in November. Slotkin had asked for a response by last Thursday.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to an email from the AP asking for the status of Hegseth’s response to Slotkin. The Pentagon previously said it would respond directly to the senator.
Slotkin asked Hegseth during an April congressional hearing if he would follow orders to seize ballots. Hegseth called the question a “gotcha hypothetical,” but said, “I’ve never been ordered to do anything illegal, and I won’t.”
In 2020, Gen. Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded to a similar letter from Slotkin, then a congresswoman.
“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Milley wrote. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military.”
President Trump lashed out Sunday at NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, calling on the Federal Communications Commission to punish her over comments she made about the president’s record in endorsing primary candidates.
“Kristen Welker, the Unpopular ‘Hostess’ of the once great Meet the Press, now considered Meet the Fake Press, just stated that Donald Trump has ‘mixed results’ on his Endorsements of Candidates, when the recent WINS of Darline Graham and Mike Mazzei, stand at 100% for the U.S. Senate, and 98% for the U.S. House, recently and over the longterm,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump actually endorsed Mazzei in the Oklahoma governor’s race, not a congressional seat.
“How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves?” Trump added. “Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment.”
Welker was previewing Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press” on NBC’s Washington station WRC when she made the remarks about Trump’s endorsements.
“He’s going to loom large over these midterms,” Welker said. “There’s no doubt about that. He, of course, has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries. He’s had some mixed results, but most recently, his pick of Senator Darline Graham, of course, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, was successful in her primary battle, so now she takes on Dr. Annie Andrews in South Carolina.”
In a statement, NBC News expressed its support for Welker. “Kristen is one of the best in the business and we stand by her,” a representative said in a statement.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has shown a willingness to use his agency’s levers to go after broadcast media outlets Trump deems unfriendly. In April, he called for an early review of the TV station licenses held by ABC, claiming the company’s diversity and inclusion policies are in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws.
ABC has filed a lawsuit against the FCC to block the review, saying it was motivated by Trump’s animus toward the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
Going after Welker for an anodyne analysis that did not match the president’s perception of his endorsement results would be a stretch, according to the FCC’s own guidelines.
“The FCC’s authority to take action on complaints about the accuracy or bias of news networks, stations, reporters or commentators in how they cover — or sometimes opt to not cover — events is narrow,” according to the FCC website. “The agency is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press.”
Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic member of the FCC, said Trump’s comments are dangerous and also demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the agency’s role.
“As I’ve said many times, the FCC has no authority to punish journalists this administration doesn’t like,” Gomez wrote on the social platform X. “These threats to press freedom are dangerous. They undermine the foundation of our democracy, and they have no place in it.”
Trump is clearly sensitive about critiques of his endorsement powers. On Friday, Bill Maher did a lengthy segment on his show “Real Time,” apologizing to the president for having said “almost none” of his endorsed candidates are winning their primaries. Maher noted that out of 260 candidates endorsed by Trump, only nine have lost. Maher noted that many of those candidates were heavy favorites to win but agreed that his statement was not accurate.
Maher also gave a strong indication that Trump had texted him to express his unhappiness over his comments.
But “Real Time” is on cable and streaming where the FCC has no say on programming content. The agency regulates broadcast channels that are delivered over the public airwaves.
WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Trump to finish building his new White House ballroom with mostly private money and without approval from Congress.
By a 5-4 vote. the justices granted an emergency appeal from Trump and his lawyers on Monday and set aside a judge’s order that would stop the construction.
But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented, along with the court’s three liberals.
The outcome turned on standing.
The conservative majoritysaid the National Trust for Historic Preservation and its members were not personally injured by the White House ballroom project and therefore, did not have to standing to sue Trump or the National Park Service.
They also said Trump and his appointees had stressed the new ballroom was needed for national security and said the lower courts judges should not have interfered.
The decision in effect gives a green light to Trump’s go-it-alone approach which is in keeping with his history as a hotel builder. He believed the White House needed a grand ballroom that could seat hundreds of dignitaries. And he ordered the East Wing torn down in October to make room of his larger ballroom.
He also said most of the project would be paid for by $400 million in private donations.
But the Constitution gave Congress the power to manage property belonging to the United States. A 1912 law says new buildings “shall not erected…on public grounds within the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.”
Trump chose to ignore the law and did not seek approval from Congress which is led by Republicans.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued in December, contending Trump was a “temporary tenant, not the owner” of the White House.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled Trump had no authority to build a new ballroom on the White House grounds without the approval of Congress, and he ordered a halt to the above-ground construction.
The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed his decision by a 2-1 vote. “Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the Executive Branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House—the People’s House—to fit a particular President’s desires,” wrote Judge Patricia Millett for the appeals court.
Trump’s lawyers sent a fast-track appeal to the Supreme Court on Aug. 14.
The court’s majority allowed Trump to fend off the legal challenge by concluding the historic preservationists could not show they were harmed by a huge new ballroom that may dwarf the historic Executive Mansion.
WASHINGTON — President Trump has frequently suggested he wants to seek a third term, posting about mounting another campaign, donning 2028 caps and discussing ways to make it happen — even as he’s acknowledged the Constitution prohibits it.
But lately, Trump has begun showing signs that even he doesn’t really believe another run will happen.
During recent speeches, the Republican president has begun describing life after the White House when his term ends in January 2029, predicting he’ll be at home and agonizing as his successor claims credit for his accomplishments.
“Your next president is going to say, ‘What a great job I did,’ ” Trump told an event on Long Island, N.Y., this month. “He’ll be sitting around, watching television. A real stiff. Unless you vote Republican, of course.”
A sitting president talking about becoming a former one is always politically fraught. But with midterm elections now just nine weeks away, Trump is approaching the point of his presidency where there will be more and more reminders that his power will soon wane.
Being willing to say he’s contemplating a White House without him marks a notable shift for Trump. Going back to his first term and from virtually the moment he won a second, he’s left the door open to staying put for more than eight years.
“He is all over the place,” said Brian Kalt, a Michigan State University constitutional law professor. “And what that does is, it allows him to point to his own words to support any number of mutually exclusive things.”
Trump can say, “ ’Oh, yeah, I made it clear that I wasn’t gonna run,’ ” Kalt said. “Or, if he decides that he will, he could say, ’Well, you know, I never said I wouldn’t.’ ”
Trump suggests his post-presidency may make him cry
The White House dismissed suggestions that Trump’s thoughts are increasingly turning to the clock running out on his presidency — and the legacy he’ll leave behind. Spokesperson Olivia Wales said he “is fighting every day” to deliver on promises to reduce violent crime, crack down on the U.S.-Mexico border and lower prescription drug prices.
“The only legacy President Trump is concerned with is making America greater than ever before,” Wales said.
Still, hinting at how he’ll be remembered is something Trump is suddenly talking about a lot.
During a recent Pennsylvania rally, he said, “Whoever the next president is, he’s going to be talking about what a brilliant president he is. And I’ll be home. And I’ll be saying, ’That son of a gun,’ because we did the job.”
A week later in Georgia, Trump was predicting that once his presidency was over, “I’ll be sitting home.”
“I may be crying,” the president added, arguing that Democrats could retake the Senate and scrap filibuster rules, making it easier to move their key legislation.
Then, in Michigan, Trump injected some doubt into whether he was ready to hand over the Oval Office and move back to Florida.
“In two and a half years, you may have a different president — may,” he said, emphasizing the “may.”
“I’ll be sitting home. I’ll be reading the papers. I’ll be watching television,” Trump said, before swiping at his predecessor, President Biden. “And I’ll be having some guy — like last time, a real idiot — stand up and say, ‘We are doing record business.’ ”
Mixed Trump signals are still most common
But even as he’s begun to suggest he’ll be leaving the presidency, Trump has also continued to tease a 2028 reelection run.
Addressing the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner last month, Trump joked, “Just like my presidency, the second time is always better” and that “the third time will be better yet. I’m only kidding.” He later wore a 2028 campaign cap to finish the speech.
The Constitution’s 22nd Amendment says no one can be elected president more than twice. It was ratified in 1951, six years after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, months into his fourth term. Until Roosevelt, no other president had defied the tradition of stepping down after two terms that George Washington started.
Still, Trump had only been back in the White House for a couple of months when he told NBC News, “There are methods which you could” use to seek a third term.
He acknowledged that one method was to be the running mate to Vice President JD Vance in 2028 — then have Vance step aside if the pair won.
“There are others, too,” Trump said then, alluding to more options. He later told Time magazine, “There are some loopholes,” while also saying he didn’t believe in using them.
The president has since often used his social media posts to promote “Trump 2028” logos featuring his slogan “Make America Great Again.”
But Trump has also at times seemed definitive about the ban on him making another run, acknowledging recently to reporters: “I’d love to run, but the law is very strong.”
Kalt wrote about a two-term president possibly getting back to office by running for vice president in “constitutional Cliffhangers: A Legal Guide for Presidents and Their Enemies.”
“People do tend to find, in Trump’s words, whatever it is that they want to hear,” he said.
Trump may be fighting the ‘lame duck’ factor
Second-term presidents typically see their power and influence wane during their last two years, particularly if their party suffers big midterm defeats. But Trump’s comments could also be a sign he’s thinking about cementing his legacy, a stage that many of his predecessors also reached.
“They all, particularly as they cross the midpoint of their second term, start thinking about legacy,” said Paul Begala, a former adviser to President Clinton.
“They all banish the word. I know Clinton and Bush, they said, ’Can’t use the L-word.’ But they do,” Begala said, referring to his old boss Clinton and to President George W. Bush. “They all think about it. And the staff thinks about it and the Cabinet thinks about it.”
In his last two years of office, Clinton threw himself into trying to broker a Middle East peace agreement. Bush used the slogan “sprint to the finish” during his presidency’s final year in 2008, and Biden adopted a “run through the tape” ethos after abandoning his reelection bid.
Trump has leaned into molding the White House and Greater Washington in his own image, harkening back to his days as a real estate developer in 1970s and 1980s New York.
He’s ordered up a towering arch near the Lincoln Memorial and restored city fountains, while constructing a Rose Garden patio area and helipad on the White House lawn and adding scores of gilded touches to the building’s stately interior and exterior.
And then, there’s the massive ballroom that Trump has crews rushing to finish in the face of legal challenges — a project the president says will only be completed late in 2028, shortly before he leaves office.
“It’s not for me, ‘cause I’m going to be here a very short period of time” when the work is finished, Trump recently told reporters in the Oval Office. “I’ll be there for four, five, six months. This is for future presidents.”
Aug. 31 (UPI) — Finance ministers and other officials from the Group of 20 nations, as well as many CEOs, met Monday in Asheville, N.C., at a summit in which U.S. leaders intended to focus on growth and Iran — but also drew protests from other leaders for the inclusion of the Russian minister.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told officials that the United States wants to focus on the mission of accelerating growth and said the countries need to work together
“The world is awash in debt, and the only way for us to get out of this is to grow our way out of this,” Bessent said, CNBC reported.
He also said a “durable” global economy” cannot rest on “beggar-thy-neighbor acts that stifle fair, market-based competition,” The New York Times said.
In introductory comments, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh also focused on growth, saying the time is one of “secular growth.”
“If I were to try to characterize this moment, it would be one of a global investment surge,” he said.
Bessent said earlier Monday in a CNBC interview that the U.S. plan to pressure and isolate Iran through its economy can work without China, which opposes the sanctions. He is expected to ask the other finance ministers to join in those sanctions.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov was at the meeting — at the invitation of the Trump administration — for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
This drew protests from other European ministers, who have issued their own sanctions against Russia for that war. Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil told The Times that he scolded Siluanov over the war and said the European ministers demanded the Russian minister be left out of a traditional group photo. It was eventually taken without Siluanov.
“Receiving the Russian finance minister here sends a signal I find troubling,” he told reporters. “I would have preferred clear positioning from the U.S. side that he not be received like a regular guest.”
Ukraine’s finance minister was not present in person at the meeting.
In addition, European ministers protested that the United States did not invite representatives from South Africa, a G20 country, to the meeting. Trump administration officials also invited many U.S. business executives but denied requests to include business leaders from other G20 countries.
WASHINGTON — House lawmakers return to Washington on Monday with a short to-do list after five weeks back in their home districts. The first order of business is likely a vote on a stopgap spending bill designed to keep the federal government fully funded through early December, removing the possibility of a shutdown before the midterm elections.
With election season getting underway, votes are also expected on measures designed to amplify the GOP’s messaging strategy going into November, most notably a resolution condemning socialism. Republicans are trying to tie the Democratic Party in general to the democratic socialist candidates who have succeeded this year in running for office.
Another item that could make its way onto the agenda is a Senate-passed bill that imposes sanctions on key segments of the Russian economy and allows President Donald Trump to impose steep tariffs on goods imported from countries that buy the vast majority of Russian oil and gas. The effort led by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham aims to deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of revenue used to finance the war against Ukraine.
The bill passed 86-11 in the Senate. House passage would send the bill to Trump’s desk for his signature. However, some key House Democrats oppose the bill. The bill grants Trump sweeping new tariff authorities that some lawmakers fear could be used to punish allies rather than foes.
A vote on the bill is not scheduled this week, but proponents are working to have it taken up before lawmakers leave Washington to focus solely on their reelection campaigns.
The return to Washington also brings a renewed focus on improper behavior by lawmakers as the House will have its first chance to act on a recommendation from the House Ethics Committee to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., for engaging in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct toward two young female aides in his congressional office.
Edwards implores colleagues to reject censure vote
Edwards has disputed the committee’s conclusion that he failed to adhere to the spirit of the rules prohibiting sexual harassment and unwanted advances to House staffers. He points to the committee’s conclusion that found no evidence he “engaged in sexual activity or explicitly propositioned any individual under his employ.”
Edwards said he was not asking lawmakers to approve of every gift, compliment or social interaction, but to distinguish between conduct that someone might find unconventional and conduct that actually establishes sexual harassment.
“Individual acts that were not themselves prohibited were gathered together, assigned the most damaging possible interpretation, and then used collectively to support a conclusion far more serious than the underlying evidence,” Edwards wrote in a letter to colleagues first reported by NOTUS.
The committee said Edwards provided the two staffers with lavish and recurrent gifts, made comments regarding their dress and appearance, invited them to intimate dinners and vacations, sent notes regarding his effusive affection and invited them to other activities as a way to spend time together.
A vote to censure registers the House’s deep disapproval of a lawmaker’s conduct that does not meet the threshold for expulsion. Edwards dropped his reelection plans after the committee’s report came out.
Avoiding another shutdown
House Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to tee up the funding bill early in the week. The bill underwent some significant changes in the Senate, which made it more palatable for Democrats. It delays a proposed rule from the Office of Management and Budget that would give political appointees more power over the distribution of federal grants. It also includes language to ensure the administration can’t transfer funds to the Border Patrol.
But a provision that delays for one month a federal ban on intoxicating hemp THC products has prompted criticism from many GOP lawmakers. As a result, GOP leaders will likely place the bill on a fast-track process that avoids a separate procedural vote. Suspension bills require a two-thirds vote to pass, meaning a significant number from both parties need to support the measure for it to pass and advance to Trump’s desk.
Lawmakers are anxious to avoid the possibility of a shutdown as voters weigh their options going into November. The funding bill passed by a 90-6 vote in the Senate, showing that lawmakers from both political parties want to avoid a repeat of the two historic shutdowns that occurred this past year.
SACRAMENTO — California could have some zany theater this fall: county prosecutors charging federal postmasters with felonies for obeying President Trump’s order to withhold delivery of mail ballots to voters.
Does Trump then federalize the California National Guard to protect his postmasters from local sheriffs bent on hauling them off to the jailhouse?
Just wondering after reading legislation whipping through the state Capitol.
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“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating,” Trump asserted in March, while escalating his crusade against popular “absentee” voting. “Cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible what’s going on.”
It’s a big lie. There has never been any hard evidence produced by anyone, anywhere of significant mail-ballot cheating.
It’s also hypocritical because Trump routinely votes by mail himself in Florida elections.
Why is mail-voting OK for him but not for other Americans? “Because I’m president of the United States,” he told reporters. “I had a lot of different things” to do. As if the rest of us don’t. Voting apparently only needs to be convenient for him.
But Trump obsessively keeps trying to justify his false claim that Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over him was rigged. It’s sick.
It may please his MAGA base, but Democrats and independents across America — especially in California — frown on Trump’s attack against their voting rights. They favor mail voting.
Overall, 58% of Americans support allowing ballots to be cast by mail, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. But there’s a huge difference between the parties — 83% of Democrats and left-leaning independents favor mail voting while 68% of Republicans oppose it.
In California, 72% of all voters approve of balloting by mail, according to a recent poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. But there’s a big split ideologically: 93% of Democrats and 72% of independents approve, but 62% of Republicans disapprove.
Regardless of what GOP voters tell pollsters, they must be overwhelmingly voting by mail. That’s because 81% of all California ballots were cast by mail in the 2024 presidential election. In this year’s gubernatorial primary, it was up to 89%.
In March, Trump issued an executive order directing the Homeland Security Department to compile a list of eligible citizen voters in each state and commanding the U.S. Postal Service to handle only the ballots of people on the list.
Gosh? What could possibly go wrong with Trump’s Homeland Security agency — the overseer of divisive ICE — deciding who is entitled to vote in the pivotal midterm elections?
The nation’s Founders decreed in the Constitution that states could decide on “the times, places and manner” of federal elections — unless Congress wanted to alter the rules. Trump persuaded the House of Representatives to pass legislation restricting mail voting, but the bill died in the Senate, blocked by Democrats.
Trump’s executive order was an effort to bypass Congress and essentially enact a law by himself.
The Supreme Court decreed on a 6-3 vote last week that Trump could proceed with his planning. But since no precise regulations had yet been announced by the administration when the opposition lawsuit was filed, it was premature to rule on their constitutionality.
But now Trump’s draconian rules have been revealed. And California has joined other states in filing a new lawsuit.
“Donald Trump does not run elections. States do,” Gov. Gavin Newsom declared. “California will continue to lead the way in defending democracy.”
In the Legislature, a bill was introduced to make it a felony punishable by up to four years in prison for a person in authority to order the withholding of a ballot’s delivery to a voter or its return to a local election official.
A person like a postmaster? Who else could order mail carriers not to deliver ballots to some registered voters?
“That’s for law enforcement to decide,” says the bill’s author, Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), who was just elected to finish the current term of resigned U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell.
“My bill is trying to protect all voters. They may be on vacation, they may be ill. They may want to vote early or late. Whatever. They remain entitled to vote by mail.”
Her bill breezed through three Assembly committees in 24 hours — Democrats voting yes and Republicans no.
The measure is unlikely, however, to ever result in a postmaster being jailed for obeying the president.
For starters, it’s hard to envision the president’s executive order ever being ruled constitutional — even by this lackey court.
“Trump is trying to exercise control over elections when he has absolutely no authority to do so,” UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote in a Times opinion piece last week.
If the Supreme Court shockingly did rule that Trump has the authority, then could his postmasters be arrested under the new state law? Under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the answer would seem to be “no.” Federal law generally supersedes conflicting state law.
“An executive order cannot supersede state law,” says UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, who specializes in election law. “But there are all kinds of immunity doctrines and other reasons why a state would have a hard time prosecuting a federal official for violating state law in the conduct of official duties.”
The real answer is for Trump to stop trying to concoct a solution to an election problem that only exists in his warped imagination.
WASHINGTON — In firing up a trade war with Canada, President Trump turned to a 96-year-old statute so obscure that many trade lawyers didn’t even know it was still on the books.
Trump invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 on Aug. 24 to slap a 50% tax on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports. The move prompted dollar-for-dollar retaliation from Ottawa and strained already-tense relations between the neighbors and longtime allies.
The president’s Section 338 tariff authority has never been used, let alone tested in court. “This law is literally a blank canvas because it’s never been litigated,’’ said Ryan Majerus, a partner at law firm King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official.
So it’s unclear whether Trump’s latest Canada tariffs could survive a legal challenge, and some lawyers argue that the Depression-era law has been rendered obsolete by more recent trade laws.
Trump raises Section 338 from the dead
To sanction Canada allegedly for discriminating against U.S. dairy, auto and alcoholic beverage exports this summer, the Trump administration reached back to the Great Depression.
The 1930 tariff legislation is known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act after its congressional sponsors. With the U.S. and world economies in collapse, Congress raised tariffs on hundreds of imports in an attempt to protect American farmers and manufacturers.
The tariffs are notorious among economists and historians for shutting down world commerce and making the Great Depression worse. (Trump, who proudly calls himself “Tariff Man,” has a different view, arguing that the Smoot-Hawley levies simply came too late to rescue the American economy.)
In addition to raising tariffs themselves, lawmakers in 1930 gave the president new power to impose them himself: Section 338 authorizes presidential tariffs of up to 50% on imports from countries that have discriminated against U.S. businesses.
Before Trump, no president had actually used the statute.
“Until Trump’s second term, few trade lawyers were aware that Section 338 remained on the books or understood what it did,” legal scholars Peter Harrell and Jennifer Hillman of Georgetown University wrote this month in the libertarian magazine Reason.
Harrell and Hillman cite State Department records to show that the U.S. considered using Section 338 in trade disputes — against Spain in 1932 and against newly communist China in 1949 — but never did. After the Depression, U.S. policy focused more on using negotiations — rather than sanctions — to open foreign markets.
So Section 338 sat moldering in the law books.
Other laws take hold
As the years went by, the United States passed new trade laws. Some of them ceded to the president tariff power, which the Constitution originally granted to Congress. But the new laws also limited the president’s authority to certain circumstances — including dealing with national security threats and foreign currency crises — and required the government to carry out investigations and meet other procedural requirements beforehand.
“There is a very strong argument that [Section 338] was superseded,” said Sara Albrecht, chief executive of the Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian advocacy group that represented businesses that successfully challenged the earlier Trump tariffs with the Supreme Court.
If Congress wanted the president to retain Section 338 power, Albrecht asks, why did lawmakers pass the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allowed for national security tariffs? And the Trade Act of 1974, which gives the president power to go after other countries’ unfair trade practices?
Battling over Canada’s dairy market
Legal experts see other weaknesses in the Section 338 tariffs.
Harrell and Hillman, for instance, write in Reason that Section 338 authorizes only tariffs that “offset” the harm that a foreign country’s trade practices do to American companies. But in targeting Canada, they note, the Trump administration made no attempt to calculate the dollar amount of damage arising from discrimination against U.S. farmers, automakers and marketers of alcoholic beverages. And the U.S. went after Canadian imports unconnected to those trouble spots, including hockey sticks and cement.
Harrell and Hillman also say that Canada’s protection of its dairy market does not single out U.S. farmers for discrimination; the rules apply to many other Canadian trading partners as well.
Moreover, the United States agreed to the Canadian system — in which Canada imposes stiff tariffs on dairy imports that exceed a quota — in a North America trade pact Trump himself negotiated with Canada and Mexico in his first term. Harrell and Hillman write that it is “incongruous, to say the least, for the United States to denounce as discriminatory the very terms it agreed to.”
But John Veroneau, former general counsel for the U.S. Trade Representative, said the Section 338 tariffs are straightforward: They are justified when another country discriminates against U.S. imports by taxing them more than it taxes imports from other countries.
And in a “perverse irony,” Veroneau said, Canada did just that when it responded to tariffs Trump imposed on Canadian products last year with its own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports. “Courts will rightly feel obliged in the face of any challenge [to decide]: Are the statutory requirements met or are they not met, however ludicrous the broader context might be,” said Veroneau, adjunct professor at the University of Maine School of Law.
Plaintiffs are so far hard to find
Trump’s other tools to impose his protectionist agenda already have floundered in court. The Supreme Court in February threw out his boldest gambit: invoking a 1977 national security law to hit almost every country on Earth last year with double-digit tariffs.
When Trump tried to replace the revenue lost to the Supreme Court defeat with a new set of tariffs, a specialized trade court in New York rejected those too — though the government was allowed to continue collecting the import taxes while the case works its way through the court system.
No one has filed a lawsuit challenging the Section 338 tariffs. The Liberty Justice Center has been looking for businesses willing to sue the government over the levies.
“I haven’t had a lot of response from plaintiffs,” Albrecht said. “Anytime you want to sue the government, it’s a hard proposition.” The Section 338 tariffs on Canada are also far smaller — just 5% of Canadian imports — than Trump’s 2025 worldwide tariffs, meaning that fewer companies have to pay them and can claim to have been injured by them.
There’s also a chance, Albrecht said, that the two countries will resume the talks they broke off Aug. 21 and reach a compromise to end a standoff neither country wants. “I’m hopeful that somebody blinks, that they come to some agreement and it all goes away,” she said.
Leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), including Chinese President Xi Jinping, his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are set to gather in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek for an annual summit.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is also attending the summit, which marks 25 years of its existence.
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The two-day summit, starting on Monday, comes at a time when the world is grappling with the aftermath of the US-Israel war on Iran, which has upended global energy and financial markets, and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
So, what will be the main agenda of the summit, and will the SCO leaders try to use the gathering to push for a multipolar world and Global South cooperation on trade and security issues, as United States President Donald Trump’s unilateral foreign policy has eroded the global rules-based order?
Here’s what we know:
Who is attending the SCO summit and where is it being held?
This year’s summit is taking place in Bishkek under the motto: Together for Sustainable Peace, Development and Prosperity.
Xi, Putin and Modi will be joined by the Iranian president and leaders of Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, among others.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn are also expected to attend the summit.
William Yang, senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group, noted that the ongoing wars are putting more strain on the rules-based international order, and against this backdrop, the summit serves as an important occasion for several of the world’s rising great powers, including China and India, to elevate their global influence and deepen their engagement and cooperation with other countries in the Global South.
“For years, SCO has been viewed as one of the avenues for China to promote the multipolar world order and form its own bloc with other developing countries. Despite its narrow scope of cooperation at the beginning, SCO member states have sought to expand the scope of their mandate and the number of member states,” Yang told Al Jazeera.
Amid the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Europe, Yang said, “China could use this year’s summit to present itself as a great power that advocates for a peaceful resolution of the conflicts, thereby sharpening the contrast with the US.”
“However, these efforts are likely to be limited to rhetoric rather than any substantive proposal for conflict resolution,” he said.
Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at French investment bank Natixis, said the summit is particularly significant because it marks the grouping’s 25th anniversary and offers the first chance to turn last year’s Tianjin strategy, which called for a multipolar world order that fosters mutually beneficial international cooperation, into action. Last year’s summit took place in China’s Tianjin region.
“Putting Modi, Putin and Xi in the same room, with India-China border talks still live and a scheduled Modi-Putin bilateral, is a visible test of how far the recent thaw goes and how Eurasia wants to organise security, connectivity and trade without defaulting to Western institutions,” she told Al Jazeera, referring to the recent India-China talks amid the warming up of New Delhi-Beijing ties.
What is the SCO?
The SCO started in 1996 as a security bloc, dubbed the “Shanghai Five”. It was formed by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to settle their border disputes following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But in June 2001, the grouping evolved into the SCO, and expanded to include Uzbekistan, with headquarters in Beijing. In 2017, the bloc expanded to include India and Pakistan. Iran and Belarus were also added as full members in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
In addition, the organisation has 14 key dialogue partners, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Turkiye, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Cambodia.
SCO member states account for 43 percent of the world’s population and 23 percent – or almost a quarter – of the global economy.
Analysts have pointed out that while the SCO emerged with a focus on regional security, the expansion of its mandate to include trade and other Global South concerns means it is difficult to understand what sets the grouping apart from other Global South organisations like the BRICS, which is an acronym derived from the initials of the founding member countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Alejandro Reyes, adjunct professor in the department of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, said the SCO has grown into a “counterbalance” to the US-led Asia Pacific alliance aimed at countering China’s rise. India is part of both groupings. “Interestingly, India is part of the SCO, and the US appears to have dropped the Indo-Pacific nomenclature,” he said.
Reyes emphasised that “the SCO is not a coherent anti-US, anti-Western alliance”. “It is better understood as a forum in which countries with very different interests can demonstrate that they have alternatives and strategic room for manoeuvre – agency in this more volatile geopolitical order, dominated by China and the US. It is less an anti-American alliance than a venue for countries hedging against and hinging away from American power,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The significance this year is that current US policies, especially with regard to Iran and continuing US tariff and sanctions action, may be making that hedging more attractive and necessary,” he added.
What is on this year’s agenda?
The US-Israel war on Iran, the Russia-Ukraine war and the economic and social situation in Afghanistan are key issues leaders are expected to discuss this year, according to the SCO Secretariat.
Relations between India and China – Asia’s two major economies – are also expected to be discussed. Last year, Beijing and New Delhi began a rapprochement after five years of tensions over a 2020 deadly border skirmish. Trump’s tariff war on Indian goods last year forced New Delhi to mend ties with Beijing. For the first time since 2018, Modi visited China last year for the SCO summit.
Border tensions between India and Pakistan also persist, and the issue is expected to be discussed at this summit.
Manoj Kewalramani, chairperson of Bengaluru-based think tank Takshashila Institution’s Geostrategy Programme, told Al Jazeera that apart from the traditional security agenda, this year’s summit might include any forward movement on issues of economic integration or financial cooperation architecture.
“In Tianjin, we had the agreement on establishing the SCO Development Bank,” Kewalramani said.
“The Kyrgyz leadership has said that its priority will be to move the needle on the bank, the SCO Development Fund and SCO Investment Fund,” he said, adding that while talks have reportedly been taking place in this direction, there is no clarity on whether any agreements will be announced at this year’s summit.
According to the SCO Secretariat, economic connectivity will be a key topic the group will discuss as the US and Israel’s war on Iran continues to paralyse key maritime routes like the Strait of Hormuz, which has upended global supply chains, the energy market and financial markets.
The group is expected to discuss new trade and transport corridors, such as the 7,200km (4,474-mile) International North-South Transport Corridor, which links the Russian port city of St Petersburg with India’s financial capital, Mumbai, through Iran and ports on the Gulf.
Herrero pointed out that with Modi and Putin scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting, discussions on the Northern Sea Route, which runs through the Arctic coast, are also expected. China last month announced a new shipping route through the Arctic Ocean, aimed at easing global trade amid the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks in the Bab al-Mandeb in the Red Sea, which will pass through the Northern Sea Route.
According to Indian media reports, Moscow and New Delhi could negotiate the use of the Northern Sea Route by India as the crisis in West Asia continues to affect trade routes.
The SCO will also seek to establish a network of Silk Road stations to support international freight traffic across Eurasia.
Can the SCO agree on all issues?
The Eurasian grouping has often been unable to agree on global geopolitical issues.
For instance, Russia has been able to get most SCO members to align with its interests when it comes to its war in Ukraine, but India has attempted to play a more balanced role – seeking peace and stronger ties with Ukraine, while also buying record levels of oil from Russia.
But this year, Ukraine is expected to feature in discussions, with Turkiye’s Erdogan and Russia’s Putin holding bilateral talks on the matter, according to a Kremlin aide. Europe’s deadliest war since World War II is in its fifth year.
Yury Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said the meeting would take place on the sidelines of the SCO summit.
“There are many issues to discuss. Of course, these include the situation in the Black Sea and the Ukraine issue in general,” he told reporters, referring to the rise in attacks in the Black Sea.
In this photo provided by Kyrgyzstan’s Prime Minister Press Office, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stands on the an aircraft boarding stairs upon his arrival at an international airport outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on Sunday, August 30, 2026 [Handout/Ergesh Zhusubaiv/Kyrgyzstan’s Presidential Press Office via AP]
The SCO has, however, taken a more collective position on the US-Israel war on Iran and Israel’s genocidal actions in Palestine.
In March, the SCO condemned the US-Israel war on Iran. “The SCO member states considered the use of force as unacceptable and advocate for the resolution of existing differences exclusively by peaceful means, based on dialogue, mutual respect, and taking into account the legitimate interests of all parties, in accordance with the norms of international law and the principles of the UN Charter,” it said in a statement.
India, which has strong ties with Israel, had refused to endorse an SCO joint statement condemning Israel for its attack on Iran in June 2025.
Iranian President Pezeshkian is also scheduled to meet Putin on the sidelines of the summit, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency. Russia is a close ally of Iran and the two countries cooperate on defence issues. China has emerged as Iran’s biggest economic lifeline as it buys more than 80 percent of its crude oil. Moscow and Beijing have also lent diplomatic cover to Tehran at the UN.
Frictions also exist on how the group views border tensions between India and Pakistan. New Delhi has repeatedly called on the organisation to condemn “cross-border terrorism”, for which it blames Islamabad, a close economic and defence ally of China.
Last July, India demanded that the grouping condemn the April 2025 attack by armed men in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed. Pakistan has also blamed India for armed attacks inside its territory.
During the Tianjin summit, the bloc condemned “terror” attacks in both India and Pakistan, taking a more balanced position on the issue.
What are Russia, China and India going to gain at the summit?
Reyes from the University of Hong Kong pointed out that all eyes will also be on Russia, China and India.
“For China, the SCO is partly about institution-building. Beijing wants to demonstrate that it can convene a large part of Eurasia around an agenda of security, connectivity, trade and development, while promoting a more multipolar, agentic international order. It also reinforces China’s increasingly important economic position in Central Asia, a strategically key region of the Eurasia landmass,” he said.
“For Russia, the summit is an opportunity to show that it is not isolated internationally. Maintaining strong relationships with China, India, Iran and Central Asia is economically and diplomatically important, given the Ukraine war and Western and other sanctions. But Moscow also has an interest in preserving its own influence in Eurasia rather than simply becoming more and more dependent on China.
“India is in an intriguing position. Modi’s participation is not an indication that India is joining the China-Russia axis, such as it is. India itself describes its SCO priorities as ‘security, connectivity and opportunity’. That is much more consistent with India’s longstanding pursuit of strategic autonomy – its agency amid the great-power rivalry,” Reyes explained.
He added that New Delhi wants “access and influence in Central Asia, continued relations with Russia [from which it buys the bulk of its defence equipment], and a mechanism for managing its difficult but gradually stabilising relationship with China”.
“At the same time, New Delhi maintains important relations with Washington, including through the Quad security arrangement.
“So China and Russia may see the SCO partly as an instrument for building a less US-dominated international order. India, meanwhile, sees it more as one of several overlapping platforms through which it can maximise its own agency.”
What does all this mean to the US?
As part of his unilateral foreign policy vision, Trump has undermined the Western-led international order and lashed out at Global South blocs, such as BRICS, which he sees as a threat to the US’s economic dominance. He has called the grouping “anti-American”.
However, Kewalramani noted that the Trump administration has continued some of its predecessors’ approaches and deepened engagement with countries in the region where this year’s SCO is being hosted, especially with the C5 or Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
“Joe Biden had established a leader-level meeting mechanism with C5 countries in 2023. Trump also hosted them in DC in November 2025. [US Secretary of State] Marco Rubio and subsequently Trump are expected to visit the region later [this] year. Kazakhstan has announced accession to the Abraham Accords, becoming the first Central Asian state to join [the Trump-led diplomatic efforts to cajole Muslim countries to recognise Israel]. The US has been engaged with the region on critical minerals and other business deals,” he said.
“In other words, C5 members are also adopting a diversified diplomatic approach, seeking to balance China and Russia’s dominance,” he noted.
“But the fact that you are witnessing these countries meeting with far more purpose to think about alternative financial and energy architectures is a reflection of the limitations of the US’s disruptive foreign policy,” Kewalramani added.
Herrero said for the US, the SCO summit is a reminder that countries like India will keep practising strategic autonomy: it will sit in the Quad and buy US defence equipment while also talking to Moscow and Beijing in a China-heavy forum.
The Quad or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was established by India, Japan, Australia and the US in 2007 to counter China’s growing influence in the Asia Pacific region. Over the past quarter-century, India has grown closer to the US and its allies, amid shared concerns over Beijing’s rise.
Reyes warned that Washington should be careful not to read the SCO as a consolidated anti-US coalition, even though China, Russia and Iran are members.
“The differences among China, Russia and India are far too substantial to substantiate that label. The more important message is that American economic and geopolitical pressure can sometimes produce convergence among countries that otherwise might disagree with one another more,” he said.
“The SCO’s criticism of unilateral economic measures is significant in that respect. China and Russia explicitly want a less US-dominated international order. India does not necessarily share that objective, but it does want a world in which Washington cannot dictate its foreign-policy choices.”
SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers on Sunday approved bills aimed at preventing interference in this fall’s midterm elections and requiring more transparency from social media influencers who are paid by political campaigns.
They join a growing pile of bills on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk as the legislature nears the end of its two-year session, which adjourns early this week.
Social media influencers took on a more visible role in California’s 2026 gubernatorial primary. Candidates including Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer paid thousands of dollars to influencers who posted videos endorsing Steyer or talking about him in a positive light. These videos did not always disclose that influencers were paid by a candidate’s campaign.
Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) said his bill would ensure “that voters are not misled by paid content” by requiring a disclosure on paid posts and videos. Campaigns will also be required to report funds spent on social media posts.
If Newsom signs the law, it could result in fines for influencers and campaigns that fail to disclose such payments.
Two other bills sent to Newsom on Sunday would make it a felony to interfere with mail ballots or to seize ballots and other election materials before an election is certified. They come amid concern from Democratic lawmakers that President Trump or his supporters will seek to interfere with the casting and counting of ballots in the Nov. 3 election.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco drew outrage and legal challenges when he ordered his deputies to take more than 650,000 ballots from the county elections office over unproven claims of fraud. The case was argued before the California Supreme Court last week.
Newsom earlier this year signed a bill preventing local and federal law enforcement agencies from taking ballots without a warrant.
Legislation by Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz) goes even further by making it a felony to take or order the seizure of ballots, election records or voting machines. Such actions would be punishable by up to four years in prison.
“The federal administration and those seeking to spread lies about our democracy continue to call for interference in elections in ways we have never seen before in this country,” Pellerin said Sunday. “AB 282 helps ensure that every lawfully cast vote can be counted, and that the will of the voters of every political party will be respected.”
Republican lawmakers argued in previous hearings that the bill is unnecessary because it is already a crime to steal ballots.
Another bill, SB 259, makes it a crime to interfere with a mail ballot on the way to or from a voter or order the seizure of ballots that are in transit to a local elections office.
SACRAMENTO — The California state Legislature voted Sunday to amend a 2019 law that extended the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims but was blamed for draining the coffers of municipalities and school districts.
Since the law was enacted, L.A. County has agreed to pay more than $5 billion to settle more than 12,000 claims stemming from alleged sexual abuse committed by government employees in foster homes and juvenile halls.
The bill passed by the Legislature on Sunday requires victims older than 40 to provide evidence that the public entity was aware of the misconduct that resulted in the assault and failed to take reasonable steps to avoid it.
It also states that attorneys who file fraudulent sex abuse lawsuits can be fined $25,000 per violation. The Times reported last year on nine plaintiffs who said they were paid to sue the county over sex abuse, some of whom said they were told to fabricate their claims.
Consumer attorneys, counties and victims rights groups jostled over the elements of the proposed bill over the last few months.
Lawmakers stopped short of capping payouts in the bill, a change sought by some local governments and school districts.
The legislation follows multiple attempts to change the law in recent years. Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica) tried last year to increase the burden of proof for sex abuse cases, but pulled the bill after outrage from victims rights groups.
Some of the groups blasted the bill on Sunday night, arguing it would shield rapists and deny justice to survivors.
Speaking on the floor of the state Senate, Laird said that he tried to balance the needs of all parties.
The bill now goes to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his consideration.
Hundreds turned out for a Zohran Mamdani lookalike contest in New York, where nine contestants competed for the crowd’s vote. Part-time actor and Mamdani impersonator Amadeo Fusca won the contest and took home a prize of $100.
Aug. 30 (UPI) — Icelandic voters rejected restarting talks about the Nordic island nation joining the European Union.
Referendum results announced Sunday showed that 53% of people voted against the talks while 47% said yes. Overall, 68,135 were cast with 82.4% voter turnout.
Iceland had discussed joining the bloc in 2013 shortly after a banking collapse in the country and the global economic crisis. Talks ended because Icelanders were concerned about keeping sovereign control over fisheries, the country’s top export.
Iceland would not have become an EU member automatically if voters had approved the talks. The country’s representatives would have had to negotiate with Brussels, and Icelandic voters would have had to approve EU membership in a second referendum.
“This is a good day,” Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir said Saturday. “We have now reached the point where this is in the hands of the nation. Either we enter these negotiations, seek a good agreement and then see what happens, or we put the discussion about the European Union aside, at least for the time being.”
Frostadóttir last month said on the British podcast, The Rest is Politics, that Iceland currently follows 75% of EU rules.
“Joining it is not going to sink the country and joining it is also not fundamentally going to change every aspect of Icelandic, you know, economy,” she said at the time.
However, there was concern that the other 27 countries in the EU would drown out Iceland and the country would have to change its currency to the euro from the króna.
