Along 2,400 miles of Route 66, small towns and road-trippers will be marking the highway’s 100th anniversary Wednesday. But for many business owners along the Mother Road, the birthday gifts have been coming in for months, thanks to a surge in spending by centennial travelers.
Hundreds of small businesses invested in upgrades and celebrations for 2026 — particularly during summer’s busy road trip season — including concerts, car shows, signs, murals, publications and a 19-day national caravan that began in Santa Monica in June.
“I’d say we’ve had probably double the travelers and double the spending,” said Gar Engman, owner of TeePee Curios, a novelty shop in Tucumcari, N.M., comparing this year with 2025.
Not every entrepreneur had numbers that rosy, and there’s no official measure of this year’s business along the route. But after driving the route myself for a Times travel guide that published in May, I reached out this week to several entrepreneurs I met on the way, and most said business was up sharply this year. In addition, many said they were seeing more Americans on the road this year — a notable trend, since international travelers have been the lifeblood of Route 66 for many years.
All along the road, there had been doubts about centennial traffic, given gas prices (up 30% from last year) and the many Route 66 devotees who come from countries that have been maligned or targeted for higher tariffs by President Trump, including the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Several entrepreneurs along the road said some international travelers did stay away, including Canadians who have been avoiding U.S. travel since 2025, when President Trump made comments about annexing Canada. But in many cases homegrown travelers filled the gap.
An amateur photographer captures the Roy’s sign in Amboy.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
At Roy’s in Amboy, manager Kenneth Large said 2026 has been “fantastic” so far, with receipts at his gas station and shop up 18% to 20% over last year. International visitors are still the majority of his customers, Large said, but “I think there were more domestic travelers this year.”
At the Aztec Motel & Creative Space in Seligman, Ariz., “it’s been a roller-coaster,” said co-owner Anne Marie Gonzalez. “Our numbers here were almost nonexistent until August. We were getting really worried. And then it finally kicked in.” Though her 2026 numbers remain behind 2025 and 2024, Gonzalez said, she has seen “more Americans than ever. … People seemed to decide to do it at the last minute.”
Sebastiaan de Boorder and Anna Marie Gonzalez own and operate the Aztec Motel and Creative Space in Seligman, Ariz.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
When I called the U Drop Inn Cafe in Shamrock, Texas, co-owner Lianne Halpern started by saying “Give me one second! Let me just take this dessert to this table.”
“It’s been huge,” she said a moment later. “Right now, we’re probably up about 30% year over year. … It’s always been disproportionately international versus domestic and I would stay that’s still true.”
The U Drop Inn Cafe, part of a 1936 Streamline Moderne filling station in Shamrock, Texas, is run by Lianne and Aldo Halpern.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
At the Rockwood Motor Court in Springfield, Mo., “it’s just been stellar,” said owner Phyllis Ferguson. Ferguson, whose motel has just 10 rooms, said that in June she filled 286 of 300 room-nights. By the end of that month, she said, she was already on the brink of passing her room-night total for all of 2025.
She was further encouraged by the number of younger travelers this year — so many, Ferguson said, that “I think Route 66 has become the honeymoon destination of young European couples.”
In Clinton, Okla., the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum reported that through the first half of 2026, business quadrupled over the first half of 2025.
In Tulsa, Buck Atom’s Atomic Curios and Meadow Gold Mack’s Route 66 Outpost have drawn a mix of young and old customers with their blend of irreverent and vintage wares items, perhaps offering a peek at the route’s future.
Rhys Martin, manager of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Route 66 program, said the positive reports have been fairly consistent along the highway’s “linear community,” which stretches from town to town across eight states.
Nov. 11, 1926, is considered the route’s official birth date because that’s when a group of state and national transportation officials formally agreed, after months of debate, that a highway would connect cities and towns from Chicago to Los Angeles, and that it would bear the number 66. It was another 12 years before the entire route was paved.
Martin was in Los Angeles over the weekend for a screening of director John Paget’s documentary “Route 66: The Main Street of America.” But he will soon be traveling to Washington, D.C., where Route 66 boosters are pushing a pair of identical bills that call for creation of a Route 66 National Historic Trail. In the House of Representatives, HR5470 still needs to clear a committee before a House vote. In the Senate, Martin said, S2887 awaits a full Senate vote.
The road “touches so many communities at so many levels,” Martin said. “It isn’t just good for the towns, it’s good for the story of the country.”
Spain’s King and Queen have joined families of the 69 victims from a deadly train collision at a state funeral on Tuesday. The crash, 60 kilometres from Toledo, has shaken public confidence in the rail network and forced the country’s transport minister to resign.
A Los Angeles County judge who has been accused of sexual harassment, making racist remarks and mistreating fellow members of the bench was officially removed from office Tuesday, officials said.
The state Commission on Judicial Performance upheld 17 findings of misconduct against Judge Robert Draper, 84, according to a disciplinary document made public Tuesday.
“Judge Draper persistently violated the standards governing judicial behavior and engaged in extensive and severe misconduct,” the commission said in a statement. “Judge Draper’s misconduct reflected either a concerning lack of familiarity with ethical precepts, or an unwillingness to conform to those precepts.”
Earlier this year, Draper compared the commission to the “Russian Mafia” in an interview with The Times where he denied all wrongdoing and claimed the charges were political payback for his opposition to another judge’s bid to become L.A. County’s presiding justice.
In an e-mail to The Times, Draper said the commission’s ruling was “wrong” and that he plans to seek review from the California Supreme Court, which he said “will look at the actual facts and not simply the characterization of those facts by the Examiners.”
“Kind of like what every citizen is entitled to – a presumption of innocence, a fair opportunity to be heard by an unbiased panel, decision makers who are willing to actually look at the real facts in a complete way and apply the legally required standard of proof rather than simply reciting it, and then ignoring it,” he wrote. “It just amazes me that I have had to go this far in order to have these standards for the first time applied.”
The Commission has only ordered the removal of 14 judges across the state since 2002, according to its website.
The removal order was the final step in a years-long fall from grace for Draper. A well-respected veteran member of the bench, colleagues began expressing concern about his decline in 2022. In 2023, according to a letter sent to the state commission, he was barred from hearing cases and re-assigned to a Santa Monica Courthouse department that colleagues likened to a “closet.” When a Times reporter visited the building earlier this year, staff on site said Draper almost never came in.
In letters sent to the commission in 2022 and 2023, two of the L.A. County Superior Court’s top judges accused Draper of sending abusive e-mails to colleagues replete with racist and abusive language. In one letter, then-Presiding Justice Samantha Jessner said Draper was “unable to carry out the duties and responsibilities of a judge” due to deteriorating mental and physical health.
“He has demonstrated a flagging handle on reality,” L.A. County Superior Court Judge Eric Taylor wrote.
Draper was accused of sexual harassment, making racist remarks and callous behavior all over the course of one hearing in 2022.
According to court records and testimony given at Draper’s six-day removal hearing earlier this year, the judge allegedly stroked a female lawyer’s hair after going on a tangent to a Black attorney about “Black history, Black football players, the Civil Rights Act, and the Black Lives Matter movement,” even though the case had nothing to do with those issues.
The commission described Draper’s misconduct as “extensive” and argued his alleged racist behavior continued while testifying in his May removal hearing. While testifying he referred two specific Black people as “very black in terms of pigmentation” and “way Black,” according to the commission.
He was also accused of making crude remarks to a group of female attorneys while in chambers. Reflecting on his time as a civil attorney, he recalled how male lawyers would deride female secretaries, insisting they learn to “f— better than they could type,” according to testimony given by attorney Janice Brown at Draper’s hearing earlier this year.
Draper lost his bid for re-election in June to former L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Tal K. Valbuena by nearly 13 points, after the L.A. County Bar Assn. rated Draper as “unqualified” for service.
The race highlighted the lengths the insular judicial community would go to protect their own from election challenges. Despite well-known concerns about Draper’s fitness, a political action committee run by fellow judges gave $72,500 to his campaign, state election finance records show. The PAC did not respond to prior inquiries from The Times.
A fellow judge, speaking on condition of anonymity because judges are not allowed to speak to the press, described the end of Draper’s career as a “super sad situation.”
“Perhaps it should spur California to consider enacting what most states have — a mandatory retirement age,” the judge said.
WASHINGTON — The midterm elections already upended national politics. Due to the number of state governments that have flipped to Democratic control, they also could change the way the U.S. elects a president.
The sudden blue tint to so many more statehouses opens the door to enough states joining 18 other Democratic-run states in a deal that would effectively neuter the Electoral College. It would remake the battle for the presidency into one for the most votes nationwide, rather than candidates concentrating on a half dozen or so swing states.
The states that have joined what is known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact account for 222 Electoral College votes. Once the number of states involved hits the 270 needed to win the presidency, the arrangement would effectively require a candidate to win the national popular vote to get an Electoral College majority.
It’s not clear that the strategy has support from all the newly elected lawmakers and governors in the key states, and it’s almost certain to draw legal challenges from conservative groups. If it does go forward, it could land before the conservative-majority Supreme Court.
Yet the sweep of the Democratic wins for governor and in state legislatures has the plan’s supporters optimistic. In Tuesday’s elections, Democrats won full control in six states representing 71 Electoral College votes: Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Minnesota, with its 10 electoral votes, had joined the compact when it was previously under full Democratic control in 2023.
Some governors express support while others are noncommittal
“We can do away with it,” Wisconsin’s new Democratic Gov. David Crowley said of the Electoral College, now that he has a legislature in his party’s hands for the first time in 16 years. “I am interested in having those conversations with the state Legislature.”
Over the weekend, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a likely 2028 contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, said he would like his newly Democratic legislature to take steps toward making the Electoral College obsolete.
“I think that the national popular vote makes sense. My views on that have not changed,” Shapiro said on a liberal podcast. “I’ll work with lawmakers to figure out what the right mechanism is for moving forward on that.”
If Pennsylvania and Wisconsin supported the compact, reaching the 270 threshold would require Michigan and either Arizona or Nevada to join. Michigan’s new Democratic governor, Jocelyn Benson did not respond to a request for comment.
Not every Democratic governor is embracing the push yet. In a television interview on Monday, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs declined to say whether she favored her state joining the compact. She said she’s focused on other things, like the cost of living.
Nevada’s previous experience with the issue also is a cautionary tale for supporters.
In 2019, then-Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak vetoed a measure that would have committed Nevada to joining the compact after it was passed by Democratic majorities in both houses of the Legislature. Sisolak said at the time that the popular vote idea would diminish the influence of smaller-population states like Nevada in national elections.
Democrats passed another measure to join the compact in 2023, but couldn’t figure out a way around the state’s then-Republican governor. The incoming administration of its new Democratic governor, Aaron Ford, did not respond to requests for comment.
Republicans will use their diminished power to push back.
“Our Constitution gives states a voice in choosing the president for a reason,” Tyler August, the Republican leader in the Wisconsin Assembly, said in a statement Tuesday. “This would undermine that balance and disenfranchise Wisconsin voters by letting results in other states override their choice.”
Two presidents 16 years apart lost the popular vote
The idea of shifting to a national popular vote gained traction among Democrats after Republican George W. Bush won the 2000 presidential election by inching ahead of Democrat Al Gore in the Electoral College even while losing the popular vote. It became turbocharged after Republicans again won the White House that way in 2016 with Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Under the National Popular Vote plan, the candidate who wins the popular vote nationwide would receive the Electoral College votes from the states that have joined the compact.
There’s nothing inherently partisan about the idea, said Patrick Rosenstiel, a Republican strategist in Minnesota who is a senior consultant to the popular vote movement. Occasionally GOP-majority legislative chambers, including the Oklahoma Senate, have passed proposals to join the compact, but the bills haven’t gone further.
He said his own presidential vote is essentially meaningless because Minnesota has reliably voted Democratic in presidential elections for decades, leaving him with no say in the outcome and steering the vast majority of the candidates’ attention elsewhere.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever been relevant in the outcome of a presidential election,” he said. “National popular vote forces campaigns to focus on every persuadable voter in every precinct across the nation.”
Rosenstiel said the national popular vote campaign has been revving up to push the issue when the newly Democratic state legislatures convene at the start of the year. He said the organization has already lined up legislative sponsors.
The compact could create constitutional concerns
Republicans no longer have the power to stop the change in the Democratic-controlled states, but some conservative groups are prepared for a fight. The change “disenfranchises voters in member states if enacted, violates the United States Constitution, and undermines America’s Founders’ intent,” wrote analysts for the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank, in September.
There also is no guarantee the proposals will pass. Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor who is skeptical of the idea, said some might have second thoughts now that it’s gone from a symbolic protest vote to a real possibility. He said there will be constitutional concerns, as well, that will likely lead to legal challenges.
The Constitution lets states run elections, and the Supreme Court in a case stemming from electors who sought to find a substitute for Trump in 2016 has ruled that states can require electors to vote for the presidential candidate they’re pledged to.
Muller flagged potential legal hurdles to the popular vote plan. States have the power to run their elections but not set rules that will determine the outcome in other states’ contests. Additionally, each state ballot is different, and some would potentially have third-party candidates who wouldn’t appear elsewhere, leading to the dilution of a vote for a Democrat or Republican in one state compared to another.
That could violate the 14th Amendment’s requirement that everyone have “equal protection of the laws.” The U.S. Supreme Court also might decide that states can’t join a compact to change one of their core constitutional duties, unless they get congressional approval.
“I think the Supreme Court will be interested,” Muller said.
Riccardi and Bauer write for the Associated Press. Bauer reported from Madison, Wis. AP writers Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., Jacqueline GaNun in Lansing, Mich., Jessica Hill in Las Vegas and Mikella Schuettler in Phoenix contributed to this report.
A Northern California judge on Monday permanently barred Shasta County from implementing a voter-approved initiative that sought to dramatically reshape voting in the conservative stronghold.
Measure B, which was passed by 56% of voters in the June primary, sought to require hand-counted ballots, eliminate most mail-in voting and require residents to present government-issued photo identification to cast a ballot on election day.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the state’s top elections official, sued Shasta County days after the primary, arguing that Measure B violates state election laws. Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin Hanna temporarily blocked the measure in August.
In his final ruling Monday, Hanna wrote that the provisions of Measure B “are wholly contrary to existing state law.”
“The regulation and administration of the electoral process is a matter of statewide concern, and Shasta County’s status as a charter county does not entitle it to enact invalid legislation simply because some in this community do not agree with the existing law,” the ruling continued.
Attorney Alexander Haberbush, who represented a group of Measure B supporters, did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment. But Haberbush told local television station KRCR that they are “reviewing every option, including an appeal.”
“Today’s ruling tells the voters of every charter county in California that they have no say over how their own elections are run. This ruling goes far further than any state law requires,” he told the station.
The battle over election integrity took hold in the mostly rural Shasta County in 2023. At the time, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, fueled by President Trump’s unsubstantiated election fraud claims, stopped using Dominion voting machines and opted to hand-count ballots for the county’s more than 110,000 registered voters. The move quickly prompted a new state law that banned them from doing so.
The fight has continued amid Trump’s calls for the government to “nationalize” state-run elections and restrict voting by mail.
Weber in a statement Monday described Measure B as a “colossal waste of time and taxpayer funds” and an attempt to disenfranchise voters.
“Today’s decision affirms what was a forgone conclusion from the beginning,” she said. “As long as there are those willing to enact reckless, illegal, and poorly drafted laws, on behalf of Californians, we will see them in court.”
One of the biggest stories of this month’s Democratic sweep in the midterms is that a very red Texas elected a Democratic U.S. Senator and governor.
Pundits cite many theories for the surprising results: Anger over the Iran war, high gas prices, Trump fatigue and data centers.
But did California’s high home prices and the state’s historic exodus play a role?
Experts doubt it. In fact, some Californians who moved to Texas are actually concerned about the blue wave.
Many presume that those arriving from California must be much more liberal than the average Texan, said Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
But “a significant share of the Californians transplanting to Texas tend to be moderate to conservative in their views,” he said.
For years, Californians fled to Texas in droves. About 100,000 people made the move in 2022 alone, and many were looking not just for a lower cost of living but also a state that reflected their conservative political outlook.
Nearly half of those Californians who moved to Arizona or Texas during the California exodus in recent years identified as conservative or very conservative, according to a Stanford University study.
The Public Policy Institute of California found that those who leave the state often go to states that share their political beliefs: “Californians leaving for Republican states are much more likely to be Republican than Democratic, compared to Californians as a whole, while those leaving for Democratic states are more likely to be Democratic than Republican,” the PPIC wrote.
In all, hundreds of thousands of conservative Californians have relocated to Texas since the 2020 pandemic emergency, studies suggest.
Marie Bailey, 44, moved from El Segundo to a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb in 2017. She and her husband built a home for $750,000, while a “tiny fixer upper” in El Segundo would’ve cost upward of $1 million.
The couple quickly figured out that they could capitalize on the niche in the real estate market for California migrants to Texas.
For years, Bailey has administered the Facebook group where 45,000 users swap recommendations on how to make the move. She runs a real estate firm that places Californians all over the state.
“Ninety-nine percent of our clientele are people moving from California,” Bailey told The Times in 2023. As for why people make the move, “No. 1 is cost of living and No. 2 is politics.”
Banners for politicians are shown Oct. 27, 2026, in Edinberg, Texas.
(Gabriel V. Cardenas / For The Times)
Texas’ red politics were a big reason she made the move.
Bailey’s husband, who was previously employed by the UCLA medical system, “wouldn’t even talk about his politics because he was afraid of losing his job,” she said.
“Nowhere is perfect,” Bailey said in 2023, “but we fit in a lot better here.”
Now, just three years later, Bailey is confronting a seismic shift in her state.
“I’m actually thinking of moving to Oklahoma because of this,” she said in an interview Thursday. “Or Florida.”
In the Facebook group ‘Move to Texas from California,’ most posts since Tuesday concerned the new state of affairs in the Lone Star State.
“If I have to tolerate blue I might as well have good weather so maybe back to CA? Or give FL a try?” one commenter wrote.
“I am literally closing on a house in Texas next week! I am so pissed,” wrote another.
Blank sees some upsides to the Texas blue wave for those who moved from California.
“They get the benefit of having left what they see as a too-liberal state, and they get a place that is conservative but is unlikely to get much more conservative any time soon,” he said.
Blank thinks many California transplants were primarily motivated by housing costs, with politics being secondary.
“They don’t have to move back,” he said of Californians who moved to the Lone Star state. “And if they do, I’m gonna tell them they’re silly. It’s not a good way to make decisions.”
Viewers may find this video disturbing.
A video showing two people engulfed in flames as spectators laugh and revel during a party has prompted Ohio State University to suspend a fraternity while they investigate.
Roughly 53% of Californians voted against the measure, while 47% supported it, the Associated Press said when it declared that the proposition had failed.
Although the billionaire tax was rejected in the vast majority of counties, the late tally showed major pockets of support in Los Angeles and San Francisco — home to the lion’s share of the state’s 200 billionaires. Orange County, however, voted no by a wide margin.
The political battle over the ballot measure and two competing proposals divided the state and was among the most expensive in California history. More than $400 million had been spent on the three intertwined ballot measures, with more than 90% spent opposing the billionaire tax, according to fundraising disclosures filed with the secretary of state’s office.
Billionaires, notably Google co-founder Sergey Brin, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into groups that funded ads to kill the billionaire tax. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California Teachers Assn. and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California are among the powerful Democrats and other Democrat-aligned groups that expressed fears that billionaires would flee the state. Some, including Brin and fellow Google co-founder Larry Page, moved out of California because of the proposal.
An onslaught of advertisements against the billionaire tax argued it could impact all Californians, not just the ultra-wealthy. Teachers, firefighters and other middle-class Californians became the face of their campaigns, fueling growing opposition ahead of election day.
Opponents of Proposition 40 said Californians made the “right decision,” calling Proposition 40 a “reckless experiment” that would hurt the state’s economy. The group included the California Medical Assn., California Primary Care Assn. and the California School Boards Assn.
“Proposition 40 risked California’s economic competitiveness and fiscal stability, as well as the revenue we rely on to fund our top priorities — from education and healthcare to public safety and infrastructure,” the group said.
Leaders of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, which sponsored the proposition, vowed to put a billionaire tax proposal on the 2028 ballot if Sacramento leaders don’t find a way to better support the public health sector. Given California’s volatile budget, which is expected to be particularly problematic next year, it appears unlikely that state lawmakers will find a way to backfill an estimated $100 billion of federal healthcare funding cuts.
Supporters said the proposed tax on more than 200 California billionaires aimed to raise that amount, with 90% funding healthcare, and the remainder going to schools and food assistance.
“Billionaire-funded propaganda may have influenced the outcome of this election, but as hospitals reduce services, emergency rooms close and families lose access to care, the truth will become increasingly difficult to hide,” said Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff for the SEIU-UHW. “Californians will see for themselves what was at stake.”
This will not be the end of the debate about taxing the rich. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who both backed Proposition 40, are pushing for the passage of a federal 5% tax on American billionaires.
Earlier this year, they introduced the “Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act.” Despite Democrats winning control of the House and Senate last week, the legislation will probably face constitutional challenges if it passes.
California voters have passed Proposition 38, authorizing the state to issue $8.4 billion in bonds to fund immunology and immunotherapy research aimed at curing and preventing certain chronic diseases.
The measure, which the Associated Press called on Monday evening, requires at least $4.2 billion of the funds to be used for immunology research on cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease. It also authorizes the state to enter into a partnership with an unnamed immunology and immunotherapy research institute selected by the California Department of Public Health, and to allocate half of the bond revenue to it.
Opponents argued that the measure would saddle taxpayers with decades of debt and that the requirements to qualify for grants created such a narrow pool of candidates that only one research institute in California, the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, currently meets the criteria to receive half the bond revenue. Gary K. Michelson, a wealthy philanthropist who wrote the proposition, co-founded the institute. He was also the proposition’s largest supporter, pouring $45 million into the campaign, according to state data.
Remaining funds will be used for competitive research grants that focus on immunology and immunotherapy. Those grants would be awarded by a council of representatives from University of California campuses, universities and nonprofit research institutions.
Supporters celebrated the passage on Monday saying in a press release that it “comes as federal research funding cuts have disrupted clinical trials and delayed medical discoveries nationwide.”
“This victory belongs to the patients and families who have spent years fighting devastating diseases and waiting for the next medical breakthrough,” Chris Tarver, a nurse and president of the American Nurses Association\California, said in a prepared statement.
Californians will take on an increased cost of $500 million to $600 million annually to repay the bond for an anticipated 20 years, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Some or all of the cost could be offset if any funded research generates revenue. However, it’s difficult to predict how many, if any, research projects would lead to marketable treatments.
Times staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has briefed top lawmakers on a growing national security crisis around the world’s leading chipmaker, Nvidia, after its chief executive, Jensen Huang, admitted over the weekend to an extramarital affair with a suspected Chinese spy.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials briefed the Gang of Eight — congressional leaders from both parties, and the chairs and vice chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees — on the matter, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Monday.
Congressional Republicans have called on Huang himself to provide an update, warning the incident raised “significant national security concerns” that could have compromised cutting-edge American technology at a critical moment in the race with China for supremacy in artificial intelligence.
Huang admitted Sunday to having an affair with Alice Huang, who was identified as a Chinese intelligence asset by U.S. authorities, after the New York Times reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had raised concerns within the administration about his potential compromise.
President Trump is scheduled to visit China next week.
“I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry,” Jensen Huang said in a statement Sunday.
“Regarding the national security concerns raised in news reports,” he added, “NVIDIA’s Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation. I support the investigation and will cooperate fully. I love our country and our company, and I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America’s national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American.”
Debate over export controls for the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips, produced by Nvidia, has raged over the last eight years in Washington, with lawmakers across party lines expressing concern that Chinese access to the chips could strengthen their hand in the development of the most powerful AI models.
Huang has been one of the most vocal opponents of the U.S. export controls, calling them a “mistake” and saying they were hurting American businesses more than they were constricting Chinese government efforts.
Jeffries said he would be calling for greater export controls on chips after the incident. The New York congressman is expected to become the next speaker of the House after Democrats swept into power in this month’s midterm elections.
“We’re going to need a full briefing specifically as it relates to the Nvidia issue,” Jeffries said, adding that “real concerns” have arisen from the case that will need to be addressed.
U.S. intelligence unmasked the Chinese intelligence operation after intercepting the communications of Alice Huang, a former journalist with Chinese state media who later became a senior executive at Megaspeed International. The Singaporean data center firm was already under the microscope for allegedly funneling restricted AI chips to Beijing.
Trump was reportedly made aware of the Chinese espionage effort targeting Huang, but chose not to act, according to the New York Times.
Nvidia’s stock dropped more than 4% Monday, after the board said it would open an investigation into its chief executive being the “target of a foreign intelligence effort.”
The company “prioritizes U.S. national and economic security, which is paramount to the interests of NVIDIA and its shareholders,” it said in the statement.
“While the Board has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised, the Board’s inquiry will examine all available information,” it continued. “The Board has confidence in Jensen and his leadership team and will provide further updates as appropriate.”
Rubio declined to address questions from reporters on the matter Monday.
“It’s an internal corporate matter for them, so I’m just not going to comment on that topic,” the secretary of State and national security advisor said.
But the administration could face increased calls to investigate Jensen Huang, a Trump ally, who traveled with Trump to Beijing in May and attended a state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping in September held at the White House.
Republicans have also formally requested Huang appear before the House on Nov. 18 — when Trump will be in China — to brief them on what happened.
Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas, head of the House Intelligence Committee, and Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, who leads the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said the issue of Chinese infiltration and access to cutting-edge U.S. technology “is core to the investigative work of our three committees this Congress.”
“It is vital that Congress determines the extent to which U.S. national security has been placed at risk,” they wrote.
WASHINGTON — The Constitution protects the rights of Americans but normally does not allow them to sue federal agents for violating those rights.
This rights vs. remedies dispute has divided the Supreme Court for nearly 50 years.
It did so again Monday when the justices heard arguments on whether to throw out a lawsuit brought by a federal prison inmate in Hawaii who suffered a broken tailbone in a gang fight.
Kekai Watanabe said he told prison nurse Francis Nielsen he was in intense pain. He was given only an over-the-counter pain medication. Seven months later, an X-ray finally revealed the damage from the fracture and the source of his continuing agony.
Acting on his own, Watanabe sued Nielsen for cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment.
A federal judge dismissed his suit, citing the Supreme Court’s decades of skepticism over such lawsuits. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived his claim and pointed to a 1980 ruling that allowed a similar suit brought by a mother whose son died of an asthma attack in a federal prison.
It was the last time the high court had upheld a lawsuit for money damages against a federal agent for violating a constitutional right.
But the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal in Nielsen vs. Watanabe. And during Monday’s arguments, the justices debated whether to further narrow such lawsuits or to reject them entirely.
The court’s conservatives say only Congress can authorize lawsuits for money damages against federal agents and employees. And they noted that in the Federal Tort Claims Act, Congress authorized damage suits against the United States for such claims.
“The power to create damages remedies belongs to Congress, not federal courts,” said Lucas Walker, an attorney for the prison nurse. “It’s time to end the Bivens experiment.”
He was referring to a 1971 decision in which the Supreme Court for the first time authorized such a constitutional claim for money damages against federal agent. In that case, known as Bivens, the suit was against several FBI agents for an unreasonable search during a drug raid in violation of the 4th Amendment.
Walker argued the court should overturn the Bivens case as well as the later ruling allowing a suit involving gross medical negligence.
But Joshua Wesneski, an attorney for Watanabe, said the prospect of being sued for wrongdoing “has a powerful deterrent effect.”
This issue has taken on new significance because of the aggressive and sometimes violent actions of federal immigration agents. They may be charged with a crime but they are not subject to being sued for damages by victims or their families.
After the Civil War, Congress passed an enforcement law that authorized suits against state and local officials acting under color of law who violated constitutional rights. But there is no comparably broad law for federal officers and agents.
That’s why a Los Angeles police officer who uses excessive force can be sued in a federal court, but the same is not true of a federal immigration agent.
Democrats in the Senate may try to change that in the year ahead.
Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have proposed an “Accountability for Federal Law Enforcement Act” to allow victims to sue for “damages for constitutional and civil rights violations committed by federal law enforcement agents.”
They said Congress needs to extend the same legal accountability to federal agents that has long applied to police and other state and local officials.
“Recent incidents — from violent ICE and CBP raids to abuses by federal task forces — have underscored this gap in accountability,” Padilla said. “These events have eroded public trust and shown how federal officers can act with impunity even when their conduct clearly violates constitutional protections.”
Democrats have taken control of the state House in Georgia after also gaining the governor’s office in last week’s midterm election, giving the party control of each for the first time in more than 20 years.
The flip gives Democrats control of at least 12 new legislative chambers across the U.S. after their major gains at all levels.
It’s the biggest gain for either party in a single election since the Republicans took the majority in 20 chambers in 2010 amid the Great Recession and the rise of the conservative tea party movement.
After officials are sworn in later this year and in early 2027, Democrats will have trifectas — control of both legislative chambers and the governor’s office — in at least six states where they’re currently sharing power with Republicans.
The party running a state government can have a major impact on issues including tax bills, how data center development goes and who qualifies for Medicaid health insurance.
The Associated Press, which has been calling elections since 1848, on Monday determined the outcome of enough Georgia races to declare Democrats had won the lower chamber.
The news organization has not yet determined who will control the state Senate in North Carolina or either chamber in Alaska.
Republicans have controlled the House in Georgia since 2005 and both the Senate and governor’s office since 2003.
Democrats have made gains. In 2020, for instance, Joe Biden narrowly won a plurality in the presidential election there and Democrats prevailed in both U.S. Senate elections. Donald Trump won there in both 2016 and 2024.
This year, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms won the governorship and Democrats took a House in which Republicans had a comfortable 99-80 majority heading into the election.
As of Monday, Democrats had won 91 House seats and Republicans 86. Three had not been called — including one where the state’s secretary of state is investigating the late upload of a memory card containing nearly 400 votes.
Republicans kept control of the Senate.
Currently, there are Republican governors in 26 states and Democratic governors in 24.
Democrats will have at least 28 of those jobs next year, with the race in Kansas also remaining to be called.
Democrats gained control of four more state Senates in Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, bringing the total they lead to 24. They’ll have the majority in at least 27 lower chambers, up from 19, after flips in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin.
Election gains in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will give Democrats trifectas in all those states.
WEST ORANGE, N.J. — America’s film industry flickered to life in this state with a chip on its shoulder.
In 1888, inventor Thomas A. Edison began developing a motion picture camera at his West Orange laboratory. His crew built an odd-shaped soundstage — giving birth to moviemaking. But soon, New Jersey lost the action to flashier New York and, then, the industry famously moved west to sunny Los Angeles, where it prospered for a century.
But filmmakers are back in New Jersey, and production is booming again.
Film activity in Los Angeles has plummeted to historic lows, with devastating consequences for crews and vendors. This series examines how L.A. lost its dominant perch as a film and TV destination and what can be done to bring Hollywood back home.
At a time when filming in Los Angeles has plunged to historic lows, New Jersey has soared, becoming one of the nation’s hottest film destinations and squeezing into the limelight of its bigger neighbor across the Hudson River.
State leaders have rolled out the red carpet. They have adopted aggressive tax credits and awarded up to $387 million to Netflix to build a $1-billion studio complex at Ft. Monmouth, a former U.S. Army base near the Jersey Shore. More than 80 buildings have been bulldozed, and on a recent afternoon, towering yellow cranes dotted the loam as soundstages, mills and office space began to take shape.
Less than 10 years ago, total movie and TV production spending in New Jersey was a mere $67 million, according to the state’s Economic Development Authority. By 2025, industry spending in the Garden State had reached $1.2 billion, as reported by production data firm ProdPro, behind only California, New York and Georgia.
Lionsgate Studios is developing six soundstages on the site of a former housing complex in Newark, N.J.
(Aristide Economopoulos / For The Times)
Meanwhile, California’s film spending declined 37% to $5.2 billion from 2021 to 2025.
Nearly three dozen major films and TV projects were produced in New Jersey in 2025, double the count of five years ago, ProdPro said.
Adam Sandler and Chris Rock have been shooting a comedy sequel, “Grown Ups 3,” for Netflix. Actor-director Dan Levy and his crew turned a Metuchen video arcade into a yarn-and-crafts store for their Netflix series “Big Mistakes.” Last month, George Clooney and Annette Bening were spotted at Baron’s Drug Store in Westfield, filming scenes for an upcoming movie.
Prolific TV showrunners Michelle and Robert King are making their new CBS drama, “Cupertino,” in a converted warehouse in Kearny, on the banks of the Hackensack River.
“We are welcome here. … The governor of New Jersey came to our set,” Robert King said in an interview. “They really want the talent coming in and all of the infrastructure that gets built up around it.”
Jon Crowley, former director of New Jersey’s Motion Picture & Television Commission, noted the irony of how the state was winning back a business that had shifted more than a century ago to Hollywood. Then, industry pioneers balked at paying the steep licensing fees to Edison’s Motion Picture Patents Co. for use of cameras, projectors and Kodak film stock.
“Taxes drove the filmmakers away and now, tax incentives are bringing them back again,” Crowley said.
How New Jersey became a Hollywood player
New Jersey’s Hollywood revival was years in the making.
There were early stumbling blocks. Former Gov. Chris Christie vetoed bills to reinstate tax credits and, in 2011, he blocked a $420,000 credit for MTV’s loud and boozy reality show “Jersey Shore,” saying taxpayers shouldn’t foot the bill for a “project which does nothing more than perpetuate misconceptions about the State and its citizens.”
Another problem was that New Jersey had been somewhat typecast as run-down. HBO audiences had come to view the state that produced Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra, Jon Bon Jovi and Joe Pesci through a lens of a particular mob family.
“Most people, when they think of Jersey, they think of the rusty-bridge opening from ‘The Sopranos,’” Crowley said. “They don’t have a picture in their mind of our beaches, our snow-capped mountains, our small towns, our big cities — and the open farmland.”
Michael Imperioli, left, James Gandolfini and Tony Sirico star in Season 2 of “The Sopranos,” the popular HBO series set in New Jersey.
(HBO)
Former Gov. Phil Murphy, first elected in 2017, thought the state was leaving money on the table. At the time, TV and movie production was surging in New York, California’s biggest rival.
The Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet, was one of New Jersey’s most significant projects for 2024, with 60 filming days in the state.
(Macall Polay / Searchlight Pictures)
“We felt, you know what, we’ve got as much talent as anybody,” Murphy told The Times. “We’ve got the best location that money could buy.”
New Jersey could pull New York’s Broadway, film and TV talent for union shoots within the city’s Thirty-Mile Zone, beyond which producers must pay extra costs for hotels and other travel expenses.
What’s more, an estimated 20% of New York-area film crews live in New Jersey.
“We’re a big pro-union state and … this is a big union industry,” Murphy said. “There was no reason why we couldn’t be claiming a big slice.”
His team got to work by prioritizing economic incentives that would attract private sector investment.
“Putting Jersey back on the map was a big part of our administration’s energies,” said Murphy, who left office in January after two terms. “Film, television and digital led the way.”
He and Tim Sullivan, then the state’s economic development chief, flew to Los Angeles, toured major studios and met with top executives to size up the needs of the fast-changing business. They wanted to duplicate a modern studio complex — Great Point Studios — that had just opened in Yonkers, N.Y.
Great Point Studios founder Robert Halmi, a New York movie producer — who worked alongside his late father to create hundreds of TV shows, movies and miniseries, including “Lonesome Dove,” “Gulliver’s Travels” and “Alice in Wonderland” — recalled his early interactions with Murphy.
“His pitch was: ‘What would it take to get you guys to come to New Jersey?’” Halmi said in a recent interview.
Halmi got to the point.
“Shows follow the money, and the money in this instance is tax incentives,” Halmi said.
Robert Halmi, founder and CEO of Great Point Studios, is leading the construction of six soundstages for Lionsgate Studios in Newark, N.J.
(Aristide Economopoulos / For The Times)
With Murphy’s backing, New Jersey in 2018 adopted transferable tax credits of up to 35% for companies that film in the state.
The state has since bolstered its program, allowing a portion of salaries of actors and other big wage earners to be included in the tax credit calculation unlike California, which excludes these above-the-line costs and also has per-project caps. And unlike with neighbor New York, producers do not need to shoot in a certified film stage to qualify.
The state became a canvas two years ago for the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” from Walt Disney’s Searchlight Pictures. The Oscar-nominated movie, starring Timothée Chalamet, filmed over 60 days in dozens of locations, including Jersey City, which stood in for 1960s Greenwich Village.
Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller “Disclosure Day,” from Universal Pictures, also shot across New Jersey and New York last year. So did the just-released Sylvester Stallone underdog biopic, “I Play Rocky.”
To spur long-term growth, New Jersey also gave three major entertainment companies preferential status as “studio partners”: Netflix, Paramount and Lionsgate, the Santa Monica-based studio that Halmi has worked with for years.
Those companies get a 40% base tax credit for qualified expenses, in return for making a 10-year commitment in the state, and access to an additional tax incentive pool of $150 million annually.
“Putting Jersey back on the map was a big part of our administration’s energies,” former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said. “Film, television and digital led the way.”
(Seth Wenig / Associated Press)
New Jersey last year extended its tax incentive program to 2049. The film commission also worked with dozens of municipalities to streamline on-location permitting.
Leaders set a goal of building a sustainable industry.
“It’s not just dump-trucking money to create something out of nothing and then, as soon as the incentives dry up, it’s bye-bye,” said Evan Weiss, who became chief executive of the state’s Economic Development Authority this year.
But New Jersey lacked the infrastructure — production campuses, soundstages and nearby businesses that feed the industry, such as camera equipment rentals, lumber mills and wardrobe suppliers.
“Everyone gets excited when Timothée Chalamet is in town, but the program is about job creation: below-the-line jobs in things like trucking, carpentry, set design, hair and makeup, and catering,” Sullivan said.
So the state incentivized companies to build studio complexes.
“For bricks-and-mortar [projects] to work, you really need three key ingredients: the local crew base … local government support … and the third thing is tax incentives,” Halmi said. “New Jersey brought all those things to us basically on a silver platter.”
Great Point Studios is building six soundstages for Lionsgate at the site of the former Seth Boyden housing complex in Newark, N.J.
(Aristide Economopoulos / For The Times)
Halmi’s company, Great Point Studios, is building a $200-million, 270,000-square-foot complex in south Newark with Lionsgate Films as its anchor tenant. The location is strategic — minutes from Newark’s airport and 12 miles from Manhattan.
The 12-acre site is designed to support six soundstages, a mill, storage and office space. Construction has been in high gear to complete the project’s first phase by June.
‘We are welcome here.’
— “Cupertino” producer Robert King
On a recent morning, a parade of tractors hauling precast 12-inch-thick concrete slabs rumbled onto the property. Workers welded trusses to support 10,000- to 30,000-square-foot stages.
Local officials hope the project breathes life into a decayed district.
The development replaced a Depression-era public housing project, a notorious cluster of brick high-rises that were condemned because of crime and safety concerns. The buildings sat hollow for a decade. A nearby Anheuser-Busch brewery shut down in January after 75 years, leaving a hodgepodge of storefronts — a Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen, McDonald’s, an auto parts store and Focus On Jesus Bible Church.
Leon Lee grew up in Newark. The construction foreman surveyed the transformation with pride — and relief.
“It will give this area a nice facelift,” Lee said. “Businesses and stores will follow.”
Netflix takes over Ft. Monmouth
The biggest bet is about 40 miles away in bucolic Monmouth County.
Netflix is creating a massive compound on 292 acres at Ft. Monmouth, with significant help — up to $387 million — from state taxpayers.
For 94 years, Ft. Monmouth was home to the Army’s communications branch, the Signal Corps. The base served as test grounds for radio-equipped weather balloons and radar technology. Army homing pigeons once roosted here.
The base closed as part of a nationwide realignment.
“Ft. Monmouth was left for dead,” Murphy said.
The fallow 1,100-acre tract became a signature project of Murphy’s revitalization campaign. In 2022, Netflix agreed to pay $55 million for nearly a third of the real estate that straddles two boroughs, Eatontown and Oceanport. The acquisition was finalized late last year, and Netflix brought in crews to raze dozens of old military buildings.
Ft. Monmouth was the Signal Corps’ home for 94 years.
(Aristide Economopoulos / For The Times)
The Netflix project was part of the state’s Aspire economic development program, which has also been used to build housing and renovate hospitals.
The streamer plans to spend about $850 million to create a leafy campus with 12 soundstages to bring 500,000-square feet of studio space into central Jersey for Netflix productions.
A few historic Army structures, including soldier memorials, will remain on the grounds, which is a few miles from the seaside city of Long Branch, where Netflix co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos was born.
The construction, and eventual studios, will create thousands of jobs and anchor what some have dubbed “Hollywood East.” The ambition is to erect a more modern and more spacious version of a Burbank movie lot, right off the Garden State Parkway.
“We are leveraging state resources to attract private investment, create good-paying jobs, support small businesses, and generate economic activity in communities across the state,” Gov. Mikie Sherrill said in a statement. “This remarkable growth demonstrates what is possible when government serves as a strategic partner in economic development.”
More than 80 buildings have been bulldozed at the former Ft. Monmouth to make room for new studios.
(Aristide Economopoulos / For The Times)
The first phase should be complete by next fall, bringing more capacity for Netflix, which already is the state’s largest producer. Last year, the streamer said it filmed nearly 20 productions in the state. It has received enhanced New Jersey tax credits since 2024.
“Everyone wants us to succeed: the governor’s office, the mayor of the 6,000-person town of Eatontown and the labor unions,” said Will Castleberry, Netflix’s head of state regulatory and production policy. “We have gone into a place where we’re all working together to do something pretty cool.”
Netflix’s comedy series “Big Mistakes,” with Dan Levy, Boran Kuzum and Taylor Ortega, films in New Jersey.
(Spencer Pazer / Netflix)
Netflix is building 12 soundstages at the former Ft. Monmouth in Eatontown, N.J.
(Aristide Economopoulos / For The Times)
New Jersey’s film industry was among the fastest growing in the country last year, gaining nearly 2,000 jobs. Officials expect another surge once the Lionsgate, Netflix and other studios open, easing a shortage of studio space that has prompted some projects to film in New York.
“We’re looking at new studio stage space right now to help fulfill that demand,” said Scott Levy, owner of Eastern Effects, which converted the warehouse in Kearny into a cavernous stage, which CBS leased for “Cupertino.”
“But you’re talking a very expensive real estate market, and a very costly conversion,” he said.
Scott Levy’s Eastern Effects converted a warehouse in Kearny, N.J., into a soundstage that is now home to CBS’ legal drama “Cupertino.”
(Aristide Economopoulos / For The Times)
Lenders have been rattled by the misfortunes of some independent studio owners, including Culver City-based Hackman Capital Partners, which defaulted on loans to purchase the former CBS-Radford lot in Studio City and Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York — Paramount Pictures’ original home — after a nationwide production contraction.
“Nobody wants to over-commit and then get stuck: doing the right thing for the industry, but then being left with a problem,” Levy said.
The most ambitious studio project remains a dream at the foot of the Bayonne Bridge.
This is where French hedge fund manager and investor Arpad “Arki” Busson plans to build 1888 Studios, a $1.2-billion film and TV complex on the site of a former Chevron oil field and refinery.
Busson drew inspiration from L.A.’s historic studio lots. Architecture giant Gensler designed the 58-acre project to feature 17 buildings with an Art Deco aesthetic, as well as a water tower, bungalows, commissaries and a public promenade along the waterfront.
“We want to really create a home for content makers, a place where they feel that creativity is bursting,” Busson said on a recent afternoon as he walked the perimeter of the vacant parcel as winds whipped in from Newark Bay.
His firm, New York-based Togus Urban Renewal, controls an additional 20 acres of water, where he plans to park barges to be used as floating back lots.
“We want to offer the best facility,” Busson said. “A place where crews feel that it is a welcoming place to work.”
A rendering of 1888 Studios’ New Jersey production facility, which is in development.
(Togus Urban Renewal)
It took more than two years to prepare the land, a brownfield site. More than 1 million cubic yards of fill was trucked in to elevate the property by 16 feet.
New Jersey has promised a 10-year Aspire Program tax credit of up to $400 million for the construction.
After an introduction by state officials, Paramount signed on to become 1888 Studios’ anchor tenant, committing to lease nearly 300,000 square feet.
The arrangement allows Paramount and CBS productions, now owned by David Ellison’s Skydance, to qualify for the enhanced 40% transferable tax credit.
December’s groundbreaking ceremony was a headline-making event, drawing Murphy and other luminaries, including model-businessperson Elle Macpherson, who shares two sons with Busson. One is a studios’ project manager.
The family is seeking financing to begin construction next spring and open in 2029.
The 1888 Studios project is located next to New Jersey’s Bayonne Bridge.
(Aristide Economopoulos / For The Times)
Busson plans to name structures after notable New Jersey residents, including rocker Bon Jovi.
The studios’ name is a nod to the year Edison applied for a patent for the first movie camera.
“This was the place of birth of the industry, and clearly, the idea is to bring it back to Jersey,” Busson said.
Kearny playing Cupertino
Robert and Michelle King, both California natives, didn’t consider filming “Cupertino” in their home state, even though the legal drama is ostensibly set in the heart of Silicon Valley.
They’ve long produced their shows in New York, including “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight.” Their CBS crime solver, “Elsbeth,” is set in the city, and they’d envisioned producing their latest legal drama near the same complex.
But CBS executives suggested they check out New Jersey for “Cupertino.”
“We had a scout go out, going: ‘Oh, dear God, what are we going to find?’” Robert King said. “My memory of San José is [of] low-slung architecture — not skyscrapers.”
The CBS legal drama “Cupertino” is being filmed around New Jersey, including a converted warehouse in Kearny.
(Elizabeth Fisher / CBS)
But they quickly warmed to the new location.
“There were some distinctive buildings where we felt: ‘OK, that is a California look,’” King said. “We started shooting in March, so we had to scrape snow out from around an International House of Pancakes … but after that, it’s been pretty easygoing.”
Actors who live in Manhattan can travel to the 36,000-square-foot stage in Kearny in about 30 minutes. The Broadway performers whom the Kings like to cast as courtroom judges can make it to the city in time for their evening curtain calls.
“So far, so good,” Michelle King said. “It was a little bit easier to find some of the locations, weirdly, to match for Northern California in New Jersey than it might have been in New York.”
That’s a point of pride for officials in New Jersey.
“We are always happy to beat New York,” said Weiss, the Economic Development Authority chief. “We’re on our way to do that … but at the same time, we are very connected.”
JuJu Watkins had 32 points, 16 rebounds, six assists and five steals to lead No. 3 USC to a 118-40 win over Utah State on Sunday.
It was a star-studded return for one of college basketball’s most electric players.
Sunday was USC’s home opener at the Galen Center and fans showered Watkins with applause in pregame lineup introductions. Watkins had missed 20 months with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, and she got a standing ovation as she was subbed out with 2:34 left in the game.
She’s back to looking like she was pre-injury, when she was the Associated Press player of the year.
The senior has been a scoring machine in two games, totaling 53 points for USC (2-0). Watkins scored 21 points in USC’s season-opening 100-68 win over Nevada Las Vegas.
Watkins got the crowd going in pregame introductions and then with a buzzer-beating pull-up jumper from 15 feet to end the first quarter with USC leading 36-11.
Watkins was in All-American form as she made plays all over the floor. She used a crossover to get Sami Mancini off-balance in the first quarter, then made a jump shot. She was running the fast break, rebounding, making shots from the elbow and inside and outside. It was a clinic.
Saniyah Hall added 20 points for the Trojans as six players scored in double figures.
Kylani Rookstool scored 12 points for Utah State (1-2) and Mancini added 10.
Watkins nearly had a double-double by halftime with 16 points and nine rebounds as the Trojans led 55-22.
STATELINE, Nev. — Rodney Rice had 32 points and nine assists, Alijah Arenas added 30 points and No. 21 USC beat hot-shooting Wichita State 93-86 on Sunday night in the inaugural Caesars Lake Tahoe Classic.
The Trojans (2-0) prevailed despite making just two three-pointers, relying on their stars, free-throw shooting and a decisive advantage in turnovers.
Michael Gray Jr. led Wichita State (1-1) with 18 points, while Jordan Frison and William Berg each added 17.
Wichita State led 45-43 at halftime after hitting seven of its first 12 attempts from beyond the arc. The Shockers built an 11-point lead late in the first half before USC rallied to tie it at 43.
The teams traded baskets throughout much of the second half before Arenas helped USC gain separation. He scored three baskets during a key stretch, including a jumper following a Wichita State turnover, to help the Trojans build a 75-69 advantage with 6:22 remaining.
Wichita State continued to battle, pulling to 86-83 on Frison’s layup with 58 seconds left. But Rice sank two free throws, and the Shockers missed several late three-point attempts.
Jane Kim, a progressive former San Francisco supervisor with no insurance experience, appears to have won the race to be California’s industry commissioner, topping veteran legislator Ben Allen, who represents the Pacific Palisades community devastated by the January 2025 wildfires.
Kim, 49, declared victory Friday in the contest to replace outgoing Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, ahead of a final vote count. However, a narrow gap between the two Democratic candidates has widened since election day. She also topped June’s primary field.
“We pay into the system so that when the worst happens, we’re protected. Californians have kept our end of that bargain, but insurance companies have broken their side of the promise by denying, delaying and underpaying valid claims and dropping coverage. Voters made clear in this election that they want — and deserve — that promise restored,” she said in a statement that called the vote a “rejection of the status quo.”
Allen, 48, issued a statement noting that he had congratulated Kim earlier in the day and wished her well.
“Jane ran a strong race, and it appears that she has won,” he said. “Assuming that is the case, I desperately want her to succeed, because if she succeeds, the state succeeds, especially the families in need that we’ve been fighting for across the state.”
“I ran for this office because of what I saw after fires devastated my community and region. Families in the Palisades and Altadena who had paid their premiums for decades and did everything right and who are now struggling to get the help they need,” Allen added.
Election officials continue to tally the votes in the race, and no winner had been declared by the Associated Press as of Friday afternoon.
The downballot contest didn’t draw attention like the race for governor or Los Angeles mayor, even as Kim will take office amid a state home insurance crisis in which private carriers have raised rates and dropped hundreds of thousands of residential policyholders amid rising wildfire risks.
The January 2025 wildfires that devastated Altadena, Pacific Palisades and nearby communities exacerbated the problems, with widespread complaints that some insurers were illegally delaying, underpaying or denying claims — including from smoke-damaged homes . The situation prompted investigations by the department and Los Angeles County.
The commissioner oversees an office with 1,400 employees that regulates more than 1,700 home, auto, workers’ compensation and other insurers, as well as more than 510,000 agents, brokers, adjusters, bail agents and other business entities.
Kim, the daughter of Korean immigrants who attended Stanford and has a UC Berkeley law degree, entered the race with little statewide recognition but serious progressive bona fides.
During her time on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2011 to 2019, she led campaigns to sharply raise the minimum wage and make the local community college tuition free. She also served as California political director for the 2020 presidential run of Bernie Sanders, the progressive independent senator from Vermont who stumped for her commissioner’s bid.
Kim built her campaign around a novel proposal to establish a state-run insurance pool largely funded by homeowners that would cover wildfire claims and invest in programs to reduce fire risks for homeowners and communities. Insurers would continue to cover other claims.
The plan responds to the growing number of homeowners who can’t find insurance and are forced into the California FAIR Plan, the state’s privately operated insurer of last resort, which typically offers more expensive and less broad coverage than the open market. Though the plan’s growth has slowed, as of Sept. 30 it insured 677,000 residential policyholders, up from 271,000 four years earlier.
Kim was criticized during the campaign by Allen and others for failing to provide details on how her so-called “single payer” system would work. In late October, she released a policy brief with more details, including how coverage would be capped at a replacement cost to fully rebuild the typical California home, with more expensive homes needing additional private wildfire insurance.
The novel plan would require buy-in from Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra, the Legislature and the industry.
Allen, who called the plan unworkable and too expensive, campaigned on a platform that called attention to his three Senate terms in the Legislature, where he authored bills that cracked down on insurers and offered consumers more protection. They included higher up-front payouts in fire losses without requiring itemization by policyholders during states of emergency, and requiring insurers to fix any deficiencies uncovered by department examinations.
Kim was outspent by Allen, who raised $3.7 million compared to Kim’s $1.5 million. He also was the recipient of $2.3 million of spending by independent political action committees on his behalf.
Although Allen said he would not take insurance industry money for the race, Kim sought to tie him to the industry through past donations to his prior campaigns for office.
In her victory speech, she said insurers “lined up” behind Allen, a characterization he rejected.
The attempt to tie Allen to the industry followed controversies surrounding Lara, who The Times reported last year took at least 32 international trips but consistently failed to disclose who paid for luxury hotels, airfare and fine dining, while soliciting charity donations from those with business before the agency.
Lara has denied any wrongdoing and has pointed to his Sustainable Insurance Strategy as the reason for the slowing of the FAIR Plan’s growth. The strategy provided insurers with concessions such as the right to charge policyholders for the reinsurance carriers must buy to protect themselves from catastrophes, such as the January 2025 wildfires.
Kim’s victory brought congratulations across the business and political spectrum.
Denni Ritter, vice president of state government relations for the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., a leading trade association for home, auto and business insurers, said the group was “looking forward” to working with Kim, Becerra and lawmakers to resolve the state’s insurance issues.
“While recent reforms are beginning to stabilize the market, the insurance crisis is far from over, and a full recovery will take time. Protecting this progress is critical. Costly new mandates or regulatory actions that drive up costs or limit coverage options risk reversing this progress and worsening the crisis,” Ritter said in a statement.
The California Working Families Party, a grassroots progressive political organization that Kim served as founding director, said the “cozy relationship between the California Insurance Commissioner and the insurance industry is over. Jane’s bold proposals and plans for real accountability for insurers overcame a tsunami of special interest spending against her.”
We are tracking which party will have the majority of senators, members of Congress and governors.
All 435 House of Representatives seats are up for election, with 37 considered competitive and 21 of them toss-ups by the Cook Political Report, a respected polling analysis site. To control the House, Democrats need a net gain of four seats.
Republicans hold a 53-47 edge in the Senate and can lose no more than two seats to retain their majority. Thirty-five seats are on the November ballot.
It may be several days until the result of every race is known. Some states such as California take weeks to certify their results. Even in states where the vote may be tallied faster, the Trump administration has plans to challenge the results.
Races on this page are called by the Associated Press, which surveys the numbers posted by local election officials and projects the winner using vote returns and other data.
U.S. Senate
U.S. House
Governors
Check back for updates in the senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial races as polls close and ballots are counted across the country. You can see results for California’s congressional races here.
When I recall the great restaurants, culture and art found in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, one story that comes to mind is the tranquility and resilience of Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple.
The roughly 1½-acre parcel at the corner of 3rd Street and Central Avenue offers peace amid the noise and bustle of downtown. It’s an oasis I first learned about five years ago when an unknown vandal broke into the sanctuary and stole some lanterns while burning others and vandalizing the facility.
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Hallock jumps into the history of one of L.A.’s most vibrant neighborhoods and picks a few of the many places and experiences that make Little Tokyo unique. Let’s jump into a few of them.
(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
Japanese breakfast at Azay
Azay, a restaurant founded by the late chef Akira Hirose and run by his son Philip and wife, JoAnn, is one of the few places in Los Angeles serving traditional Japanese breakfast, and this one is stellar.
Composed of several small dishes, it feels like a celebration and draws a weekend crowd (reservations recommended). A wooden tray arrives at the table laden with jewel-like dishes such as grilled black cod and rolled omelet. Or order the daily bento or à la carte items, including custardy, savory chawanmushi or curry potato croquettes with shiso aioli.
Visit the family’s legacy shop next door, Anzen Hardware, for Japanese kitchen goods, knives and housewares. Philip Hirose also regularly programs community workshops and pop-ups.
Pro tip: Park all day in the Aiso Parking Garage across the street at 101 N. Judge John Aiso St., named after the first Japanese American to hold a judicial position in the continental U.S.
(Gary Coronado/For The Times)
Mexican American muralist Robert Vargas, who was born near Little Tokyo in Boyle Heights, painted a 150-foot image of baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani on the side of the 11-story Miyako Hotel, unveiled in the spring of 2024.
The painting, titled “L.A. Rising,” is meant to promote a cultural bridge between communities celebrating Dodgers pride. Vargas painted two versions of Ohtani, the best two-way player in Major League Baseball history (he’s the first to hit at least 50 home runs and steal at least 50 bases in a single season).
The mural shows Ohtani both pitching and hitting, and you can see him come to life by using an augmented reality feature. Scan a QR code located beneath the mural and point your phone camera at the image to see Ohtani swing the bat and pitch.
(Jeni Afuso/For The Times)
Shop for souvenirs at Bunkado, where Little Tokyo began
Gift shop Bunkado stands at the location of Little Tokyo’s beginning, where Hamanosuke Sugita opened a restaurant called Kame (which means “turtle,” a symbol of longevity) in 1884, the first Japanese-owned business in Los Angeles.
In 2022, the L.A. City Council commemorated the site and “the birth of Little Tokyo” with a plaque and street sign. Bunkado was founded in the same location in the mid-1940s by renowned Japanese American oil painter Tokio Ueyama and his wife, Suye, after they returned from incarceration in the World World II internment camps.
The name means “house of culture,” and the Ueyamas built an artists’ hub and eventually became important sellers and importers of recorded Japanese music. The store is now owned by their niece, Irene Tsukada Simonian, and sells Japanese ceramics, art tools, incense, toys, T-shirts and postcards.
(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Monica Schipper / Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Today’s recipe
(Katrina Frederick / For The Times)
Los Angeles food writer Carolynn Carreño believes the shift in the season marks an opportunity to embrace pumpkins this fall. Carreño’s twist, however, is telling her readers, who love fresh and organic ingredients, that it’s OK to use canned pumpkins. In fact, the canned product beats fresh when baking loaves, cookies and pancakes. She included several recipes here. Take a deep breath and try it out.
Photo of the day
Construction platforms are visible beneath and on the sides of the Vincent Thomas Bridge as vehicles travel across the span above the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. Caltrans is preparing for a 16-month closure of the bridge.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Jack Dolan, investigative reporter Hugo Martín, assistant editor, Fast Break desk Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor Andrew J. Campa, weekend writer Karim Doumar, head of Newsletters
Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Nathan “Nate” Ballard, a former aide sentenced in connection with a domestic violence case, to the State Historical Resources Commission.
Ballard, 57, of Mill Valley, will serve alongside eight other commissioners tasked with designating state historical landmarks and preserving the state’s cultural heritage, following the appointment made Friday evening.
In 2020, Ballard was arrested after an incident at an upscale resort where the Napa County district attorney’s office said he pushed his then-wife into a glass door and held a pillow over his four-year-old daughter’s head. The following year, he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor corporal injury against his spouse and child endangerment, according to court records.
He was sentenced to four years’ probation and initially ordered to stay away from his ex-wife and two children for six years, which was later reduced to two years, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Ballard was Newsom’s communications director from 2007 to 2010, when the outgoing governor was mayor of San Francisco. He previously worked in similar roles for the Democratic National Committee and the California Democratic Party, and as John Kerry’s California press secretary during his 2004 presidential run. He now works as an attorney in private practice and runs a public relations firm.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Newsom said the governor “considers the experience, qualifications and suitability for each post in making appointments.”
“He believes that abuse of any individual is unacceptable, and that those who commit such conduct should face accountability,” the statement continued. “He also believes in second chances.”
Ballard, who grew up in Davis, told The Times he applied for the position and looks forward to returning to public service. He described the need “to preserve the things that we love so much about California, and also to alleviate some of the pressures that we’re feeling on housing costs.”
Ballard added that he and the governor have known each other for decades and worked together through “tough times.”
“It’s no surprise that my appointment is a little controversial and I’m grateful to have his support,” he said.
Some have criticized the governor’s move.
Ivy Lee, the head of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office for Victims’ Rights, told Mission Local, which broke the story, “Why elevate perpetrators of abuse?”
“When people in power do that, it shows us what they really think about survivors. And it’s not much,” she said. “Survivors deserve better.”
Nadia Rahman, former president of the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee, told the outlet that the appointment was “egregious.”
“He should not be appointed to a body,” she said. “This sets him off on a road of normalizing his behavior and reintroducing him to powerful political circles in California.”
During a long career in politics, “I didn’t think twice about exploiting my opponent’s biggest weakness when I was in the middle of a policy battle,” Ballard said when asked about the pushback. “So when I hear somebody speaking up with conviction about an issue like this, I understand where they’re coming from.”
JACKSON, Miss. — Democrat Scott Colom hasn’t won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race, but the local prosecutor was welcomed as a historic figure Friday as he strolled through the Farish Street business district where civil rights leaders once organized.
“It’s so wonderful! It’s so wonderful to have Scott Colom as our representative,” said Maati Jone Primm, who owns Marshall’s Music and Book Store in Jackson.
The state is still tallying ballots that could make Colom the first Black senator from this Deep South state since Reconstruction. The possibility of Colom defeating Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith puts many Black voters somewhere between cautious optimism and outright celebration in a state where nearly 40% of the population is Black but the top representation for generations has been white.
“I’m so glad we are at the point where we are,” said Sorie Tarawally, a 76-year-old attorney who has long known Colom’s father. He called the 43-year-old candidate “the man, our messiah, our savior.”
The contest remains too early for the Associated Press to call, and Colom’s historic bid will hinge on a tedious process playing out in elections offices across Mississippi’s 82 counties. Local officials are receiving and examining absentee and provisional ballots, called affidavit ballots, before deadlines next week. Volunteers and lawyers representing each campaign look on in anticipation of potential litigation.
“We’re going to make sure everything is followed according to the law, and I have confidence in those local officials,” Colom said. “They’re doing their jobs. Got to be patient with them.”
Hyde-Smith has not appeared publicly since election night, when she essentially declared victory despite her razor-thin lead at the time with ballots still uncounted. Ballots tallied since have leaned in Colom’s favor.
Colom chided Hyde-Smith for not explaining her strategy going forward.
“She’s still our senator. Where is she? Why is she not doing any interviews?” he asked. “Why can’t she explain what her pathway to success is?”
In a social media post on Friday, Hyde-Smith wrote, “We are not backing down. This election is not over. Our team is working across Mississippi to monitor the remaining ballots and protect the integrity of the process. We will see this through to the very end!”
Uncertain number of outstanding ballots
The pool of outstanding ballots includes absentee ballots, which can be counted in Mississippi as long as they are received by Tuesday, five business days after the election. The rest are affidavit ballots, which are cast at the polls when there’s a glitch: Perhaps the person’s name was not on the rolls or the person did not have proper identification, or a poll worker determined the person’s identification did not precisely match the name on the list.
Citizens who had identification issues have until Tuesday to address those matters in person at their local elections office. For people who were not on a precinct’s rolls, local officials can verify a person’s status using previous records and information on the affidavit that person filed when filling out a ballot. That person typically has no responsibility to come to a local elections office; ballot status can be found on the Mississippi secretary of state’s office website.
Counties have until Friday to certify complete results to the secretary of state.
Mississippi law has no provision for a statewide recount. Campaigns could seek court orders, usually county by county, seeking to examine ballots.
A potentially seismic effect in state
Democrats already have won control of the Senate, so the result in Mississippi would not change the balance of power in Washington.
But it would mark a seismic shift in the state, where white conservatives have dominated the Statehouse and congressional delegation for nearly 150 years. Through Jim Crow segregation and the civil rights era, those leaders were nearly all Democrats. In the decades since, as the Democratic Party rid itself of white nationalists, Republicans have taken over the leadership. For Black Mississippians, the result was the same: a lack of proportional representation at the top levels of state government and in Washington.
Colom was initially viewed as a long shot, and it wasn’t until late October that Senate Democrats’ top campaign group started spending on advertising to support him. But the midterms revealed a broad backlash against redistricting efforts in the South that were aimed at boosting Republicans and, by extension, reducing Black representation.
Primm’s bookstore, where Colom visited Friday, opened in the 1930s and is recognized as the oldest Black-owned bookstore in the U.S.
She said the Farish Street neighborhood still represents Black Mississippians’ “first migration, from the plantation to the city.” Having Colom there as a potential senator “makes us so proud, and it gives us someone to aspire to. Our youth need to see the possibilities for their lives, and we do when we see our next senator from Mississippi.”
As he campaigned, Colom emphasized that he can represent all Mississippians, and he said President Trump’s policies — the war with Iran and tariffs, especially — cut across all demographic lines. He celebrated the extended ballot counting process as a benefit to the state’s 2.95 million residents.
“I’m so glad the national press is getting to see the beauty of our state,” he said.
But Colom and his Black supporters also have never ignored the significance of his candidacy.
“We are motivated by the gross inequalities we have seen in society and how only one side seems to benefit,” said Tarawally, who was born in Sierra Leone and arrived in the Deep South to attend law school at the University of Mississippi. “So, we want a person who speaks to our benefit.”
Colom ended his campaign with an ad set at the Jackson home of Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who was gunned down in 1963 in his own driveway, dying in front of his wife and children.
“It’s a powerful reminder of the sacrifice to gain the ballot, and nobody sacrificed more than Medgar Evers and his family,” Colom said Friday.
“What was important to me about that ad is we didn’t ask people to vote for me. We just talked about the sacrifice, talked about the story,” he continued. “We just wanted that to be the closing ad because I wanted that to be the last message that the people of Mississippi heard.”
The U.S. Justice Department moved Friday to voluntarily dismiss its lawsuit challenging the counting of 20,000 ballots in California, arguing the relief it sought is now impossible given Tuesday’s midterm election has concluded.
The Justice Department had sought a court order requiring state and Los Angeles County election officials to set aside the ballots, which it alleged could be from noncitizen voters. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter and a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had both rejected that request, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a Trump administration appeal to those lower court rulings — with no noted dissents.
Carter had ruled that the government’s request was probably unconstitutional, given the Constitution gives states and Congress power over elections, not the executive, and probably ran afoul of federal law barring sweeping vetting of voter rolls in the immediate run-up to an election.
However, he had set a schedule moving forward for additional fact-finding in the case — including by appointing a special master to dig into the data the federal government was relying on to assert the 20,000 voters were potentially noncitizens.
In a filing before Carter on Friday, Assistant U.S. Atty. Julie Hamill in Los Angeles wrote that that court process was no longer necessary, as it would not provide the relief that the federal government was seeking by filing its lawsuit.
“In light of the Supreme Court’s denial, the United States is evaluating how to best ensure that American votes are protected, including by preventing vote dilution by noncitizens. In addition, by the time of this Court’s hearing on Nov. 13 in this matter, California will have already commingled the challenged ballots with lawful ones,” Hamill wrote. “There is then no way to get the challenged ballots segregated. As a result, the relief the United States sought and needed is no longer available — rendering voluntary dismissal necessary.”
Hamill wrote that the Trump administration had sought to “protect American voters and to prevent the irreparable harm of state and local election officials including illegally cast votes in the final vote tabulation,” but had “exhausted its appeals to obtain timely relief” by going to — and being denied by — the Supreme Court.
First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli’s office in Los Angeles — where Hamill works — referred questions about the filing to the Justice Department.
Kiersten Pels, a Justice Department spokesperson, said the litigation at issue was “moot” but that the Trump administration “is not backing down” in its targeting of alleged noncitizen voters, including in a separate case in which it is still demanding that California “conduct proper list maintenance, including removing noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls — which will be crucial to ensure fair elections in the future.”
Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a defendant in the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan, another defendant, said he was “pleased that the administration has accepted the clarity of the court findings” against it and ended its lawsuit.
“At each stage of this election, and in response to the Department of Justice, we have been clear that state and federal law sets well-defined standards for verifying and challenging voter eligibility,” Logan said. “Our commitment and focus remain on the fair, secure, accurate, and legal processes we are engaged in to complete and certify the election.”
California Atty. Gen Rob Bonta, in a statement, said that after losing in every court it tried, including the Supreme Court, “the Trump Administration has given up its latest unlawful effort to interfere with California’s elections and disenfranchise eligible voters.”
Bonta added: “Rest assured: California has and always will defend your fundamental right to vote.”
Tricia Webber, president of the California Assn. of Clerks and Election Officials, said state election officials “are very pleased” with the voluntary dismissal of the case — which she said “affirms that our elections are administered with the utmost integrity and care.”
“At the same time, we are under no illusions. We recognize that this issue is unlikely to go away permanently, and we remain fully prepared to continue defending California’s election administration against future challenges,” she said. “We will always stand ready to protect every eligible voter’s right to participate in a fair and secure election process.”
The administration’s filing — three days after President Trump’s party took a drubbing in the midterms — marks a sudden and unremarkable conclusion to an unprecedented court battle in the days leading up to the election, when the federal government sought permission from the courts to force state and local elections officials to set aside votes during an ongoing election.
Carter had rejected the administration’s request for immediate intervention in a blistering Oct. 28 ruling, calling its allegations about the ineligible voters “not credible” and warning that the proposed action could disenfranchise eligible voters and sow chaos in the ongoing midterm election.
“This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections,” Carter wrote. “If [the Trump administration’s] last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process.”
While Justice Department officials characterized the relief it had requested from the court as “targeted and modest,” Carter had reached a sharply different conclusion — writing that the administration’s demands would “wreak havoc” on an ongoing election and “create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens.”
The reliability of the government’s list became a central issue in the litigation. Logan’s office said its review of about 200 flagged voters found that a substantial portion appeared to have been born in the United States, a finding Homeland Security officials disputed.
Election officials elsewhere in California also reported problems with the lists, including names of people who did not appear to live in their counties or to be registered voters. Justice Department officials sent letters to election officials across the state, demanding that they sequester flagged ballots and warning of potential criminal penalties if they failed to comply.
The three-judge 9th Circuit panel that heard the federal government’s appeal to Carter’s ruling — composed of two appointees of President Trump and one of President Biden — came to some of the same conclusions Carter did in a 2-1 ruling. One of the Trump appointees dissented, writing that he would have ruled for the administration.
Carter ordered an expedited hearing on the state’s and county’s motions to dismiss the case and the government’s motion for a preliminary injunction. He ordered all parties by Nov. 6 to submit witness lists, including experts, regarding the reliability of the list of voters and the methodology behind it. He ordered both sides to appear at the Nov. 13 hearing, with submitted witnesses prepared to take the stand.
Ending the litigation now will forestall that process to detail the origins of the administration’s list — which is still being used by federal prosecutors in California to target individual voters for criminal prosecution.
PHOENIX — Democrats in Arizona won control of both legislative chambers and retained the governor’s office, giving the party its first trifecta in the state since 1966 as Democrats made major gains nationwide in this week’s elections and took control of both chambers of Congress.
In her first term, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs had vetoed more than 540 measures passed by the Republican-led Legislature on policies including taxes, immigration and voting laws. Hobbs has said she’s looking to address water issues and affordability, and take on fraud and abuse in the state’s school voucher program.
The Associated Press called enough legislative races to confirm that both chambers flipped on Friday. The news organization calls races individually and it can take several days after voting, depending on when election officials tally the votes and how close the elections are. There have not been major disputes or disruptions this year.
In Arizona, Republicans have held the House for 60 years and the Senate since the early 1990s.
Attendees during the Arizona Democratic Party election night event in Phoenix on Tuesday.
(Cassidy Araiza / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Overall, Democrats took full control — both statehouse chambers and governors’ offices — in at least six states where they previously shared power with Republicans. Besides Arizona, those wins were in the battleground states of Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin.
The flips weren’t just in states that are normally competitive. Democrats won control of the Texas House, which Republicans have held since 2003, and elected Gina Hinojosa as the state’s first Democratic governor since Ann Richards in the 1990s. Republicans held on to the state Senate.
Democrats also flipped the lower chambers of the legislatures in Maine and North Carolina and both chambers in New Hampshire, where Republican Kelly Ayotte was reelected. The count could grow as results are tallied in additional states.
The National Council of State Legislatures says it’s likely to end up as the election with the most legislative seats and chambers changing parties since the 2010 election, when Republicans took over governments across the country amid the Great Recession.
Democrats will also hold the governor’s office in at least 28 states. Results are still pending in Alaska and Kansas.
