With just days left to cast your vote in California’s primary election on June 2, The Times has answers to your last-minute questions about the voting process.
Here’s what you need to know:
What are the key races to watch?
The California governor’s race is a tight battle between Democrats and Republicans who are vying to replace Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is serving his second term and cannot run again. Top candidates include a Riverside County Sheriff, a former senior advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, a former Los Angeles mayor, a billionaire hedge fund founder and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Your guide to the race for California governor can be found here.
In the Los Angeles city mayoral race, incumbent Karen Bass faces a reelection challenge from a field of candidates that include a reality TV personality, a tech entrepreneur, a City Council member and a progressive community leader. Your guide to the L.A. mayor’s race can be found here.
What is on the ballot?
There are several races, ballot measures, local district seats and statewide races that Southern Californians must decide on.
Most of the attention will be on the races for California governor and the mayor of Los Angeles.
City of Los Angeles residents have several other items to consider, including:
County of Los Angeles residents will be asked to vote on:
Voters will decide on six local congressional district seats and other statewide races including the:
A comprehensive breakdown of each race or proposed tax measure can be found here.
What is an open primary?
An open primary allows the top two candidates who garner the most votes to move on to the general election in November, no matter what party they belong to.
This system could allow two candidates from the same party to advance to the general election.
Is it too late to vote by mail?
No. You can return your vote-by-mail ballot by:
Dropping it off in the return envelope at a secure official drop box now through the close of polls on June 2.
Dropping it off in person at a polling place, vote center or county elections office by 8 p.m. on June 2.
Dropping it off at the post office. Mailed ballots must be postmarked on or before election day and received no later than 7 days after election day. To ensure your ballot is postmarked by election day, mail it at least five days before June 2. If mailing on election day, get a hand-stamped postmark from a postal employee at a United States Post Office.
What is the deadline to return a vote-by-mail ballot?
In order to be counted, vote-by-mail ballots must be postmarked on or before election day, June 2, and received by your county elections office by June 9.
How do I check if I’m registered to vote?
To find out if you’re registered to vote, visit the secretary of state’s website. You’ll need to enter a California driver’s license or identification number or the last four digits of your Social Security number.
You also can call the state’s voter hotline (available in 10 languages) at (800) 345-8683 to get a paper application mailed to you, or you can pick up one at a county election office, most California libraries and United States Post Office locations, as well as many federal, state and local government offices — including the Department of Motor Vehicles.
If you opted to register online, officials say you should wait at least 24 hours before checking your voter status.
How do I register to vote? Can I register on election day?
Eligible citizens who need to register or reregister to vote within 14 days of an election can complete this process to register and vote at county elections offices, polling places or vote centers.
To find an early voting location, use the secretary of state search tool here. You can find your local polling places here.
Your submitted ballot will be processed and counted once the county elections office has completed the voter registration verification process.
How do I check my voter status?
You can check your voter status from the California secretary of state website here. To find your record, you’ll need to provide your full name, date of birth, state driver’s license or identification card number and the last four digits of your Social Security number.
Where is my closest drop box?
Secure ballot drop-off locations opened May 5. You can visit the Los Angeles County Office of the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s website here to find a ballot box near you.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened to tax 100% of the money Californians receive from President Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund for his political allies.
Trump’s Justice Department had announced last week that it would establish a $1.776-billion fund to compensate allies of the president who claim they have “suffered weaponization and lawfare” under the Biden administration’s Justice Department.
“Anyone from California that receives any of those funds, we want to tax 100% of those proceeds,” the governor told reporters Thursday.
“That’s an action the state of California can take …[and] it’s an action we look forward to taking.”
Just how Newsom would do so remains unclear. He indicated that he would need action from the Democratic-led California Legislature to impose the new tax. If adopted, the measure would likely face legal challenge.
The fund has prompted outrage from Democrats and some Republicans — including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said in a statement that the “slush fund,” which would “pay people who assault cops,” was “utterly stupid.”
Newsom’s remarks about Trump’s settlement fund came on Thursday as he signed a bill designed to prevent election interference ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
The bill, Senate Bill 73, restricts law enforcement agencies and officers — including those from federal agencies — from interfering with state and local election officials, such as confiscating ballots, voter rolls or voting machines without a warrant.
The governor said the bill is meant to address “legitimate anxiety” over threats to election integrity after Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s decision to seize ballots from the county’s voter registrar as part of a fraud probe. Bianco, a long-time Trump supporter, is one of the top Republicans running to succeed Newsom after the end of his second and final term as governor.
Newsom also pointed to ICE and Border Patrol’s decision last November to stage an event near Dodger Stadium, calling it a “show of force designed to intimidate free expression and free speech.”
“That’s why we have to step up and we have to draw the line,” Newsom said. “We have to clarify the rules of engagement… there are fines associated with this, criminal fines and jail time of three years, so that’s a warning [to] the folks out there that think they can do the bidding of the Trump administration.”
Newsom said he expects Trump to interfere with the upcoming election — noting that the president has falsely claimed that he “won” California in the last election.
“Every single thing that Donald Trump is saying only suggests that he will do more, not less, to intimidate and to impact the outcome of this election,” Newsom said. “I absolutely expect the worst again, because we’ve been on the receiving end of it.”
WASHINGTON — Alabama on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to use a congressional map favoring Republicans in this year’s elections, despite a lower court’s ruling that the redistricting plan intentionally discriminates against Black people.
The state’s Republican leadership filed an emergency appeal with the justices a day after a three-judge court refused to let the state use a map it adopted three years ago that has a majority Black population in just one of its seven congressional districts.
The judges instead required Alabama to continue using a court-ordered map that was put in place for the 2024 elections that includes two districts where Black residents comprise a majority or close to it.
Atty. Gen. Steve Marshall told the court that the state did not intentionally discriminate against Black residents and should be allowed to hold elections this year under a map chosen by lawmakers, not judges.
The appeal is the latest development in the fallout from last month’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Black-majority district in Louisiana and weakened the federal Voting Rights Act. That ruling has led Republicans in several Southern states, including Alabama, to take steps to reshape voting districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats.
The redistricting frenzy is part of a broader push by President Trump to try to hold on to Republicans’ slim House majority in the November elections.
The Alabama cases stretches back several years. The three-judge panel in 2023 ruled that a map drawn by Republican state lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black citizens. The court said the state, which is about 27% Black, should have two districts where Black voters are the majority or close to it. The court-selected map was used in 2024.
After the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Louisiana case, Alabama officials moved to implement the 2023 state-drawn map. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed to lift the injunction that had blocked the map’s use and sent the case back to the three-judge panel for reconsideration in light of the Louisiana ruling.
In the meantime, voters cast ballots in Alabama’s May 19 primaries, and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey set new special primaries for Aug. 11 in four congressional districts affected by the map switch.
Upon further review, the judicial panel said it was standing behind its initial finding that there was “undisputed evidence” of intentional racial discrimination, a holding that was independent of and unaffected by the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act.
It said the special congressional primaries should instead proceed under the previous court-approved districts.
The use of the court-ordered map led to the 2024 election of U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat. State Republicans are seeking to use a map that would give the GOP an opportunity to reclaim the south Alabama seat.
The state is asking for Supreme Court action by Monday as it makes preparations for the special vote in August.
Attention screenwriters, producers and agents: The Jonah Jeovany Vasquez story continues this weekend in Clovis, and it’s giving off Disney-like vibes.
The senior at Cathedral High is running in the 1,600 at the CIF state track and field championships on Friday at Buchanan High. He had never stepped on a “squishy” surface, otherwise known as a track, before this season.
“I never even knew what a track felt like,” he said. ”Everything was new to me.”
For three years, he attended Alliance Leichtman-Levine, a small Los Angeles charter school near his home in South Los Angeles. He ran cross country on his own with little coaching.
“They would hire a random coach off the street and we’d play flag football,” he said.
His training was jogging on a treadmill for two miles and maybe getting eight to 10 miles a week.
He finished third at the 2024 City Section Division V finals in 16:48 as the only representative from his school. In the state final, he finished 76th in Division V with a time of 16:58.60. That experience gave Vasquez motivation.
“Seeing so many people pass me bothered me,” he said. “I promised myself I was going to train hard so it wouldn’t happen again. I wanted to prove to myself I could run with the top guys.”
Jonah Jeovany Vasquez of Cathedral is on the podium after finishing second in the Division 3 1,600 at Moorpark.
(Cathedral)
He transferred to Cathedral last May, and coach Martin Farfan aggressively trained him to make up for lost time. Vasquez ran 15:35 on the state championship course in Fresno. But two weeks before the state championships, he was struck by an E-bike during a 10-mile workout running along the L.A. River. He went flying and had a gash on his knee.
“It was traumatic. I was at the peak of my power. I was super fit and faster than I had ever been,” he said.
He iced the knee and stopped training. He still ran in the CIF prelims. “I had no fitness,” he said. “I was like a deer in the headlights.”
Farfan started calling coaches telling them he had a talented runner but the recruiters were unimpressed. They took to the internet and couldn’t find a single track time for Vasquez. Farfan had a ringer about to try track for the first time.
Two weeks ago at the Southern Section divisional championships, he finished second in the Division 3 final in a personal-best 4:08.44.
Vasquez is healthy and eager to be the one passing runners with his late kick on Friday and Saturday night. He also has a scholarship waiting for him at Long Beach State.
“I’ve always had natural endurance,” he said. “I’ve been active since I was little. I honestly believe when I’m in college, I’m going to do some great things. I have that spark in me not every athlete has. I have the drive to be the best I can possibly be. Maybe not by my freshman year, but I will develop. I will not stop until reaching my goal. It’s all I want. When I sleep or do activities with my family, all I think about is running.”
His father immigrated from Nicaragua. His mother has family in Guatemala. They’ve supported Vasquez as running became his passion.
“I honestly believe I have a 4:04 or 4:05 in me,” he said.
Never doubt what can happen when a teenager finds something they love and devotes time and energy to achieving their dreams.
The number of high school baseball and softball teams in Southern California not wanting to participate in the regional playoffs next week continues to grow. The question is: Next season, when there are state championships held in the two sports, will there be fewer opt outs?
“I would think so,” said Brian Seymour, associate executive director of the CIF.
The City Section Open Division baseball champion, Birmingham, and runner-up, El Camino Real, both passed on the regional playoffs. Three of the four Division 1 semifinalists — Norco, Harvard-Westlake and Sherman Oaks Notre Dame — also opted out. In Southern Section softball, the two Division 1 finalists, JSerra and La Mirada, are ending their seasons on Friday.
These are softball opt outs for state playoffs so far:
JSerra Catholic Cathedral City Notre Dame/Sherman Oaks Lutheran/Orange Northwood La Mirada Pacifica/Garden Grove San Clemente Warren Elsinore Kennedy ML King
Travel ball begins in June, and that’s the big roadblock for softball, with many coaches and players participating. Next season, the state championships would be held the first weekend of June, the same dates as this year’s regional finals, so solving the softball dilemma remains uncertain.
The following Southern Section baseball teams have opted out for next week’s state playoffs. Trinity Classical Academy, Harvard-Westlake, Norco, Crossroads Christian, Notre Dame/Sherman Oaks, Agoura.
“We’ve heard the comment from a number of different coaches [that] once we go to a state tournament, they were more inclined to make it work,” Seymour said. “Softball may take a little longer to come around. The power of representing your community and school is a little bit more than playing for your fifth travel team.”
But players invest thousands of dollars in club softball and coaches make good summer money in travel ball.
Seymour said multiple sites are under consideration in Southern California and Northern California to host the state championships.
He’s hopeful both will catch on like swimming did when the CIF first had state championships.
“We have everybody in swimming now, where the first year was hit and miss,” he said.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
Several injured people have been transported to hospitals to be treated for chemical burns.
Published On 26 May 202626 May 2026
A chemical tank has imploded at a Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in the US state of Washington, killing several people and critically injuring others, authorities said.
Emergency responders on Tuesday remained at the site in the city of Longview in Cowlitz County, about 70km (45 miles) north of Portland, Oregon, the Longview Fire Department said in a joint written statement with Nippon and the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Department.
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Multiple patients who suffered from chemical burns and other injuries were transported to nearby hospitals. Authorities said the implosion posed “no immediate threat to the surrounding community”.
The statement said that officials “can confirm fatalities related to the incident” along with “multiple critical injuries”, but did not provide figures.
At least nine workers and one firefighter were taken to hospitals from the site, said Scott Goldstein, the Cowlitz 2 Fire and Rescue chief who was among those who responded. The number of deaths was “undetermined”, he said at a news conference.
PeaceHealth St John Medical Center in Longview told ABC News it had seen nine patients related to the incident, including one who had died. Six of the patients were in fair condition, and two other patients had been transferred to other facilities, the hospital told ABC.
The joint statement said that a tank containing “white liquor”, a chemical solution of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide used in the production of paper pulp, had ruptured at about 7:15am local time (14:15 GMT).
Goldstein said at the news conference that the 80,000-gallon (about 300,000-litre) tank was approximately 60 percent full.
In southern California, meanwhile, authorities have been monitoring an overheating industrial tank containing methyl methacrylate, a highly flammable chemical used in the production of plastics. The worst-case possibility of an explosion was ruled out on Monday at the GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove after a crack relieved some of the mounting pressure, officials said.
Orange County Fire Authority spokesman Greg Barta said in an update on Tuesday morning that the temperature in the tank was holding steady and that crews were working to ensure that people evacuated could get home as soon as possible.
May 26 (UPI) — Vice President JD Vance hosted a meeting Tuesday afternoon with state attorneys general as part of his task force on fraud.
The event was largely attended by only Republican officials, however, because the task force invited attorneys general from the Democratic party with less notice than their Republican peers, Politico reported.
The Democratic attorneys general were invited to the meeting Friday, with a deadline to respond by Saturday. Republicans were invited about a week earlier. The 24 Democrats affected by this wrote Vance a letter declining the invite, CNBC reported.
“While we would appreciate the opportunity to engage in serious discussions, the invitation was provided with less than one business day’s notice with no agenda,” the letter said. “This short notice does not match the spirit of collaboration that has long defined our joint efforts with federal partners. Accordingly, we respectfully decline to attend at this time.”
When President Donald Trump announced Vance’s role as “fraud czar” in April, he said the investigations would center on Democrat-run states.
Vance on Tuesday said that in two months, the task force has “exposed billions of dollars in benefits that had been stolen from the American people.”
“We referred over $22 billion in fraudulent small business loans back to the Treasury for collection,” he said. “We deferred more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements that were coming from various states, particularly California. We put a six-month hold on enrollments for new hospice and home health care providers, because so many of the newer hospice providers were not actually providing hospice services but were just focused on fraud.”
In a press release, the White House said Trump and Vance are “unleashing an unrelenting, full-scale assault on the fraudsters, scammers and corrupt operators who have looted billions from American taxpayers.” The release included a list of alleged fraud cases and actions, including many instances focused on Minnesota and California. No Republican-led states were cited.
President Donald Trump leaves the White House on Tuesday. Trump is traveling to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for his annual physical. Photo by Will Oliver/UPI | License Photo
Lindsie Chrisley, one of reality star Todd Chrisley’s two children with his first wife, was arrested Saturday night on suspicion of driving under the influence in Concord, Ga.
The podcaster was booked on charges including DUI less safe — a DUI charge for those whose blood alcohol is less than 0.08% — attempting to elude police, improper passing, reckless driving and speeding, according to a police report obtained by The Times. Her bail on the five counts totaled $5,961, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.
“I got pulled over speeding past a car on a two-lane road because they almost hit an animal,” Chrisley told TMZ, which first reported the arrest. She said she was trying to miss that car and “whatever the animal was.” She said she planned to fight the charges.
Law enforcement had a different story to tell in its report, alleging that she was pulled over for traveling 86 mph on a surface street. After the deputy activated the lights on his car and initiated the traffic stop, Chrisley allegedly passed “multiple suitable stopping locations” before finally pulling over at a Chevron station, the report said.
The sheriff’s deputy who spoke with Chrisley said in his report that her stories weren’t making sense, her speech was slurred and her breath smelled of alcohol. After she was asked to step out of the Ford Bronco, she told the officer she didn’t know why she had been pulled over, then said it was because she had swerved around another vehicle that had “almost hit a deer,” the report said. The officer asked her if that was why she was speeding and she said “that is exactly why,” according to the report, then talked about the car in front of her brake-checking her as she drove home and said she hadn’t been traveling at nearly 90 mph.
The report said she refused to participate in field sobriety tests when the deputy asked her to and she also declined a blood test. No contraband was found in the car, according to the report.
Chrisley, 36, was released from custody around 4:15 a.m. Sunday morning.
Her encounter with law enforcement comes after her then-boyfriend, David Landsman, was arrested in Cherokee County in mid-April on a felony charge of aggravated assault/strangulation and a misdemeanor charge of battery after he allegedly placed his hand around a person’s neck and told them they were “not going anywhere,” People reported.
Lindsie Chrisley, the host of “The Southern Tea” podcast, appeared in 20 episodes of “Chrisley Knows Best” from 2014 into 2017. She and brother Kyle Chrisley are the children of Teresa Terry, Todd Chrisley’s first wife.
Todd and second wife Julie Chrisley were convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion in 2022 and imprisoned at separate facilities. Todd was serving a 12-year sentence in Florida and Julie was serving seven years at a facility in Kentucky when President Trump pardoned them in 2025, clearing the convictions from their records and ending their sentences.
Lindsie was estranged from her family for years over their suspicion that she had squealed to state and federal officials. Todd and Julie sued the state of Georgia in 2019, alleging that a tax official had targeted the couple’s estranged daughter and improperly shared confidential tax information to try to elicit compromising information on the family. As a result of the official’s efforts, the Chrisleys were forced to “incur substantial personal and financial hardship,” the suit said.
Sources who said they were close to Lindsie told TMZ in October 2019 that she spoke with the state official only to get updates about when her father might be arrested, so that she could shield her young son from any drama. In 2022, she said on her podcast that she and her father got back in touch after her second filing to divorce husband Will Campbell went public in summer 2021. The family members did crossover appearances on their various podcasts.
However, the reconciliation appeared to be short-lived, with Lindsie saying on her podcast in March 2025 that she hadn’t had any contact with her dad in a year.
NEW ORLEANS — At least four states have adopted laws this year making it a crime to disrupt worship services, a reaction to a high-profile protest inside a Minnesota church that prompted outrage from faith leaders.
The Republican lawmakers sponsoring most of the legislation say those gathering at sacred sanctuaries deserve protection beyond what existing trespassing laws provide. They also say these new laws will prevent escalating clashes between congregants and protestors as many churches, mosques and synagogues remain on edge over recent mass shootings and acts of violence targeting religious groups.
“People should go to church to be able to sit in peace, worship as they please, without having to worry about people coming in and harassing them,” said Idaho Sen. Mark Harris, a Republican who co-sponsored legislation criminalizing protests inside places of worship. “I think the thing that happened in Minnesota was kind of a shock to some of us, that churches would be used as a place to berate people.”
Critics in both parties have warned that the laws infringe on free speech rights.
Here’s a look at the situation.
The laws make it a crime to interfere with worship
Bills have been signed into law in Republican-dominated Idaho, Louisiana and Oklahoma. In Kansas, a bill is becoming law without the signature of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
Similar bills have been introduced for this year’s legislative sessions in at least seven other states and in Congress. Nassau County, New York, passed a similar measure this year. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed a law making it a federal crime to intentionally injure or interfere with or intimidate someone entering a place of worship or a reproductive health facility.
The details in the bills differ, but they all make it a crime to interfere with religious assemblies.
Laws against trespassing already apply to disruptions on the grounds of churches or other private property. But legislators say the new laws would boost penalties and bar other protest activity like holding signs near places of worship.
The penalties could be harsher than for trespassing. In some states, people could face up to a year in prison and fines as high as $10,000 for first offenses. The laws also give the states a way to prosecute cases if local authorities decline to do so.
A protest in Minnesota touched off the call for action
Thirty-nine people, including two journalists, were charged in February for roles in a protest during a St. Paul, Minnesota, church service. The protesters had learned that one of the church pastors was also an official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who had been overseeing an intensive Minnesota operation.
The U.S. Department of Justice charged the protesters with conspiracy against religious freedom and interfering with the right of religious freedom. The protesters and journalists have pleaded not guilty and the cases are pending in federal court.
Louisiana Rep. Gabe Firment, a Republican, said he was inspired to introduce legislation that allows protestors to be forcibly removed from churches and other places of worship after seeing videos showing the fearful expressions of children at the Minnesota church.
“The first thought that came to my mind was those poor kids,” Firment said. “You certainly have a right to protest, but just like you don’t have the right to come into someone’s home and act like that, you don’t have the right to come into private church property to do that.”
Oklahoma Sen. Todd Gollihare, a Republican, wrote his bill after anti-abortion protestors disrupted his church service last year. His law bars blocking highways within one mile of a service or approaching someone to hand them a flyer within 100 feet of a place of worship.
His Republican colleague, Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, described the law as extreme and said she was afraid of the precedent it would set.
Court challenges could await the laws
The Nassau County ordinance is already facing a court challenge from the New York Civil Liberties Union, which says there’s no history of residents facing intimidation, harassment or violence outside places of worship — and that the statute denies people their constitutionally protected rights of expression in public places.
Kevin Goldberg, vice president at Freedom Forum, which advocates for First Amendment rights, said that if the laws are challenged in courts, governments would have to show there’s a need for them. “You can’t be guessing, you can’t be speculating,” he said. “There has to be some evidence that there’s an actual threat going on — that there’s been a problem there, that you can reasonably forecast there will be a problem.”
In Louisiana, Democrats raised concerns about mandatory jail time for disrupting services and warned that the laws were too arbitrary, suggesting that they could be applied against a congregant for singing out of turn as a pastor delivers a homily.
“If the spirit just hits me and I start singing during the middle of his homily, and it disrupts his homily in a way where he’s got to say ‘Hey, take a seat’, I mean that would materially disrupt his service and now I’m going to jail for 30 days,” Rep. Edmond Jordan said during a March hearing in the Louisiana Legislature.
The law’s proponents said police officers and judges would have discretion about how to apply the law.
Brook and Mulvihill write for the Associated Press. Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, N.J.
SACRAMENTO — The state’s biggest energy utility has made the unusual move to attack candidate Tom Steyer in the California governor’s race.
State campaign filings show that Pacific Gas & Electric has plowed at least $13.5 million into efforts to oppose Steyer. Other major utilities in the state have also donated to another committee backing the anti-Steyer effort.
Steyer, a billionaire and former hedge fund founder who became a high-profile environmental advocate, accuses the big three California utility companies — PG&E, San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison — of “raking in” record profits at the expense of their customers. He blames the utilities for high consumer bills and causing deadly wildfires with their faulty utility equipment.
Though other candidates in the race are also criticizing the utilities, Steyer is the most aggressive.
“Big energy companies really piss me off,” Steyer said in one of his own campaign ads earlier this year.
In another attack, Steyer called PG&E less of an electric company and more of a “sophisticated Sacramento lobbying and influence operation that also happens to sell electricity. California needs a governor who will stand up to these monopolies, hold them accountable, and break them up.”
Lynsey Paulo, a spokesperson for PG&E, declined to answer questions about the utility’s spending, referring The Times to the committee running anti-Steyer ads.
“Tom Steyer has spent over $200 million trying to buy the Governor’s office,” the committee said in a statement.
Steyer, a Democrat who is relying on his vast fortune in the race, is seeking to advance past the June 2 primary to the November general election. Recent polls put him behind Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, and onetime Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
The utility-funded advertisements against Steyer don’t mention his position on energy policies, focusing instead on his onetime hedge fund’s investments in coal and for-profit detention centers. One ad compares him to President Trump.
“When Steyer sells himself as a different kind of billionaire, tell him where to stick it,” a voiceover says.
Another advertisement from the anti-Steyer group California is Not for Sale highlights its support for Becerra. The California Assn. of Realtors and the California Building Industry Assn. are also supporting the group.
Steyer’s campaign last week embraced the spending from PG&E and others.
“When you’re opposed by the people responsible for devastating wildfires and outrageous rate hikes, you’re doing something right,” Steyer spokesperson Sepi Esfahlani said.
Steyer has used his criticism of the California utilities and the oil industry as a shield against attacks that he made billions of dollars from fossil fuels when he ran his hedge fund, and to elevate himself as an advocate for working-class Californians.
When Democratic rival Katie Porter ripped into Steyer at a recent debate for using his riches to support his gubernatorial campaign, Steyer pointed to the attacks by PG&E and others as evidence that he’ll take on Sacramento’s powerful special interests.
“There is one person that the corporations are going after, including Big Oil, who is spending millions of dollars to stop me,” Steyer responded during the April debate at Pomona College in Claremont.
“The electric monopolies, PG&E, millions of dollars to stop me, because I’m the person on this stage who’s the change agent,” he said. “I’m the person who’s going to drive down costs for the people of California by taking on the special interests.”
PG&E CEO Patti Poppe and Steyer lauded one another in social media posts after appearing together at various conferences last year, the California Post reported.
“Loved sitting down to talk the future of energy with Tom Steyer at the Galvanize Solutions Summit,” Poppe wrote on LinkedIn in December. Steyer co-founded Galvanize, an asset management firm.
The California Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee this year collected at least $2 million each from PG&E, Sempra — the parent company of SoCalGas and San Diego Gas & Electric — and Edison. The chamber’s committee in turn has donated $9.75 million toward the anti-Steyer committee.
John Myers, a representative for the Chamber of Commerce, said the committee’s leadership, not donors, make spending decisions.
California electric rates are the nation’s second highest after Hawaii, contributing to the state’s high cost of living — one of the biggest concerns of voters.
PG&E serves Northern and Central California, while Southern California Edison is available in Central, coastal and Southern California. San Diego Gas & Electric services Southern California.
The California Public Utilities Commission sets the rate of return that the companies can make. Steyer has argued that “perverse” structure allows utilities to disregard cheaper cost-effective solutions in favor of more expensive options, such as undergrounding power lines.
Despite Steyer’s talk of “breaking up” utilities, he doesn’t propose dismantling them. Instead, he vows to put reform-focused appointees on the regulatory agency and reduce utility rates. He also wants more battery storage for renewal energy, as well as additional rooftop and community solar.
The three utilities recently opposed a bill to require that wildfire safety spending by Southern California Edison, PG&E and San Diego Gas & Electric be audited by an independent accounting firm.
The bill by Assemblywoman Tasha Boerner, an Encinitas Democrat, stalled out earlier this month. It would have required the state’s regulatory agency to consider the audits’ findings before agreeing to raise customer rates to cover even more wildfire prevention spending.
Audits of the three companies’ wildfire spending from 2019 to 2020 found that $2.5 billion could not be accounted for.
Matt Abularach-Macias, political director of Environmental Voters, said the utilities probably consider Steyer as a threat to their business. The companies plan infrastructure projects five or 10 years ahead and don’t want disruptions, he said.
Environmental Voters has endorsed Steyer and former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter. The group’s educational arm received a $500,000 donation from a Steyer-backed entity in 2013.
Leah Stokes, associate professor of political science at UC Santa Barbara, called PG&E’s outlay in the governor’s race part of a “corrupt system.”
“These are monopoly companies, you can’t choose to buy from anybody else,” Stokes said. “They take your money, turn it into profits because they are poorly regulated, and then undermine political candidates who would actually hold them accountable.”
Stokes has publicly endorsed Steyer.
A spokesperson for Southern California Edison said the company funds its political contributions from “shareholder dollars.”
“No customer dollars, or any part of the rates paid by Southern California Edison customers, are used to support political candidates,” he said.
Times staff writer Melody Petersen contributed to this report.
The right-wing president highlighted anti-crime operations and economic progress, while critics warned of abuses.
Published On 24 May 202624 May 2026
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has used his State of the Union speech to tout his United States-backed crime-fighting strategies as well as improvements to the economy.
Addressing the National Assembly in the capital Quito on Sunday, Noboa cited the extradition of a dozen crime bosses to the US and the seizure of almost 300 tonnes of drugs as examples of what he described as his decisive and effective approach.
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“We will seek them out, find them and extradite them,” Noboa said of wanted criminals. He also asserted that the South American country cannot develop “if families live in fear”.
Organised crime is the leading concern among Ecuadorians this decade, after a spike in homicides during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since 2021, Ecuador has struggled to contain drug violence as rival cartels partner with local gangs to battle for control of routes and coastal ports used to smuggle cocaine. The country is wedged between Colombia and Peru, the world’s top cocaine producing countries.
Last year, Ecuador recorded its highest homicide rate in decades, with approximately 50 murders for every 100,000 residents, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
In response, Noboa, who was reelected last year to a four-year term, has used a state of exception to allow the military to implement a variety of crime-fighting strategies, including joint patrols with police officers and property searches without warrants.
Earlier this year, Ecuador’s military also carried out an operation with US forces against a training camp allegedly used by Colombian drug traffickers, attacking the site with drones, helicopters and boats.
Noboa’s approach, however, has come under criticism from civil society groups, who say his iron-fisted methods have failed to reduce crime while putting civilians in danger.
Glaedys Gonzalez, an analyst for the Andean region at the International Crisis Group, said on Sunday that Noboa may have been optimistic in his speech regarding the country’s security.
“Progress on violence is far from being achieved,” Gonzalez said. “It is evident that the situation in Ecuador has reached unprecedented levels.”
Sunday’s speech also promoted Ecuador’s economic progress, with Noboa telling lawmakers that poverty dropped from 26 percent to 21.4 percent in 2025. Extreme poverty, he added, went down from 10.4 percent to 8.4 percent.
Noboa was first elected in 2023 during a snap election triggered when then-President Guillermo Lasso dissolved the National Assembly and shortened his own term.
With little more than a week left until primary voters winnow the candidates for Los Angeles mayor, California governor and Congress, there remains a palpable sense of political uncertainty among the electorate — attributable to a lack of clear front-runners, redrawn political maps, messy party infighting and competing voter frustration with both President Trump and the state’s Democratic establishment.
In a state where Democrats hold a substantial advantage among registered voters and Trump lost in 2024 by more than 20 percentage points, MAGA-aligned Republicans are nonetheless competing on a message of ineptitude from longtime liberal leaders to address the state’s most intractable problems. Even some Democrats have railed against the status quo.
With Trump’s grip on the Republican base intact despite abysmal overall approval ratings, many Republican candidates have courted his approval — and been hammered for it by their Democratic opponents.
But those same Democrats have found it harder to explain why their own party should continue to lead the state despite allowing its affordability, housing and homelessness crises to take root and persist — taking little responsibility while swiping at each other for having failed to find solutions sooner.
All that party infighting — present before every primary, but at a fever pitch now — comes against a backdrop of broader voter unease about the war in Iran, volatile oil and gas prices, and the burgeoning threat of AI to the American workforce.
Republican voters are being warned of a blue wave in November giving Democrats control of Congress and grinding Trump’s agenda to a halt. Democratic voters are being warned of Trump administration efforts to undermine local and state elections, and of control of Congress unfairly slipping from reach thanks to further Republican redistricting following a U.S. Supreme Court decision undermining the Voting Rights Act and its protections for majority-Black districts across the South.
Many California voters — some already shaken or burned by former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropping from the gubernatorial race amid sexual assault and rape allegations last month — appear hesitant to cast ballots early, despite warnings that the Trump administration may try to discount those mailed at the last minute.
“Voters don’t want to make a mistake. They’re not absolutely certain,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant in California. “It’s just not real clear where to land.”
James Adams, a political science professor at UC Davis who studies elections and public opinion, said California Democrats this cycle “have a candidate problem and they have a message problem,” in that they are trying to convince voters to back them “not because they offer exciting ideas or inspiring leadership, but because their Republican opponents are even worse.”
And that message — offered as they gerrymander California in a race to the bottom with Republicans nationally — isn’t cutting it, Adams said.
“People are alienated from our current politics not because Americans are cynical, but because people recognize that they deserve better.”
Outsider shakes up L.A. mayor’s race
Amid entrenched homelessness, affordability concerns and lingering anger over the bungled response to last year’s wildfires, the L.A. mayor’s race was “supposed to be a referendum” on embattled Mayor Karen Bass, Stutzman said.
And yet, Bass remains in the lead, and many voters remain confused about which way to turn away from her — if at all.
Bass has won the endorsement of three council members who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America, despite City Councilmember Nithya Raman, an ally who’d previously endorsed Bass and is a member of the DSA herself, entering the race to her left.
Unable to consolidate support from the city’s progressive flank, Raman is now running neck and neck for a second-place finish and a chance to face Bass in the November runoff with former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt, who has remained in contention in ultra-liberal L.A. despite pushing a MAGA-aligned message to Bass’ right.
Pratt, who did not respond to a request for comment, lost his Pacific Palisades home in the fires and has won over many frustrated city residents with his anti-establishment message and cheeky AI videos — including one casting him as Batman, taking on a corrupt Democratic bourgeoisie.
Pratt, a registered Republican, has tried to dance around politics in the race, calling his campaign a “nonpartisan” one and comparing himself to President Obama politically. But he is backed by many Republicans, has echoed Trump’s rhetoric around restoring “common sense” and a “Golden Age” to L.A., and recently responded to Trump saying that he’d heard Pratt “is a big MAGA person” — and Raman posting the quote to X — with a meme of himself shrugging.
Fernando Guerra, founding director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said he’s glad city voters have choices this race, because they clearly aren’t happy. He said Angelenos are less optimistic today than ever before and are deeply frustrated with “this same liberal Democratic regime from Bradley to Bass over 50 years” — a reference to former Mayor Tom Bradley, who first took office in 1973.
Voters are clearly tired of that regime, which has succumbed to “policy paralysis” in the name of “inclusion” and trying to please everyone, Guerra said — but not so much that they will consider going MAGA for Pratt.
“People say, ‘Yeah, Democrats have really f—d it up, but there’s no way we’re going to [back] Republicans. Look what they’ve done to the nation.’”
Others aren’t so sure. In its voter guide, the progressive group LA Forward wrote that the “most important thing” in the June 2 primary is to block Pratt — whom it called a “right-wing reality TV buffoon” — from advancing, and the best way to do so is to vote for Raman.
“We would much rather see a Bass/Raman runoff, with no chance of Pratt becoming mayor, than a Pratt/Bass runoff where a Pratt win would be a real possibility — plunging LA into a Trumpian mayoral nightmare,” the group wrote.
An unsettled gubernatorial contest
In the gubernatorial race, none of the many Democratic candidates has been able to consolidate a sizable lead, creating a lingering apprehension that Republicans could somehow eke out a stunning upset in the biggest of blue states.
That’s in part thanks to leading Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, the former California attorney general and U.S. Health secretary under President Biden, being dogged by insinuations, including from fellow Democrats, that he was somehow complicit in a scheme by underlings to steal from his campaign coffers, despite prosecutors in the case — which resulted in his former chief of staff pleading guilty — never alleging wrongdoing on his part.
It’s also thanks in part to the fact that the leading progressive, Tom Steyer, is a billionaire who has bought his way into contention with nearly $200 million of his own money — in an election cycle in which progressive voters nationwide are decrying billionaires as the clearest symbol of all that is wrong with the nation’s lopsided economy.
“This kind of weird self-loathing rationale of why he’s the right guy to take on billionaires because he is one? You can’t build a Mamdani movement around that,” said Stutzman, referring to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who shot to power on a democratic socialist platform last year.
The Democrats have also struggled to combat the criticism — leveraged time and again by their Republican competitors — that their party has failed for years to solve California’s most substantial problems, and deserves to be ousted from power.
Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra speak during a break in the April 28 gubernatorial debate.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton has hammered that message in ads and on the debate stage, lambasting the Democratic establishment for pushing so much unnecessary regulation that it has chased out business and investment and made everything from gas to housing to groceries more expensive for average residents.
He has blamed Democrats for California’s high rates of poverty and unemployment, its high cost of living and high taxes, its record homelessness and its poor public school results.
In an interview, Hilton said he understands that California voters may not like Trump — who endorsed him — and may have conflicting beliefs about federal and international policy, but that California’s biggest problems have “nothing to do with President Trump.”
“Voters need to decide on what direction they want to take in terms of the policies that affect their daily lives in California,” he said, and those are “devised and enacted within California by our politicians here in Sacramento.”
He also said it’s no surprise that some of his Democratic rivals have also acknowledged that the Democratic establishment has been a failure, because “if you pretend otherwise, you show that you’re just completely out of touch with public opinion.”
Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, said “every campaign is entitled to run the race that they believe matches their story,” even if that means questioning the party’s past performance. But he also said polling hasn’t shown that message to be an effective one, and he’s confident that voters will show their ongoing trust in the party at the polls.
Redistricting, sniping and name-calling
The decision by California voters last November to pass Proposition 50 and allow the state’s Democratic leaders to redraw the state’s congressional maps to favor Democratic candidates in a handful of additional districts — part of a wider redistricting war sparked by Trump — has intensified the primary races in those areas.
As an example, longtime incumbent Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) are now competing to represent the same redrawn swath of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and have bitterly attacked one another. Kim has called Calvert a “swampy,” “sleazy” and “corrupt” politician guilty of “sabotaging President Trump’s agenda.” Calvert has called Kim a “RINO,” or Republican In Name Only, and a “Trump-hating liberal.”
Democrats have also sniped at each other, including in the race to replace retiring Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) in his redrawn district in San Diego and Riverside counties — where Trump also holds an outsize presence.
Rep. Young Kim and Rep. Ken Calvert are opponents in a heated race in a newly redrawn congressional district.
(Associated Press)
Stutzman said it will be interesting to see how those primaries play out, but also how Democrats there and in other races perform in November — when Democrats are expected to perform well nationally given Trump’s lousy ratings, but Democrats in California could underperform thanks to statewide frustration with affordability, housing and homelessness here.
“People are like, ‘Eh, you know, yeah, Trump — but there’s some problems here,’” Stutzman said.
Hicks said he expects California voters to not only elect another Democratic governor, but to “push back on a Trump administration and congressional Republicans and Republicans around the country that have sought to rig the game in their favor,” including by “ensuring that we fulfill the promise of Proposition 50 by winning congressional seats and retaking the House of Representatives.”
He said the current political moment “can feel like a pressure cooker,” but Californians will “continue to adapt and overcome and be resilient, just as they always have been.”
Pack up the car and get ready for temperatures in the upper 80s this coming weekend in Clovis and Fresno, where CIF state championships will be held in track and field and boys’ volleyball.
Buchanan High School is the site Friday and Saturday for the track championships, where City Section record-holder Lawrence Kensinger will try to win a state title in the shotput after his astonishing mark of 65-11 at the City finals broke a record established in 1973. Running events begin at 5 p.m. Friday to qualify for Saturday’s finals.
Servite sprinters will try to put on a show in the 4×100 relay, the 100, 200 and 400 races. Sherman Oaks Notre Dame high jumper JJ Harel will try to defend his state title. At the Southern Section finals, he cleared a career-best 7-1.
Fresno City College is the site for the volleyball championships on Saturday.
Tickets are available only through gofan.co.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
May 23 (UPI) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday declared a state of emergency in Orange County, Calif., in response to a hazardous chemical incident there.
Residents and businesses started to be evacuated on Friday afternoon after a tank containing methyl methacrylate in Garden Grove, Calif., at the GKN Aerospace manufacturing plant started to leak vapor, KABC and The Orange County Register reported.
The tank started to heat on Thursday, started to bulge and reached what is called a “boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion,” Craig Covey, an Orange County Fire Authority division chief, told The Los Angeles Times.
More than 44,000 people have been evacuated from the area because officials are concerned that the tank could either explode or fail and begin to leak, though they said if the tank leaks — which is also bad — it means the chemical at least would no longer be at risk of igniting.
“The safety of Orange County residents is the top priority,” Newsom said in a statement.
“We are mobilizing every state resource available to support local responders and make sure the community has what they need to stay safe,” he said.
Methyl metacrylate, or MMA, is stored in liquid form and is used to make plastics.
The tank holds about 7,000 gallons of the chemical, which if it gets into the air can be toxic to people at high concentrations.
The tank also is surrounded by several others containing fuel and other chemicals, which has especially raised concern among the first responders because if it explodes, the others around it may ignite, as well.
If the tank fails and leaks, it will spread thousands of gallons of the chemical through a parking lot and the entire surrounding area, which also poses potential health and safety risks for nearby people.
The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said that it is coordinating resources between state and local partners to be sure that first responders “have all the resources necessary to safely respond to this dynamic situation.”
Newsom encouraged Orange County residents, and especially those in Garden Grove, to pay attention to potential evacuation requests as the situation continues to develop.
Kevin Warsh takes the oath of office as he is sworn-in as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve by Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas in the East Room of the White House on Friday. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo
CLOVIS, Calif. — In the waning days before California’s primary election, the two top Republicans running for California governor delivered closing arguments in front of a friendly Central Valley audience Friday evening.
Hilton criticized Newsom’s new $20-million program to provide free diapers for families of newborn babies, referring to the outgoing governor as “the great loaded diaper of California himself.”
Earlier this year, Hilton and Bianco topped the governor’s race polls as a packed field of Democrats split many of the state’s liberal voters. Under California’s “jungle primary” system, where the top two candidates advance from the primary to the general election regardless of political affiliation, that led to fleeting hope among Republicans that the two candidates could shut Democratic candidates out of the November election.
“That idea was always a fantasy,” Hilton wrote in an op-ed published in the New York Post earlier this week in which he urged Bianco to drop out of the race “for the sake of the state we both love.”
“Steve, it is time for you to drop out,” Bianco retorted in a video posted to social media soon after. “In no world, no world does Steve Hilton beat a Democrat in November.”
After winning an endorsement from President Trump in early April, Hilton has steadily outpaced Bianco in polls. A poll commissioned by the California Democratic Party released last week showed Hilton leading the field with support from 22% of likely voters, followed by Democrat and former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra with 21%. Bianco was at 10%, down from 15% in a previous poll conducted two weeks prior.
Still, Bianco, the two-term sheriff of California’s fourth most populous county, is a favorite of many Republicans in the state and won more support from delegates during the party’s recent endorsing convention than Hilton, though neither reached the necessary 60% to win the party backing.
While the two candidates have needled each other with personal digs and insults throughout much of the campaign, they appeared to set that energy aside during the Clovis forum and even traded some compliments. Hilton praised “sheriffs like Chad who actually understand what public safety looks like” while Bianco acknowledged that his opponent “should be very proud” to have Trump’s endorsement.
State Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), who moderated the more than 90-minute event, praised their “extraordinary civility” before she pressured each to commit to backing whichever Republican makes it through the June 2 primary — or if they both advance, continue to focus on policy debates over attacks.
The forum was hosted by the Fresno County & City Republican Women Federated as part of a fundraiser and dinner honoring the upcoming 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. About 450 attendees were served dishes inspired by presidential favorites including sirloin steak for Theodore Roosevelt, a chopped salad from Chasen’s, a favorite Los Angeles eatery for Ronald Reagan, and a chocolate pie with cherry vanilla ice cream for Trump.
The Central Valley stretches from Bakersfield to Redding and is home to some of the nation’s most lucrative farmland. It also includes the heart of California oil country in Kern County. Yet residents feel largely neglected by statewide politicians who are more drawn to the ample votes and wealthy donors in Southern California and the Bay Area.
“We are the breadbasket of the world but we’ve been overlooked for too long,” said Andrea Shabaglian, a vice president of the Fresno Republican women’s group. “When gubernatorial candidates come here to sit down and listen to our communities, they realize that a stronger Valley means a stronger California.”
Though he lost California handily to former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, Trump dominated in the state’s midsection. Even in Fresno County, where the Republican forum was held, Trump beat Harris by a four percentage point margin despite Democratic voters slightly outnumbering Republicans.
“We need a Republican in office because California is a mess. I mean, anybody with common sense can see that,” said LuAnne Pinedo-Madden, a retiree living in the Sierra foothill community of Coarsegold who listed transgender girls being allowed to compete in girls’ sports and government corruption as her top concerns.
Pinedo-Madden said she was “pretty sure” she had decided which of the Republican candidates to vote for but declined to say whom. “I feel that if we don’t get a Republican in office, we’re looking at moving” to Utah, Idaho or Nevada, she said. “We can’t take this anymore.”
Bianco and Hilton spoke about their plans to improve public safety, small businesses, homeowner’s insurance and water management, a crucial issue for the conservative-leaning owners of vast swaths of California’s agricultural heartland.
Signs along the major highways that straddle California’s Central Valley proclaim that “Food grows where water flows” and criticize Newsom for allowing water to flow into the ocean instead of capturing and storing more of it for farming.
Both of the GOP candidates described their visions for the state, which include building new dams and raising existing ones to store more water.
“We don’t have the water problem. We have a water management problem,” Bianco said before falsely arguing that “we get more water every single year than any other state in the country” and that California has “never, ever, ever been in a drought.”
“The water will be flowing to our farmers, the oil will be flowing to our refineries, the forests will be managed, the timber will be harvested” and used to build new single-family homes, Hilton said. “We’ve got the best weather, we’ve got the best people, we’ve got the best farmers, we’ve got everything we need to make this place amazing, except a good governor. Very soon we’ll have that as well.”
Though a Republican governor would likely face a hostile Legislature intent on blocking many priorities, Bianco and Hilton both promised sweeping cuts and cutbacks of state agencies. Both pledged on Friday to replace every member of the state’s parole review board, which drew criticism in February when it granted elderly parole to a man convicted of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation in 1999.
“California criminal justice is absolutely broken and it was forced upon us in the name of reform. What I’m going to do is make it a crime to hear the word reform again, because we lost track of what that word even means,” Bianco said.
He also pledged to eliminate laws and environmental regulators often blamed for slowing housing development: the California Environmental Quality Act, the California Coastal Commission and the state Air Resources Board.
Though his opponent has the coveted Trump endorsement, Bianco argued that it will hurt Hilton’s chances of winning the general election. The Republican president has never been popular in deep-blue California; just 25% of adults in the state approved of Trump’s performance according to a February survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.
“Steve should rightfully be proud of being endorsed by President Trump [but] we have to actually realize, is that a good thing in California? It’s a good thing in this room,” Bianco said as the crowd cheered at the mention of the president’s name. “We have to realize strategically that President Trump ran three elections in this state, and he lost 60-40 in all three of them.”
The Riverside sheriff argued he is “the only person that can actually sway Democrats to vote for a Republican across party lines on a public safety platform.”
MINNEAPOLIS — A judge on Thursday handed down an extraordinary prison sentence — nearly 42 years — to the former leader of a Minnesota nonprofit who was convicted in a staggering $250-million fraud case that helped ignite an immigration crackdown by the Trump administration.
Aimee Bock ran Feeding Our Future, which had claimed it helped provide millions of meals to children in need during the pandemic. The U.S. Justice Department, however, said she was atop the “single largest COVID-19 fraud scheme in the country.”
“I understand I failed. I failed the public, my family, everyone,” Bock said in federal court.
President Trump used the fraud cases against Bock and many others to initially justify a massive surge of federal officers to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area last winter, leading to a pushback by residents and the deaths of two people.
“Feeding Our Future operated like a cash pipeline, open to anyone willing to submit fraudulent claims and pay kickbacks,” prosecutors said in a court filing.
Bock had long proclaimed her innocence but was convicted last year of conspiracy, fraud and bribery.
“This case has changed our state forever,” Joe Thompson, formerly the lead prosecutor in the case, said outside the courtroom. “Aimee Bock did everything she could to earn this long sentence.”
The nonprofit sat atop a fraud network that included a web of partner organizations, phony distribution sites, kickbacks and fake lists of children supposedly being fed, prosecutors say. Dozens of people, many from the state’s large Somali community, have been convicted in a series of overlapping food fraud cases that have spent years in the courts.
Bock and co-conspirators enriched themselves with international travel, real estate purchases, luxury vehicles and other lavish spending, the government said.
Bock’s lawyer, Kenneth Udoibok, argued for no more than three years in prison, saying she had provided key information to investigators. He argued that Bock had been unfairly painted as the mastermind and insisted that two co-defendants were responsible for running the scams.
Meanwhile, authorities this week filed additional charges against others in a sprawling investigation into federal social service spending in Minnesota.
The targets include Fahima Mahamud, who was CEO of Future Leaders Early Learning Center, a childcare center in Minneapolis. Over three years, Mahamud’s organization was reimbursed approximately $4.6 million for services on behalf of people who didn’t make a required copayment, prosecutors allege.
A message seeking comment from her lawyer was not immediately returned Thursday. Mahamud was charged separately in February with fraud related to meals. She has pleaded not guilty.
Two other people were charged with conspiring to get $975,000 in Medicaid subsidies for housing services that were not provided. They’re expected to plead guilty in June, according to a court filing.
Two additional people were accused of receiving $21.1 million by billing Medicaid for autism therapy that was either unnecessary or not provided. Investigators said the two paid families as much as $1,500 per child per month to add their names to the program and get reimbursement.
Trump, who has long derided Somalis, last year blasted the state as “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.” He also criticized the leadership of Gov. Tim Walz, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in the 2024 election.
“Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from,” Trump wrote on social media.
Bock is white and the U.S. Attorney’s Office says the overwhelming majority of defendants in the cases are of Somali descent. Most are U.S. citizens.
The immigration surge led to repeated protests and confrontations between residents and federal officers and resulted in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
California is facing a major vote in the days ahead — and no, it’s not who will be the next governor.
Regulators at the California Air Resources Board are set to decide on May 28 whether to approve the latest blueprint for limits on greenhouse gas emissions from major polluters through 2045, a program known as cap-and-invest. The update to the state’s signature climate program has Sacramento in a tizzy and seemingly no one is pleased with the proposal on the table.
California is one of a handful of states, and the first, to have an an enforceable annual limit on the emissions that change the climate.
After a January draft was criticized by both industry and lawmakers over concerns that capping emissions too much and too quickly would drive up already soaring energy costs, CARB went back to the drawing board and came up with the latest iteration, unveiled in April. But opponents now say the plan kowtows to oil and gas interests who are lobbying hard for concessions, citing an already unstable state and international energy market.
The program works by setting a limit on the greenhouse gases that industries can emit in California. Companies must obtain credits, or allowances, for every ton they release, with the total number of allowances declining over time, consistent with what scientists say actually addresses climate change. The auctions for unused allowances generate billions of dollars in revenue for the state each year that fund clean energy, clean water and other key climate programs.
This year’s original draft sought to remove 118 million allowances from the market by 2030, which it identified as the minimum that must be retired to meet the state’s ambitious climate goals. But the April revision upends that, instead creating a new pool of 118 million “compliance instruments” — defined as allowances or offset credits — above the cap that companies can earn if they invest in decarbonization projects.
“The whole goal of the cap is to lower emissions over time,” said Mary Creasman, chief executive of the nonprofit California Environmental Voters. “To then allow pollution above the cap is kind of blowing up the program.”
CARB maintains that this change still cuts the emissions coming from California, because the new instruments enter the market only “if they’re applied for, are approved, and deliver verified greenhouse gas emissions reductions.” And the proposal still results in an 11% cap decline year over year through 2030, and 7% from 2031 to 2045, said spokeswoman Lindsay Buckley.
The move would also significantly reduce cap-and-invest’s revenue, according to an analysis from the Legislative Analyst’s Office. It found that the new plan would result in a loss of $2 billion, or roughly 50% less money per year for the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, than it has received through the program in recent years.
Many of the lawmakers who voted to reauthorize the program last year are also concerned. Nearly 30 Democrats signed a recent letter urging the air board to “push back on pressure from an oil industry that is making hundreds of billions in wartime profits.”
The fossil fuel industry has indeed lobbied heavily against requirements that it pollute less, spending a record $10.3 million in the first quarter of this year to influence state policy around cap-and-invest and other climate and energy issues, state records show. Among them are the Western States Petroleum Assn., Chevron and Phillips 66, which have argued that lowering the pollution cap will drive up gasoline prices and push more refineries out of the state.
But even they are not thrilled with the latest iteration of the cap-and-invest plan.
“We need to continue to be competitive with other refineries throughout the world, and while there are some very short-term changes within the [revised package], it still doesn’t have the long-term certainty that will drive investment,” said Jodie Muller, WSPA’s chief executive. Muller said she’d like to see the new decarbonization incentive program extended beyond 2030 and eligibility expanded to include additional activities, such as refinery maintenance programs.
“It’s important that we get this right,” she said.
More California climate news
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently unveiled his revised $350-billion budget proposal, which came with an unexpected $16.8-billion increase in tax revenue largely attributed to the success of artificial intelligence companies. Among the plan’s big wins and losses are boosted funding for public schools and higher health premiums for undocumented immigrants.
On the environment, the plan broadly maintains funding and policy support for climate commitments, such as a $200-million incentive program for passenger electric vehicles designed to make up for federal tax credits canceled by the Trump administration. It also includes a new $100-million disaster rebuilding fund to help wildfire survivors rebuild their homes.
But the plan does not include major new spending on the environment, in part due to the ongoing restructuring of cap-and-invest, the state’s main climate funding source. Some environmental groups said the revised budget doesn’t do enough to support California’s clean energy transition or hold oil and gas companies accountable for their role in the climate crisis.
Katelyn Roedner Sutter of the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund urged lawmakers to prioritize proven climate investments in the final budget agreement, such as virtual power plants and incentives for zero-emission delivery trucks. “The actions we take over the next decade are vital to preventing the worst possible scenarios for our kids’ future,” she said.
A few more things
Speaking of the governor’s race, California Resources Corp., one of the state’s top oil producers, just made a hefty $500,000 contribution to an independent campaign committee supporting leading Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, Politico reported. Becerra has already been criticized for accepting a $39,200 donation from Chevron, while opponents Tom Steyer and Katie Porter have both pledged not to accept contributions from fossil fuel companies.
Fervo Energy, a Houston-based geothermal developer with a major Google project in Utah, raised $1.89 billion in an initial public offering this month. The company’s $7.7-billion valuation signals growing investor appetite for energy companies amid soaring demand for electricity fueled by the growth of AI, the Wall Street Journal said. Geothermal technology taps into pockets of steam and hot water rising from the center of the earth, which is then used to spin turbines to generate power.
Los Angeles is gearing up for its role as a host city of the 2026 World Cup, which will be held in 16 stadiums across Canada, the U.S. and Mexico beginning in mid-June. But experts told my colleague Blanca Begert that the tournament’s expansion will make it “the most emissions-intensive World Cup that we’ve ever seen,” in part because fans and players will have to traverse the three countries to watch the games. Jet exhaust is a major contributor to climate change, representing 3% to 4% of all warming. It is the second of our stories examining the environmental implications of the coming World Cup.
The race is dominated by just-under-the-wire releases, with three of the seven projected nominees dropping this month (the end of the eligibility window is May 31).
Matt Roush says, “Star-powered late arrivals ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’ (with Sally Field, Lewis Pullman and the voice of Alfred Molina — as an octopus!) and ‘Miss You, Love You’ (with Allison Janney and Andrew Rannells) suddenly make this category a bit more interesting than usual.”
Trey Mangum says of the runaway No. 1 pick, “Dropping just in time is Netflix’s ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures,’ anchored by Sally Field and an absolute shoo-in.”
While several panelists continue to plead ignorance as to what, exactly, makes a movie debuting on television a TV movie or not a TV movie, some find titles to champion.
“This category continually confounds me, but I have to admit I still love a good, weird, chaotic stoner comedy despite having aged out of that demo,” says a somewhat responsible-sounding Tracy Brown, definitely not typing her comment at a Taco Bell. “All that is to say, I was charmed by ‘Pizza Movie,’ my dark horse pick.”
“Expect to see ‘Deep Cover,’ ‘Miss You, Love You,’ ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures,’ ‘Straw’ and ‘Swiped’ in the running. And what qualifies as a TV movie in 2026, when TV and film mediums are beyond fluid? No idea. I’m just here to blurb.”
“Vince Vaughn’s lightweight culinary comedy, ‘Nonnas,’ managed to earn a nomination for Netflix in 2025. Does that mean voters will be twice as likely to put Hulu’s ‘Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice’ — in which the actor plays two versions of the titular Nick — on their ballot?”
Los Angeles Times
Tracy Brown
1. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” 2. “Miss You, Love You” 3. “Deep Cover” 4. “Jack Ryan Ghost War” 5. “Pizza Movie”
“This category continually confounds me, but I have to admit I still love a good, weird, chaotic stoner comedy despite having aged out of that demo. All that is to say, I was charmed by ‘Pizza Movie,’ my dark horse pick. ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’ is the likely front–runner but I wouldn’t count ‘Deep Cover’ out.”
Blavity
Trey Mangum
1. “Heads of State” 2. “Deep Cover” 3. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” 4. “Swiped” 5. “People We Meet on Vacation”
“Dropping just in time is Netflix’s ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures,’ anchored by Sally Field and an absolute shoo-in. Then there’s last year’s ‘Deep Cover,’ which is buoyed by the likes of Orlando Bloom and Bryce Dallas Howard.”
TV Insider
Matt Roush
1. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” 2. “Miss You, Love You” 3. “Jack Ryan Ghost War” 4. “Deep Cover” 5. “The Best You Can”
“Star-powered late arrivals ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’ (with Sally Field, Lewis Pullman and the voice of Alfred Molina — as an octopus!) and ‘Miss You, Love You’ (with Allison Janney and Andrew Rannells) suddenly make this category a bit more interesting than usual. A ‘Jack Ryan’ movie gets in by name recognition.”
Los Angeles Times
Glenn Whipp
1. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” 2. “Swiped” 3. “Deep Cover” 4. “Miss You, Love You” 5. “People We Meet on Vacation”
“Six years after ‘My Octopus Teacher,’ we find there’s still much to learn from eight-limbed marine mollusks in ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures.’ Shameless, yes, but also sweet.”
A few weeks ago, Argentine journalist Martín Caparrós recalled at an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of Spanish newspaper El País that Venezuela, in 1964, was the first place in the world to abolish the death penalty. These were the times of Marshal Juan Crisóstomo Falcón, and the word “federation” had become the epitome of the supposed solution to all the nation’s ills in a young, devastated, and empty republic.
Although this was true on paper, in practice we had Antonio Guzmán Blanco, trained in the federalist ranks and who became the supreme leader of the Liberal Cause, decreeing in 1872 the execution by firing squad of his former ally, the caudillo Matías Salazar. In less than a decade, this declaration of principles had been easily overturned by one of its promoters.
The self-proclaimed revolutions continued to undermine national life until Cipriano Castro and his crony Juan Vicente Gómez defeated them all and proclaimed the restoration of liberal principles. “New men, new ideals, new procedures,” declared the man who moved the presidential office from the Yellow House to Miraflores Palace. But, having consolidated his regime and enjoying his days for vanity and festive revelry, in 1907, amidst delirium and a display of brute force, he ordered the execution of his great opponent, General Antonio Paredes, once the Army frustrated a supposed new revolution.
After sending him to the firing squad, Castro did not remain in power for long. At the end of 1908, Gómez toppled him with a palace coup, justifying the murder of Paredes as the reason his former crony was never allowed to enter Venezuela again.
The Gómez regime (1908-1935) was cruel. It tortured and imprisoned its opponents. However, he was careful to avoid such incidents. He defeated them in prisons and in the military fray to maintain his sepulchral order. It wasn’t until the next military dictatorship in the 1950s that news emerged of what we might call summary executions of members of the Acción Democrática resistance and union leaders. Thus, Leonardo Ruiz Pineda, Antonio Pinto Salinas, and Luis Hurtado remained in the collective memory when neighborhoods were named after them. The tortures inflicted by the fearsome Seguridad Nacional or the days spent in the Guasina concentration camp became literature or anecdotes in a historical thread woven by this type of political violence.
Perhaps the great Venezuelan tragedy has not only been the repetition of violence, but the inability to fully transform its tragedies into republican memory.
Later, the great unifying word was Democracy. Under this system, the country had achieved greater pluralism, freedoms, and social development. That said, excesses were committed during the counterinsurgency campaign, and thus, among others, the names of Alberto Lovera and Jorge Rodríguez Sr. remained, cases that were openly denounced in the media and for which some form of justice was sought.
In the 1980s, we witnessed the extrajudicial killings known as the “false positives” of the El Amparo Massacre and the repressive chaos of El Caracazo, a moment when the system should have been more deeply confronted with its errors and adopted more profound forms of reparation. Although political violence did not disappear with democracy, it had ceased to be accepted as a natural aspect of public life. The problem was that many of its wounds were poorly healed, if at all, and festered into resentment.
The return of horror
The 1999 Constitution was born with the idea of refounding the Republic and making it “Bolivarian.” Initially, this meant defeating corruption, building a “participatory democracy,” and erasing all traces of what they began to call the “Fourth Republic.” This refounding ultimately meant reusing and multiplying the evils of the past and waging a systematic battle against democratic resistance.
The cruelty quickly became apparent: the impunity and flippant treatment of the April 11 murders; the shootings in Plaza Altamira in December of that same year; the political assassination of the controversial prosecutor Danilo Anderson and the subsequent witch hunt; the exponential increase in repression in 2014, 2017 and 2019, and the widespread fear following July 28, 2024. This cruelty is replete with numerous new stories of deaths under the indifference or custody of the State, from Franklin Brito to Fernando Albán, Raúl Baduel, Rodolfo González “El Aviador”, the extrajudicial executions, and the cases we still don’t know about.
The ordeal Carmen Navas endured to learn about her son, Víctor Hugo Quero, and the cruelty with which his death was concealed have shaken Venezuelan society, which sees mothers as its embodiment of grief and national outrage, and which finds in women its greatest source of peaceful resistance.
As an old folk song, collected by Aquiles Nazoa and sung by Simón Díaz in his second volume of Tonadas (1976): “Little girl who embroiders the white cloth, little girl who weaves on your loom, embroider for me the map of Venezuela and a little handkerchief to cry with.” Perhaps the great Venezuelan tragedy has not only been the repetition of violence, but the inability to fully transform its tragedies into republican memory.
Every time pain becomes merely an anecdote or a slogan, the country remains haunted by the same monsters and ghosts. But, just as we have had this tradition of assassination and political cruelty, which today are multiplied in family tragedy and shared horror, on each occasion Venezuelans have been deeply moved by injustice, and this has led us to mobilize to transform darkness into brighter moments for our republic. May the future be not only bright, but much more lasting.
SACRAMENTO — Human rights advocates on Tuesday rallied outside the state Capitol to push back on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget plan to reduce state-sponsored healthcare coverage for undocumented immigrants.
“We are here to demand a budget that protects California’s values,” said Kiran Savage-Sangwan, executive director of California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. “We are fighting for a budget that rejects Medi-Cal cuts, seeks new revenues and strengthens our safety net reserve to keep families whole.”
Newsom last week unveiled his revised budget proposal, which would further move away from his previous policy to provide free healthcare coverage to all low-income undocumented immigrants.
His proposal would require monthly premiums for undocumented immigrants receiving coverage from Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the federal Medicaid program. It would also continue to block new adult applications, a cutback imposed last year.
The governor has explained that his original policy was more costly than expected and that difficult decisions must be made as the state could soon face an economic downturn.
Speakers at Tuesday’s rally argued this was unacceptable.
The cuts would force many immigrants to choose between putting food on the table or visiting a doctor, said Savage-Sangwan. She said certain groups, including refugees, older adults and those with disabilities, would be left especially vulnerable.
“These are the kinds of actions we would expect from a federal government that scapegoats immigrants and sends violent ICE forces to terrorize our community,” she said. “Instead, these proposals were made by our own governor in a state that claims to value immigrant communities. We know California is better than this.”
The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the rally.
The event drew about 100 attendees, including Anahi Araiza, a policy researcher with Imperial Valley Equity and Justice. She told The Times that many immigrants in their community struggle to afford medical care and subsequently put off doctor visits.
“They wait until it’s an absolute emergency,” she said. “We’ve heard stories where people delay care and then get diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.”
The event was supported by several organizations, including California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, Survivors of Torture International, Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action, Health4All Coalition, and Organizing Rooted in Abolition, Liberation and Empowerment.
One man carried a large sign with an image of the Virgin Mary that read “Safety Net For All.” Other marchers donned flowing monarch butterfly wings. The orange-and-black insect became a symbol for the pro-migrant movement years ago because it travels long distances between Mexico and the United States.
Meanwhile, another group gathered outside the Capitol for a news conference to raise awareness about the instability caused by federal healthcare cuts.
Assemblymembers Patrick Ahrens (D-Sunnyvale), Robert Garcia (D-Rancho Cucamonga) and Tina S. McKinnor (D-Hawthorne) joined several doctors and nurses to call for a $500-million state investment into public hospitals.
“Public hospitals are the backbone of our healthcare system,” Ahrens said. “It is estimated that federal cuts will strip over $3 billion a year from the California public hospital system — we cannot balance our budget on the backs of the most vulnerable Californians.”
The Republican-backed “Big Beautiful Bill” signed by President Trump last year shifted federal funding away from safety-net programs and toward tax cuts and immigration enforcement. During a legislative hearing this year, healthcare professionals warned state lawmakers the cuts would harm all patients, including those with private insurance.
WASHINGTON — The NAACP is calling on Black athletes and fans to boycott the athletic programs of public universities in states that are taking steps that the nation’s oldest civil rights group says are restricting Black voting rights.
Launched on Tuesday, the “Out of Bounds” campaign urges prospective Black athletes, their families, alumni and fans to “withhold athletic and financial support” from major public universities in states that “have moved to limit, weaken or erase Black voting representation.”
If Black athletes participate in the boycott, it could deplete rosters for powerhouse football and basketball programs across the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference.
The NAACP is among groups responding to a wave of gerrymandering in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling that winnowed a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The boycott comes as civil rights activists have mobilized across the South to protest redistricting plans by Republican state legislatures that eliminate majority-Black congressional districts after the high court’s ruling. Activists have looked for pressure points to dissuade GOP-led states from redistricting maps, including calls for mass protests and economic boycotts.
“Across the South, Black athletes have helped build some of the most profitable college athletic programs in America,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson. Johnson noted that the programs “generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, national television value, alumni donations, merchandising sales, ticket sales, and brand equity — much of it powered by Black football and basketball talent.”
The NAACP’s campaign calls out Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina as states to boycott, arguing that the athletic programs of those states’ flagship universities are especially reliant on Black athletic talent and should protect Black political interests.
“Black athletes should not be asked to generate wealth, prestige, and power for state institutions while those same states strip political power from Black communities,” said Johnson.
Black lawmakers themselves are also putting pressure on athletic leagues to take action against Republican-led states that may redistrict longtime Black members of Congress.
The Congressional Black Caucus on Monday sent a letter to the commissioners of the SEC and ACC athletic conferences, as well as NCAA President Charlie Baker, that its members will oppose the SCORE Act, a bill to standardize athletes’ contracting rights across the country, unless conference leaders oppose GOP-led redistricting efforts in states that include major conference members.
“The Congressional Black Caucus believes institutions that profit from Black talent and Black communities have a responsibility to stand with those communities when their fundamental rights are under attack,” the CBC said in a Monday statement. “Silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality — it is complicity.”
