Denise Welch is leaving Loose Women(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
Denise Welch has announced that she is leaving Loose Women, sparking a flood of support from fans. The 68-year-old has been a staple of the ITV panel for decades, but confirmed that she would be stepping down in a video shared on Instagram earlier today.
Sharing the reason for her departure – which came days after Nadia Sawalha spoke about her own exit – she told followers that she wanted to focus on her acting career, describing it as her ‘first love and the thing she’s best at.”
In a video posted on Instagram she said: “I’m leaving Loose Women after the best part of 25 years, off and on. I did leave for about seven years and went back in 2018. This show has been part of mine, and my family’s life, for nearly a quarter of a century.
“I have the most wonderful, wonderful memories and it’s just that acting has always been my first love and, I think, the thing I’m best at.
“At the moment, I’m having the most wonderful opportunities coming my way and I’m grabbing them by the you-know-whats and running with it for this new chapter of my life.
“And so I just wanted to say that in person to thank all of the people who have shared my stories with me. I’ve shared my life with you – the good, the bad and the ugly. I’m very marmite but I cherish all the comments, good or bad, that I’ve had over the years.”
She added: “I just hope you wish me well for this new exciting chapter in my life. I’ll miss everybody but I will remain friends with the whole gang because, despite what you might read, we are a happy band of campers. Lots of love, thanks for sticking with me.”
Denise’s husband, Lincoln Townley, was among the first to share his support for her departure in the comments below. He proudly penned: “Grab those you know what’s darling you’re an incredibly strong talented sensational woman, the best is yet to come!”
Carol Vorderman commented: “Dens …… well that’s an era closing … you’ve been the beating heart of LW and I loved my 3 years with you there. You’re looking soooooooo well and happy and excited so here’s to your next chapter my lovely friend.”
“Nooooooo! Gutted to be honest! Going to really miss sharing the panel with you,” Katie Piper replied, as GK Barry added: “Denise I’m gonna be so sad not to be on the panel with you anymore you always brought so much joy to my day. Can’t wait to see you on our screens [sic].”
Denise made her debut as an official Loose Women panelist in 2005 alongside Kaye Adams, Coleen Nolan and a string of other notable faces. She took a step back from the series in 2013, before eventually returning in 2018.
In that time, she has shared the screen with Ruth Langsford, Christine Lampard, Andrea McLean, Oti Mabuse, Gloria Hunniford and many others.
She came to came in the early 80s before landing a coveted role in Byker Grove as Polly Bell in 1990. Shortly after, she made the move over to Weatherfield, playing Rovers Return landlady Natalie Barnes in Coronation Street.
Following her exit from the soap in 2000, she appeared in Down to Earth, Waterloo Road, Hollyoaks, Emmerdale and EastEnders. Aside from acting, she also won Celebrity Big Brother in 2012 and competed in Dancing on Ice.
Although Denise remained coy about her upcoming acting opportunities, an insider explained that she was taking ‘a massive leap of faith’.
Describing her decision as ‘the end of an era’, they told the Sun: “She is taking a massive leap of faith and going to focus solely on her acting which, really, has always been her first great love.
“Over the past 18 months she has also won herself a whole new fan base with Gen Z, and the LGBTQIA+ community especially.”
“This has seen her being offered high-fashion photoshoots, and given new social media opportunities,” they added. “Now is the time to pursue her dreams, although she will be devastated to wave goodbye to her Loose friends and colleagues. She will be sorely missed.”
After, well, the world seemingly fell in line with his long-planned $110-billion merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery in recent weeks, a dozen state attorneys general, led by California’s Rob Bonta, have stymied the deal with a so-far-successful lawsuit that has put the whole thing on ice.
That has Paramount, and presumably Ellison, big mad-sad. So much so that a company lawyer this week suggested Paramount could move out of California if Bonta doesn’t back down.
For those of us in the cheap seats, the whole plot of the Paramount merger has become so convoluted and nebulous it‘s hard to follow exactly what’s going on, and what it all means.
So let’s pull back, and take a big-picture look at what’s happening and what’s at stake — legally and politically.
Legally pretty good
First, the recap: Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery have been trying to merge since 2024. European regulators, along with those in other countries, cleared the deal, with some conditions in place.
Then, recently, 12 state attorneys general led by Bonta sued to stop the merger on antitrust grounds and won a temporary restraining order.
So why did the states sue?
Trump’s idea of regulation seems to be to OK anything he likes, or that personally benefits him. Therefore, “the states have come in and played a really important role, since the DOJ has basically walked away from a lot of interest enforcement,” said George Hay, a professor of law and economics at Cornell University. “The states take this really seriously.”
While there have been lots of angles on this merger in the media (including concerns over foreign investments), the antitrust lawsuit is really fairly narrow — the main argument is that the merger will “kill off theaters,” Hay said, and hurt consumers and creators.
Bonta has pointed out that after the merger, the new Paramount would control about 27% of films released into theaters in the U.S., along with basic cable distribution.
David Ellison, chairman and chief executive of Paramount Skydance, speaks at a New York event in April.
(Noam Galai / Getty Images for Paramount)
On those narrow grounds, “the states have done a good job putting together a credible case, a case that a court’s likely to regard as being plausible,” said William Kovacic, a professor of law at George Washington University.
While the lawsuit is only in preliminary stages, Harry First, a professor of law emeritus at New York University and an expert in antitrust matters, said it has a “decent chance of succeeding.”
That has to worry Paramount, because a long, drawn-out court case is bad for business.
“If you go through appeals, it means that your transaction hangs suspended in the air for a couple of years,” Kovacic said. “It creates all sorts of uncertainty about the future direction of the business.”
The issues that don’t matter, but actually do
Paramount also has PR headaches involved with this deal, though they largely lie outside the scope of the legal action.
Whether or not CNN would retain its editorial independence has been a huge topic of debate. Ellison’s dad, billionaire Larry Ellison, is a huge F.O.T. (friend of Trump) with a hard-right tilt.
The younger Ellison has already been accused of destroying the integrity of “60 Minutes.” Many fear (or hope, depending on their politics) that he will do the same to CNN. But that’s not really an antitrust issue, although Ellison has tried to claim this is political persecution by liberal states.
There’s also been talk from labor unions and some politicians that the merger will hurt workers, which seems like a reasonable fear. In general, First points out, less competition leads to more power for the remaining owners to set the terms of employment.
Again, that’s not what the lawsuit is actually focused on.
Politics front and center
But both of those issues have become popular talking points, more prevalent than the actual issues in the lawsuit.
That reality is creating a political headache for some big political heads, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and governor-in-waiting Xavier Becerra, who are increasingly receiving pressure from Paramount to make this all go away.
That thumbscrew campaign lost all subtlety this week at a Politico event in Sacramento, where Paramount’s chief legal officer Makan Delrahim said the company would consider leaving the state.
“If I was governor, I wouldn’t want to lose Hollywood from the state. I wouldn’t want to lose a major company like Paramount to another state,” Delrahim said.
Both Newsom and Becerra in recent days have indicated they would prefer some sort of settlement, avoiding a long legal battle that could kill the deal entirely.
NYU’s First sees that as “the weakness of Democrats who say they don’t like concentration and they don’t like concentration in the media and they don’t like companies getting bigger and bigger, and then they fold when the companies have political power.”
Let’s look at that power more closely, though, because if you recall, there are 11 other attorneys general in this suit, including from powerful states such as New York and Colorado.
That means “California doesn’t necessarily dictate what will happen to the case,” Hay said. “It may well be Ellison will twist Newsom’s arm to get Newsom to twist the attorney general’s arm to call off the case or take a very favorable settlement, but it doesn’t kick the other states out.”
While Bonta, at the same Politico event, said he’s had private conversations with Newsom on the issue, he also doesn’t seem interested in folding.
“In a span of weeks, Paramount agreed to halt the merger until a court decision or until June 2027, asked for a November trial, and is now back with another attempt to blackmail the state into letting an illegal deal through. Paramount has lost the plot as it continues to lose in court. It didn’t work the first time — on the eve of our July lawsuit — and it won’t work this time,” Bonta said in a recent social media post.
Don’t forget, Bonta has his own aspirations for governor, and Hay points out that AGs often see antitrust cases as “a political stepping stone” because they are popular with voters.
So what’s next?
As the lawsuit is currently written, First and other legal experts agreed this would be a hard case to settle because it doesn’t leave a lot of room for dealmaking.
That, of course, doesn’t mean a deal couldn’t be done.
But it’s unlikely Ellison will force California to crumble with so many other states in the game, no matter how many threats Paramount drops, and unlikely the merger will escape this lawsuit without concessions that the attorneys general can cite as victories.
Gaza City, Gaza Strip – Sohair al-Bordani was displaced and living in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp, trying to take care of her four children, as war raged all around her.
And while she survived, her 10-year marriage has not. Al-Bordani, 30, explained that the arguments between her and her ex-husband had intensified since the war began in 2023, as the stress of merely existing in Gaza weighed down on them.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
But al-Bordani encountered a problem. Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza – in which Israel has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians – has devastated many aspects of the Palestinian enclave’s administration, including its legal system.
To get a court-ordered divorce, with the accompanying financial claims she would be eligible for, al-Bordani would have to go before a religious court and establish her case. She said that she initiated legal proceedings in February 2025. But, because of delays to the judicial process brought on by the war, the case dragged on.
And so, al-Bordani chose the speedier option available to her – khulu, a form of divorce initiated by the wife that can involve relinquishing financial rights. In her case, this meant that she returned her dowry to her ex-husband and gave up the financial support she would have been entitled to.
“I gave up everything because obtaining my rights under these circumstances had become extremely difficult,” al-Bordani said. “I only wanted to find peace and start a new life away from everything I experienced during that period.”
Legal delays
Al-Bordani’s story reflects the experience of many women in Gaza who have found themselves trapped between delayed legal cases and a war that has disrupted access to the justice system, leaving decisions that are supposed to determine their futures suspended until conditions allow courts to resume their work fully.
Some personal status cases – including divorces – have reached Gaza’s religious courts, which oversee the matters.
According to Sheikh Hassan al-Jojo, the head of the Supreme Council of Sharia Judiciary in Gaza, courts have handled more than 8,700 divorce cases from the beginning of the war in October 2023 until the end of May.
That is despite the many challenges they face, including – but not limited to – damage to court buildings and shortages of judges and other staff.
Al-Jojo also said that courts had returned to near-full judicial work, while services continued even during periods when court buildings were closed.
But he also pointed out that the courts were operating with severely limited resources. Each court – according to al-Jojo – has only one computer, while repeated power cuts, shortages of printed materials and a lack of basic office supplies continue to affect their work.
“Essential services, including marriages and divorces, and other procedures needed by citizens, did not stop,” al-Jojo said. “But the priority at this stage is to keep providing the service, rather than improving it.”
Troubling consequences
Yet divorce figures alone do not reflect the full impact of the war on families. The delays in accessing the legal system have meant that women like al-Bordani have been unable to pursue their legal rights after separation, particularly in cases involving child custody, spousal and child maintenance, and other financial payments that are typically due to the wife.
Mohammad al-Talaa, a lawyer in Gaza, says that the war has significantly affected the functioning of judicial institutions, leading to the postponement of thousands of hearings and the suspension of many cases.
He added that thousands of files and documents have been lost due to Israeli bombing and the destruction of offices, making it difficult to prove rights, particularly in civil and property-related cases.
And with regard to personal status cases, al-Talaa pointed out that the suspension of enforcement departments in courts has left women entitled to payments without that financial support, and has also affected child visitation and custody cases, leaving some parents unable to implement decisions related to maintaining contact with their children.
The problems are not just legal. Al-Talaa explained that the continued delay in divorce and separation cases has left some women trapped in marriages they want to get out of. It has also prevented them from moving on with their lives, while delays in access to financial payments they are owed have increased the burden on families, and a lack of resolution on cases involving children has led to increased psychological stress for all involved, alongside the trauma caused by the war itself.
Suad al-Naami was not willing to deal with being stuck in limbo, and decided to get a khulu divorce even if it meant giving up on the rights a court-mandated divorce would have granted her.
The 22-year-old had only been married for five months, but with disputes with her ex-husband increasing, she left.
“I never imagined my married life would begin this way,” al-Naami said. “I hoped we would have a home and a stable life, but displacement and living in a tent made everything more difficult.”
For the young woman, the promise of a new start, amid all the destruction around her in Gaza, was better than a drawn-out case.
“Giving up on my rights was not an easy matter, but I felt that entering a long legal process and waiting for years would only increase my suffering,” al-Naami said. “I only wanted to end the disputes and start over, because staying in a relationship full of problems under these circumstances would have been harder than the decision to separate itself.”
Phoebe Litchfield shows off her incredible fielding ability by producing a brilliant stop on the boundary to prevent fellow Australian Meg Lanning from scoring a six to keep Sunrisers Leeds on top in their women’s Hundred match against Manchester Super Giants.
Saira Khan has candidly revealed why quit Loose Women as she claimed she was “treated unfairly” and received death threats during her time on the ITV chat show
14:58, 11 Aug 2026Updated 14:58, 11 Aug 2026
Saira Khan has opened up about her exit from Loose Women(Image: ITV)
Saira Khan has revealed why she really left Loose Women after Nadia Sawalha claimed she’s been dropped by ITV.
The former Apprentice star, 56, joined the ITV chat show in 2015 and spent five years debating live on air alongside the likes of Ruth Langsford, Coleen Nolan and Nadia Sawalha but eventually made the tough decision to leave the high-paying TV job after even her children had started to realise she had been treated “unfairly” during the height of her fame.
She said: “When you’re new, it’s really hard because it’s such a clique. You’ve got to prove yourself. But I aligned myself to Coleen and Ruth pretty quickly because I could relate to them. It was a hard decision to leave because I’d done it for a long time. No matter what you give to the media, you don’t get the thanks back, there’s no loyalty and you can be dropped. I saw people giving less but getting more. My kids said, ‘You’re not being treated fair, mum.’
“As a parent, I had to show that you don’t stick around. It doesn’t matter how good the job is. Financially, it was really hard to say goodbye to that.” Saira also claimed that because she was expected to be the one on the panel to talk about tough political subjects, she ended up receiving death threats.
She said: “The problem is, for someone like me, I then get stereotyped. ‘Oh, we’re talking about terrorism, bring Saira in, we’re talking about grooming gangs, bring her in.’ But I couldn’t do any of the fun stuff. So if you keep bringing me out talking about that stuff, that is stereotyping.
“I’d run two marathons, I like to snowboard, I’ve travelled around the world. None of that was ever explored. So people thought I was gobby and opinionated and a one-trick pony.
“I got death threats. Honestly, my husband was really scared for me. I got quite a few death threats and and I just said, ‘Steve, if I get shot the head for something I believe in, that’s my fate. I can’t do anything about that.”
Saira, who is married to Steve Hyde and has Zac, 18, as well as 15-year-old Amara with him, also co-hosted The Martin Lewis Money Show before going on to take part in in Dancing On Ice and Celebrity Big Brother during her her mainstream television career.
Elsewhere in the chat, Saira, who now focuses on managing her skincare business, admitted that she thrilled that neither of her children want to pursue a career in the spotlight after her own tumultuous experience.
Speaking on the Nolans Uncensored podcast, she explained: “Both of my kids have no interest in the media and I think it’s because of what they saw me go through. I’m really happy about that. The industry is changing, for me I’ve always seen it as a business and because it doesn’t see itself as a business, it’s not in such a great place right now.”
Saira’s frank comments come just days after Nadia Sawalha, also a long-serving panellist on Loose Women, spoke out about her lengthy absence from the show and threatened legal action, claiming ITV bullied her out of her job.
The former EastEnders star, who has not been seen on the show since April despite previously appearing up to three times a week for years, thinks she is being targeted for speaking out for Palestinian rights and was worried that police officers could come knocking on her door.
She told The Mirror: “I accept that there is a huge risk I will never work in television again.”
Colleagues have offered Nadia support, but she claimed many are too scared to do so publicly. She said two well-known faces at ITV reacted to an Instagram video she posted on her threat to sue the network.
But Nadia added: “I deleted it because I don’t want these people to be phased out. I feel sad that there is an atmosphere of fear that if they were to be seen to be supporting me, their career could be at risk. I don’t believe for one second the head of daytime wanted me off that show, I feel for her.”
SACRAMENTO — Say you want a new pair of running shoes, but you just can’t make up your mind. So you spend a solid week checking them out online, coming back to one pair on a particular site again and again.
When you’re finally ready to check out, you notice something upsetting — the price you saw on day one is now 20% higher. What the heck?
Welcome to the brave new world of surveillance pricing, where some companies are not just tracking your every move online but also purchasing deep-dive data into your life for a single purpose — to figure out the maximum you will pay for an item and jack up the price accordingly to squeeze every possible dollar out of every unwitting consumer.
It’s legal, and whether it’s good or bad “depends on which side of the transaction you’re on,” said Roger White, an economics professor at Whittier College.
For those of you who are really terrible at economics, we, the little people, are on the bad end of that deal.
“It is using your own personal data and your characteristics, your demographics, information about you, to set a different price based on the perceived willingness to pay, and that is causing Californians a potential chance of being gouged,” said state Assemblymember Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego).
Ward is trying to outlaw surveillance pricing in California with his AB 2564, which seems like a no-brainer if you actually care about affordability and your constituents. But he’s having a hard time getting his bill through the Legislature. In fact, he tried last year and failed.
But if surveillance pricing seems corrupt or unethical, get ready. Because retailers are getting ready — for artificial intelligence.
Right now, most surveillance pricing is relying on established data collection. That is about to get super-charged as AI goes further and further into sweeping up bits of information on every aspect of our lives, on and offline.
Did your car break down and you have to shop at home? Are you injured or have a medical condition that makes you desperate for comfy shoes? Did you just get a raise and maybe are in the mood to spend?
The amount of data that can be definitively known about your life is huge. The amount that can be inferred is even bigger. Imagine if artificial intelligence in real time, using every bit of information it can find, is basically working to squeeze every dime out of you, every day on every purchase — groceries, clothes, plane tickets, maybe even medicines.
“AI gives them powerful tools to do that, and they can basically use information almost instantaneously to set prices,” said Darrell M. West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy think tank.
Which makes regulating surveillance pricing now all the more important.
The big bad picture
White, the Whittier professor, sees an even bigger threat looming with surveillance pricing. He points out that income inequality in the United States has been increasing since the 1970s, and it is mostly rich people who control and own large retail endeavors.
If surveillance pricing is allowed to blossom unfettered, he’s concerned the rich will get richer by selling at higher prices, and everyone else will be paying so much to survive that the poor and middle class will suffer even further.
“This could lead to an acceleration of income inequality,” White said. “This could be a way for, sort of, the rich to benefit more,” leaving “the middle class and the poor potentially being even worse off.”
Immediate gouging, and long-term erosion of the already tenuous ability of the middle class and poorer people to survive. You’d think our state Legislature would be all over fixing this.
Other states have. In fact, about 20 states have some sort of law about “dynamic pricing,” a broader term for how retailers use data to set prices.
Just a few days ago, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed A4085 (the Fair Price Protection Act), which prohibits surveillance pricing for groceries.
New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Maryland also have laws on the issue, though some won’t take effect until next year.
“There are both Republicans and Democrats who are worried about these issues because they’re getting complaints from their own constituents,” West said.
But in California, the winds are blowing in favor of the big guys. While Ward is working through one colleague at a time trying to pass the measure, the lobbying pressure against it has been significant.
Retailers and others argue it could have unintended consequences, like preventing them from offering discounts to certain customers, or having loyalty programs.
C’mon. No one is coming for your coupons.
White, the economist, points out that companies are spending millions to implement surveillance pricing, and they aren’t doing it so they can slash prices and lose money.
“They won’t say this, but you know, the reality is that millions, if not billions, of dollars in inflated profit is on the line,” said Ward. “Unfortunately, that is coming at the expense of everyday Californians who are having that ripped out of their pocketbooks without them even knowing it.”
White put it even more bluntly.
“If you’re opposed to the Assembly bill, it seems that you are siding with the businesses, and if you’re in favor of it, then it seems that you’re siding with consumer protections.”
Ward is fighting an uphill battle, but he isn’t giving up. It’s about trying to “right the universe when it comes to fair pricing for consumers,” he told me.
“We need to go back to a place of a fair marketplace where you have an honest relationship between the consumer and the business and everybody is being treated the same,” he said.
It was early Wednesday morning when Edith Pfeffer and Carolyn Tallet became late-night TV stars, charming CNN hosts, producers and viewers alike with their earnest attempt to make sense of a mathematical snafu that had left the outcome of the Iowa caucuses hanging in the balance.
Pfeffer, who is chairwoman of the Clinton County Republican Central Committee, and Tallet, president of the Clinton County Republican Women’s Club, talked by phone with CNN hosts Wolf Blitzer and John King as the network tried to locate the final 3% of precinct tallies that would decide the winner of Iowa’s GOP presidential nominating contest.
The call resulted in eight minutes of hilarious, heartwarming television as the women tried to unscramble the math while King drew numbers on his special television screen and Blitzer pressed on for precision. (Watch the video below.)
Turns out Pfeffer had the missing tallies all night – they were phoned in less than an hour after the caucuses began, she said, but somehow weren’t counted by Republican Party officials.
Tallet told CNN that she learned just after midnight that the party was searching for the tallies, but couldn’t reach Pfeffer by phone.
“I knew they needed the information, and so I came to Edith’s home and pounded on the door and woke her up and got her up,” Tallet said.
“Do you know who carried this precinct?” King asked, referring to the precinct for which the state party said it had no votes. “…Who won?”
“Mitt Romney won with 51 votes,” Pfeffer said. “Rick Santorum and Ron Paul tied with 33 votes each.”
Double-checking, Blitzer asked Tallett and Pfeffer to give the totals for all precincts in Clinton County.
“Oh God, I added them up,” Pfeffer said, sparking giggles from the CNN crew offstage. “I added them up a couple times. I – oh, man.”
After they got the math all sorted out, Blitzer wanted to be sure he had the record straight.
“Just to be precise, we didn’t wake you up – the state chairs in Des Moines, they called you, they woke you up, is that right?”
“No!” Tallet said. “I woke her up…I was staying home watching CNN, waiting for the results, when I was told by the party. And so I came to wake up Edith, who didn’t answer her phone.”
The duo was such a hit that CNN called them back later in the night, once the results were official.
“I am just overwhelmed with all of this,” Pfeffer said. “I am just amazed because really and truly, my people did call this in tonight, and I don’t know where the glitch was…”
Pfeffer said she gave her county’s tallies to Romney campaign staff at the end of the night.
“And then I went to bed, and it’s been kind of interesting to wake up,“ she said.
Women displaced by Sudan’s war are speaking publicly about surviving rape by Rapid Support Forces fighters. UN investigators verified 546 incidents affecting at least 838 victims, warning the documented cases represent only the tip of the iceberg.
Eighty-three lawsuits filed against the Trump administration in 18 months, at a cost of more than $20 million.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced those stats this week, part of an annual report to the Legislature on how we’re spending a special fund set aside to combat President Trump’s overreach.
That doesn’t include more than 120 friend of the court briefs the Golden State has written in legal matters brought by others, or the multitude of cases in which the Trump administration has sued California and Bonta’s office is defending us.
That’s a whole lot of litigation. Is it worth it? Are we huffing and puffing for political points, or do all these lawsuits actually do something positive for the average Californian?
You get what you pay for
I’m going to sound like a bus bench ad for the legal profession, but, at this point, “the courts are standing as the only barrier to the president doing anything that the president wants to do,” Hiroshi Motomura, a professor of law at UCLA, told me.
And what the president apparently wants to do is make the poor and vulnerable poorer and more vulnerable. And don’t think there’s a middle-class exemption. In his second term, Trump has attacked healthcare coverage, special education, education in general, reproductive rights, gender rights, the environment, endangered species, immigrants and more.
“The disastrous impact of Trump’s lawlessness isn’t theoretical or hypothetical. It’s not imagined. It is real. It is hurting real people,” Bonta said. “It is hurting Californians, real families, real businesses, real communities every single day.”
You name it, if it’s not rich and connected, it’s probably under attack. President Lyndon B. Johnson launched a very different war on poverty in 1964 with social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Head Start. This new war on poverty seems intent on increasing it, not eradicating it.
It would be nearly impossible for the people affected by these attacks on government services to fight them on their own, said Richard Abel, a professor emeritus of law at UCLA and the author of multiple books on the Trump presidency.
“They don’t know why it’s happening,” he said. “They don’t have access to lawyers. Many of them are undocumented or afraid to mobilize the legal system.”
That leaves the states, which are often the only other entities that have a legal right to sue, because they too are being harmed by the cuts.
So yeah, our $20 million is well spent. Bonta said his legal work has protected about $207 billion in funding. But I’ll argue the true return on investment is California residents who have been protected in ways they don’t even realize.
Risks we don’t even realize
Take Massachusetts vs. Department of Agriculture, one of the cases California is involved in. This is Trump’s attempt to put new rules on USDA grants for food programs including emergency food assistance, school lunches and food stamps. It would tie compliance with his right-wing, discriminatory policies on immigration, gender ideology and diversity issues to receiving those funds.
Then there’s New York vs. Administration for Children & Families, in which Trump goes after child welfare funds; Washington vs. Department of Education, which attacks mental health grants that help hire school psychologists and counselors; and Illinois vs. Vought, which targets California and three other states run by Democrats for cuts to transportation and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for no other reason than politics, the states argue.
Food benefits, access to mental health care, lead poisoning prevention. Just a few more things most of us didn’t realize could be at risk for some of us.
In each of those cases, Bonta and the other Democratic attorneys general stopped the federal actions, even if only temporarily. Some of those cases are ongoing, but with restraining orders or injunctions in place.
Then there’s United States vs. Baass, Trump’s attempt to force Michelle Baass, the director of the California Department of Health Care Services, to turn over a bunch of applications for Medi-Cal benefits for the last five years so the federal government can go on a witch hunt for undocumented folks.
Supposedly these applications, which Baass and her agency were subpoenaed for, are needed for an immigration investigation in the Central Valley. California won in court in March, when a judge denied the federal government’s petition to enforce that subpoena.
Now, the feds are appealing to the 9th Circuit — and California continues to fight to protect the privacy and maybe even safety of the residents who just needed medical care, but could see their sensitive information, including addresses, turned over to immigration authorities if Trump had his way.
How could they possibly fight that on their own?
Then there’s a lawsuit in which Trump is trying to prevent California from continuing to give in-state tuition to Dreamers — undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as youngsters.
In battles such as that one, fought because it’s the right thing to do, Motomura sees a benefit greater than just protecting funding.
It forces us to push back against the federal government’s framing that immigration is “about invaders, you know, climbing walls,” Motomura said.
“This is about people who live in our communities,” he said. “And I think that when Bonta claims that space, he’s not just pushing back. He’s saying, ‘Let’s think about this in terms of building stronger communities,’ and I think that’s a significant shift.”
The rule of law may be battered and bruised, and even at times a bit hinky. But so far, it has held — in no small part because of Democratic attorneys general like Bonta who aren’t just filing lawsuits but have built the staffs and networks to do it effectively. It’s a much larger effort than we give it credit for, but one that has fundamentally protected our everyday lives so well that many have barely noticed the wolves at the door.
I’m sure there will be losses, wolves that crawl through windows, and we will all feel the bite of that. But 83 lawsuits will soon likely be 84, 94, whatever it takes to protect Californians.
Each one is a fight worth having, because every Californian is worth fighting for.
You’re reading the L.A. Times Politics newsletter
George Skelton and Michael Wilner cover the insights, legislation, players and politics you need to know. In your inbox Monday and Thursday mornings.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
Banjul, The Gambia – At dawn, before the heat settles over the coast, Fatou Jarjue waits for the tide to retreat.
She pulls on her gloves and socks, steps into the muddy edge of the Tanbi Wetland and pushes her wooden canoe through narrow channels surrounded by tangled mangrove roots. Inside the canoe sit empty pans waiting to be filled, not with oysters today, but with crabs hiding beneath the surface.
The life of this mother of one is inseparable from the wetland she navigates each day. The mangroves – salt-tolerant coastal trees that protect shorelines from erosion and flooding – provide the oysters, crabs and fish that sustain her family’s livelihood while serving as a natural barrier against erosion and flooding for her coastal community.
Her brother, Musa, trails behind in a smaller canoe whenever he can, keeping watch as she moves deeper into the mangrove channels. On days when he is busy elsewhere, Jarjue ventures into the wetland alone.
For generations, women around the Tanbi Wetland have depended on these waters for survival. Jarjue still does. But unlike previous generations, she also spends part of her time restoring the ecosystem that has sustained her family for decades.
Only months earlier, these waterways were filled with women collecting oysters attached to mangrove roots. With the arrival of The Gambia’s rainy season, oyster harvesting pauses, forcing many women to turn to crabs and fishing until the shellfish season reopens.
For the 34-year-old, the change in her daily catch is temporary. Her commitment to restoring the mangroves is not.
“I have restored more than 5,000 mangroves since last year,” she told Al Jazeera.
Raised in the mangroves
Jarjue grew up in Ndangan, a small settlement of about 300 people located roughly 2km (1.2 miles) from Banjul, the capital of The Gambia. Like many children in the community, she grew up with the rhythms of the wetland.
At just 12 years old, she began following her mother into the mangroves, learning how to harvest oysters and catch crabs and fish.
The forest was both a classroom and a source of income.
Over the years, Jarjue watched the environment around her change. Rising seas, coastal erosion and changing weather patterns began threatening the coastline her community depends on.
Instead of only taking from the wetland, she decided to help rebuild it.
Today, she returns regularly not only to harvest but also to inspect young seedlings, replace damaged plants and monitor areas where restoration is needed.
“The mangroves are part of our lives,” she said.
For Jarjue, conservation is not separate from survival. The healthier the mangroves become, the stronger the future of her community.
A season’s wait
As Jarjue paddles deeper into the wetland, oysters cling to the roots of the mangroves. They are large, growing and ready for harvest in another season. She leaves them untouched.
She points towards them proudly, knowing that protecting them now will mean a better harvest later.
Although crab harvesting provides income during the rainy season, oysters remain the more profitable catch. A milk-can measure of oysters sells for about 100 dalasis ($1.34), and demand at local markets is higher.
“Oysters are difficult to harvest,” Jarjue explained. “But that is where the money is.”
Fatou pushes her canoe into the water, beginning another day of searching for crabs in the mangrove wetlands that sustain her livelihood [Dijah Jawo/Al Jazeera]
The annual closure of oyster harvesting during the rainy season is sometimes misunderstood as a warning that oysters become poisonous at that time of year.
But marine scientist Dawda Saine says the reason is more complex and is rooted in conservation, ecology and food safety.
The closure forms part of The Gambia’s Oyster and Cockle Co-management Plan, which allows oyster stocks time to regenerate, reproduce and grow while reducing pressure on the resource.
“We don’t close the season because oysters are poisonous,” Saine told Al Jazeera. “We close it to protect the resource and because, during the rains, oysters filter everything in the water, including increased run-off, which can affect their quality, taste and safety.”
During the rainy season, increased run-off can carry waste and other materials into waterways where oysters feed by filtering water. Allowing them to remain undisturbed helps protect both the ecosystem and consumers.
For women like Jarjue, respecting the closure is an investment in the future.
Roots of survival
Jarjue is among several women in Ndangan who have become guardians of the ecosystem they depend on.
For 48-year-old Sussan Colley, the difference is visible every time she enters the wetland.
Colley has harvested oysters, fished and collected crabs since she was a teenager. She remembers when declining mangrove cover began affecting the community’s catches.
There were fewer oysters. Harvests became smaller. Families who depended on the wetland faced increasing uncertainty.
As restoration efforts expanded, Colley began noticing changes beneath the roots.
The oysters returned. They grew faster and larger. The wetland became productive again.
“The mangroves are changing our lives for the better,” she told Al Jazeera.
For Colley, restoration is also about preparing the next generation. She is teaching her children the skills she inherited from her parents while passing on another lesson: People must protect the natural systems that sustain them.
“I want them to make a livelihood from this,” she said, “but also understand the importance of the mangroves and the role they play in our lives.”
Jarjue and other women received training in mangrove restoration through a local conservation initiative supporting coastal communities in The Gambia. The programme equipped them with the skills to restore degraded mangroves, protect the ecosystems that support fisheries and strengthen their communities’ resilience to climate change.
For the women of Ndangan, the training changed how they viewed the forest, not only as a place to harvest, but also as something they have a responsibility to protect.
Banjul’s last shield
The work happening in Ndangan carries significance far beyond the settlement.
Banjul, The Gambia’s capital, is a low-lying island city facing growing threats from rising seas, coastal erosion and flooding. Experts have warned that a 1-metre (3ft-4-inch) rise in global sea levels could inundate parts of the city, increasing the urgency of protecting its remaining natural barriers.
Fatou peers through the mangrove branches, monitoring the oysters that depend on the health of the wetland ecosystem [Dijah Jawo/Al Jazeera]
The threat is not only a future concern. In 2022, severe flooding affected thousands of people across The Gambia, exposing the vulnerability of communities living along the coast.
For settlements surrounding the Tanbi Wetland, mangroves are more than an environmental resource. They are a natural defence system.
Rohey Malick Lowe, the mayor of Banjul, says the future of the capital is closely tied to the survival of its mangroves.
“Banjul is an island,” she told Al Jazeera. “If the mangroves disappear, it goes with the city.”
The mayor said the Banjul City Council is working to protect the capital from climate threats but acknowledged that challenges remain, including the degradation of parts of the wetland through human activities.
Supporting women like Jarjue, she said, is not just about protecting their incomes but also strengthening the city’s resilience.
“They are not only protecting their livelihoods,” Lowe said. “They are helping to protect Banjul.”
Roots of resilience
Despite their contribution, women in Ndangan still face challenges. Without reliable electricity, preserving oysters and crabs remains difficult, especially when market demand is low and harvests cannot be sold immediately.
But each day, Jarjue returns to the mangroves.
Sometimes she goes to harvest. Other times, she goes simply to check whether the trees she planted are surviving.
Fatou prepares for a day of crab harvesting, pulling on her gloves before venturing into the mangrove forest [Dijah Jawo/Al Jazeera]
The work is slow. A mangrove seedling does not transform a coastline overnight. But for Jarjue, every new root represents a future she is helping build.
As the tide slowly rises, she guides her canoe back towards shore, leaving behind thousands of young mangroves she helped plant.
Months from now, she will return to harvest oysters from the same roots she is protecting today. Until then, she is content watching the forest grow.
Every new seedling is a quiet act of hope, not only for her family, but also for a city increasingly vulnerable to the rising sea.
Jarjue pauses before stepping onto dry land and looks back at the green canopy stretching across the wetland.
“Every morning I wake up and see the mangroves growing,” she said. “That gives me peace. If the mangroves disappear one day, our lives will disappear with them.”
Breast cancer is a leading cause of death in women under 50 in the UK.
About one in seven women develop breast cancer in their lifetime, yet only 5-10% of cases are linked to inherited genes.
Most cases – 96% – are in women over 40, while 25% are in women over 75.
Men can get breast cancer too, with about 420 new cases every year in the UK.
In England, guidance from Nice recommends GPs ask about family history if a woman is worried that she might have a higher risk of breast cancer, and sometimes if they are over 35 and using an oral contraceptive pill or considering taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
Hormones have been linked to a slightly increased risk of breast cancer, although larger risk factors include alcohol intake and obesity.
The study, by a team from Cambridge University and the Institute of Cancer Research, looks at how to predict breast cancer risk in younger women.
They used a risk calculator called Boadicea that combines factors such as family history, lifestyle, reproductive history and genetic information to give a risk score.
If all women under 50 were to have this done, they estimate about a quarter (26.5%) would be categorised as at above-average risk and referred for further assessment.
This would include a third of women under 50 (34.8%) who develop breast cancer within 10 years.
By comparison, the current Nice criteria would result in 1.4% of women under 50 being referred for further assessment, which would include just 4.4% of those women who develop breast cancer.
A main reason for the disparity, the researchers say, is because three-quarters of women (73%) under 50 who develop breast cancer within a decade have no family history of breast cancer – the key criterion in the Nice guidelines.
SACRAMENTO — Today we’re talking about California’s Proposition 39, a bid to turn Trump’s election conspiracy fantasies into California law, and a proposal so disingenuous it’s caused Democratic legislators to sue the Democratic secretary of state in an attempt to stop the misinformation surrounding it.
As these lawsuits move forward and the November election rolls closer, we’re going to hear a lot about Proposition 39 — a measure that would require in-person voters to present government-issued identification, among other provisions. I fear most if not all of this debate will revolve around the false claim that large numbers of undocumented people vote illegally in our elections.
“It’s directly a product of all of the rhetoric that Trump has been putting out there regarding election fraud and voting fraud,” said Mindy Romero, founder and director of the nonpartisan Center for Inclusive Democracy.
Romero stresses that there is not and has never been any evidence of widespread voter fraud in California, and the state already has a system that effectively checks voter eligibility.
Proposition 39 is “seeking a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist, and a solution that actually could cause additional problems,” she said. “So in and of itself, it perpetuates this false and dangerous narrative that there has been voter fraud in California.”
That lie is part of the ongoing grievance-fueled Trump campaign against non-white “replacement” Americans, meant to undermine trust in elections — you may recall he’s gone so far as to say immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” It’s a venal and dark vein of partisanship aimed at keeping the far-right in power even at the expense of democracy.
I’ll tell you more about Proposition 39, but I’m starting with a story about an all-American teenager I’ll call “Sofia.” I’ve been helping Sofia,18, attempt to get her first government-issued identification. I stress attempt.
Folks, there’s been hoops, there’s been hurdles, there’s been Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
For people like Sofia that don’t have bills or jobs or even accurate student records (she’s moved a lot), scraping up enough documentation to convince the DMV you are who you say you are is tough. First, you really need a certified birth certificate.
Sofia wasn’t born in the county where she lives (it’s county recorders that keep them), which means she had to either drive hours or go through the state’s third-party online vendor to order one, at a cost of about $30. But here’s the catch — she needed proof of identity to order it.
So to get a birth certificate to get her ID, she needed ID.
Stuck in this circular nightmare, we found, after much effort, a loophole: I could appear in front of a public notary with Sofia, to testify using my ID that she was indeed Sofia. Strange, but whatever. We did it.
That wasn’t enough for the DMV. Sofia also needed two bills or other documents verifying her address. Because they will literally give a credit card to anyone, she applied to an online company, and got her first statement. One document down.
Again, scouring the DMV rules for days, we found another weird loophole: The second document can be a letter from a nonprofit with the person signing it vouching for Sofia’s identity. We got the letter, and Sofia’s Real ID was issued.
But then she had to move before it arrived. She tried to arrange mail forwarding with the postal service, but guess what? They required ID.
So the ID was lost in transit, and we are back to square one.
Who Proposition 39 really targets
That means Sofia is one of thousands of Californians, born and raised in the Golden State, who lack official identification because its not as easy to obtain it as some want you to believe.
And because she lacks it, she could be prevented from voting if Proposition 39 is passed, even though she is a legal citizen with every right to have her ballot counted, and California already has a system in place to ensure only citizens vote.
Sofia is exactly the kind of voter that Proposition 39 is actually aimed at. This is a voter suppression law, plain and simple, and it will harm women with name changes, naturalized citizens, young people, older people and virtually anyone who cares about not returning to Jim Crow-style laws that push people out of voting with subterfuge.
Proponents of the proposition would like you to believe it’s something very different from what I just described. Their fight about how we talk about this proposal has led to two lawsuits so far — one filed by the backers of Proposition 39 because they don’t like the official title the California attorney general put on it, and one filed by the leaders of the state Legislature because they argue the statements written by proponents for official voting materials aren’t truthful.
I’ll give you a taste of both of those arguments. Right now, the state is proposing to title the measure “Prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government-issued identification.”
State Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), the always-Trumper behind Proposition 39, helped lead a lawsuit claiming that is inaccurate.
DeMaio issued a statement claiming Democrats are “trying to deceive voters by putting a false ballot title on it and are now even distracting voters from their tampering of the ballot title with this frivolous lawsuit.”
That frivolous lawsuit he’s complaining about is the one where the Democratic leaders of the Legislature last week sued the Democratic secretary of state and others over the language included in the state voter guide. The Democrats aren’t really angry at each other, it’s just that Secretary of State Shirley Weber is in charge of voter materials, so she’s one of the folks they’ve got to sue to make their case.
The lawsuit alleges, among other complaints, that proponents are falsely framing Proposition 39 as making it “easier to vote” when in fact it does the opposite.
“Prop. 39 requires no burdens be placed on voters,” the materials at issue read, according to the lawsuit. “No additional documents (birth certificate, marriage license, etc.) are required.”
So I take you back to Sofia. Because while Proposition 39 might not ask her to bring her birth certificate to the polls, it would ask her to bring her ID, which required her birth certificate to get.
A distinction without a difference.
“The fact that Donald Trump has endorsed it tells you everything you need to know,” wrote the lawsuits’ plaintiffs, House speaker Robert Rivas and Senate pro Tempore Monique Limón, in a statement. “As Californians and Latinos, we will not let MAGA cronies take Constitutional rights away from voters.”
That lawsuit will likely have its first hearing in court this week. But whatever a judge decides, the ballot box is where the fate of Proposition 39 rests.
Though it seems like average Californians could see through this sham, there are big bucks backing it, and money always speaks loudly.
The donors in support read like the guest list for a White House dinner. So far, they’ve raised more than $15 million. That includes $4 million from Richard Uihlein, the Illinois billionaire and Trump supporter who often funds organizations and causes that promote election conspiracies and far-right candidates.
The crypto-billionaire Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, have each donated $250,000, along with other Silicon Valley types including former RFK Jr. running mate Nicole Shanahan, who ponied up $370,000 in support of Proposition 39.
Oh, and by the way, L.A. developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso has donated $25,000 to the effort.
That’s a lot of dough being poured into stopping certain Californians from voting. If they succeed, it won’t just be an inconvenience at the polls — but instead a double victory for Trump, both suppressing the vote ahead of the presidential election and legitimizing his election lies through law.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The first day all the members of the Women’s Professional Baseball League were at the same field, it rained.
That didn’t dampen the smiles around Robin Roberts Field the day before the league opens play Saturday, marking the first professional women’s baseball games in 72 years.
“Getting to be together for six whole weeks or around two whole months with them [if we make the playoffs] is honestly going to be a game changer,” said third baseman Ashton Lansdell, who stars for the USA national team. “I think we’re going to build a really unique and exciting culture that is going to last a very long time, especially with the inaugural season at WPBL. Like we’re starting from the ground up, so we get to build all of these things from the very beginning.”
The Los Angeles Queens, managed by former Dodgers second baseman Eric Young, have arguably the most star-studded roster, behind Savannah Bananas third baseman Lansdell, former Little League star Mo’ne Davis and Japanese ace pitcher Ayami Sato.
The Los Angeles Queens’ Ayami Sato pitches during a Women’s Pro Baseball League exhibition game in March 19 in Fort Myers, Fla.
(Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
“I pretty much have an idea who I want to lead off and who’s my starter,” Young said. “Those two things I do know. But the rest of the lineup, I’m looking forward to making it. The first one will be very special, just like everything else.”
Women’s baseball has been long fractured with few opportunities for the best to gather in one spot. The only consistent tournament has been the Women’s Baseball World Cup, with the U.S. going undefeated in group play this week in Rockford ahead of the WPBL’s quick week of preseason practices.
The WPBL will be the first women’s baseball league since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which operated from 1943 until 1954 to offset the loss of male baseball players called into action during World War II. The league gained popularity and notoriety when it was dramatized in the 1992 film “A League of Their Own.”
While women’s baseball didn’t boom and girls were mostly limited to playing softball, some women sought a chance to play the sport they loved.
The WPBL, even with a limited six-week season at one location, is helping many players realize seemingly impossible dreams and honoring the first recorded women’s game with a paid crowd and the home of the single-season Springfield Sallies.
Games will span seven innings and the league will use aluminum bats featured in college baseball and softball, while outfield dimensions were altered to be closer to the Women’s World Cup field dimensions. Salaries range from $300-$500 per game for the 15-player rosters.
“It’s just what we’ve all dreamed of our whole lives,” Lansdell said. “The coolest thing out of all of it is that we’re starting this league this year, but in the next five to 10 years, even two years down the road, I’m so excited to see just the growth of women’s baseball and the amount of hope and inspiration that we have.”
Like many women’s baseball players, Lansdell had a history in softball, contributing to the Women’s College World Series season in 2025 at Ole Miss. More recently, she went 11-for-13 with two doubles and two home runs in five games during the U.S. World Cup group stage for a historic .846 batting average.
Players warm up before a game on the fourth day of tryouts for the Women’s Professional Baseball League in August 2025 at Nationals Park in Washington.
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)
She will be the core of the Queens’ lineup, surrounded by some of the biggest name in the sport. Brittany Apgar grew up playing in all-boys baseball tournaments before playing college softball at Greensboro College.
“I think this is really when the quote that baseball is 90% mental and 10% physical kicks in because that game’s going to be a lot,” Apgar said of the Saturday opener. “Like we have the honor of doing the first game. That will be a lot of pressure on everyone.”
The Queens flaunt one of the best right sides of the infield in the league with Lansdell at third and Curacan 19-year-old shortstop Thaima Maximiliana.
Australian shortstop Caitlin Eynon hit .375 in the World Cup and could contribute to the Queens’ lineup, too.
Davis highlights an outfield that includes Apgar and Japanese center fielder Suzu Narasaki. Amira Hondras, 18, played for the U.S. after spending time with MLB Develops and the Chicago White Sox youth league and is one of the best young women’s baseball prospects in the nation.
Sato leads a staff of pitchers from several backgrounds. Canadian 19-year-old right-hander Michelle Roche plays college baseball in British Columbia while 38-year-old veteran Meggie Meidlinger has been a bullpen stopper for the U.S.
“More than anything, I’m excited for the opportunity to play with talented players from around the world,” Sato said through her translator, Mayo Hiran. “That’s something that I’ve been working for for a long time.”
The Queens face the New York Heights to begin their season and will play 30 games through the start of September before a two-week playoff period.
By this time next year, they may get a chance to play home games in the Los Angeles area. The league hasn’t announced its plans for shifting games outside of Illinois other than to confirm they aspire to do so.
But for a few moments this weekend, in Springfield alone, dreams will come true and a sport will be reborn.
“It’s going to be a lot of people’s first time for a lot of things,” Apgar said. “Some of the people didn’t actually get to make it to tryouts, so there’s some people that are drafted that I haven’t even seen in person before. It’s all exciting.”
The friendliest of neighbors, the country has fought alongside the U.S. in conflicts going back to World War I, purchased many trillions of dollars worth of American goods and blessed this country with, among other gifts, ice hockey, Drake, Joni Mitchell and Alex Trebek.
While you can question the nation’s culinary sensibility — the unofficial dish, poutine, is an abomination consisting of French fries, cheese curds and hot gravy — Canada is basically a very large, very pretty country filled with a lot of very nice, extremely polite people.
After more than a year of trading tit-for-tat tariffs, Trump recently escalated the conflict by slapping a new 50% tax on a variety of Canadian exports, including cement, furniture, dairy products and, most iconically, hockey sticks. The added levy, which will further burden inflation-weary U.S. consumers, is set to take effect in mid-August.
The move makes little sense from an economic or foreign policy standpoint. It’s best to regard Trump’s trade moves as a wind gauge charts a blustery storm; his on-again, off-again tariffs are not the result of some carefully thought-out policy but, rather, a measure of the president’s shifting moods and pique toward certain foreign leaders.
George Skelton and other analysts cover the insights, legislation, players and politics you need to know. In your inbox Monday and Thursday mornings.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
For decades, the industry has been a vital and growing part of California’s agricultural economy. Recent years, however, have seen a number of setbacks.
Costs are rising. Sales are falling, as younger generations favor hard seltzers, canned cocktails or premium beers over crushed grapes. At the same time, climate change and the growing incidence of wildfire threaten the viability of some of California’s premier wine-growing regions.
A Canadian ban on alcohol imports
Then there’s the trade war with Canada, the industry’s largest export market and formerly a major customer of California wines. Until recently, the Canadian market accounted for more than a third of the state’s exports.
But last year, several provinces stopped purchasing U.S. alcohol in response to Trump’s tariffs and his threats — more slapstick than real — to annex the country and make Canada the 51st American state. While two provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, soon lifted their bans, the two most populous, Ontario and Quebec, have not.
As a result of this “geopolitical friction,” to use the words of University of California researchers, California wine exports to Canada fell by nearly 80% in 2025 compared with the year before. Unsurprisingly, Canadian sales of homegrown wines have soared.
In response to the dramatic drop in exports, more than a dozen California members of Congress wrote last month to Quebec’s premier, Christine Fréchette, urging her to lift the retaliatory ban on U.S. wine and spirits.
“Reopening the market to American wine would restore consumer choice and signal a commitment to restoring fair and balanced trade for Québecois consumers and American wineries who have no connection to the underlying trade disputes,” the letter read.
Sen. Adam Schiff also wrote Fréchette asking her to resume the sale of California wine and U.S. spirits.
“The restriction on American wine has had damaging consequences for regional consumers, businesses, and producers who have no influence over national policies,” the California Democrat stated. “In fact, I have repeatedly voiced my opposition to and voted against the President’s harmful trade policies, including as they pertain to Canada.”
Fréchette’s response was, in a word: “Non!”
“In the context of the ongoing trade war, the premier continues to defend Quebec’s economic interests,” a spokesperson for Fréchette told CBC Radio. “This measure will remain in place as long as the United States maintains these unjustified tariffs. Our government will re-evaluate its position when the American administration reverses these measures.”
And that statement came before Trump upped the ante, along with the tariffs on Canada, which, presumably, doesn’t help matters.
Red or white?
Mike Thompson has seen the damage of Trump’s economic warfare firsthand. The St. Helena Democrat represents the heart of Wine Country and spearheaded, along with Democratic Rep. Jimmy Panetta of Carmel and Republican Rep. David Valadao of Hanford, the bipartisan overture to Quebec’s premier.
“I talked to a vintner today,” Thompson said during a drive this week through his sprawling Northern California district. “They went from an $11-million annual wine export to a $2-million annual wine export to Canada because of this.”
Thompson has introduced legislation, including a measure to reimburse wine producers for the money they’ve lost due to Trump’s tariffs, but the proposals have stalled in the House despite bipartisan support. His effort, Thompson dryly noted, “has not been warmly embraced by the administration.”
Meanwhile, the cross-border hostilities continue. Neither Trump nor Fréchette seems ready to budge, with California vintners still stuck in the middle.
So the question in Montreal and Toronto remains: What pairs best with poutine? Canadian white or red?
Jared Leto has denied allegations of criminal sexual conductCredit: Getty – ContributorFour women accused Hollywood actor of criminal sexual misconductCredit: Getty
He said: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”
The allegations against the Oscar winner, 54, date from when the women were aged between 16 and 19.
Sign up for the Showbiz newsletter
Thank you!
One accuser alleges she had sex with Leto when she was 17, which under Californian laws would be classed as statutory rape.
The Hollywood star, aged 34 at the time, invited the woman and a friend to his Californian home, the alleged accuser told the BBC.
She claims Leto told her friend to wait in a separate room as the alleged rape took place.
A second woman claims she was sexually assaulted in a “dingy” Las Vegas motel bathroom when she was 17.
A third claims the Dallas Buyers Club star threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19 after the pair were left alone in a hotel room.
The allegations came after a Thirty Seconds to Mars concert at London’s O2 Arena in 2013 when Leto would have been 41.
A fourth accused Leto of grooming her and alleges he once took advantage of his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16.
He suggested they should have sex on at least one occasion, the alleged victim claims.
The accusations all come from a new BBC documentary titled Jared Leto: Hollywood‘s Dark Secret.
The BBC claims they have seen at least one non-disclosure agreement (NDA) sent to a woman aimed at preventing her from talking about her relationship with Leto.
Another woman also accuses the Morbius lead of ordering a security guard to take her backstage at a music festival when she was 14.
More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online
Thesun.co.uk is your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video.
FOUR women have accused Hollywood actor Jared Leto of criminal sexual misconduct.
The allegations against the Oscar winner and Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman, 54, come from when the women were teenagers aged 16 to 19.
Four women have accused Hollywood actor Jared Leto of criminal sexual misconductCredit: GettyLeto won an Oscar for Dallas Buyers ClubCredit: Getty – Contributor
One accuser alleges she was sexually assaulted in a motel bathroom when she was 17.
Another claims the Dallas Buyers Club star threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19 after the pair were left alone in a hotel room.
Sign up for the Showbiz newsletter
Thank you!
A third alleges she had sex with Leto when she was 17, which under California laws would be classed as statutory rape.
The fourth woman has accused Leto of grooming her and alleges he once took advantage of his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16.
Deir el-Balah, Gaza – For years, Nuha Abu Lebda dreamed of becoming a mother. But Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has turned that dream into loss, time and time again.
As she was forcibly displaced several times across the Gaza Strip since the war began in October 2023, Abu Lebda lost three pregnancies. She says the losses came after months of air strikes, hunger, fear and living without proper medical care.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
“I miscarried because of the air strikes, the displacement, the difficult conditions, the lack of clean water and malnutrition,” she tells Al Jazeera.
After each miscarriage, she hoped she could still become a mother.
“When I lost my baby, I was exhausted. I woke up hoping my baby was still inside me. But the dream I carried for 10 years was gone.”
Abu Lebda sold her gold and almost everything she owned to pay for injections of heparin, a drug prescribed to some women to prevent blood clotting during pregnancy. She hoped the treatment would help her bring her pregnancies to term, but she lost the babies despite it.
“I cried so much because I lost the baby I dreamed of every single day,” she laments.
Even after the fighting slowed, her dream remained the same. “I dream of bringing a baby into this world. I want to be a mother and have children. Every time I see my husband playing with children, I start crying.”
Medical officials in Gaza say they are treating a surge in miscarriages, which they link directly to Israel’s genocidal war and blockade. The trend has worsened as Gaza’s health system has collapsed under bombardments and Israeli ground operations with malnutrition and psychological strain cited as key drivers.
Dr Yasser Saadeddine, the maternity director at al-Awda Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, told Al Jazeera roughly 70 percent of pregnancy losses his team treats are linked to the war and blockade.
A displaced Palestinian mother has a meal with her children inside a tent in Deir el-Balah. The war has led to malnutrition and psychological strain, which has taken a particular toll on pregnant women [File: Ramadan Abed/Reuters]
‘I lost my daughter during childbirth’
Abu Lebda is one of many women in Gaza who say they have lost pregnancies during the war. They describe miscarriages, premature births and losing newborns while trying to survive bombardments, displacement, hunger and the collapsing healthcare system.
Mai Zaqout tells Al Jazeera she lost her daughter because she could not access the medical care she needed.
“I lost my daughter during childbirth. She had already died inside my womb for a month, but I could not deliver her because the medical resources and support I needed were not available,” she says.
Her loss came shortly after another tragedy. “All of this happened within a very short time after my husband was killed.”
For Sara al-Awad, she had a scare when she was eight months pregnant. She says powerful explosions in Tal al-Hawa, a neighbourhood in Gaza City, caused extreme fear and stress, leading to severe bleeding.
“Because of the fear, anxiety and the power of the explosions, I started bleeding. My placenta had separated.”
Al-Awad says no ambulance could reach her, and she waited for hours before her brother took her to al-Quds Hospital in a wheelchair. “The doctors decided I needed an emergency C-section immediately.”
Her baby, Muhammad, was born weighing only 1.1kg (2.4lb) and was placed in an incubator. But as fighting continued around the hospital, Sara and her family were separated from him.
“My brother had to leave for the south while Muhammad stayed alone in the incubator. We could only check on him through messages from the medical staff,” she says.
After more than a month, al-Awad was finally reunited with her baby. “Thank God, the ceasefire came. … Muhammad left the incubator after 37 days.”
‘I witnessed horrific situations’
Across Gaza, other women have similar stories.
For Iman Badah, the loss was of the child she had waited years for.
“I am a mother who lost my only son. I waited six years to have him. I gave birth prematurely while I was being displaced,” she tells Al Jazeera.
Nuha Salameh was carrying twins during the war. “Fear and trauma caused me to lose them.”
She says doctors told her that, before the war, her babies may have survived.
“The doctor told me that if the situation had been normal, we would have placed them in the incubator, and they would have lived.”
Nidaa Seyam says she experienced her second miscarriage during the war. “I lost a baby girl, and this is the second time I have miscarried.”
She says doctors told her the war conditions affected her pregnancy. “They told me it was because of the psychological stress we are living through and malnutrition.”
She also describes surviving intense bombardment.
“I witnessed horrific situations where I was trapped under air strikes. I inhaled a lot of toxic fumes.”
A medical staff member works in the dark at al-Awda Hospital during Israel’s war when the facility had to suspend medical services due to running out of fuel needed to operate its electric generators in December 2025 [File: Moiz Salhi/Anadolu Agency]
‘War, blockade, malnutrition, displacement’
Palestinian doctors say these stories are becoming more common.
They report more miscarriages and pregnancy complications linked to hunger, stress, displacement and the lack of medical care.
At al-Awda Hospital, doctors say they have seen a major increase in pregnancy losses.
“During the war, there was a significant increase in miscarriage cases we received,” Saadeddine says.
He says the causes include “the war and the blockade, including malnutrition, poor hygiene, environmental contamination and continuous displacement”.
Doctors say miscarriages are only one part of the crisis. They are also seeing more babies dying in the womb, more premature deliveries and more dangerous pregnancy complications.
Many women lost their homes, medical records and access to regular check-ups during repeated displacements. Hospitals are also struggling with shortages of medicines, equipment and medical staff.
For many mothers, the war has left wounds that continue to hurt even after most of the fighting has stopped. For women in Gaza, the war has not ended with October’s “ceasefire”. It continues with every pregnancy lost, and every dream of motherhood left unfulfilled.
Three women were wounded, two of them seriously, in a knife attack near Porte de Clichy in Paris. Bystanders and an off-duty police officer restrained the suspect, whose motive remains unknown.
SACRAMENTO — Last week, news broke that an artificial intelligence thingamajig broke free from the constraints of its maker, OpenAI, and committed what could be considered a string of white-collar felonies if it were human.
Because the AI thingamajig is in fact not human, the incident raised a big kerfuffle but is largely being treated as a giant oopsie we can learn from, without needing the pesky intervention of new rules or laws to stop it from happening again.
Such is the state of AI regulation in America right now.
California Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Big Bear Lake) would like to change that. Last week, he introduced the bipartisan Frontier Act with Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.). While the bill might not make either safety advocates or big tech companies entirely happy, it offers up the most comprehensive and strongest regulations of this dangerous industry that we’ve yet seen at the federal level.
Roman Yampolskiy, an AI expert and professor at University of Louisville, called the Frontier Act a “positive step because it acknowledges that frontier AI presents risks requiring dedicated oversight.”
Now, the challenge becomes passing it, and passing it in a meaningful, not-watered-down form — no easy task in a dysfunctional Congress driven by money and Donald Trump, and paralyzed by its own sycophancy to both.
If anyone has a shot, though, it’s Obernolte, who is that rarest of birds, a legislator who understands science, and his colleagues.
Obernolte represents Inland Empire areas around San Bernardino, but grew up in Fresno back in the era when the movie “War Games” was just hitting theaters.
Those of a certain age will remember how far-fetched it seemed when Matthew Broderick’s high school genius character accidentally breaks into a military AI system to play chess, but “Joshua,” the computer, takes it too far and tries to blow up the world. Now, of course, that just sounds like a regular Tuesday.
By the time he was in high school himself, Obernolte was giving that Broderick character a run for his money. An apparent computer savant, Obernolte was competing in artificial intelligence contests as a teenager, back when most of us were still playing Pong on Atari. Then he headed off to Caltech and then UCLA for advanced AI degrees. He said AI was his “first calling,” sparked when his father bought him an Apple II computer when he was 8.
He ended up dropping out of UCLA after getting his master’s because his side hustle making video games, including “NFL ’95,” turned out to be more lucrative than being a starving student. He ended up founding his own video game company, FarSight Studios, and building up a personal net worth close to $100 million.
For the past few years, he has pushed hard, if unsuccessfully, to create a framework for regulating AI, combining his deep understanding of the technology with his equal understanding of MAGA distaste for intervening in business.
Now, though, we’re in a moment, thanks to more than one big oopsie by technology companies. Just a few months ago, Anthropic and the Pentagon had their own tense encounter after Anthropic questioned how its AI was being used by the military. Huffy Pete Hegseth is still huffing over that one.
The public is increasingly skeptical of allowing the AI industry to govern itself, which is pushing legislators to rethink their hands-off approach, even as AI money pours like Niagara Falls into elections. Even Trump seems more inclined to consider it, signing an executive order recently that largely called for voluntary restraints on AI companies.
The introduction of the Frontier Act “shows how far the Overton window has shifted just in the past few months,” wrote Charlie Bullock, a senior research fellow with the nonpartisan Institute for Law & AI. “Not too long ago, a bipartisan bill this good and serious would have been a pipe dream. But things change quickly.”
Obernolte said the bill has been “a long time in the making,” but he hopes to package it with other legislation and is “cautiously optimistic” he can get something passed and signed by the end of the year.
As written now, the bill would allow the federal government to set minimum safety requirements and set up a framework for licensed, independent auditors to monitor compliance. That third party verification has been a key push by safety experts.
The bill would also give the government emergency powers to pause an AI model if it has a “present or impending catastrophic risk.”
It also borrows from state laws including California’s Proposition 53 that require some (not enough) transparency on the part of AI companies when things do go wrong.
To the consternation of some, the bill still contains curbs on what states can regulate on their own — basically carving out AI regulation as federal turf. This has been a huge sticking point in the fight over AI regulation because AI companies hate state laws and want them squashed. Their argument is that a patchwork of rules across states is too complicated.
“You don’t want to have 50 different state requirements for every single product that gets sold on a market, and that is particularly true of AI,” Obernolte told me.
To some extent that’s reasonable — but the problem so far has been that states such as California and New York have been the only level of government willing to try at regulation. California in particular has created some of the most comprehensive AI regulations to date and has about 30 pending bills on this issue this legislative season. The Frontier Act threads the needle on this by creating lanes where states can still pass their own laws — such as around consumer safety that would protect children or stop pornography.
But preventing catastrophic risk would largely be dependent on the federal oversight, which is great when the federal government is up to the task. Currently, we can’t even keep measles in check. So that’s a bit worrisome.
And Obernolte’s bill isn’t the only one vying for attention. Another Californian, Rep. Ted Lieu, introduced a bipartisan measure of his own with Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas). Dubbed the AI Kill Switch Act, it would give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to shut down problematic models.
Yampolskiy, the Louisville professor, said that bill had promise as well, because it’s important for companies to have a way to “rapidly disable or contain systems that exhibit dangerous or unexpected behavior.”
But, he warns, that’s just one part of the “complete solution” we need. Regulation is going to require more than one law.
For Obernolte’s part, he’s shown a willingness to work on a practical solution, not just a political one. That alone is worthy of notice. The Frontier Act is a genuine attempt to govern a nascent industry that is too powerful and unpredictable to be left to its own devices.
“I’m hoping that this is we’ve landed somewhere that everyone can understand and be happy with,” Obernolte said. “AI is not something that needs to be a partisan issue, and I don’t think it should be.”
This is concerning, Jess Phillips told us: “Not even training your moderators on your website. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
Unlike some other swinging sites, FabSwingers does not require identity verification, which can make it harder for police to identify suspects when allegations are reported. It also means a banned user can create a new account – although FabSwingers says it can detect this, without explaining how it does so.
FabSwingers told the BBC its moderation processes involve up to five site administrators, who moderators report to, alongside AI and “automated controls”.
Since 2023, the website has been mentioned in at least 329 police reports across the UK – according to Freedom of Information requests submitted by the BBC – including in allegations of rape, sexual offences, coercive control, harassment, blackmail, stalking, assault and possession of extreme pornography. Although, it does not mean FabSwingers was responsible for what was alleged in the reports.
Jess Phillips said she believes the site “falls foul” of the Online Safety Act, adding she would encourage the regulator Ofcom “to look into it very, very seriously right now and shut it down”.
Ofcom says it is “extremely concerned” to hear of the BBC’s findings and is speaking to the site’s provider, but it has not so far launched an investigation.
The vast majority of those contacting the BBC were women who wanted to thank Ruth O’Grady, the subject of the Swingers podcast, for sharing her story.
“I’m still not in a place where I want anyone I love to know some of these things about my past,” one woman told us. “But I feel a little less alone now.”
If you would like to contact BBC Journalist Catrin Nye and the Swingers investigation team about this story you can email on swingersinvestigation@bbc.co.uk, external
There are certain truths that are self-evident to all but the willfully blind or stubbornly obtuse.
Heat is hot.
Rain is wet.
Donald Trump is the most brazenly corrupt president in the history of the United States.
The money-grubbing chief executive has raked in at least $2.2 billion during his first year back in office. He’s funneled millions of taxpayer dollars and foreign payments to his businesses. The grift, er, gift of a tricked-out Air Force One from the Qatari government — which Trump plans to keep in retirement — is only the most high-flying example of his avarice.
It’s so blatant and so consistent with Trump’s dodgy corporate background — a career checkered with six bankruptcies — that it’s easy to shrug off his presidential swindling as just more of the same. That’s been Trump’s political superpower: normalizing the outrageous and anesthetizing many Americans to all but the most extreme affronts. Even those have limited shock value these days.
On Thursday, California’s junior U.S. senator, Democrat Adam Schiff, will take to the floor of the chamber to assay the president’s many conflicts of interest, warn against complacency of the seen-it-all variety and offer his prescription for a cleansing once Trump slinks out of the gold-slathered Oval Office.
You’re reading the L.A. Times Politics newsletter
George Skelton and other analysts cover the insights, legislation, players and politics you need to know. In your inbox Monday and Thursday mornings.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
“The scope of the corruption we’ve seen in this administration is beyond anything we have imagined in prior years or prior administrations, “ Schiff said in a preview of his speech. “It’s really novel and breathtaking.”
But the purpose of his remarks, Schiff said, goes beyond simply enumerating the abundant examples of presidential profiteering. (It was a struggle, he said, keeping the list to a top 10.) His intent, he said, is “to bring home … the real cost to ordinary people” of Trump’s egregious self-dealing. Explaining why — in a practical, feel-it-in-your-wallet sense — people should care.
“If a president approves a merger not because it’s good for consumers, not because it’s good for the economy, but because participants in the merger paid him millions, what’s the cost to them?” Schiff said, referring to the proposed marriage of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery and the money CBS shelled out for a flimsy lawsuit against “60 Minutes.” The settlement was widely seen as a way to smooth Paramount’s merger with Skydance Media, which is now bidding to swallow Warner Bros.
“The cost is they’re paying more for their streaming services,” Schiff said. “They’re getting laid off if they work in the industry. “
In 2024, Democrats lost the White House at least in part because they spent so much time talking about noble but abstract concepts like defending democracy and the rule of law, rather than highlighting ways they’d work to bring down the price of bacon and eggs.
Schiff insists it’s not an either/or choice. To prevail in November’s midterm elections, which means winning at least one chamber of Congress, Schiff said Democrats should discuss both affordability and Trump’s venality. He sees the two as being irrevocably entwined.
“The positive message is we are singularly focused on your cost of living,” Schiff said from his office on Capitol Hill. “We want to build more housing and bring down the cost of housing. We want to attack anti-competitive mergers of grocery stores and food companies to bring down the cost of food. We have a whole agenda that is designed to make your life more affordable.
“Why isn’t the administration doing this?” he said. “And the answer is, they’re corrupt. They’re focused on their own economic well-being. They’re doing great for themselves. They could care less about you.”
Schiff plans to introduce a number of proposed remedies. They include legislation to ban corporate executives from serving in the executive branch if they’ve been convicted of corruption or financial crimes, and a requirement that government employees recuse themselves from matters affecting the financial interests of any employer they’d worked for within the previous four years.
Although the measures stand no chance of passing in the current Congress, Schiff said “it’s important to show the American people, ‘Hey, this is what we intend to do if you give us the majority.’”
He acknowledged that the depth of presidential dishonesty, its constancy and deep weave in the fabric of this administration, can have a deadening effect: “When the guy working the teleprompter at the White House, betting on how many times the president will use a certain word in his speech, is a blip in the corruption…”
But Schiff said it’s important not to turn away or shrink from the malodor rising from Trump’s swampy Washington.
“You just have to take the time to break it down for people,” Schiff said. “I think putting things in context, trying to snap people out of the norm-shattering numbness of this administration, is a daily challenge. But it’s one that we have to undertake.”
There’s no certainly no harm in stating the truth. It’s worth trying, over and over.
Among likely voters, 65% oppose the termed-out governor’s edict and just 34% support it. The opposition among infrequent or nonvoters is even stronger.
Negative attitudes are especially stiff in inland California — particularly the Central Valley — and among middle-class people with incomes between $40,000 and $100,000, those over age 55 and Republicans.
Opposition to being denied new gas vehicles has grown substantially since 2021, when Californians were evenly divided over the issue.
But the state’s anticipated next governor, moderate Democrat Xavier Becerra, is more in line with Californians’ thinking on gas cars than is Newsom.
Becerra told me during his primary election campaign that Newsom’s 2035 goal is not realistic.
“We can’t make it by ‘35,” he said. “But we can make it.” Sometime in the future.
The fact is lots of people can’t afford electric vehicles because they tend to cost more than cars fueled by gas.
Besides, there’s an inconvenience of having to pull off the road for a 40-minute recharging stop on a long trip — if you can find a vacant recharger.
And “electricity is not cheap. It often depends on the time of day,” notes PPIC Polling Director Mark Baldassare, who owns an electric vehicle and says he likes it.
Newsom has been hawking electric vehicles since he came into office, like some slick TV pitchman — his goal being to greatly reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
The governor and the Legislature recently appropriated $135 million to motivate Californians to buy new or used electric vehicles.
First-time EV buyers will receive $3,500 rebates on vehicles with manufacturer’s suggested retail prices of $50,000 or less. Used car buyers will get $1,750 off if the sale price is $25,000 or less.
You’re reading the L.A. Times Politics newsletter
George Skelton and Michael Wilner cover the insights, legislation, players and politics you need to know. In your inbox Monday and Thursday mornings.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
Automakers will pay for half the incentive costs — obstensibly, at least, if they don’t just secretly add their tab to the vehicle price.
This smacks of a huge taxpayer giveaway to manufacturers if the state isn’t careful. Is it really the state’s job to sell cars? Shouldn’t it be the automakers’ responsibility to offer competitive prices? Whatever.
Newsom’s plan partially replaces a $7,500 federal tax incentive for new EVs that President Trump and the Republican-led Congress allowed to expire last year.
California already leads the nation in EV ownership, with around 1.3 million vehicles registered. That’s more than five times the No. 2 state, Florida. And it’s not just because California’s population is much larger. We also lead in per capita ownership.
There’s plenty of contradiction and hypocrisy in the divided minds of Californians, as highlighted in the lengthy PPIC survey into their views on environmental policies.
People strongly favor fighting climate change — at least in concept — until it adversely affects them directly. That’s just human nature.
Asked what they consider the most important environmental issue facing California, those surveyed placed wildfires first, followed closely by global warming.
Baldassare says what struck him in the poll was “the disconnect between what people support in policies and what they’re prepared to do.”
“Two things are going on in California now,” the pollster continues. “People have their long-standing concerns about the environment. But they also have immediate concerns about affordability.
“When it comes to what people are willing to do, they’re worried about living costs and particularly the cost of energy. It’s something we’ve noticed even more this year. It affects the political and economic landscape.”
Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed support Newsom’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero “as soon as possible, but no later than 2045.”
And there’s overwhelming support for taxing corporations based on the amount of carbon emissions they produce.
Roughly 60% favor requiring all electricity to be generated with renewable energy — such as wind and solar — by 2045, although support for that state edict has dropped by 15 percentage points in the last six years.
Paradoxically, people aren’t willing to pay more for electricity produced by renewable sources. Roughly 60% reject that idea. Ten years ago, almost that many told PPIC pollsters they were willing to pay extra.
And today they’re not nearly ready to surrender their option of buying a new gas-fueled automobile.
For one thing, they’re not convinced there’ll be enough charging stations to handle a lot more EVs. Twice as many people are not confident of that as are confident, the poll found.
The California Energy Commission reported in January that there were more than 200,000 public and private EV charging stations in the state, plus 800,000 chargers in homes. The state is helping to add more along highways.
Becerra has pledged to take a fresh look at several controversial Newsom projects, including the pokey bullet train. There’s much uncertainty about the pending new governor.
But there’s one pretty good bet: In 2035, sales of new gas cars will still be getting a green light.
