California lawmakers have revived legislation to charge online platforms for the news articles they publish, a proposal that stalled last year amid divisions within the journalism industry and intense opposition from Google and other tech companies.
New amendments published Monday to Assembly Bill 886 are meant to address concerns from small publishers and make the plan more similar to the way Canada charges platforms for distributing news content.
The bill, also known as the “California Journalism Preservation Act,” requires digital advertising giants to pay news outlets a fee when they sell advertising alongside news content. Publishers would have to use 70% of those funds to pay journalists in California.
The changes call for calculating payments based on the number of journalists a news outlet employs, similar to Canada’s model, rather than on how many impressions an article generates, as originally proposed. And they call for creating a fund that platforms pay into, which would distribute the money to news outlets. Google is paying $74 million annually into a fund for the news industry under the law that took effect last year in Canada.
“What we learned with the Canada version is that it’s possible, and that news is of value, it’s critical,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland). “And that we should be doing everything we can to ensure that our publishers are compensated for the work that they’re providing.”
New amendments in Wicks’ bill also would give an additional boost to small publishers by making them eligible for funding beyond the per-journalist payout and allowing them more flexibility in how they spend the money they would receive under the program by dropping the portion they must spend paying journalists to 50%.
The bill is sponsored by the California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member. Publishers argue that online search and social media platforms are harming the journalism business by gobbling up advertising revenue while publishing content they don’t pay for.
The changes to the bill mark a key development since the bill was put on pause last year in the face of massive opposition from Google and other companies. Google argued the legislation would upend its business model and wrote in an April blog post that the bill “undermines news in California.” The search giant flexed its muscle against the bill earlier this year by removing links to California news sites from its search results for some users.
Google did not respond to an email seeking comment on the latest changes to the bill.
But the amendments are unlikely to be the final modifications. Lawmakers often ramp up negotiations on difficult issues as they approach the end of the legislative session in August. The bill is scheduled for a hearing on June 25 in the Senate Judiciary Committee, its next big hurdle.
State Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), who chairs that committee, said he expects further changes as negotiations continue. He said he would like to see the bill pass but wants to make sure it strikes the right balance between what the news industry needs and what the tech platforms can pay for.
“I believe that we could screw this up so that we make it so expensive that the platforms don’t carry [journalism] content,” Umberg said. “That would be catastrophic. So I don’t know where we hit that sweet spot.”
A separate bill seeking to aid the journalism industry would impose a new tax on Amazon, Meta and Google for the data they take from users and pump the money from this “data extraction mitigation fee” into news organizations by giving them a tax credit for employing full-time journalists.
As a tax measure, Senate Bill 1327 would require approval from two-thirds of the Legislature and presents a political challenge in an election year. Nonetheless, state Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda) said his bill is compatible with Wicks’ legislation, and he remains hopeful lawmakers can find a way to help the journalism industry.
“I continue to have many conversations with her and others about how we have to solve the problem,” Glazer said. “There’s lots of ways to try to go at it.”
Evil’s Michael Emerson on Working Opposite a Giant, Hairy, Five-Eyed Demon
According to Deadline, Skarsgård will also executive produce the show along with his fellow It film franchise creative team at Warner Bros. The show was inspired by the Stephen King novel It and was developed by the franchise’s director Andy Muschietti with producer Barbara Muschietti. They’re also joined by Chapter Two co-producer Jason Fuchs with the films’ other producers, Roy Lee and Dan Lin. Now with Skarsgård in the mix, we’re excited for more horror in the prequel series. Muschietti is set to direct four episodes out of the nine in the series order.
Recently, Bill Skarsgård starred in Boy Kills World and will be featured as Eric Draven in the upcoming The Crow reboot, while Andy Muschietti remained in the Warner Bros. family with The Flash. Needless to say, we are excited to see them team up again with more world-building and creepy killer clownery in the Stephen King universe. Their take on It has become the quintessential one garnering $1.17 billion worldwide. And in an age with ever-expanding mythologies, characters like Pennywise can keep floating on in horror infamy as long as he wants.
A bill that would allow Amsterdam-style cannabis cafes in California passed the state Assembly Monday afternoon on a 49-4 vote and is headed to the Senate. But even if the Legislature’s upper chamber approves AB 1775, legalization remains far from a sure thing.
The bill would authorize local jurisdictions to allow licensed cannabis retailers to prepare and sell non-cannabis food and nonalcoholic beverages. The bill would also allow the cafes to host live music and other performances.
Under current state law, consumers can consume cannabis at a dispensary, but dispensaries can’t legally sell non-cannabis products like coffee and food, as is legal in Amsterdam.
California’s symbolic position at the apex of weed culture has long been rivaled by the Dutch capital, where cannabis cafes have been legal since the 1970s.
Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), who introduced the legislation, has framed it as a matter of fairness. He argues that the cafes would level the playing field for the state’s highly taxed and regulated legal weed industry, allowing legitimate businesses to compete with black-market sellers who don’t operate under the same constraints.
“This is a bill that supports our legal small businesses that just want to diversify their businesses and do the right thing,” Haney said Monday on the Assembly floor. “The illicit illegal market is continuing to grow and thrive, while our legal cannabis market is struggling.”
Haney cited the governor’s prior veto, saying he had been working to address Newsom’s concerns through amendments to the bill. The new version would prohibit cannabis smoking or vaping in “back of house” of lounges, where food is being prepared or stored, creating separation between where people are consuming cannabis and other work areas.
Rather than taking a blunt statewide approach, the bill would put the decision to allow cannabis cafes in the hands of local jurisdictions. Should a jurisdiction decide to greenlight the lounges, it would have to hash out its own permitting process and regulations.
West Hollywood put a licensing system in place several years ago, and a handfulof cannabis lounges operate within the city’s 1.89 square miles. The West Hollywood businesses operate with workarounds that separate the food businesses, The Times has previouslyreported.
No such licensing system exists in the city of Los Angeles.
The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Assn. and the American Lung Assn. have all opposed the bill, raising concerns about the health effects of secondhand marijuana smoke. They argue that the bill would undo hard-fought workplace protections “by re-creating the harmful work environments of the past.”
Marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access has argued that patrons and employees would face no health risks because of the highly regulated nature of such establishments.
A Newsom spokesperson declined to comment on pending legislation.
Staff writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.
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Live from YouTube, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan learn that it’s not show friends, it’s show business after rewatching Cameron Crowe’s 1996 classic Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Renee Zellweger.
With insurers continuing to pull back from the California’s homeowners’ market, Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to speed up the process by which the companies have their requests for rate hikes reviewed.
The governor said Friday that he is backing a bill that would require the Department of Insurance to complete reviews of proposed premium increases within 60 days to halt any more exits from the market. Here’s what to know:
What exactly did the governor say?
Newsom said that immediate steps need to be taken to stabilize the market, which has seen insurers not renew existing policyholders, stop writing new policies or pull out of the market entirely — sending many homeowners to the insurer of last resort, the state’s FAIR Plan, which is now on the hook for more than $300 billion in payouts. Newsom said he was “deeply mindful” of the burdens placed on the plan.
The governor said he had considered issuing an executive order, but instead is proposing a bill that would require the Insurance Department to speed up its review process of premium rate-hike requests.
“We need to stabilize this market. We need to send the right signals. We need to move,” he said.
Isn’t there already an insurance reform package being hashed out in Sacramento?
Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is holding hearings on his Sustainable Insurance Strategy, a set of comprehensive regulations intended to stabilize rates and make it more attractive for insurers to write homeowners policies, especially in wildfire areas such as hillsides and canyons.
However, these regulations won’t become law until the end of the year — a deadline sought by the governor, assuming it can be met.
“It should not take this long for emergency regulations,” Newsom said. “We can’t wait until December.”
How would this bill fit into the larger set of reforms?
Lara has reached a grand bargain with the insurance industry to make the market more attractive, though details are still being worked out.
The plan would allow insurers to include the cost of reinsurance they buy to protect themselves from large fires and other catastrophes into premium costs. It also would allow them to set rates using sophisticated algorithms to predict the risk and cost of future fires, rather than just base them on past events. It’s unclear how an insurer’s application for an expedited rate approval this year would fit into the proposed reforms.
Has Lara reacted to the governor’s proposal?
The commissioner tweeted Friday that his department has taken “significant steps forward” to implement his planned reforms but more needs to be done — and that his department is working with the governor and the Legislature “on critical budget language that keeps us on track to get the job done.”
What do consumer groups have to say?
Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, said he didn’t understand the proposal, worrying that it would be a “rubber stamp” on proposed rate increases.
He noted that Proposition 103, the landmark 1988 initiative that gives the insurance commissioner authority to review rate hikes, already mandates that they are conducted within 60 days except in certain circumstances. Those circumstances include requests for rate increases exceeding 7% for homeowners insurance, which allow consumers to seek a hearing, or the commissioner’s own decision to conduct a hearing.
What is the insurance industry’s reaction
Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, a trade group of property and casualty insurers, said despite the promise of 60-day rate reviews under Proposition 103, they are taking longer. He said the Insurance Department will often request that insurers waive their rights to a speedy decision or face an administrative hearing, which can lead to extensive delays. However, Frazier withheld comment on the governor’s proposal until the draft language is released.
What are the next steps?
Newsom’s office will release the draft bill, which will be carried by a member of the Legislature and be included in the process for adopting the state budget, which the Legislature must approve by June 15. Newsom made his remarks Friday in outlining plans for a revised $288-billion budget, which calls for a series of cutbacks to close a nearly $45-billion shortfall.
FILE – Taylor Swift performs during “The Eras Tour” in Nashville, Tenn., May 5, 2023. According to Spotify Wrapped, Swift was 2023’s most-streamed artist globally. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — People buying tickets online for concerts, sporting events and other live events in Minnesota will be guaranteed more transparency and protection under a so-called Taylor Swift bill signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Tim Walz.
The law was prompted by the frustration a legislator felt at not being able to buy tickets online to Swift’s concert in Minneapolis last summer.
The new law will require ticket sellers to disclose all fees up front.
It also prohibits resellers from selling more than one copy of a ticket, among other measures.
It takes effect Jan. 1, 2025, and applies to live events held in Minnesota.
Arizona abortion providers could practice in California under a new law designed to provide care to women who cross the state line as they face newly restrictive prohibitions at home.
The bill introduced on Wednesday aims to expedite temporary authorization for those Arizona doctors to practice in both states and is the latest move by Gov. Gavin Newsom to make California a reproductive health “sanctuary” as abortion seekers in several Republican led states have lost access to care after the overturning of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision in 2022.
The proposal would temporarily allow licensed Arizona doctors to perform abortions and provide related care to Arizona patients traveling to California until the end of November. The Arizona doctors would be under the oversight of California’s Medical Board and Osteopathic Medical Board.
The legislation, which if passed and signed by the governor would go into effect immediately, comes after the Arizona Supreme Court voted this month to impose a near total abortion ban, reinstating a law from 1864 that prohibits abortions except when the woman’s life is at risk.
“Arizona Republicans continue to put women in danger — embracing a draconian law passed when Arizona was a territory, not even a state,” Newsom said in a statement released Wednesday morning. “California will not sit idly by.”
The governor is working with the state legislature’s California Women’s Caucus to pass the bill.
California saw a surge in abortions after the Supreme Court reversed Roe, and now clinics are bracing for more following the latest Arizona ruling.
The bill is likely to pass with ease with Newsom’s support but is sure to reignite criticisms from Republican lawmakers who say the Democratic governor — widely viewed as a future presidential candidate — should focus more on California’s crises, including a budget deficit and surging homelessness, and less on out-of-state policies.
The bill joins a litany of abortion measures that Newsom and California’s Democratic supermajority have approved in recent years — not just to enhance care in the Golden State but to provide support to nonresidents facing limited care nationwide.
Last year, Newsom signed a bill into law to allow doctors living under “hostile” laws in states where abortion is banned to receive training in California.
Earlier this week, at a news conference in Modesto, Newsom said that abortion access rollbacks have already “placed a burden” on California’s healthcare system, especially in Imperial, Riverside and San Diego counties, where clinics have seen an increase in out-of-staters, including patients from Arizona and Texas.
On Sunday, Newsom launched another round of TV advertisements that call out red state antiabortion laws, this time to be aired in Alabama and focusing on proposals that aim to punish women for interstate travel to obtain services.
For the second time this year, a typical Duke Energy Florida customer will see lower electric bills, this time because of a rate reduction the company is proposing to begin in June to reflect anticipated lower fuel prices.
The company filed a fuel midcourse rate request with the Florida Public Service Commission to account for lower projections for natural gas costs.
Under the proposal, a typical Florida residential customer with a monthly usage of 1,000 kWh would see their bill decline by $5.90, or almost 4%. The savings would be on top of a $11.29 decrease, or about 6%, a decrease that typical residential bills began showing in January.
Similarly, typical commercial and industrial customers will see a bill decrease between 3.5% and 7.0%, varying based on factors, such as industry type and differences in customer use patterns.
“With fuel prices expected to decline, we have an opportunity to lower rates for a second time this year for our customers, just as we prepare for the higher energy usage that come with summer months,” said Melissa Seixas, Duke Energy Florida state president. “We remain committed to providing the best possible price for Florida’s growing population, while delivering the reliable power and customer service our customers deserve today, tomorrow and for many years to come.”
Duke Energy Florida ensures customers receive the best service to their homes, businesses and communities through expertly managing its fuel resources, and its complex systems of power generation, transformers, wires and poles across 13,000 square miles – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, under the most challenging conditions.
The company also offers several easy-to-use energy efficiency programs and tools to help Florida customers have more control over their energy use and bills.
Duke Energy Florida, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, owns 12,300 megawatts of energy capacity, supplying electricity to 2 million residential, commercial and industrial customers across a 13,000-square-mile service area in Florida.
In between chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and all the other medical appointments that come with a cancer diagnosis, Katie McKnight rushed to start the in vitro fertilization process in hopes that she could one day give birth when she recovered.
McKnight, 34, of Richmond, Calif., was diagnosed in 2020 with a fast-spreading form of breast cancer. IVF can help boost chances of pregnancy for cancer patients concerned about the impacts of the disease and its treatment on fertility. The process involves collecting eggs from ovaries and fertilizing them with sperm in a lab, then implanting them in a uterus.
But after having begun the process — being sedated to retrieve her eggs and paying hundreds of dollars annually to properly store the embryos made with her husband — McKnight can’t afford right now to get the embryos out of a freezer.
Katie McKnight, 34, of Richmond, Calif., takes a photo before her first egg retrieval for IVF after a breast cancer diagnosis in 2020.
(Katie McKnight)
“You either have to be able to access a lot of money, or you just keep them frozen and suspended there. It’s such a weird place to be,” McKnight said earlier this month as she prepared to head into her fifth reconstructive breast surgery. “I got this far, now how am I going to finish this? How am I going to actually realize this dream?”
California — celebrated by women’s advocates as a reproductive health haven — does not require that insurance companies cover IVF.
McKnight, who serves on the board of Bay Area Young Survivors, a support group for young breast cancer patients, is among those lobbying for state legislation to change that. She and her husband hope to implant an embryo as soon as this year, worried that time is of the essence as her cancer has the potential to spread to her ovaries. McKnight has health insurance through her job at an environmental research nonprofit but it does not cover IVF.
On average, IVF costs Californians at least $24,000 out of pocket, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Cost varies depending on treatment — patients typically require multiple rounds of IVF to be successful — and whether employers provide insurance coverage for the procedure. Twenty-seven percent of companies with more than 500 employees offered IVF insurance nationwide, according to a 2021 survey.
Under a bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, McKnight was able to have her egg retrievals — a first step in the IVF process — covered by insurance ahead of lifesaving chemotherapy, which can cause infertility. Medical patients who face infertility because of treatment are insured under that law, but that coverage stops short of including fertilization and embryo transfer.
A new bill has been introduced in the state Legislature this year that would require that large insurance companies provide comprehensive coverage for the treatment of infertility, including IVF.
But the bill could be costly and faces an uphill battle as the state grapples with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. Similar proposals have failed in the past, including an attempt last year that never made it to the governor’s desk, facing opposition by insurance companies that said new mandates would result in higher premiums for all.
IVF is especially important to McKnight because it has allowed her through genetic testing to identify which embryos have the BRCA gene mutation, which is hereditary and significantly increases the chance of breast cancer. She has decided to discard those embryos because of concerns about passing cancer on to her children.
An embryologist works at the Virginia Center for Reproductive Medicine in Reston, Va., in 2019.
(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)
McKnight cried when talking about recent political debates over IVF happening nationwide after an Alabama court ruled in February that frozen embryos can be considered “children” and that those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful death.
The decision disrupted IVF appointments in Alabama, and state lawmakers there rushed to create legislation aimed to protect the procedure. But uncertainty remains about access amid outstanding legal questions.
More than a dozen states have introduced “fetal personhood” protection laws this year. Those measures could potentially sweep IVF into religious arguments opposing abortion rights and stoking fears about further reproductive health restrictions after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision rolled back a federal abortion rights guarantee.
“It terrifies me. It’s unfathomable to me,” McKnight said. “I do not want to put a child into this world that has to go through all of the hard stuff that I’ve lived, and I feel like that is my choice.”
Infertility is common. According to the CDC, about 1 in 5 married women of childbearing age are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying.
More than 11,000 babies were born in California in 2021 using assisted reproductive technology such as IVF — nearly 3% of all infants born in the state that year, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
More than a dozen states, including New York, Arkansas and Connecticut, mandate that health plans provide some coverage for IVF.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine said that California — home to the most progressive abortion laws in the country — is failing to fulfill its role as a “reproductive freedom” state.
“California still has significant work to do to ensure that all people can make personal decisions about their reproductive lives and futures. True reproductive freedom means that all people can decide if and when to start or grow a family,” the group said in a statement in support of SB 729.
In addition to extending insurance coverage to IVF, SB 729, introduced by state Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-Panorama City), would also redefine “infertility” in health plans, extending services to LGBTQ+ couples who don’t meet current standards to secure fertility services.
Most health plans that do offer IVF coverage measure infertility based on whether a man and woman fail to get pregnant after a year of unprotected sex, excluding from coverage LGBTQ+ couples seeking to use fertility services to start a family.
The new bill would broaden the definition of infertility to include “a person’s inability to reproduce either as an individual or with their partner without medical intervention.”
The issue is personal for Menjivar. She and her wife recently chose to delay plans to start a family through fertility services such as IVF and instead buy a home, after weighing the costs. She said she has friends who have traveled to Mexico for cheaper fertility care.
“When we talk about Alabama … we have barriers like that in California. The physical barriers exist in California, where people cannot afford this,” Menjivar said.
California Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-Panorama City), left, and former Senate leader Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) at the state Capitol.
(Fred Greaves / For CalMatters)
The bill has been opposed by the California Assn. of Health Plans and a number of insurance companies that warn that such single-issue mandates lead to increased premiums for business owners and enrollees.
According to a legislative analysis of the potential costs conducted last year, the California Health Benefit Review Program estimated employers and enrollees would spend a total of an additional $183 million in the first year of the bill’s implementation, and nearly double that the following year. California could face potentially tens of millions more in separate costs, according to that analysis, due to increases in premiums for state employees.
“While this bill is well-intentioned, it will unintentionally exacerbate health care affordability issues,” the California Chamber of Commerce, which also opposed the bill, said in a statement.
The latest cost estimate reflects Democrats’ attempts to narrow the bill and drive the price down, exempting small health plans, religious employers and Medi-Cal — which provides insurance to low-income Californians — from the proposed mandate to cover IVF.
New IVF policy debates have posed a political quagmire for some Republicans who have used “personhood” arguments to oppose abortion but do not want to see IVF access encroached.
California Assembly Republicans — some of whom are opposed to increasing abortion access — introduced a resolution last month calling on the state to declare that it “recognizes and protects” access to IVF for women “struggling with fertility issues” and encouraged the same at the federal level. The resolution also calls on Alabama to overturn its ruling.
“IVF has helped so many families actually have children so we need to make sure we’re protecting access to it,” said Assemblymember Josh Hoover (R-Folsom), who co-authored Assembly Concurrent Resolution 154. “We can’t go backward on IVF.”
But several state Republicans who support that resolution opposed last year’s attempt to insure IVF in California.
The insurance bill did not make it to the Assembly last year, and Hoover said he is unsure of how he will vote if it makes it to his house this year, voicing skepticism about the costs to small-business owners and taxpayers.
For Democrats like Menjivar, the Republican-led resolution — which specifies that IVF is for women struggling with fertility issues and does not mention LGBTQ+ families — is viewed as a farce.
“It’s all talk,” she said. “This does absolutely nothing, there’s no meat to it whatsoever.”
Menjivar said that she will not support that resolution without changes. She is angry about “hypocrisy” she’s seen from Republicans nationwide who she believes voted for antiabortion policies that have led to the IVF problems arising now.
“They made their bed and they’re trying to squirm out of it and they’re getting stuck,” she said.
DENVER — After learning multiple pharmacies were not complying with a new Colorado state law making EpiPens more affordable, Denver7 Investigates conducted a hidden camera operation at multiple locations and brought the footage to the bill’s co-sponsor. The test uncovered confusion about the bill and problems in properly informing pharmacies around the state, resulting in the delay of affordable, life-saving medication.
On January 1, House Bill 1002 made epinephrine injectors, commonly known by the brand EpiPen, available for $60 to qualifying residents. This is considerably lower than the up to $700 price tag a two-pack can cost for those without insurance.
Jackson Pugh, a high school rugby player, needs access to EpiPens due to a life-threatening peanut allergy.
“It’s still kind of nerve-wracking. Like thinking if I eat something wrong that it could be life-threatening,” he said.
Pugh is one of 500,000 Coloradans who rely on epinephrine to be the first line of defense during an allergic reaction. He and his mother testified in front of state lawmakers last year, helping to pass HB 23-1002.
Specifically, the new bill addresses the “rising costs of epinephrine auto-injectors make this life-saving medication difficult or impossible to obtain for many people,” and serves to “establish an affordability program to ensure Colorado residents have greater access to epinephrine.”
Two months after the program’s rollout, multiple sources have come forward, telling Denver7 Investigates they could not find a pharmacy that honored the cost cut. Denver7 Investigates went undercover at multiple locations in the metro area including Walmart, Walgreens, King Soopers, Safeway, and CVS, to find out why the law was being followed.
“Us as pharmacists, and us as a company, don’t know what to do,” said a manager at a Walgreens location when asked by a Denver7 producer if they honored the $60 value.
“I honestly think most places just didn’t know how to handle it,” said a pharmacy employee at one CVS location.
“You’re my first person to do this… so I don’t know what I’m doing yet,” said a Walmart pharmacist.
Multiple employees and pharmacists expressed confusion to Denver7 Investigates. Some said they had no way to bill patients or process payments at the cheaper rate, others blamed the medication’s manufacturers for not honoring the new price.
“The [Colorado] Board of Pharmacy just released a thing… right now, they don’t have an answer. So right now, we’re all waiting to see what the manufacturers do,” the Walgreens manager said.
“It says to just fill this out and bring it here and it seems like it’s like on the pharmacies to just like override the price, but we can’t, like we’re not getting any type of payment reimbursement, nothing from the government,” said one manager at a Walmart pharmacy, who spent over an hour during her lunch break to try and learn more about the law. “There’s no direction as to what we are supposed to do other than try to contact the manufacturer.”
Despite qualifying for application and presenting it at multiple pharmacies, 70% of the locations visited by Denver7 producers lacked either the knowledge or ability to sell a pair of EpiPens for the discounted price. Denver7 Investigates took the hidden camera footage to Democratic State Senator Dylan Roberts, the bill’s Co-Sponsor, who admitted the law is not working.
Hidden camera tests reveal pitfalls in Colorado law making EpiPens more affordable
“She [Walmart manager] clearly understands the frustration with the lack of accountability from these big pharma companies and a lack of information of how she can fix the problem,” Roberts said. “She’s trying to do the right thing.”
Senator Roberts said both he and the governor, who signed the legislation into law last June, expected the law was being followed. He told Denver7 Investigates, it’s the state’s job to make sure.
“The state government oversees pharmacies and pharmacists,” he said. “I’ve run this program through the Board of Pharmacy and the Division of Insurance.”
However, some pharmacy locations visited during the hidden camera test did follow the law. Pharmacists at a Safeway in Arapahoe County and a King Soopers in Denver understood how to honor the price change, selling Denver7 Investigates two epinephrine injectors at the correct price.
“We just need to make a few phone calls, but it’s not like really complicated,” the Safeway pharmacist said, telling a Denver7 producer the medication is available for $60 at any Safeway location, as long as it is in stock.
“It gives me hope,” Roberts said, after learning Denver7 was successful at a few locations. “I mean it’s a bright spot in a pretty tough set of videos.”
Roberts concluded the evidence from the undercover videos would help him to address the problem and hold people accountable.
“Now when the lobbyists come and say it’s not our fault, I can point to the video and say ‘Yes it is. This is what’s happening in pharmacies across the state. You are the manufacturer, you need to comply with the law and help the pharmacists do their job,’” he said. “We can fix it. I am sad about the two and a half months we lost.”
Senator Roberts tells Denver7 Investigates, that he and Attorney General Phil Weiser are now considering enforcing the $10,000 penalty against injector manufacturers. Roberts is also pushing for better communications from his state agencies to inform pharmacies.
Denver7 Investigates reached out to the Colorado Retail Council for comment and perspective on behalf of pharmacies. They have not responded to our questions.
There is currently a lawsuit in process from at least one manufacturer against the state of Colorado in an effort to fight the cost cut.
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Recently released government data hammered home what we have known for at least a year: A national housing shortage, not broad-based price increases, is driving inflation.
Inflation over the past year was 3.1% — far less than in 2021 but still high enough for the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates elevated. However, unlike the inflation we saw soon after the onset of the pandemic, the more recent bout was overwhelmingly driven by the rising cost of what the Consumer Price Index classifies as “shelter” — including rent actually paid and the estimated rent that could be charged for owner-occupied homes.
Since the start of last year, most prices have risen very slowly or not at all. The price of goods — the tangible things we buy — remained essentially the same, rising just 0.1%. Food inflation, a source of post-pandemic pain for many households, was less than 3%. And other categories of prices actually fell: Household energy prices are down 2.4%, and the price of cars has fallen just over 1%. All told, for everything other than housing, inflation was just 1.5% — low enough that if housing prices had grown at historical rates, the Fed could have declared victory.
But housing costs have not grown at historical rates: The two-year price increase came in hotter than at any point in the past four decades. This lopsided picture tells us a lot about who is most affected by inflation and how it should be addressed.
The outsize role of shelter inflation means that homeowners and renters whose leases haven’t changed are experiencing inflation very differently from those who were more exposed to rising housing costs. Indeed, rising housing costs are a double-edged sword, increasing the wealth of homeowners even as they punish many renters. Since the beginning of 2022, housing wealth has added over $2 trillion to homeowners’ balance sheets.
This trend has important implications across generations. People under 35, with a homeownership rate roughly half that of those of retirement age, are much more likely to suffer from rising housing costs while also missing out on the resulting wealth boom. Retirees, with rising housing wealth and protection from inflation through Social Security and Medicare, are more likely to fare better.
The remedy for housing-fueled inflation is also different from standard responses to broad-based price growth. One might have expected the Fed’s interest rate hikes — which caused mortgage rates to rise with unprecedented speed — to slow down housing prices. But while prospective homebuyers did pull back from the market, residential listings were in free fall during the pandemic and have yet to recover. That means would-be buyers face tight inventories and higher prices.
The only effective long-term answer is of course to build and rehabilitate more housing — a lot more. America’s housing crisis is a big problem that requires an equally big solution, with various estimates putting the nationwide shortfall between 1.5 million and 5.5 million units.
Legislation passed by the House in 2022 would have made meaningful progress by allocating around $40 billion to supply-boosting programs such as the Housing Trust Fund, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and HOME Investment Partnerships Program block grants. Unfortunately, the bill fell short in the Senate and is effectively dead until at least the next Congress.
In the absence of major legislation in Washington, state and federal policymakers have been increasingly focused on incremental responses to the shortfall. The Biden administration recently announced a series of reforms — including grants for low-income seniors and funds to help rehabilitate manufactured homes — that will add tens of thousands of new homes to the market. An array of bills passed in Sacramento in recent years will help expedite new housing in California, where the shortfall of about 1 million units is nearly three times the next-largest state housing deficit. But the data show we still need to do much more to ease and encourage building to tame shelter costs.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee have made it clear that they will do whatever it takes to fight inflation. That’s an admirable and responsible position. But Congress has yet to help by addressing our national housing shortfall. If it had, pandemic-era inflation might already be behind us.
Ben Harris is the vice president and director of the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and was a longtime economic advisor to President Biden.
2020’s The Last of Us Part II is a revenge story built around two sides: that of Ellie (as played in the show by Bella Ramsey) and newcomer Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). Both women have their own respective supporting casts, and the HBO adaptation has mainly cast the folks in Ellie’s social circle like Dina and Jesse.
Thanks, Last of Us. Thanks a Lot. | The Last of Us Episode 7 Review
According to Variety, HBO’s managed to lock down four actors who’ll play the people in Abby’s friend group. Top Gun: Maverick’s Danny Ramirez will play Manny, described as a“loyal soldier whose sunny outlook belies the pain of old wounds and a fear that he will fail his friends when they need him most.” Spencer Lord (Riverdale) is Owen, Abby’s ex who’s “condemned to fight an enemy he refuses to hate.”
Rounding out the quartet are Ariela Barer (Runaways) as young doctor Mel and Tati Gabrielle (Mortal Kombat II) as Nora, a fellow medic “struggling to come to terms with the sins of her past.” In the game, Ellie travels across Seattle to get revenge on all four characters, and eventually Abby. Even with whatever changes are in store, that’ll likely remain the same with the show; it’ll just also flesh out those characters, similar to what it’s already done with Bill. At the moment, there’s two other people on Abby’s “side” is casting is still secret: Yara and Lev, a pair of siblings she meets in her travels.
The Last of Us season two is expected to drop on HBO sometime in 2025.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the California senate on Monday announced a package of legislation to address the growing fentanyl crisis and untamed outbreak of organized retail thefts.
Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), who was sworn in as president pro tempore last month, recited sobering statistics to reporters as he introduced proposals he said will remedy the issues through a more rehabilitative approach.
“There are more than 12,000 drug overdose deaths a year in California. More than half of those deaths are fentanyl-related,” McGuire said. “Black and Latino communities have seen a 200% increase in overdose deaths since 2017. Native Americans had a 150% increase in overdose deaths in the same period. The Hoopa Valley tribe faces a fentanyl death rate eight times greater than the state average.”
The senate’s action comes after Assembly leaders this month presented their plans to remedy the issues, an indication that the drug and theft crises will be priorities this legislative session — and in California’s 2024 election.
The set of 14 bills announced by McGuire and other Democrat and Republican Senate leaders takes a sweeping approach. The legislation, if passed and signed by the governor, would increase access to treatment, enhance addiction services for those in the criminal justice system and penalize criminal trafficking of xylazine, or “tranq,” a horse tranquilizer laced in fentanyl.
Among those bills is SB 1144, authored by Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), which will tighten regulations to help prevent stolen goods from being sold online.
Tinisch Hollins, executive director of the nonprofit Californians for Safety and Justice, called the package a “thoughtful approach to nuanced challenges.”
Hollins said the package is needed “in an environment where special interests are gaslighting Californians with destructive and ineffective rollbacks.”
She was referring to law enforcement agencies that have lobbied for changes to Proposition 47, a contentious ballot measure that reduced certain retail theft and drug offense charges to misdemeanors.
Contra Costa County Dist. Atty. Diana Becton called for a strategic approach that strays from a one-size-fits-all approach to public safety.
“I have seen firsthand the need to reimagine our approach to criminal justice,” she said. “To reexamine and reproach it through a lens of racial and socioeconomic disparity, with an eye to restorative justice programs and rehabilitation programs for nonviolent offenses.”
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking the January 6 riot that had set the case in motion.
By this point in the hearing, the justices had made clear that they didn’t like the idea of allowing a single state to kick Trump out of the presidential race, and they didn’t appear comfortable with the Court doing so either. Sensing that Trump would likely stay on the ballot, the attorney, Jason Murray, said that if the Supreme Court didn’t resolve the question of Trump’s eligibility, “it could come back with a vengeance”—after the election, when Congress meets once again to count and certify the votes of the Electoral College.
Murray and other legal scholars say that, absent clear guidance from the Supreme Court, a Trump win could lead to a constitutional crisis in Congress. Democrats would have to choose between confirming a winner many of them believe is ineligible and defying the will of voters who elected him. Their choice could be decisive: As their victory in a House special election in New York last week demonstrated, Democrats have a serious chance of winning a majority in Congress in November, even if Trump recaptures the presidency on the same day. If that happens, they could have the votes to prevent him from taking office.
In interviews, senior House Democrats would not commit to certifying a Trump win, saying they would do so only if the Supreme Court affirms his eligibility. But during oral arguments, liberal and conservative justices alike seemed inclined to dodge the question of his eligibility altogether and throw the decision to Congress.
“That would be a colossal disaster,” Representative Adam Schiff of California told me. “We already had one horrendous January 6. We don’t need another.”
The justices could conclude definitively that Trump is eligible to serve another term as president. The Fourteenth Amendment bars people who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office, but it does not define those terms. Trump has not been convicted of fomenting an insurrection, nor do any of his 91 indictments charge him with that particular crime. But in early 2021, every House Democrat (along with 10 Republicans) voted to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection,” and a significant majority of those lawmakers will still be in Congress next year.
If the Court deems Trump eligible, even a few of his most fervent Democratic critics told me they would vote for certification should he win. “I’m going to follow the law,” Representative Eric Swalwell of California told me. “I would not object out of protest of how the Supreme Court comes down. It would be doing what I didn’t like about the January 6 Republicans.” Schiff, who served on the committee that investigated Trump’s role in the Capitol riot, believes that the Supreme Court should rule that Trump is disqualified. But if the Court deems Trump eligible, Schiff said, he wouldn’t object to a Trump victory.
What if the Court declines to answer? “I don’t want to get into the chaos hypothetical,” Schiff told me. Nor did Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who served in the party leadership for two decades. “I think he’s an insurrectionist,” he said of Trump. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who would become speaker if Democrats retake the House, did not respond to questions sent to his office.
Even as Democrats left open the possibility of challenging a Trump win, they shuddered at its potential repercussions. For three years they have attacked the 147 Republicans—including a majority of the party’s House conference—who voted to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. More recently they’ve criticized top congressional Republicans such as Representative Elise Stefanik, the House GOP conference chair, for refusing to commit to certifying a Biden win.
The choice that Democrats would face if Trump won without a definitive ruling on his eligibility was almost too fraught for Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland to contemplate. He told me he didn’t know how he’d vote in that scenario. As we spoke about what might happen, he recalled the brutality of January 6. “There was blood all over the Capitol in the hypothetical you posit,” Raskin, who served on the January 6 committee with Schiff, told me.
Theoretically, the House and Senate could act before the election by passing a law that defines the meaning of “insurrection” in the Fourteenth Amendment and establishes a process to determine whether a candidate is barred from holding a particular office, including the presidency. But such a bill would have to get through the Republican-controlled House, whose leaders have all endorsed Trump’s candidacy. “There’s absolutely no chance in the world,” Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who also served on the January 6 committee, told me.
In late 2022, Congress did enact reforms to the Electoral Count Act. That bill raised the threshold for objecting to a state’s slate of electors, and it clarified that the vice president, in presiding over the opening of Electoral College ballots, has no real power to affect the outcome of the election. But it did not address the question of insurrection.
As Republicans are fond of pointing out, Democrats have objected to the certification of each GOP presidential winner since 2000. None of those challenges went anywhere, and they were all premised on disputing the outcome or legitimacy of the election itself. Contesting a presidential election by claiming that the winner is ineligible, however, has no precedent. “It’s very murky,” Lofgren said. She believes that Trump is “clearly ineligible,” but acknowledged that “there’s no procedure, per se, for challenging on this basis.”
In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, a trio of legal scholars—Edward Foley, Benjamin Ginsberg, and Richard Hasen—warned the justices that if they did not rule on Trump’s eligibility, “it is a certainty” that members of Congress would seek to disqualify him on January 6, 2025. I asked Lofgren whether she would be one of those lawmakers. “I might be.”
(After this article was published, Lofgren issued a statement to “clarify” her position. “I would consider objecting to the electoral vote certification under the Electoral Count Act if the Supreme Court rules that the 14th Amendment required such action despite the Electoral Count Act,” she said. “I am not considering objecting prior to the Supreme Court issuing its decision and if the decision provides that path legally.”)
The scholars also warned that serious political instability and violence could ensue. That possibility was on Raskin’s mind, too. He conceded that the threat of violence could influence what Democrats do if Trump wins. But, Raskin added, it wouldn’t necessarily stop them from trying to disqualify him. “We might just decide that’s something we need to prepare for.”
All dogs may go to heaven, but California landlords aren’t as accommodating.
Pet owners can have a tougher time finding apartments because of the surfeit of landlords who don’t allow dogs, cats or other animals in their buildings. A new bill, however, seeks to open more apartments to renters with pets.
The legislation, in fact, would allow landlords to ask about pet ownership only after a tenant’s application has been approved, says Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), author of the bill.
Haney’s proposal would end blanket bans on specific pets, he said, adding that the measure would help ease California’s housing crisis.
Haney introduced Assembly Bill 2216 earlier this month, which he said in a news release requires landlords to “have a reasonable reason[s] for not allowing a pet in a rental unit.”
“I’ve heard from many constituents about the incredible hurdles and challenges they faced in finding homes simply because they own pets,” Haney told The Times on Wednesday. “They’ve been repeatedly denied because they have a dog — even if their dog is an emotional support animal — and they need accommodations.”
Haney said he found inspiration from a British bill introduced in Parliament in May that makes pet ownership “an implied term of an assured tenancy,” unless “the landlord reasonably refuses.”
Haney said that landlords’ restrictions on pets are crippling for the majority of California renters.
He noted that nearly 70% of the state’s 17 million renting families are pet owners and, of those, nearly 3 million live in Los Angeles County.
Statistics on pet ownership vary.
The American Veterinary Medical Assn. said that, in 2020, 45% of all U.S. households owned dogs and 26% owned cats. Among those, 39% of all renters favored canines and 29% preferred felines.
What is indisputable, Haney said, is the low number of rentals in California that say they are “pet friendly.” His staff identified daily listings over the course of a week on real estate website Zillow that showed 21% of available rentals in San Francisco allowed pets, and 26% in Los Angeles.
“California pet owners are over two-thirds of renters, and they’re excluded from units,” Haney said. “I’m a huge supporter of building access to housing, and this is a housing issue.”
Andrea Amavisca, a senior legislative advocate at the California Immigration Policy Center, said she and her partner spent more than a month trying to find a two-bedroom rental unit in Sacramento that permitted their small mixed-breed dog.
“Landlords that initially liked our application would suddenly stop answering our calls once they found out we had a dog,” Amavisca said in a statement. “Or others would require a pet deposit close to $1,000 that would put the unit totally out of our budget.”
Amavisca said it was unfair that nearly every landlord “had a different pet policy with fees that varied based on discretion,” meaning they could charge what they pleased. Some charged only $20 a month, while others asked for $100 and some wanted four-figure cleaning deposits.
Haney’s bill does not address fees, and the legislation wouldn’t bar landlords from excluding certain types of pets.
“We’re not saying every landlord should have to accept every animal,” Haney said.
Haney’s bill defines “a common household pet” as “a domesticated animal, including a dog or cat, that is commonly kept in the home for pleasure rather than for commercial purposes.”
When asked if boa constrictors, lizards, fish or other legally acquired pets met the definition, Haney said the bill was centered on “companion animals” such as dogs or cats.
Calls and emails to the California Apartment Assn. and the Apartment Assn. of California Southern Cities seeking comment on this bill were not returned.
California Oaks Property Management, which manages residential and commercial properties in Ventura County, listed a series of cons regarding pet ownership in a 2023 post to landlords that included property damage, noise complaints and liability issues from possible animal attacks.
California Oaks recommended that landlords charge an added deposit of $250 to $500 depending on breed.
Haney said he expected to receive some pushback from landlords.
“I understand some will be concerned about the potential of taking on renters with pets that do damage in ways they want to avoid,” he said. “I’m open to dialogue.”
The bill is in its infancy and has yet to be referred to an Assembly committee, according to state legislative records, although it may come up for a hearing March 9.
