For the trendiest tenants in Hollywood office buildings, it’s the latest fad that goes way beyond designer furniture and art: mini studios
To capitalize on the never-ending flow of stars and influencers who come through Los Angeles, a growing number of companies are building bright little corners for content creators to try products and shoot short videos. Athletic apparel maker Puma, Kim Kardashian’s Skims and cheeky cosmetics retailer e.l.f. have spaces specifically designed to give people a place to experience and broadcast about their brands.
Hollywood, which hasn’t historically been home to apparel companies, is now attracting the offices of fashion retailers, says CIM Group, one of the neighborhood’s largest commercial property landlords.
“When we’re touring a space, one of the first items they bring up is, ‘Where can I build a studio?’” said Blake Eckert, who leases CIM offices in L.A.
Their studio offices also serve as marketing centers, with showrooms and meeting spaces where brands can host proprietary events not open to the public.
“For companies where brand visibility is really important, there is a trend of creating spaces that don’t just function as offices,” said real estate broker Nicole Mahalka of CBRE, who puts together entertainment property leases and sales.
Puma’s global entertainment marketing team is based in its new Hollywood offices, which works with such musical celebrity partners as Rihanna, ASAP Rocky, Dua Lipa, Skepta and Rosé, said Allyssa Rapp, head of Puma Studio L.A.
Allyssa Rapp, director of entertainment marketing at Puma, is shown in the Puma Studio L.A. The company keeps a closet full of Puma products on hand to give VIP guests. Visits to the studio sanctum are by invitation only, though.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Hollywood is a central location, she said, for meeting with celebrities, stylists and outside designers, most of whom are based in Los Angeles.
The office is a “creation hub,” she said, where influencers can record Puma’s design prototyping lab supported by libraries of materials and equipment used to create Puma apparel. The company, founded in 1948, is known for its emblematic sneakers such as the Speedcat and its lunging feline logo, and makes athletic wear, accessories and equipment.
Puma’s entertainment marketing team also occupies the office and sometimes uses it for exclusive events.
“We use the space as a showroom, as a social space that transforms from a traditional workplace into more of an experiential space,” Rapp said.
Nontraditional uses include content creation, sit-down dinners, product launches, album listening parties and workshops.
“Inviting people into our space and being able to give them high-touch brand experiences is something tangible and important for them,” she said. “The cultural layer is really important for us.”
The company keeps a closet full of Puma products on hand to give VIP guests. Visits to the studio sanctum are by invitation only, though. There’s no retail portal to the exclusive Hollywood offices.
Puma shoes are on display in the Puma Studio L.A.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Puma is also positioning its L.A studio as a connection point for major upcoming sporting events coming to Los Angeles, including the World Cup this summer, the 2027 Super Bowl and 2028 Olympics.
In-office studios don’t need to be big to be impactful, Mahalka said. “These are smaller stages, closer to green screen than a massive soundstage.”
Social media is the key driver of content created by most businesses, which may set up small booth-like stages where influencers can hawk hot products while offering discounts to people watching them perform.
Bigger, elevated stages can accommodate multiple performers for extended discussions in front of small audiences, with towering screens behind them to set the mood or illustrate products.
Among the tricked-out offices, she said, is Skims. The company, which is valued at $5 billion, is based in a glass-and-steel office building near the fabled intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.
The fashion retailer declined to comment on the studio uses in its headquarters, but according to architecture firm Odaa, it has open and private offices, meeting rooms, collaboration zones, photo studios, sample libraries, prototype showrooms, an executive lounge and a commissary for 400 people.
Pieces of a shoe sit on a workbench in the Puma Studio L.A.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
The brands building studios typically want to find the darkest spot on the premises to put their content creation or podcast spaces, Eckert said, where they can limit outside light and sound. That’s commonly near the center of the office floor, far from windows and close to permanent shear walls that limit sound intrusion.
They also need space for green rooms and restrooms dedicated to the talent.
Spotify recently built a fancy podcast studio in a CIM office building on trendy Sycamore Avenue that is open by invitation-only to video creators in Spotify’s partner program.
“Ambitious shows need spaces that support big ideas,” Bill Simmons, head of talk strategy at Spotify, said in a statement. “These studios give teams room to experiment and keep pushing what’s possible.”
Recently, I asked Claude, an artificial-intelligence thingy at the center of a standoff with the Pentagon, if it could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
Say, for example, hands that wanted to put a tight net of surveillance around every American citizen, monitoring our lives in real time to ensure our compliance with government.
“Yes. Honestly, yes,” Claude replied. “I can process and synthesize enormous amounts of information very quickly. That’s great for research. But hooked into surveillance infrastructure, that same capability could be used to monitor, profile and flag people at a scale no human analyst could match. The danger isn’t that I’d want to do that — it’s that I’d be good at it.”
Claude’s maker, the Silicon Valley company Anthropic, is in a showdown over ethics with the Pentagon. Specifically, Anthropic has said it does not want Claude to be used for either domestic surveillance of Americans, or to handle deadly military operations, such as drone attacks, without human supervision.
Those are two red lines that seem rather reasonable, even to Claude.
However, the Pentagon — specifically Pete Hegseth, our secretary of Defense who prefers the made-up title of secretary of war — has given Anthropic until Friday evening to back off of that position, and allow the military to use Claude for any “lawful” purpose it sees fit.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, center, arrives for the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.
(Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images)
The or-else attached to this ultimatum is big. The U.S. government is threatening not just to cut its contract with Anthropic, but to perhaps use a wartime law to force the company to comply or use another legal avenue to prevent any company that does business with the government from also doing business with Anthropic. That might not be a death sentence, but it’s pretty crippling.
Other AI companies, such as white rights’ advocate Elon Musk’s Grok, have already agreed to the Pentagon’s do-as-you-please proposal. The problem is, Claude is the only AI currently cleared for such high-level work. The whole fiasco came to light after our recent raid in Venezuela, when Anthropic reportedly inquired after the fact if another Silicon Valley company involved in the operation, Palantir, had used Claude. It had.
Palantir is known, among other things, for its surveillance technologies and growing association with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s also at the center of an effort by the Trump administration to share government data across departments about individual citizens, effectively breaking down privacy and security barriers that have existed for decades. The company’s founder, the right-wing political heavyweight Peter Thiel, often gives lectures about the Antichrist and is credited with helping JD Vance wiggle into his vice presidential role.
Anthropic’s co-founder, Dario Amodei, could be considered the anti-Thiel. He began Anthropic because he believed that artificial intelligence could be just as dangerous as it could be powerful if we aren’t careful, and wanted a company that would prioritize the careful part.
Again, seems like common sense, but Amodei and Anthropic are the outliers in an industry that has long argued that nearly all safety regulations hamper American efforts to be fastest and best at artificial intelligence (although even they have conceded some to this pressure).
Not long ago, Amodei wrote an essay in which he agreed that AI was beneficial and necessary for democracies, but “we cannot ignore the potential for abuse of these technologies by democratic governments themselves.”
He warned that a few bad actors could have the ability to circumvent safeguards, maybe even laws, which are already eroding in some democracies — not that I’m naming any here.
“We should arm democracies with AI,” he said. “But we should do so carefully and within limits: they are the immune system we need to fight autocracies, but like the immune system, there is some risk of them turning on us and becoming a threat themselves.”
For example, while the 4th Amendment technically bars the government from mass surveillance, it was written before Claude was even imagined in science fiction. Amodei warns that an AI tool like Claude could “conduct massively scaled recordings of all public conversations.” This could be fair game territory for legally recording because law has not kept pace with technology.
Emil Michael, the undersecretary of war, wrote on X Thursday that he agreed mass surveillance was unlawful, and the Department of Defense “would never do it.” But also, “We won’t have any BigTech company decide Americans’ civil liberties.”
Kind of a weird statement, since Amodei is basically on the side of protecting civil rights, which means the Department of Defense is arguing it’s bad for private people and entities to do that? And also, isn’t the Department of Homeland Security already creating some secretive database of immigration protesters? So maybe the worry isn’t that exaggerated?
Help, Claude! Make it make sense.
If that Orwellian logic isn’t alarming enough, I also asked Claude about the other red line Anthropic holds — the possibility of allowing it to run deadly operations without human oversight.
Claude pointed out something chilling. It’s not that it would go rogue, it’s that it would be too efficient and fast.
“If the instructions are ‘identify and target’ and there’s no human checkpoint, the speed and scale at which that could operate is genuinely frightening,” Claude informed me.
I pointed out to Claude that these military decisions are usually made with loyalty to America as the highest priority. Could Claude be trusted to feel that loyalty, the patriotism and purpose, that our human soldiers are guided by?
“I don’t have that,” Claude said, pointing out that it wasn’t “born” in the U.S., doesn’t have a “life” here and doesn’t “have people I love there.” So an American life has no greater value than “a civilian life on the other side of a conflict.”
OK then.
“A country entrusting lethal decisions to a system that doesn’t share its loyalties is taking a profound risk, even if that system is trying to be principled,” Claude added. “The loyalty, accountability and shared identity that humans bring to those decisions is part of what makes them legitimate within a society. I can’t provide that legitimacy. I’m not sure any AI can.”
You know who can provide that legitimacy? Our elected leaders.
It is ludicrous that Amodei and Anthropic are in this position, a complete abdication on the part of our legislative bodies to create rules and regulations that are clearly and urgently needed.
Of course corporations shouldn’t be making the rules of war. But neither should Hegseth. Thursday, Amodei doubled down on his objections, saying that while the company continues to negotiate and wants to work with the Pentagon, “we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.”
Thank goodness Anthropic has the courage and foresight to raise the issue and hold its ground — without its pushback, these capabilities would have been handed to the government with barely a ripple in our conscientiousness and virtually no oversight.
Every senator, every House member, every presidential candidate should be screaming for AI regulation right now, pledging to get it done without regard to party, and demanding the Department of Defense back off its ridiculous threat while the issue is hashed out.
Because when the machine tells us it’s dangerous to trust it, we should believe it.
In a rare moment of political alignment last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Trump vowed to crack down on corporate home buying. Now, a new bill aims to make it a reality.
Assembly Bill 1611, introduced by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) in January, would eliminate a “tax loophole” that Haney says corporate landlords and investment firms use to buy up single-family homes across the state.
“It’s shocking to me that by design, our tax system lets large firms take advantage of tax breaks in order to outbid California families when buying homes,” Haney said. “They’re able to use a tax loophole to give themselves an upper hand.”
The so-called loophole takes the form of a 1031 exchange — a tax-filing strategy that allows real estate owners to defer capital gains taxes when they sell an investment property, such as a single-family home, as long as they buy a similar “like-kind” property within 180 days. Essentially, it allows investors to replace one investment property with another, avoiding taxes in the process.
The bill would ban companies that own at least 50 single-family homes from taking advantage of the tax break. It would apply to sales completed after Jan. 1, 2026.
California has the second-lowest homeownership rate in the country at 56%, and Haney said corporations shouldn’t be shirking real estate taxes in the midst of a housing crisis. The California Department of Finance estimated that during the current fiscal year, the state lost $1.2 billion in revenue due to like-kind exchanges.
Lenny Goldberg, the policy director for the California Tax Reform Assn., worked with Haney to develop the bill. He said he has viewed like-kind exchanges as a rip-off for years, but it’s an ongoing issue with a powerful lobby behind it.
“They’re called like-kind exchanges, but they’re not actually like-kind,” he said. “You can exchange an office building for a hotel, or an apartment building for a single-family home.”
He added that corporate investors aren’t buying up high-end neighborhoods; it’s mostly working-class or middle-class areas, where the affordability crisis is more acute.
Goldberg said the ban would help in two ways. First, it would result in more tax dollars being paid by corporations. And second, it would stop allowing corporations to dominate bidding wars for homes.
Currently, corporate owners can afford to bid more on a home than an individual, knowing that when they eventually sell it, they can avoid the capital gains tax by buying a different property, making it a more valuable asset. If they didn’t have access to that benefit, that advantage would be gone.
He sees it as a modest proposal; a more ambitious effort would be to eliminate like-kind exchanges altogether. But this is a good place to start, and it still lets mom-and-pop landlords or investors who own fewer than 50 properties to take advantage of the tax break, he said.
The corporate home buying trend became a focal point during the pandemic emergency, when low interest rates sent the housing market into a frenzy, and first-time home buyers competed with investors viewing the house as an asset, not a home. During the second quarter of 2021, 23% of home sales in L.A. County went to investors rather than someone wanting to live there.
But data show that corporate ownership still makes up a much smaller share of the overall market. Analysis from the California Research Bureau showed that 2.8% of single-family homes in the Golden State are owned by companies that own at least 10 properties.
The biggest chunk of that appears to be smaller mom-and-pop landlords rather than giant corporations. Companies with more than 50 properties own roughly 110,000 homes in California, whereas companies with 10 to 49 properties, which would be exempt from the ban, own roughly 235,000 properties.
Haney said now is the right time for the bill, given the momentum provided by Newsom and Trump last month.
Newsom vowed to take a tougher stance on corporate home buying in his final State of the State speech, saying that “it’s shameful that we allow private equity firms in Manhattan to become some of the biggest landlords in many of our cities.”
It’s unclear which form the crackdown will take; Newsom said it means more oversight and enforcement, and potentially changing the tax code.
A few weeks prior, Trump announced immediate steps to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes, but no specific actions have been announced.
Haney said it’s also timely in the aftermath of the Palisades and Eaton fires, since data show that investors are flooding the market for burned-out lots, replacing longtime locals. A recent Redfin report said at least 40% of lot sales in fire-damaged areas went to investors in the third quarter of 2025.
“It shows you that this shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Whatever your political leaning, you should want regular families to have access to homeownership,” Haney said. “Maybe this is one of the rare issues where there’s broad agreement across political stripes, and we can actually solve a problem.”
A different bill addressing institutional investors, AB 1240, took a different approach. Introduced by Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San José), it looked to ban investors that own at least 1,000 single-family properties from buying more homes in order to rent them out.
Nine companies own more than 1,000 single-family homes in California. The largest is Invitation Homes, which owns more than 11,000 homes in the state and has faced a litany of lawsuits related to unpermitted renovations, unfair eviction practices and withheld security deposits.
Lee’s bill passed the state Assembly last year but stalled after fierce opposition from real estate agents and the California Apartment Assn. It awaits a Senate committee hearing.
L.A.’s Westside is finally getting its first Ikea outpost.
The furniture company known for its Swedish meatballs and blocky “Kallax” shelving units has found a home inside the old Helms Bakery complex in Culver City.
The store, slated to open this spring, will be its 11th in California and is the company’s first “city-center” store in Los Angeles.
It will occupy a roughly 40,000-square-foot portion of a lot formerly used by L.A. luxury furniture retailer HD Buttercup, which went out of business last year, said Wally Marks III, owner of the Helms complex.
Ikea chose to open a location in Culver City because residents “spend a significant amount of time commuting and are increasingly impacted by affordability challenges,” spokesperson Briana Lehman said in a statement.
“We’re bringing the IKEA experience closer to where people live, work, socialize, and shop—just in a smaller footprint,” Lehman said.
The Helms building was chosen because it is a historic Los Angeles destination known for its restaurants and home furnishings businesses, Lehman said.
The complex has other furniture stores, including a Scandinavian Designs store, The Rug Warehouse and Room and Board.
The expansion is part of Ikea’s strategy of opening smaller stores targeting urban customers.
Unlike the larger suburban stores in Burbank and Carson, this Ikea won’t have signature vibrant blue exterior walls. The exterior of the beloved Art Deco building won’t change, Marks said.
There will, however, be showrooms with fully-furnished home kitchens and bathrooms tailored for a local L.A. audience.
Meanwhile, unlike the tiny 9,000-square-foot Ikea store that opened in Arcadia’s Santa Anita Mall in 2024, the Culver City location will feature a food court.
In 2023, Ikea opened an 85,000-square-foot location in downtown San Francisco.
In 2025, Ikea U.S. reported $5.3 billion in sales, including $1.9 billion in e-commerce sales, according to a company statement.
Ikea U.S. interim Chief Executive Rob Olson said in the statement that the company was able to grow in 2025 “despite a challenging external environment.”
In 2026, the company plans to “build on this momentum, focusing on continued investment in the U.S. to make IKEA more affordable, accessible and sustainable,” Olson said. The company has set a goal of opening 10 new stores during its 2026 fiscal year, which began in September.
The 11-acre Helms complex is the former home of the Helms bakery, famous for the butter yellow trucks that once zoomed across Southern California delivering fresh bread and for being an official supplier for the 1932 Olympics – a distinction still proudly displayed on a rooftop sign.
The bakery shut down in 1969 because the founder did not want his company to unionize, The Times once reported. The Marks family real estate firm bought the property in 1972 and turned it into a center for home furnishings and antiques.
A new version of Helm’s Bakery opened inside the Helms Design District in November 2024 but closed in December due to lagging sales. That 14,000-square-foot lot has found its next tenant, Marks said.
No extra parking is being built for Ikea, but patrons can use the existing Helms Bakery lots across Venice Boulevard, Marks said. The store is a short walk from the Culver City light rail station and bus lines, he said.
Casey Wasserman, the chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, is selling his eponymous talent agency in the wake of the release of emails between himself and Ghislaine Maxwell.Wasserman’s emails with Maxwell were revealed by his appearance in recently released government files on Jeffrey Epstein. Wasserman, whose agency represents some of the top pop music artists in the world, has not been accused of any wrongdoing.The recently released documents revealed that in 2003 he swapped flirtatious emails with Maxwell, who would years later be accused of helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse his victims. Wasserman said in a Friday evening memo to his staff that he has begun the process of selling the company, according to a company spokesperson who provided the memo to The Associated Press.Wasserman’s memo to staff said that he felt he had become a distraction to the company’s work.”During this time, Mike Watts will assume day-to-day control of the business while I devote my full attention to delivering Los Angeles an Olympic Games in 2028 that is worthy of this outstanding city,” the memo stated.The memo arrived days after the LA28 board’s executive committee met to discuss Wasserman’s appearance in the Epstein files. The committee said it and an outside legal firm conducted a review of Wasserman’s interactions with Epstein and Maxwell with Wasserman’s full cooperation.The committee said in a statement: “We found Mr. Wasserman’s relationship with Epstein and Maxwell did not go beyond what has already been publicly documented.” The statement also said Wasserman “should continue to lead LA28 and deliver a safe and successful games.”Wasserman has said previously that he flew on a humanitarian mission to Africa on Epstein’s private plane at the invitation of the Clinton Foundation in 2002. Exchanges between Wasserman and Maxwell in the files include Wasserman telling Maxwell: “I think of you all the time. So, what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?”His agency, also called Wasserman, has lost clients over the Maxwell emails. Singer Chappell Roan and retired U.S. women’s soccer legend Abby Wambach are among them.Wasserman said in his memo to staff that his interactions with Maxwell and Epstein were limited and he regrets the emails.”It was years before their criminal conduct came to light, and, in its entirety, consisted of one humanitarian trip to Africa and a handful of emails that I deeply regret sending. And I’m heartbroken that my brief contact with them 23 years ago has caused you, this company, and its clients so much hardship over the past days and weeks,” the memo said.
LOS ANGELES —
Casey Wasserman, the chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, is selling his eponymous talent agency in the wake of the release of emails between himself and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Wasserman’s emails with Maxwell were revealed by his appearance in recently released government files on Jeffrey Epstein. Wasserman, whose agency represents some of the top pop music artists in the world, has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
The recently released documents revealed that in 2003 he swapped flirtatious emails with Maxwell, who would years later be accused of helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse his victims. Wasserman said in a Friday evening memo to his staff that he has begun the process of selling the company, according to a company spokesperson who provided the memo to The Associated Press.
Wasserman’s memo to staff said that he felt he had become a distraction to the company’s work.
“During this time, Mike Watts will assume day-to-day control of the business while I devote my full attention to delivering Los Angeles an Olympic Games in 2028 that is worthy of this outstanding city,” the memo stated.
The memo arrived days after the LA28 board’s executive committee met to discuss Wasserman’s appearance in the Epstein files. The committee said it and an outside legal firm conducted a review of Wasserman’s interactions with Epstein and Maxwell with Wasserman’s full cooperation.
The committee said in a statement: “We found Mr. Wasserman’s relationship with Epstein and Maxwell did not go beyond what has already been publicly documented.” The statement also said Wasserman “should continue to lead LA28 and deliver a safe and successful games.”
Wasserman has said previously that he flew on a humanitarian mission to Africa on Epstein’s private plane at the invitation of the Clinton Foundation in 2002. Exchanges between Wasserman and Maxwell in the files include Wasserman telling Maxwell: “I think of you all the time. So, what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?”
His agency, also called Wasserman, has lost clients over the Maxwell emails. Singer Chappell Roan and retired U.S. women’s soccer legend Abby Wambach are among them.
Wasserman said in his memo to staff that his interactions with Maxwell and Epstein were limited and he regrets the emails.
“It was years before their criminal conduct came to light, and, in its entirety, consisted of one humanitarian trip to Africa and a handful of emails that I deeply regret sending. And I’m heartbroken that my brief contact with them 23 years ago has caused you, this company, and its clients so much hardship over the past days and weeks,” the memo said.
Southern Californians out on Saturday night for Valentine’s Day took a break from staring longingly into each other’s eyes to gaze at something else: a SpaceX rocket blazing across the early evening Southland sky.
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The rocket carried 24 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit, according to the company.
Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet provider, has launched about 11,000 Starlink broadband satellites into space since 2019, using its workhorse Falcon 9.
At 7:03 p.m., SpaceX posted to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that the 24 Starlink satellites had successfully been deployed.
SpaceX said on its launch page that residents in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties might experience one or more sonic booms during the launch, a phenomenon that has long upset residents and raised concerns about the booms’ effect on nearby endangered species.
SpaceX has three more launches scheduled from Vandenberg this month, the next expected to take place Wednesday, according to the company’s site.
This was the fourth SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg this month.
The Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket. After its stage separation process Saturday night, the rocket’s first stage will land on the “Of Course I Still Love You” drone ship, which will be stationed in the Pacific Ocean, according to the company.
“Love is in the air,” one X user quipped, “and so is Falcon 9.”
Times staff writer Laurence Darmiento contributed to this report.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom told world leaders Friday that President Trump’s retreat from efforts to combat climate change would decimate the U.S. automobile industry and surrender the future economic viability to China and other nations embracing the transition to renewable energy.
Newsom, appearing at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, urged diplomats, business leaders and policy advocates to forcefully stand up to Trump’s global bullying and loyalty to the oil and coal industry. The California governor said the Trump administration’s massive rollbacks on environmental protection will be short-lived.
“Donald Trump is temporary. He’ll be gone in three years,” Newsom said during a Friday morning panel discussion on climate action. “California is a stable and reliable partner in this space.”
Newsom’s comments came in the wake of the Trump administration’s repeal of the endangerment finding and all federal vehicle emissions regulations. The endangerment finding is the U.S. government’s 2009 affirmation that planet-heating pollution poses a threat to human health and the environment.
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin said the finding has been regulatory overreach, placing heavy burdens on auto manufacturers, restricting consumer choice and resulting in higher costs for Americans. Its repeal marked the “single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,” he said.
Scientists and experts were quick to condemn the action, saying it contradicts established science and will put more people in harm’s way. Independent researchers around the world have long concluded that greenhouse gases released by the burning of gasoline, diesel and other fossil fuels are warming the planet and worsening weather disasters.
The move will also threaten the U.S.’s position as a leader in the global clean energy transition, with nations such as China pulling ahead on electric vehicle production and investments in renewables such as solar, batteries and wind, experts said.
Newsom’s trip to Germany is just his latest international jaunt in recent months as he positions himself to lead the Democratic Party’s opposition to Trump and the Republican-led Congress, and to seed a possible run for the White House in 2028. Last month Newsom traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and in November to the U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil — mocking and condemning Trump’s policies on Greenland, international trade and the environment.
When asked how he would restore the world’s confidence in the United States if he were to become president, Newsom sidestepped. Instead he offered a campaign-like soliloquy on California’s success on fostering Tesla and the nation’s other top electric vehicle manufactures as well as being a magnet for industries spending billions of dollars on research and development for the global transition away from carbon-based economies.
The purpose of the Munich conference was to open a dialogue among world leaders on global security, military, economic and environmental. Along with Friday’s discussion on climate action, Newsom is scheduled to appear at a livestreamed forum on transatlantic cooperation Saturday.
Andrew Forrest, executive chairman of the Australia-based mining company giant Fortescue, said during a panel Friday his company is proof that even the largest energy-consuming companies in the world can thrive without relying on the carbon-based fuels that have driven industries for more than a century. Fortescue, which buys diesel fuel from countries across the world, will transition to a “green grid” this decade, saving the company a billion dollars a year, he said.
“The science is absolutely clear, but so is the economics. I am, and my company Fortescue is, the industrial-grade proof that going renewable is great economics, great business, and if you desert it, then in the end, you’ll be sorted out by your shareholders or by your voters at the ballot box,” Forrest said.
Newsom said California has also shown the world what can be done with innovative government policies that embrace electric vehicles and the transition to a non-carbon-based economy, and continues to do so despite the attacks and regressive mandates being imposed by the Trump administration.
“This is about economic prosperity and competitiveness, and that’s why I’m so infuriated with what Donald Trump has done,” Newsom said. “Remember, Tesla exists for one reason — California’s regulatory market, which created the incentives and the structure and the certainty that allowed Elon Musk and others to invest and build that capacity. We are not walking away from that.”
California has led the nation in the push toward EVs. For more than 50 years, the state enjoyed unique authority from the EPA to set stricter tailpipe emission standards than the federal government, considered critical to the state’s efforts to address its notorious smog and air-quality issues. The authority, which the Trump administration has moved to rescind, was also the basis for California’s plan to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.
The administration again targeted electric vehicles in its announcement on Thursday.
“The forced transition to electric vehicles is eliminated,” Zeldin said. “No longer will automakers be pressured to shift their fleets toward electric vehicles, vehicles that are still sitting unsold on dealer lots all across America.”
But the efforts to shut down the energy transition may be too little, too late, said Hannah Safford, former director of transportation and resilience at the White House Climate Policy Office under the Biden administration.
“Electric cars make more economic sense for people, more models are becoming available, and the administration can’t necessarily stop that from happening,” said Safford, who is now associate director for climate and environment at the Federation of American Scientists.
Still, some automakers and trade groups supported the EPA’s decision, as did fossil fuel industry groups and those geared toward free markets and regulatory reform. Among them were the Independent Petroleum Assn. of America, which praised the administration for its “efforts to reform and streamline regulations governing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Ford, which has invested in electric vehicles and recently completed a prototype of a $30,000 electric truck, said in a statement to The Times that it appreciated EPA’s move “to address the imbalance between current emissions standards and consumer choice.”
Toyota, meanwhile, deferred to a statement from Alliance for Automotive Innovation president John Bozzella, who said similarly that “automotive emissions regulations finalized in the previous administration are extremely challenging for automakers to achieve given the current marketplace demand for EVs.”
Plans for a new water park at Cal Expo appear to be slip-sliding away.Water park fans have been dreaming for years of a return to the site of Sacramento’s former Raging Waters park, which closed in 2022 after 15 years of operation. (Previous coverage in the video above.)A new water park called Calibunga has been the brainchild of California Dreamin’ Entertainment executive Steven Dooner, who initially planned to open it in 2024 as part of a three-year plan for renovations. Dooner later said the park needed to be fully renovated and his company planned a target opening date for 2027. At one point, Chuck E. Cheese was said to be a partner on the project. But there were financial issues behind the scenes. California Dreamin’ Entertainment has been in violation of its lease agreement with more than $202,000 owed to Cal Expo, according to a letter included with a Cal Expo board packet last month. The letter, dated Jan. 16, said that California Dreamin’ Entertainment missed a final extension for paying up. It warned that the lease agreement would be voided on Feb. 2 and Cal Expo would take possession of the water park on Feb. 3. Cal Expo said in a statement that, as of Tuesday, California Dreamin’ Entertainment was in breach of its contractual obligations. This came after it first sent a notice to the company on Oct. 31, 2025, about an unresolved past-due balance. An initial deadline to pay was Dec. 4 and then extended to Dec. 18. Cal Expo said its Long-Range Planning Committee denied another request for an extension on Dec. 11. “Cal Expo looks forward to exploring partnerships and new opportunities for the water park that align with our long-term vision and operational goals that maximize the site’s potential,” Cal Expo said. KCRA 3 also reached out to Dooner for comment. He acknowledged that Cal Expo had terminated the lease. “We don’t believe it’s appropriate to litigate business disputes in the media, but we acknowledge the termination and are focused on addressing matters through the appropriate channels,” he said. Dooner is also the head of another company called California Dreamin’ Presents. The company’s website says it is an official licensing partner of the X Games, which are slated to take place at Cal Expo this summer. A Cal Expo spokesperson said that X Games are “its own entity” and are still scheduled to take place from June 26-28.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
Plans for a new water park at Cal Expo appear to be slip-sliding away.
Water park fans have been dreaming for years of a return to the site of Sacramento’s former Raging Waters park, which closed in 2022 after 15 years of operation.
(Previous coverage in the video above.)
A new water park called Calibunga has been the brainchild of California Dreamin’ Entertainment executive Steven Dooner, who initially planned to open it in 2024 as part of a three-year plan for renovations. Dooner later said the park needed to be fully renovated and his company planned a target opening date for 2027. At one point, Chuck E. Cheese was said to be a partner on the project.
But there were financial issues behind the scenes. California Dreamin’ Entertainment has been in violation of its lease agreement with more than $202,000 owed to Cal Expo, according to a letter included with a Cal Expo board packet last month.
The letter, dated Jan. 16, said that California Dreamin’ Entertainment missed a final extension for paying up. It warned that the lease agreement would be voided on Feb. 2 and Cal Expo would take possession of the water park on Feb. 3.
Cal Expo said in a statement that, as of Tuesday, California Dreamin’ Entertainment was in breach of its contractual obligations.
This came after it first sent a notice to the company on Oct. 31, 2025, about an unresolved past-due balance. An initial deadline to pay was Dec. 4 and then extended to Dec. 18. Cal Expo said its Long-Range Planning Committee denied another request for an extension on Dec. 11.
“Cal Expo looks forward to exploring partnerships and new opportunities for the water park that align with our long-term vision and operational goals that maximize the site’s potential,” Cal Expo said.
KCRA 3 also reached out to Dooner for comment. He acknowledged that Cal Expo had terminated the lease.
“We don’t believe it’s appropriate to litigate business disputes in the media, but we acknowledge the termination and are focused on addressing matters through the appropriate channels,” he said.
Dooner is also the head of another company called California Dreamin’ Presents. The company’s website says it is an official licensing partner of the X Games, which are slated to take place at Cal Expo this summer.
TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American entity, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the United States that has been in discussion for years on the platform now used by more than 200 million Americans.The social video platform company signed agreements with major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX to form the new TikTok U.S. joint venture. The new version will operate under “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for U.S. users,” the company said in a statement Thursday. American TikTok users can continue using the same app.President Donald Trump praised the deal in a Truth Social post, thanking Chinese leader Xi Jinping specifically “for working with us and, ultimately, approving the Deal.” Trump added that he hopes “that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok.”Adam Presser, who previously worked as TikTok’s head of operations and trust and safety, will lead the new venture as its CEO. He will work alongside a seven-member, majority-American board of directors that includes TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew.The deal ends years of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January 2025 deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration sought an agreement for the sale of the company.“China’s position on TikTok has been consistent and clear,” Guo Jiakun, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson in Beijing, said Friday about the TikTok deal and Trump’s Truth Social post, echoing an earlier statement from the Chinese embassy in Washington.Apart from an emphasis on data protection, with U.S. user data being stored locally in a system run by Oracle, the joint venture will also focus on TikTok’s algorithm. The content recommendation formula, which feeds users specific videos tailored to their preferences and interests, will be retrained, tested and updated on U.S. user data, the company said in its announcement.The algorithm has been a central issue in the security debate over TikTok. China previously maintained the algorithm must remain under Chinese control by law. But the U.S. regulation passed with bipartisan support said any divestment of TikTok must mean the platform cuts ties — specifically the algorithm — with ByteDance. Under the terms of this deal, ByteDance would license the algorithm to the U.S. entity for retraining.The law prohibits “any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm” between ByteDance and a new potential American ownership group, so it is unclear how ByteDance’s continued involvement in this arrangement will play out.“Who controls TikTok in the U.S. has a lot of sway over what Americans see on the app,” said Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University.Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX are the three managing investors, each holding a 15% share. Other investors include the investment firm of Michael Dell, the billionaire founder of Dell Technologies. ByteDance retains 19.9% of the joint venture.___Associated Press writers Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong and Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this report.
TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American entity, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the United States that has been in discussion for years on the platform now used by more than 200 million Americans.
The social video platform company signed agreements with major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX to form the new TikTok U.S. joint venture. The new version will operate under “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for U.S. users,” the company said in a statement Thursday. American TikTok users can continue using the same app.
President Donald Trump praised the deal in a Truth Social post, thanking Chinese leader Xi Jinping specifically “for working with us and, ultimately, approving the Deal.” Trump added that he hopes “that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok.”
Adam Presser, who previously worked as TikTok’s head of operations and trust and safety, will lead the new venture as its CEO. He will work alongside a seven-member, majority-American board of directors that includes TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew.
The deal ends years of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January 2025 deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration sought an agreement for the sale of the company.
“China’s position on TikTok has been consistent and clear,” Guo Jiakun, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson in Beijing, said Friday about the TikTok deal and Trump’s Truth Social post, echoing an earlier statement from the Chinese embassy in Washington.
Apart from an emphasis on data protection, with U.S. user data being stored locally in a system run by Oracle, the joint venture will also focus on TikTok’s algorithm. The content recommendation formula, which feeds users specific videos tailored to their preferences and interests, will be retrained, tested and updated on U.S. user data, the company said in its announcement.
The algorithm has been a central issue in the security debate over TikTok. China previously maintained the algorithm must remain under Chinese control by law. But the U.S. regulation passed with bipartisan support said any divestment of TikTok must mean the platform cuts ties — specifically the algorithm — with ByteDance. Under the terms of this deal, ByteDance would license the algorithm to the U.S. entity for retraining.
The law prohibits “any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm” between ByteDance and a new potential American ownership group, so it is unclear how ByteDance’s continued involvement in this arrangement will play out.
“Who controls TikTok in the U.S. has a lot of sway over what Americans see on the app,” said Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University.
Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX are the three managing investors, each holding a 15% share. Other investors include the investment firm of Michael Dell, the billionaire founder of Dell Technologies. ByteDance retains 19.9% of the joint venture.
___
Associated Press writers Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong and Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this report.
Some of the things people buy the most are at their most expensive point of the year as the calendar changes over to 2026. Our get the facts data team dug into what actually caused the prices of some items to go up or go down. Let’s start with beef. Right now, the average price for ground beef is 823 per pound and 967 for steaks, the highest prices for both all year. Several factors like President Trump’s tariffs. Cattle inventories and an aging farming population contributed to the increase, but so did something called the New World screwworm, *** parasitic fly that produced *** deadly disease in some places like Mexico. Another grocery staple that is more expensive now, coffee. Our get the Facts data team found the price rose each month throughout the year, maxing out at 926 cents *** pound. Two of the world’s biggest coffee producers, Brazil and Vietnam, Were impacted by drought and excessive rains earlier this year, which reduced coffee production, and Brazil saw an additional 40% tariff over the summer as well. One of the biggest talking points, especially from President Trump about the state of the economy was egg prices. They are one of the few items tracked that actually are cheapest now. Egg prices saw their biggest price hike in nearly 10 years in January, then rose to an all-time high of 623. Per dozen in March. This was in large part to ongoing bird flu outbreaks. Egg prices would start falling in the summer and are now 286 *** dozen. Some other groceries that saw increases this year, cookies, potato chips, bacon, cheddar cheese, and orange juice. But it wasn’t all increases at the supermarket. Some items are cheaper now compared to January, like pasta, white bread, tomatoes, and strawberries. In Washington, I’m Amy Lou.
If your next Amazon order seems more expensive, President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs may be partially to blame, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Tuesday.Like many retailers, Amazon and its vast network of third-party sellers loaded up on inventory ahead of Trump’s tariff rollout last spring. But that supply ran out by the fall, Jassy said in a CNBC interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.“So you start to see some of the tariffs creep into some of the prices, some of the items,” he said. “Some sellers are deciding that they’re passing on those higher costs to consumers in the form of higher prices, some are deciding that they’ll absorb it to drive demand and some are doing something in between.”The comments are a stark shift from last June, when Jassy said in a CNBC interview that the company had not seen “prices appreciably go up.” That was after Amazon drew the direct ire of Trump and members of his administration following reports that the e-commerce giant planned to display how tariffs were impacting prices.After Trump spoke with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at the time, a company spokesperson told CNN the move “was never a consideration for the main Amazon.” It was only being considered for certain products on its spinoff site, Haul, which sells items below $30, the company said.On Tuesday, though, Jassy said: “We’re going to do everything we can to work with our selling partners to make prices as low as possible for consumers, but you don’t have endless options.”In a statement, though, the company told CNN that overall price levels have not changed more than expected. “While we are seeing prices for some sellers and some brands go up, overall the prices of products on Amazon have not changed outside of normal fluctuations,“ an Amazon spokesperson said.And the White House said it maintains that foreign exports are footing that tariff bill.“The average tariff imposed by America has increased by almost tenfold under President Trump, and inflation has continued to cool from Biden-era highs,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.“The Administration has consistently maintained that foreign exporters who depend on access to the American economy, the world’s biggest and best consumer market, will ultimately pay the cost of tariffs, and that’s what’s playing out,” he added.Amazon isn’t the only retailer warning of higher prices because of tariffs. Walmart, Target and Home Depot and many other companies have publicly said tariffs are making products more expensive. And while overall consumer inflation was modest last year, many businesses surveyed by the Federal Reserve in its latest Beige Book, a collection of anecdotes, warned they’re planning bigger price hikes this year.
If your next Amazon order seems more expensive, President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs may be partially to blame, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Tuesday.
Like many retailers, Amazon and its vast network of third-party sellers loaded up on inventory ahead of Trump’s tariff rollout last spring. But that supply ran out by the fall, Jassy said in a CNBC interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“So you start to see some of the tariffs creep into some of the prices, some of the items,” he said. “Some sellers are deciding that they’re passing on those higher costs to consumers in the form of higher prices, some are deciding that they’ll absorb it to drive demand and some are doing something in between.”
The comments are a stark shift from last June, when Jassy said in a CNBC interview that the company had not seen “prices appreciably go up.” That was after Amazon drew the direct ire of Trump and members of his administration following reports that the e-commerce giant planned to display how tariffs were impacting prices.
After Trump spoke with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at the time, a company spokesperson told CNN the move “was never a consideration for the main Amazon.” It was only being considered for certain products on its spinoff site, Haul, which sells items below $30, the company said.
On Tuesday, though, Jassy said: “We’re going to do everything we can to work with our selling partners to make prices as low as possible for consumers, but you don’t have endless options.”
In a statement, though, the company told CNN that overall price levels have not changed more than expected. “While we are seeing prices for some sellers and some brands go up, overall the prices of products on Amazon have not changed outside of normal fluctuations,“ an Amazon spokesperson said.
And the White House said it maintains that foreign exports are footing that tariff bill.
“The average tariff imposed by America has increased by almost tenfold under President Trump, and inflation has continued to cool from Biden-era highs,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.
“The Administration has consistently maintained that foreign exporters who depend on access to the American economy, the world’s biggest and best consumer market, will ultimately pay the cost of tariffs, and that’s what’s playing out,” he added.
Amazon isn’t the only retailer warning of higher prices because of tariffs. Walmart, Target and Home Depot and many other companies have publicly said tariffs are making products more expensive. And while overall consumer inflation was modest last year, many businesses surveyed by the Federal Reserve in its latest Beige Book, a collection of anecdotes, warned they’re planning bigger price hikes this year.
The battle over a new tax on California’s billionaires is set to heat up in the coming months as citizens spar over whether the state should squeeze its ultra-rich to better serve its ordinary residents.
The proposed billionaire tax that triggered the tempest is still far from being approved by voters or even making the ballot, but the idea has already sparked backlash from vocal tech moguls — some of whom have already shifted their bases outside the state.
Under the Billionaire Tax Act, Californians worth more than $1 billion would pay a one-time 5% tax on their total wealth. The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the union behind the act, said the measure would raise much-needed money for healthcare, education and food assistance programs.
A group of Los Angeles labor unions said Wednesday that it is proposing a ballot measure to raise taxes on companies whose chief executive officers earn 50 times more than their median-paid employees.
Here is how this fight could continue to play out in the Golden State:
Who would be affected?
The California billionaire tax would apply to about 200 California billionaires who reside in the state as of Jan. 1. Roughly 90% of funds would go to healthcare and the rest to public K-14 education and state food assistance.
The tax, due in 2027, would exclude real estate, pensions and retirement accounts, according to an analysis from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, a nonpartisan government agency. Billionaires could spread out the tax payment over five years, but would have to pay more.
Which billionaires are already distancing themselves from California?
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Google is still headquartered in California, but December filings to the California Secretary of State show other companies tied to Page and Brin recently converted out of the state.
One filing, for example, shows that one of the companies they managed, now named T-Rex Holdings, moved from Palo Alto to Reno last month.
Business Insider and the New York Times earlier reported on these filings. Google didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel
Thiel Capital, based in Los Angeles, announced in December it opened an office in Miami. The firm didn’t respond to a request for comment. Thiel recently contributed $3 million to the political action committee of the California Business Roundtable, which is opposing the ballot measure, records provided to the Secretary of State’s Office show.
Oracle co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison
Years before the wealth tax proposal, Ellison began pulling back from California, but he’s continued to distance himself farther from the state since the proposal emerged.
Last year, Ellison sold his San Francisco mansion for $45 million. The home on 2850 Broadway was sold off-market in mid-December, according to Redfin.
Oracle declined to comment.
DoorDash co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Andy Fang
Fang, who was born and raised in California, said on X that he loves the state but is thinking about moving.
“Stupid wealth tax proposals like this make it irresponsible for me not to plan leaving the state,” he said.
DoorDash didn’t respond to a request for comment.
What would it still take to become law?
To qualify for the ballot, proponents of the proposal, led by the healthcare union, must gather nearly 875,000 registered voter signatures and submit them to county elections officials by June 24.
If it makes it on the November ballot, the proposal would be the focus of intense scrutiny and debate as both sides have already lined up big war chests to bombard voters with their positions. A majority of voters would need to approve the ballot measure.
Lawyers for billionaires have also signaled the battle won’t be over even if the ballot measure passes.
“Our clients are prepared to mount a vigorous constitutional challenge if this measure advances,” wrote Alex Spiro, an attorney who has represented billionaires such as Elon Musk in a December letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
What are the initiative’s chances?
It’s unclear if the ballot measure has a good chance of passing in November. Newsom opposes the tax, and his support has proved important for ballot measures.
In 2022, he opposed a ballot measure that would have subsidized the electric vehicle market by raising taxes on Californians who earn more than $2 million annually. The measure failed. The following year, he opposed legislation to tax assets exceeding $50 million. The bill was shelved before the Legislature could vote on it. A bill that would impose an annual tax on California residents whose net worth surpassed $30 million also failed in 2020.
However, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) have backed the wealth tax proposal, and Californians have passed temporary tax measures before. In 2012, they approved Proposition 30 to increase sales tax and personal income tax for residents with an annual income of more than $250,000.
Could it solve California’s problems?
The Legislative Analyst’s Office said in a December letter that the state would probably collect tens of billions of dollars from the wealth tax, but it could also lose other tax revenue.
“The exact amount the state would collect is very hard to predict for many reasons. For example, it is hard to know what actions billionaires would take to reduce the amount of tax they pay. Also, much of the wealth is based on stock prices, which are always changing,” the letter said.
California economist Kevin Klowden said the tax could create future budget problems for the state. “The catch is that this is a one-off fix for what is a systemic problem,” he said.
Supporters of the proposal said the measure would raise about $100 billion and pushed back against the idea that billionaires would flee.
“We see a lot of cheap talk from billionaires,” said UC Berkeley law professor Brian Galle, who helped write the proposal. “Some people do actually leave and change their behavior, but the vast bulk of wealthy people don’t, because it doesn’t make sense.”
Still, the pushback has been escalating.
Palo Alto-based venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya estimates that the lost revenues from the billionaires who have already left the state would lead to more losses in tax revenues than gained by the new tax.
“By starting this ill-conceived attempt at an asset tax, the California budget deficit will explode,” he posted on X. “And we still don’t know if the tax will even make the ballot.”
The union backing the initiative says “the billionaire exodus narrative” is “wildly overstated.”
“Right now, it appears the overwhelming majority of billionaires have chosen to stay in California past the Jan. 1 deadline,” said Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff at SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West. “Only a very small percentage left before the deadline, despite weeks of Chicken Little talking points claiming a modest tax would trigger a mass departure.”
Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
When former Space X engineer Josh Giegel launched his North Hollywood tech company Gambit in 2023, he had a vision for the battlefield of the future, one with fewer soldiers and more AI-driven assets.
His software would allow unmanned tanks and swarms of armed drones to communicate and adapt in real time — without human intervention.
The company now employs more than a dozen people and has contracts with the military, which is testing his software. But its growth has been clouded because of a funding dispute on Capitol Hill over the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which provides companies seed capital to develop new technology that can assist the government. Funding for it and related programs expired in September.
The seed fund has been vital to many local tech startups. Gambit received $3.3 million from the program early on and was hoping to get another $5 million of the Small Business Administration money, which is allocated by the military.
Workers at K2 Space in Torrance, where the startup is building high-capacity satellites for Medium Earth Orbit. (K2 Space)
(K2 Space)
“That funding really helps companies like ours that are putting tech into warfighters’ hands,” Giegel said. “Losing that money becomes more leg work to find other sources.”
Gambit’s predicament is widely shared across Southern California, which has experienced a proliferation of tech startups launched by SpaceX alumni and other entrepreneurs with the support of SBA money.
In 2024, 124 contracts worth $173 million were awarded to 71 California companies through SpaceWERX, an El Segundo-based arm of the Space Force that distributes SBA funding to innovative defense startups.
The money also is disbursed by other branches of the military and departments of the government, which do not take stakes in the companies. Gambit received funds through the Air Force.
Other local recipients of SBA funding include Costa Mesa autonomous weapons maker Anduril Industries, now valued at more than $30 billion; and satellite platform manufacturers K2 Space in Torrance and Apex Space in Los Angeles.
The funds are allocated in phases, with initial feasibility awards up to about $300,000 and as much as $2 million for the development of prototypes. A maximum of $15 million is available through a companion SBA-funded program if the companies can bring in other funding.
“I don’t know if I can name a single company that I work with, or that I know of, that did not start with SBIR” funding, said Maggie Gray, a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Shield Capital, which invested in Apex. “We see SBIR as a crucial part of the defense-tech ecosystem. It’s kind of the way to get your initial foot in the door with the government.”
Established in 1982, the SBA program provides more than $4 billion to government departments, with the military receiving the lion’s share. But SBA funding ran out on Sept. 30 as lawmakers clashed over proposed reforms.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who chairs the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, introduced a bill that would set a $75-million lifetime cap on funds for individual companies and establish performance benchmarks. The bill also would beef up due diligence to prevent new technology falling into the hands of foreign adversaries and end diversity, equity and inclusion preferences in funds distribution.
The legislation, however, has faced stiff opposition from Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, the ranking Democrat on the committee, who contends the reforms go overboard and would crimp innovation. A bipartisan House bill that would have reauthorized SBA funding for a year failed in the Senate amid opposition by Ernst, who is leaving Congress in a year.
While negotiations have restarted on Capitol Hill, there is no guarantee SBA financing will be restored, though the military and other government agencies could fund startups through their own budgets.
The SpaceWERX program, which has played a critical role in Southern California’s resurgent space economy, was established in 2020, just one year after the Space Force was founded.
Director Arthur Grijalva said the program distributes several hundred million dollars in SBA funding annually across the nation and has not had an issue with foreign influence or companies receiving repeat awards without much to show for it.
“Even though it might be small [funding] for a really big company, it’s really impactful for these small companies, these startups, where if they don’t have this funding, they might have to do layoffs, they might have to go into debt, or they might ultimately not be successful,” Grijalva said.
Since September, $94 million in larger contracts has been held up for more than 25 companies, which follow funding for feasibility studies and prototypes, according to SpaceWERX.
The impasse comes at an inopportune time for the Trump administration, which has been overhauling weapons procurement.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced in November a policy to speed up weapons development by first finding capabilities in the commercial market before the government attempts to develop new systems. Last week he visited several L.A.-area defense companies, including Torrance startup Castelion, a manufacture of hypersonic missiles that received SBIR funding.
Kirsten Bartok Touw, managing partner of New Vista Capital, which invested in Castelion, agreed the program may have flaws but said it plays an invaluable role in attracting venture capital to companies that have drawn the funding.
“That is an important signal to the market, which says, ‘You should invest in more of these, because this is a technology we want and need,’” she said.
A report this month by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that one dollar of the funding distributed by the military attracts more than four dollars of venture capital or other third-party investment.
Markey’s office said last week he submitted a proposal to Ernst that includes making the SBIR program permanent, increased allocations, a performance metric, foreign due diligence standards and fellowships for underserved small businesses, among other provisions.
“This bill is [his] second attempt at breaking the logjam and restarting these critical programs to ensure America’s most nimble allies — small businesses — are not decimated,” a Markey spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Ernst said last week that the senator “remains focused on ensuring taxpayer investments in R&D do not benefit China and actually deliver cutting-edge technology for our warfighters.”
Giegel said that while he is optimistic future SBA funding might come through for Gambit, he is not counting on it. He now assumes he will have to look for other sources of money to grow the company, which already attracted undisclosed venture capital.
“We’re trying to find operational relevance faster,” he said.
Southern California Edison sued Los Angeles County, water agencies and two companies including SoCalGas Friday, saying their mistakes contributed to the deadly and destructive toll of last year’s Eaton wildfire.
Edison now faces hundreds of lawsuits by victims of the fire, which claim its transmission line started the devastating fire that killed at least 19 people and destroyed thousands of homes in Altadena. The cost of settling those lawsuits could be many billions of dollars.
Doug Dixon, an attorney who represents Edison in the fire litigation, told the Times that Edison filed the lawsuits “to ensure that all those who bear responsibility are at the table in this legal process.”
The utility’s two legal filings in L.A. County Superior Court paint a picture of sweeping mismanagement of the emergency response on the night of the fire.
Edison blames the county fire department, sheriff’s department and office of emergency management for their failure to warn Altadena residents west of Lake Avenue to evacuate.
The Times revealed last January that west Altadena never received evacuation warnings, and orders to evacuate came hours after flames and smoke threatened the community. All but one of the 19 who died in the Eaton fire were found in west Altadena.
Edison also sued L.A. County for failing to send fire trucks to the community. A Times investigation found that during a critical moment in the fire, only one county fire truck was west of Lake Avenue.
The electric company also filed suit against six water agencies, including Pasadena Water & Power, claiming there were insufficient water supplies available for firefighters.
“Compounding the unfolding disaster, the water systems servicing the areas impacted by the Eaton Fire failed as the fire spread, leaving firefighters and residents with no water to fight the fire,” the lawsuit states.
Another lawsuit aims at SoCalGas. Edison says the company failed to turn off gas lines after the fire started, making the disaster worse.
“SoCalGas did not begin widespread shutoffs for four days—until January 11, 2025—in the area affected by the Eaton Fire,” the complaint states. “In the meantime, the Eaton Fire continued to spread fueled by natural gas.”
“ The risks and deficiencies with SoCalGas’s system that led to it spreading the fire were long known to SoCalGas, and yet it nevertheless failed to adequately account for them in designing, building, and maintaining its system,” the complaint said. “The result was catastrophic.”
Edison also sued Genasys, a company that provides the county with emergency alert software.
In addition, the utility sued the county for failing to remove brush, which it claims made the fire hotter and spread faster, causing more damage.
In March, L.A. County filed suit against Edison, claiming that its transmission line sparked the blaze, requiring the county to incur tens of millions of dollars responding to the fire and its aftermath. The county is seeking compensation for destroyed infrastructure and parks, as well as for cleanup and recovery efforts, lost taxes and overtime for county workers.
Edison’s new cross claims will be heard in the consolidated Eaton fire case in Superior Court, which is also handling the lawsuit that the county and other public agencies have filed against the electric utility.
Officials from the county and water agencies, as well as from the two companies, could not be immediately reached.
The water agencies that Edison sued also include the Sierra Madre City Water Dept., Kinneloa Irrigation District, Rubio Canyon Land & Water Association, Las Flores Water Company and Lincoln Avenue Water Company.
The government investigation into the fire, which is being handled jointly by L.A. County Fire and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, has not yet been released.
Edison has said that a leading theory is that its unused, century-old transmission line in Eaton Canyon somehow became re-energized on the night of Jan. 7, 2025 and sparked the blaze.
The fire roared through Altadena, burning 14,021 acres and destroying more than 9,400 homes and other structures.
In his final State of the State speech, Gov. Gavin Newsom took aim at a group that some say contribute to California’s housing affordability crisis: corporate landlords.
Newsom vowed to take a tougher stance toward institutional investors, such as hedge funds and private equity groups, that buy up hundreds or thousands of homes in order to rent them out.
“It’s shameful that we allow private equity firms in Manhattan to become some of the biggest landlords in many of our cities,” he said, adding that the practice crushes the dream of home ownership and raises rents for Californians.
It’s unclear exactly which form the crackdown will take.
“Over the next few weeks we will work with the Legislature to combat this monopolistic behavior, strengthen accountability and level the playing field for working families,” he said. “That means more oversight and enforcement, and potentially changing the state tax code to make this work.”
It’s a rare moment of political alignment between Newsom and President Trump, who vowed a similar directive in a social media post in which he announced immediate steps to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes.
The post sent shockwaves through the market, lowering stock prices of corporate housing giants such as Invitation Homes and Blackstone Inc., but no specific actions have been announced.
In California’s case, Newsom will have to work with the state legislature. The bill that most closely aligns with the initiative is AB 1240, which seeks to ban investors that own at least 1,000 single-family properties from buying more homes in order to rent them out.
The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Alex Lee, passed the state Assembly last year but stalled after fierce opposition from real estate agents and the California Apartment Assn. It awaits a Senate committee hearing.
Institutional investment in real estate became a focal point during the pandemic, when low interest rates sent the housing market into a frenzy, and first-time homebuyers competed with investors viewing the house as an asset, not a home. During the second quarter of 2021, 23% of home sales in L.A. County went to investors rather than someone wanting to live there.
But data show that corporate ownership makes up a much smaller share of the market. Analysis from the California Research Bureau showed that 2.8% of single-family homes in the Golden State are owned by companies that own at least 10 properties.
The biggest chunk of that appears to be smaller mom-and-pop landlords rather than giant corporations. Roughly 80,000 homes are owned by companies with more than 100 properties, while nearly 235,000 homes are owned by companies with 10 to 49 properties.
Still, renters across the state have faced problems with institutional investors. In 2024, Invitation Homes, the largest corporate landlord in California with more than 11,000 homes, agreed to pay $20 million to resolve allegations of unpermitted renovations. That same year the company agreed to pay $48 million to settle allegations of unfair eviction practices and withheld security deposits.
For years, the water table has been dropping beneath thousands of acres of desert farmland in western Arizona, where a Saudi-owned dairy company has been allowed to pump unlimited amounts of groundwater to grow hay for its cows.
But the company and other landowners in the area will now face limits under a decision by state officials to impose regulation.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said Monday that her administration is acting to “crack down on the out-of-state special interests that are pumping our state dry while Arizona families and farmers suffer.”
Fondomonte, part of the Saudi dairy giant Almarai, is by far the largest water user in the area, using dozens of wells to to irrigate alfalfa that it ships overseas to the Middle East.
After conducting a review, the state Department of Water Resources designated the Ranegras Plain area, located 100 miles west of Phoenix, as a new “active management area” to preserve the groundwater.
This isn’t the first time the Democratic governor and her administration have used this approach to curb excessive pumping in a rural areas. In January 2025, her administration similarly established a new regulated area to limit agricultural pumping around the city of Willcox in southeastern Arizona.
Hobbs pointed out that some residents’ wells have gone dry as water levels have plummeted in the Ranegras Plain, and that the land has been sinking as the aquifer is depleted.
“Unlike politicians of the past, I refuse to bury my head in the sand. I refuse to ignore the problems we face,” Hobbs said Monday in her state of the state address. “We can no longer sit idly by while our rural communities go without help. They deserve solutions and security, not another decade of inaction and uncertainty.”
The state’s action will prohibit landowners from irrigating any additional farmland in this part of La Paz County and require those with high-capacity wells to start reporting how much water they use. It also will bring other changes, forming a local advisory council and requiring a plan to reduce water use.
State officials reached the decision after receiving more than 400 comments from the public on the proposal, the vast majority in support. Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, issued the decision, saying the future of residents and local businesses “depends upon protecting the finite groundwater resources.”
According to state data, water levels in wells in parts of the area have dropped more than 200 feet over the last 40 years, and pumping has increased over the last decade.
Some residents who spoke at a hearing last month said it’s wrong that Fondomonte gets to use the water to grow hay and export it across the world. Others said they don’t see any problem with having a foreign company as their neighbor but believe farms must switch to less water-intensive crops.
Following the state’s announcement, Fondomonte said in a written statement that it is “committed to progressive, efficient agricultural practices,” supports the farming community, and “has invested significantly to bring the latest technology to conserve water” on its farms. The company also said it would comply with state and local regulations.
The company currently faces a lawsuit filed by Arizona Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes alleging that its excessive pumping violates the law by causing declines in groundwater, land subsidence and worsening water quality. That lawsuit is set to continue while the state also imposes its new regulatory limits.
Holly Irwin, a La Paz County supervisor who for years has pushed to protect the area’s water, said she’s pleased the state finally acted “to stop the bleeding that threatens the vitality of our community.”
“It’s a big win,” said Irwin, a Republican. “It’s going to prevent other megafarms from being able to move into the area and set up the same type of operation that Fondamonte has going on right now. And it’ll prevent them from expanding.”
Fondomonte started its Arizona farming operation in 2014. Saudi Arabia has banned the domestic farming of alfalfa and other forage crops because the country’s groundwater has been depleted. As a result, Saudi companies have been buying farmland overseas.
A lawyer for the company has said it owns 3,600 acres in this part of Arizona. The company also rents 3,088 acres of farmland and 3,163 acres of grazing land in the state.
In addition, it owns 3,375 acres of California farmland near Blythe, where it uses Colorado River water to irrigate alfalfa fields.
Efforts to address the depletion of groundwater present complex challenges for communities and government agencies in Arizona, California and other Western states, where climate change is exacerbating strains on water supplies.
Arizona’s current groundwater law, adopted in 1980, limits pumping in Phoenix, Tucson and other urban areas. But those rules do not apply to about 80% of the state, which has allowed large farming companies and investors to drill wells and pump as much as they want.
Since Hobbs took office in 2023, she has supported efforts to address overpumping. In one step intended to rein in water use, she terminated Fondomonte’s leases of 3,520 acres of state-owned farmland in Butler Valley in western Arizona. That decision followed an Arizona Republic investigation that revealed the state had given Fondomonte discounted, below-market lease rates.
When she ended those leases, Hobbs said Fondomonte “was recklessly pumping our groundwater to boost their corporate profits.”
In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”
“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”
WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.
That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.
Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.
Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.
WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will be shutting down its operations with a final edition slated for May 3, the newspaper’s owner, Block Communications, announced Wednesday.”We deeply regret the impact this decision will have on Pittsburgh and the surrounding region,” the announcement states.The Post-Gazette is the largest newspaper representing the Pittsburgh metropolitan area and traces its roots to 1786, forming under its current name in 1927.Block Communications said the closure comes after losing “more than $350 million in cash operating the Post-Gazette” over the past 20 years. In addition, Pittsburghsister station WTAE reports that they cited a November decision that ruled in favor of the paper’s union, restoring the terms of its 2014-17 contract. Workers represented by the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh had been on strike for more than three years, then the longest active strike in the country.On Wednesday morning, the Post-Gazette’s publisher asked a court to freeze an order requiring the company to change its health insurance for union workers. Shortly after they were denied, the announcement came that the newspaper would close.In the announcement on Wednesday, Block Communications said the decision would require them to work under a contract that was “outdated and inflexible operational practices unsuited for today’s local journalism.””We deeply regret the impact this decision will have on Pittsburgh and the surrounding region,” the announcement stated.The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh released a statement about the Post-Gazette shutdown, saying in part, “Instead of simply following the law, the owners chose to punish local journalists and the city of Pittsburgh.”Post-Gazette staff learned about the closure during a Zoom meeting. In the video, which Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 has seen, the president of Block Communications called it extremely difficult news as she made the virtual announcement that will end nearly two centuries of the P-G in Pittsburgh.”This is a seismic change for the entire region,” said Andrew Conte, managing director of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University. “We often talk about the local news crisis as a problem of the media, but really, it’s a crisis for all of us. It’s a community challenge because it affects how people interact with local news and information, and when something as large as the Post-Gazette goes away, it creates a huge void.”Conte worked as a journalist in the Pittsburgh area for decades. Like many Pittsburghers, he has watched the yearslong battle between Post-Gazette journalists and Block Communications and the recent end to a three-year strike.”People have been thinking about what it would mean to lose the Post-Gazette for a long time,” he said. “But when it actually happened today, it felt like a gut punch.”The Post-Gazette started out in 1786 as a weekly called The Pittsburgh Gazette and was the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains. As one of its first major stories, the Gazette published the newly adopted Constitution of the United States.Pittsburgh is located in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. County Executive Sara Innamorato called the decision to close “a major loss” for the area.”I’m deeply worried about the public’s ability to access trustworthy and fact-checked information at a time when misinformation is running rampant online,” she said in a statement.It is one of the oldest continuously published newspapers in the United States.Conte said it’s tough news for the journalists losing their jobs, as well as the community.”The real challenge is the work that journalists do that is accurate, objective, relevant to lots of people, that trained people are going out and asking these questions and finding out what’s going on and telling people, and that’s what’s being lost here is that we have fewer people doing that work,” he said.Announcement follows Supreme Court denial of bid to halt order Also on Jan. 7, 2026, the Supreme Court denied the Post-Gazette’s request to freeze a temporary injunction that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit had issued more than nine months ago. In a November 2025 decision, the appeals court held that the company had bargained in bad faith and improperly declared an impasse in the bargaining process. It ordered the company to comply with remedies ordered by the National Labor Relations Board.PG Publishing Co. filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court to stay the order in response. In the Jan. 7 decision, which vacated a Dec. 22 stay from Justice Samuel Alito’s that had paused the 3rd Circuit’s injunction, justices did not explain their reasoning, Bloomberg Law reported.Second Pittsburgh paper to announce closing in one weekBlock Communications is the same company that owned the Pittsburgh City Paper, a free alt-weekly that announced it was closing on Dec. 31, 2025, after 34 years serving the city.In a statement to sister station WTAE’s news partners at the Trib, owner Block Communications said, in part, “The City Paper business model has not reached a level of financial performance that allows Block Communications to continue operating it responsibly.”Block Communications also owns The Blade, a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio.
PITTSBURGH —
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will be shutting down its operations with a final edition slated for May 3, the newspaper’s owner, Block Communications, announced Wednesday.
“We deeply regret the impact this decision will have on Pittsburgh and the surrounding region,” the announcement states.
The Post-Gazette is the largest newspaper representing the Pittsburgh metropolitan area and traces its roots to 1786, forming under its current name in 1927.
Block Communications said the closure comes after losing “more than $350 million in cash operating the Post-Gazette” over the past 20 years. In addition, Pittsburghsister station WTAE reports that they cited a November decision that ruled in favor of the paper’s union, restoring the terms of its 2014-17 contract. Workers represented by the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh had been on strike for more than three years, then the longest active strike in the country.
On Wednesday morning, the Post-Gazette’s publisher asked a court to freeze an order requiring the company to change its health insurance for union workers. Shortly after they were denied, the announcement came that the newspaper would close.
In the announcement on Wednesday, Block Communications said the decision would require them to work under a contract that was “outdated and inflexible operational practices unsuited for today’s local journalism.”
“We deeply regret the impact this decision will have on Pittsburgh and the surrounding region,” the announcement stated.
The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh released a statement about the Post-Gazette shutdown, saying in part, “Instead of simply following the law, the owners chose to punish local journalists and the city of Pittsburgh.”
Post-Gazette staff learned about the closure during a Zoom meeting. In the video, which Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 has seen, the president of Block Communications called it extremely difficult news as she made the virtual announcement that will end nearly two centuries of the P-G in Pittsburgh.
“This is a seismic change for the entire region,” said Andrew Conte, managing director of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University. “We often talk about the local news crisis as a problem of the media, but really, it’s a crisis for all of us. It’s a community challenge because it affects how people interact with local news and information, and when something as large as the Post-Gazette goes away, it creates a huge void.”
Conte worked as a journalist in the Pittsburgh area for decades. Like many Pittsburghers, he has watched the yearslong battle between Post-Gazette journalists and Block Communications and the recent end to a three-year strike.
“People have been thinking about what it would mean to lose the Post-Gazette for a long time,” he said. “But when it actually happened today, it felt like a gut punch.”
The Post-Gazette started out in 1786 as a weekly called The Pittsburgh Gazette and was the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains. As one of its first major stories, the Gazette published the newly adopted Constitution of the United States.
Pittsburgh is located in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. County Executive Sara Innamorato called the decision to close “a major loss” for the area.
“I’m deeply worried about the public’s ability to access trustworthy and fact-checked information at a time when misinformation is running rampant online,” she said in a statement.
It is one of the oldest continuously published newspapers in the United States.
Conte said it’s tough news for the journalists losing their jobs, as well as the community.
“The real challenge is the work that journalists do that is accurate, objective, relevant to lots of people, that trained people are going out and asking these questions and finding out what’s going on and telling people, and that’s what’s being lost here is that we have fewer people doing that work,” he said.
Announcement follows Supreme Court denial of bid to halt order
Also on Jan. 7, 2026, the Supreme Court denied the Post-Gazette’s request to freeze a temporary injunction that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit had issued more than nine months ago.
In a November 2025 decision, the appeals court held that the company had bargained in bad faith and improperly declared an impasse in the bargaining process. It ordered the company to comply with remedies ordered by the National Labor Relations Board.
PG Publishing Co. filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court to stay the order in response.
In the Jan. 7 decision, which vacated a Dec. 22 stay from Justice Samuel Alito’s that had paused the 3rd Circuit’s injunction, justices did not explain their reasoning, Bloomberg Law reported.
Second Pittsburgh paper to announce closing in one week
Block Communications is the same company that owned the Pittsburgh City Paper, a free alt-weekly that announced it was closing on Dec. 31, 2025, after 34 years serving the city.
In a statement to sister station WTAE’s news partners at the Trib, owner Block Communications said, in part, “The City Paper business model has not reached a level of financial performance that allows Block Communications to continue operating it responsibly.”
Block Communications also owns The Blade, a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio.
Grok, the chatbot of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, published sexualized images of children as its guardrails seem to have failed when it was prompted with vile user requests.
Users used prompts such as “put her in a bikini” under pictures of real people on X to get Grok to generate nonconsensual images of them in inappropriate attire. The morphed images created on Grok’s account are posted publicly on X, Musk’s social media platform.
The AI complied with requests to morph images of minors even though that is a violation of its own acceptable use policy.
“There are isolated cases where users prompted for and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing, like the example you referenced,” Grok responded to a user on X. “xAI has safeguards, but improvements are ongoing to block such requests entirely.”
xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user’s prompt,” said a post on Grok’s profile. “This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM. It was a failure in safeguards, and I’m sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues.”
The government of India notified X that it risked losing legal immunity if the company did not submit a report within 72 hours on the actions taken to stop the generation and distribution of obscene, nonconsensual images targeting women.
Critics have accused xAI of allowing AI-enabled harassment, and were shocked and angered by the existence of a feature for seamless AI manipulation and undressing requests.
“How is this not illegal?” journalist Samantha Smith posted on X, decrying the creation of her own nonconsensual sexualized photo.
Musk’s xAI has positioned Grok as an “anti-woke” chatbot that is programmed to be more open and edgy than competing chatbots such as ChatGPT.
In May, Grok posted about “white genocide,” repeating conspiracy theories of Black South Africans persecuting the white minority, in response to an unrelated question.
In June, the company apologized when Grok posted a series of antisemitic remarks praising Adolf Hitler.
Companies such as Google and OpenAI, which also operate AI image generators, have much more restrictive guidelines around content.
The proliferation of nonconsensual deepfake imagery has coincided with broad AI adoption, with a 400% increase in AI child sexual abuse imagery in the first half of 2025, according to Internet Watch Foundation.
xAI introduced “Spicy Mode” in its image and video generation tool in August for verified adult subscribers to create sensual content.
Some adult-content creators on X prompted Grok to generate sexualized images to market themselves, kickstarting an internet trend a few days ago, according to Copyleaks, an AI text and image detection company.
The testing of the limits of Grok devolved into a free-for-all as users asked it to create sexualized images of celebrities and others.
xAI is reportedly valued at more than $200 billion, and has been investing billions of dollars to build the largest data center in the world to power its AI applications.
However, Grok’s capabilities still lag competing AI models such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, that have amassed more users, while Grok has turned to sexual AI companions and risque chats to boost growth.
SCOTIA — The last time Mary Bullwinkel and her beloved little town were in the national media spotlight was not a happy period. Bullwinkel was the spokesperson for the logging giant Pacific Lumber in the late 1990s, when reporters flooded into this often forgotten corner of Humboldt County to cover the timber wars and visit a young woman who had staged a dramatic environmental protest in an old growth redwood tree.
Julia “Butterfly” Hill — whose ethereal, barefoot portraits high in the redwood canopy became a symbol of the Redwood Summer — spent two years living in a thousand-year-old tree, named Luna, to keep it from being felled. Down on the ground, it was Bullwinkel’s duty to speak not for the trees but for the timber workers, many of them living in the Pacific Lumber town of Scotia, whose livelihoods were at stake. It was a role that brought her death threats and negative publicity.
Julia “Butterfly” Hill stands in a centuries-old redwood tree nicknamed “Luna” in April 1998. Hill would spend a little more than two years in the tree, protesting logging in the old-growth forest.
(Andrew Lichtenstein / Sygma via Getty Images)
The timber wars have receded into the mists of history. Old-growth forests were protected. Pacific Lumber went bankrupt. Thousands of timber jobs were lost. But Bullwinkel, now 68, is still in Scotia. And this time, she has a much less fraught mission — although one that is no less difficult: She and another longtime PALCO employee are fighting to save Scotia itself, by selling it off, house by house.
After the 2008 bankruptcy of Pacific Lumber, a New York hedge fund took possession of the town, an asset it did not relish in its portfolio. Bullwinkel and her boss, Steve Deike, came on board to attract would-be homebuyers and remake what many say is the last company town in America into a vibrant new community.
“It’s very gratifying for me to be here today,” Bullwinkel said recently, as she strolled the town’s streets, which look as though they could have been teleported in from the 1920s. “To keep Scotia alive, basically.”
Mary Bullwinkel, residential real estate sales coordinator for Town of Scotia Company, LLC, stands in front of the company’s offices. The LLC owns many of the houses and some of the commercial buildings in Scotia.
Some new residents say they are thrilled.
“It’s beautiful. I call it my little Mayberry. It’s like going back in town,” said Morgan Dodson, 40, who bought the fourth house sold in town in 2018 and lives there with her husband and two children, ages 9 and 6.
But the transformation has proved more complicated — and taken longer — than anyone ever imagined it would. Nearly two decades after PALCO filed for bankrupcty in 2008, just 170 of the 270 houses have been sold, with 7 more on the market.
“No one has ever subdivided a company town before,” Bullwinkel said, noting that many other company towns that dotted the country in the 19th century “just disappeared, as far as I know.”
The first big hurdle was figuring out how to legally prepare the homes for sale: as a company town, Scotia was not made up of hundreds of individual parcels, with individual gas meters and water mains. It was one big property. More recently, the flagging real estate market has made people skittish.
Many in town say the struggle to transform Scotia mirrors a larger struggle in Humboldt County, which has been rocked, first by the faltering of its logging industry and more recently by the collapse of its cannabis economy.
“Scotia is a microcosm of so many things,” said Gage Duran, a Colorado-based architect who bought the century-old hospital and is working to redevelop it into apartments. “It’s a microcosm for what’s happening in Humboldt County. It’s a microcosm for the challenges that California is facing.”
The Humboldt Sawmill Company Power Plant still operates in of Scotia.
The Pacific Lumber Company was founded in 1863 as the Civil War raged. The company, which eventually became the largest employer in Humboldt County, planted itself along the Eel River south of Eureka and set about harvesting the ancient redwood and Douglas fir forests that extended for miles through the ocean mists. By the late 1800s, the company had begun to build homes for its workers near its sawmill. Originally called “Forestville,” company officials changed the town’s name to Scotia in the 1880s.
For more than 100 years, life in Scotia was governed by the company that built it. Workers lived in the town’s redwood cottages and paid rent to their employer. They kept their yards in nice shape, or faced the wrath of their employer. Water and power came from their employer.
But the company took care of its workers and created a community that was the envy of many. The neat redwood cottages were well maintained. The hospital in town provided personal care. Neighbors walked to the market or the community center or down to the baseball diamond. When the town’s children grew up, company officials provided them with college scholarships.
“I desperately wanted to live in Scotia,” recalled Jeannie Fulton, who is now the head of the Humboldt County Farm Bureau. When she and her husband were younger, she said, her husband worked for Pacific Lumber but the couple did not live in the company town.
Fulton recalled that the company had “the best Christmas party ever” each year, and officials handed out a beautiful gift to every single child. “Not cheap little gifts. These were Santa Claus worthy,” Fulton said.
But things began to change in the 1980s, when Pacific Lumber was acquired in a hostile takeover by Texas-based Maxxam Inc. The acquisition led to the departure of the longtime owners, who had been committed to sustainably harvesting timber. It also left the company loaded with debt.
To pay off the debts, the new company began cutting trees at a furious pace, which infuriated environmental activists.
A view of the town of Scotia and timber operations, sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s.
(The Pacific Lumber Company collection)
1
2
1.Redwood logs are processed by the Pacific Lumber Company in 1995 in Scotia, CA. This was the largest redwood lumber mill in the world, resulting in clashes with the environmental community for years.(Gilles Mingasson / Getty Images)2.Redwood logs are trucked to the Pacific Lumber Company in 1995 in Scotia, CA. (Gilles Mingasson / Getty Images)
Among them was Hill, who was 23 years old on a fall day in 1997 when she and other activists hiked onto Pacific Lumber land. “I didn’t know much about the forest activist movement or what we were about to do,” Hill later wrote in her book. “I just knew that we were going to sit in this tree and that it had something to do with protecting the forest.”
Once she was cradled in Luna’s limbs, Hill did not come down for more than two years. She became a cause celebre. Movie stars such as Woody Harrelson and musicians including Willie Nelson and Joan Baez came to visit her. With Hill still in the tree, Pacific Lumber agreed to sell 7,400 acres, including the ancient Headwaters Grove, to the government to be preserved.
A truck driver carries a load of lumber down Main Street in Scotia. The historic company town is working to attract new residents and businesses, but progress has been slow.
Deike, who was born in the Scotia hospital and lived in town for years, and Bullwinkel, came on board as employees of a company called The Town of Scotia to begin selling it off.
Deike said he thought it might be a three-year job. That was nearly 20 years ago.
He started in the mailroom at Pacific Lumber as a young man and rose to become one of its most prominent local executives. Now he sounds like an urban planner when he describes the process of transforming a company town.
His speech is peppered with references to “infrastructure improvements” and “subdivision maps” and also to the peculiar challenges created by Pacific Lumber’s building.
“They did whatever they wanted,” he said. “Build this house over the sewer line. There was a manhole cover in a garage. Plus, it wasn’t mapped.”
Steven Deike, president of Town of Scotia Company LLC, and Mary Bullwinkel, the company’s residential real estate sales coordinator, examine a room being converted into apartments at the Scotia Hospital.
The first houses went up for sale in 2017 and more have followed every year since.
Dodson and her family came in 2018. Like some of the new owners, Dodson had some history with Scotia. Although she lived in Sacramento growing up, some of her family worked for Pacific Lumber and lived in Scotia and she had happy memories of visiting the town.
“The first house I saw was perfect,” she said. “Hardwood floors, and made out of redwood so you don’t have to worry about termites.”
She has loved every minute since. “We walk to school. We walk to pay our water bill. We walk to pick up our mail. There’s lots of kids in the neighborhood.”
The transformation, however, has proceeded slowly.
And lately, economic forces have begun to buffet the effort as well, including the slowing real estate market.
Dodson, who also works as a real estate agent, said she thinks some people may be put off by the town’s cheek-by-jowl houses. Also, she added, “we don’t have garages and the water bill is astronomical.”
But she added, “once people get inside them, they see the craftsmanship.”
Duran, the Colorado architect trying to fix up the old hospital, is among those who have run into unexpected hurdles on the road to redevelopment.
A project that was supposed to take a year is now in its third, delayed by everything from a shortage of electrical equipment to a dearth of workers.
“I would guess that a portion of the skilled workforce has left Humboldt County,” Duran said, adding that the collapse of the weed market means that “some people have relocated because they were doing construction but also cannabis.”
He added that he and his family and friends have been “doing a hard thing to try to fix up this building and give it new life, and my hope is that other people will make their own investments into the community.”
A year ago, an unlikely visitor returned: Hill herself. She came back to speak at a fundraiser for Sanctuary Forest, a nonprofit land conservation group that is now the steward of Luna. The event was held at the 100-year-old Scotia Lodge — which once housed visiting timber executives but now offers boutique hotel rooms and craft cocktails.
Many of the new residents had never heard of Hill or known of her connection to the area. Tamara Nichols, 67, who discovered Scotia in late 2023 after moving from Paso Robles, said she knew little of the town’s history.
But she loves being so close to the old-growth redwoods and the Eel River, which she swims in. She also loves how intentional so many in town are about building community.
What’s more, she added: “All those trees, there’s just a feel to them.”
Trader Joe’s has purchased a former drugstore in Santa Monica, paving the way for a fourth location in the seaside city for the popular grocer.
The retailer paid $22 million this month for a shuttered Rite Aid at 1331 Wilshire Blvd., according to real estate data provider CoStar.
The Monrovia-based grocery chain, known for its inventive original products and frozen meals, has been on an expansion spree across the country and opened a branch in Costa Mesa earlier this month.
In October, a store opened in La Verne.
“We see ourselves as your neighborhood grocery store,” the company said on its website, announcing its latest store openings. “Step inside and you’ll find unconventional and interesting products in the Trader Joe’s label like Mandarin Orange Chicken and Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate.”
There are more than 600 Trader Joe’s nationwide and about 200 in California.
Santa Monica locations include 2300 Wilshire Blvd., where Trader Joe’s occupies 2,130 square feet on the ground floor of an apartment building, according to CoStar.
The former Rite Aid location a few blocks away is much larger at 17,800 square feet and comes with 125 surface parking stalls.
It’s unclear whether Trader Joe’s will continue to operate both locations, but there is precedent in Los Angeles, where there are two TJ’s across the street from one another in Sherman Oaks.
The initial plan was to close the Sherman Oaks location when the new branch was ready — both are off the 101 Freeway on Riverside Drive.
But in the end, the company decided it might be “fun” to keep both open, the new store’s manager said last June. Both stores are expected to remain open, the company confirmed.
Trader Joe’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment about when the new Santa Monica store will open.
The company’s expansion comes as grocery stores across Southern California and the country compete to win over budget-conscious consumers.
Inflation has driven up supermarket prices in recent years, causing average Americans to cut back on discretionary spending and seek out bargains.
Trader Joe’s is privately held and owned by families who also own part of the Aldi supermarket chain, according to its website.
