A Trump administration policy to deny bond hearings to immigrants who entered the country without authorization was upheld by an immigration appellate board Friday, expanding mandatory detention to thousands of people already behind bars and potentially millions more nationwide.
Although the policy is being challenged in federal court, the ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals is likely to send an immediate chill through immigration courts where judges for decades have released individuals on bond whom they did not deem a flight risk or danger.
Those judges are now bound by the board’s decision. Immigration courts are not part of the judicial branch but fall under the Department of Justice.
Immigrant rights attorneys say holding immigrants throughout their cases — a process that can sometimes take years — is intended to break the spirit of many and force them to sign their own deportation orders.
“This is an effort to increase the number of people in detention significantly,” said Niels W. Frenzen, director of the USC Gould School of Law Immigration Clinic, who is part of a team of attorneys who have filed habeas petitions for dozens of immigrants picked up during the summer raids in Los Angeles.
“Literally millions of people are now subject to being held without bond,” he said.
One of those is Ana Franco Galdamez, a mother of two U.S. citizens who has been in the country for two decades. She was getting treatment for breast cancer when she was arrested in a June 19 raid in Los Angeles County, where nearly 1 million undocumented immigrants reside, according to estimates.
She was denied bond and missed treatment, but she was eventually released after a lawyer filed a habeas case.
“Detention conditions are horrific, and they’ve gotten even worse,” Frenzen said. “The goal of the administration is to make it difficult for people to fight their cases and to give up.”
Federal judges have ruled in several cases that denying bond violated federal statues and constitutionally protected due process. The group is now seeking to block the no-bond policy in a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Other lawsuits are also pending.
The Trump administration introduced the no-bond policy nationally in a memo in July — paving the way for the mandatory detention of immigrants.
The move came after Congress authorized expanding immigration detention and enforcement amid a crackdown inside courtrooms and at immigration check-ins.
Immigrants, most of whom had been following the rules to adjust, maintain or gain legal status, were arrested and detained.
For months now, those inside the immigration courts system have been pressed to implement Trump Administration policies. Judges have been fired, and the Pentagon has said it is identifying military lawyers and judges to temporarily sit on the bench.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the immigration courts, did not answer specific questions from The Times — but pointed out that the ruling was a precedent.
“It strips judicial discretion in many cases,” said Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “It basically says, if you entered illegally, only ICE can decide if you get out of detention.”
The Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision stems from the case of a Venezuelan immigrant who crossed the border in November 2022 near El Paso, Texas, and was later granted temporary protected status. That status expired on April 2 after the Trump administration terminated the program, a decision that is also tied up in litigation.
The board determined that immigration judges had no authority to issue bonds because immigrants “who are present in the United States without admission … must be detained for the duration of their removal proceedings.”
In other words, the board’s decision treats people who have been in the U.S. for years the same as newly arriving immigrants at the border, who can be quickly deported without bond.
“We’ve had clients that are pregnant, we’ve had clients that are breastfeeding. We’ve had clients who have never been arrested, let alone commit, convicted of any crime ever, who’ve never missed an ICE check in — they’re all being told, ‘You’re subject to mandatory detention because of this new interpretation by the Trump administration,’” said Jordan Wells, an attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. “This now solidifies that as the law of the land, unless and until [the] federal circuit court rules otherwise.”
Protests in Indonesia sparked by economic hardship have elicited a heavy-handed response from police, triggering concerns that the Southeast Asian nation could be returning to its authoritarian past.
As police trucks have been spray-painted with anti-law enforcement slogans, President Prabowo Subianto has denounced the demonstrations as “treason and terrorism” while seeking to assuage wide-ranging discontent.
Thousands have taken to the streets in major cities in the last week, joined at times by rioters setting fire to government buildings and looters ransacking the homes of politicians. At least 10 people have died and hundreds have been injured in the ensuing unrest.
On Wednesday, a coalition of student unions met with lawmakers and demanded an independent investigation into the police violence, portending further protests.
Frustrations in the world’s third-largest democracy have been building since Prabowo, a former military general and businessman, took power last year, implementing austerity measures that have cut billions from public services such as healthcare and education.
Many ordinary Indonesians criticize the government for primarily serving the interests of the wealthy elite even as youth unemployment soars and wages stagnate.
The initial wave of demonstrations began Aug. 25, with thousands gathering outside the country’s parliament to decry one stark example of such inequality: a $3,000 housing allowance for lawmakers that was nearly 10 times the minimum wage in Jakarta.
The discontent escalated into violence when a 21-year-old motorcycle taxi driver was fatally struck by an armored police vehicle speeding through the crowd.
Prabowo and his police chief have apologized for the incident, and one of the officers involved in the crash has been fired.
At a televised news conference, Prabowo stressed that the right to peaceful assembly should be protected but that “the state must step in to protect its citizens.”
Neither these measures, nor the president’s promise to scale back the lawmakers’ perks, have quelled the outpouring of public anger, which has been met with a police response that human rights groups have decried as excessive.
“Nobody should die while exercising their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly,” said Montse Ferrer, Amnesty International’s regional research director for East and Southeast Asia.
On Monday, the United Nations called for an investigation into the “alleged use of unnecessary or disproportionate force by security forces.”
Since the demonstrations began, Indonesian police have used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets against protesters, some of whom have lobbed back Molotov cocktails and rocks. Authorities have arrested over 3,000 people.
Two deaths have been attributed to the police crackdown: a pedicab driver in the city of Solo who died last week while being treated for tear gas exposure, and a college student who died Sunday after apparently being beaten by police.
Such incidents have resurfaced the Indonesian public’s festering distrust of the police force, said Jacqui Baker, a scholar of Indonesian security and policing at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia.
“Ordinary people have long repeated a saying ‘report a chicken, lose a buffalo,’ meaning if you engage the police in routine law enforcement … you are likely to suffer more material loss than the original theft,” she said.
In recent years, civic groups have accused police of dozens of extrajudicial killings and torture.
Many of the country’s policing problems stem from a three-decade-long period of authoritarian rule under then-President Suharto that ended in 1998.
With the police remaining wedded to political interests even after the country’s democratization, Baker said, the “historical sense of entitlement has generated a deeply corrupt, violent and predatory force that is widely hated by ordinary people.”
President Prabowo himself is accused of human rights abuses, such as the abduction of dissidents, under Suharto’s rule. Critics say he is now pulling the country back into authoritarianism by expanding the military’s involvement in civilian institutions. Prabowo denies these claims.
For more than two decades, satellites have tracked the total amounts of water held in glaciers, ice sheets, lakes, rivers, soil and the world’s vast natural reservoirs underground — aquifers. An extensive global analysis of that data now reveals fresh water is rapidly disappearing beneath much of humanity’s feet, and large swaths of the Earth are drying out.
Scientists are seeing “mega-drying” regions that are immense and expanding — one stretching from the western United States through Mexico to Central America, and another from Morocco to France, across the entire Middle East to northern China.
There are two primary causes of the desiccation: rising temperatures unleashed by using oil and gas, and widespread overpumping of water that took millennia to accumulate underground.
“These findings send perhaps the most alarming message yet about the impact of climate change on our water resources,” said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist and professor at Arizona State University who co-authored the study. “The rapid water cycle change that the planet has experienced over the last decade has unleashed a wave of rapid drying.”
Since 2002, satellites have measured changes in the Earth’s gravity field to track shifts in water, both frozen and liquid. What they sent back shows that nearly 6 billion people — three-fourths of humanity — live in the 101 countries that have been losing water.
Large parts of the world are getting drier
Vast swaths of the world are losing fresh water. In addition to the melting of glaciers and ice caps, many regions are getting drier and depleting their groundwater.
Each year, these drying areas have been expanding by an area roughly twice the size of California.
Canada and Russia, where large amounts of ice and permafrost are melting, are losing the most fresh water. The United States, Iran and India also rank near the top, with rising temperatures and chronic overuse of groundwater.
Farms and cities are pulling up so much water using high-capacity pumps that much of the water evaporates and eventually ends up as rain falling over the ocean, measurably increasing sea level rise.
Water flows from a well to irrigate an orchard in Visalia.
(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, found that these water losses now contribute more to sea level rise than the more widely understood melting of mountain glaciers or the Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets.
The staggeringly rapid expansion of the drying regions was surprising even for the scientists. Famiglietti said it is set to worsen in many areas, leading to “widespread aridification and desertification.”
“We found tremendous growth in the world’s land areas that are experiencing extreme drought,” Famiglietti said. “Only the tropics are getting wetter. The rest of the world’s land areas are drying.”
The wave of drying has prompted many people across the world’s food-growing regions to drill more wells and rely more heavily on pumping groundwater.
The researchers estimate that 68% of the water the continents are losing, not including melting glaciers, is from groundwater depletion. And much of that water is to irrigate crops.
Where aquifer levels decline, wells and faucets increasingly sputter and run dry, people drill deeper and the land can sink as underground spaces collapse.
The loss may be irreversible, leaving current and future generations with less water.
Famiglietti said the potential long-term consequences are dire: Farmers will struggle to grow as much food, economic growth will be threatened, increasing numbers of people will flee drying regions, conflicts over water are already increasing, and more governments will be destabilized in countries that aren’t prepared.
The researchers estimated that the world’s drying regions have been losing 368 billion metric tons of water per year. That’s more than double the volume of Lake Tahoe, or 10 times Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States.
All that water, year after year, has become a major contributor to sea level rise, which is projected to cause worsening damages in the coming decades.
Previous studies have shown dropping groundwater levels, dry regions getting drier and these water losses contributing to sea level rise. But the new study shows these changes are happening faster and on a larger scale than previously known.
“It is quite alarming,” said Hrishikesh Chandanpurkar, an Arizona State research scientist who co-authored the study. “Water touches everything in life. The effects of its irreversible decline are bound to trickle into everything.”
He likened the global situation to a family overspending and drawing down their savings accounts.
“Our bank balance is consistently decreasing. This is inherently unsustainable,” Chandanpurkar said.
The draining of groundwater, often invisible, hides how much arid regions are drawing down their reserve accounts, he said. “Once these trust funds dry out, water bankruptcy is imminent.”
The researchers examined data from two U.S.-German satellite missions, called Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE-Follow On.
The scientists ranked California’s Central Valley as the region where the fastest groundwater depletion is occurring, followed by parts of Russia, India and Pakistan.
In other research, scientists have found that the last 25 years have probably been the driest in at least 1,200 years in western North America.
And farming areas that a decade ago appeared in the satellite data as hot spots of drought and groundwater depletion, such as California’s Central Valley and the Ogallala Aquifer beneath the High Plains, have expanded across the Southwest, through Mexico and into Central America.
Researchers identify western U.S. and Central America as one of four ‘mega-drying’ regions
These regions including large parts of Canada and Russia; southwestern North America and Central America; and a giant interconnected drying region spanning from North Africa to Europe, through the Middle East to northern China and Southeast Asia.
The satellite data show that these and other regions are not only shifting to drier conditions on average, but are also failing to “live within the means” of the water they have available, Chandanpurkar said.
“The truth is, water is not being valued and the long-term reserves are exploited for short-term profits,” he said.
He said he hopes the findings will prompt action to address the chronic overuse of water.
In the study, the researchers wrote that “while efforts to slow climate change may be sputtering,” people urgently need to take steps to preserve groundwater. They called for national and global efforts to manage groundwater and “help preserve this precious resource for generations to come.”
In many areas where groundwater levels are dropping, there are no limits on well-drilling or how much a landowner can pump, and there is no charge for the water. Often, well owners don’t even need to have a meter installed or report how much water they’re using.
In California, farms producing vast quantities of nuts, fruits and other crops have drawn down aquifers so heavily that several thousand rural households have had their wells run dry over the last decade, and the ground has been sinking as much as 1 foot per year, damaging canals, bridges and levees.
The state in 2014 adopted a landmark groundwater law that requires local agencies to curb widespread overpumping. But it gives many areas until 2040 to address their depletion problems, and in the meantime water levels have continued to fall.
State officials and local agencies have begun investing in projects to capture more stormwater and replenish aquifers.
Arizona has sought to preserve groundwater in urban areas through a 1980 law, but in much of the state, there are still no limits on how many wells can be drilled or how much water can be pumped. Over the last decade, out-of-state companies and investors have drilled deep wells and expanded large-scale farming operations in the desert to grow hay and other crops.
Famiglietti, who was previously a senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has extensively studied groundwater depletion around the world. He said he doesn’t think the leaders of most countries are aware of, or preparing for, the worsening crisis.
“Of all the troubling findings we revealed in the study, the one thing where humanity can really make a difference quickly is the decision to better manage groundwater and protect it for future generations,” Famiglietti said. “Groundwater will become the most important natural resource in the world’s drying regions. We need to carefully protect it.”
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – A week after a mass shooting in Minneapolis killed two children, Vice President JD Vance plans to visit and pay respect to its victims.
JD Vance in Minneapolis
What we know:
Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance will visit Minneapolis on Wednesday, Sept. 3, and are said to be hosting a series of private meetings, “to convey condolences to the families of those affected by the tragedy.”
Annunciation shooting
The backstory:
Two children were killed, and 18 children were hurt when a shooter opened fire from outside a church window as Catholic school students were gathering for morning mass on Aug. 27. Three adults in their 80s were also struck by gunfire but survived.
Last week, authorities identified the two children killed in the shooting as Harper Moyski, 10, and Fletcher Merkel, 8,
Police say the shooter left a manifesto filled with hateful remarks towards multiple groups. The chief says the gunman was obsessed with other mass shooters and wanted to become infamous.
Desperate Afghans clawed through rubble in the dead of the night in search of missing loved ones after a strong earthquake killed some 800 people and injured more than 2,500 in eastern Afghanistan, according to figures provided Monday by the Taliban government.The 6.0 magnitude quake late Sunday hit towns in the province of Kunar, near the city of Jalalabad in neighboring Nangarhar province, causing extensive damage.The quake at 11:47 p.m. was centered 17 miles east-northeast of Jalalabad, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was just 5 miles deep. Shallower quakes tend to cause more damage. Several aftershocks followed.Footage showed rescuers taking injured people on stretchers from collapsed buildings and into helicopters as people frantically dug through rubble with their hands.The Taliban government’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said at a press conference Monday that the death toll had risen to at least 800 with more than 2,500 injured. He said most of the casualties were in Kunar.Buildings in Afghanistan tend to be low-rise constructions, mostly of concrete and brick, with homes in rural and outlying areas made from mud bricks and wood. Many are poorly built.One resident in Nurgal district, one of the worst-affected areas in Kunar, said nearly the entire village was destroyed.“Children are under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble,” said the villager, who did not give his name.“We need help here,” he pleaded. “We need people to come here and join us. Let us pull out the people who are buried. There is no one who can come and remove dead bodies from under the rubble.”Homes collapsed and people screamed for helpEastern Afghanistan is mountainous, with remote areas.The quake has worsened communications. Blocked roads are forcing aid workers to walk four or five hours to reach survivors. Dozens of flights have operated in and out of Nangarhar Airport, transporting the injured to hospital.One survivor described seeing homes collapse before his eyes and people screaming for help.Sadiqullah, who lives in the Maza Dara area of Nurgal, said he was woken by a deep boom that sounded like a storm approaching. Like many Afghans, he uses only one name.He ran to where his children were sleeping and rescued three of them. He was about to return to grab the rest of his family when the room fell on top of him.“I was half-buried and unable to get out,” he told The Associated Press by phone from Nangarhar Hospital. “My wife and two sons are dead, and my father is injured and in hospital with me. We were trapped for three to four hours until people from other areas arrived and pulled me out.”It felt like the whole mountain was shaking, he said.Rescue operations were underway and medical teams from Kunar, Nangarhar and the capital Kabul have arrived in the area, said Sharafat Zaman, a health ministry spokesman.Zaman said many areas had not been able to report casualty figures and that “the numbers were expected to change” as deaths and injuries are reported. The chief spokesman, Mujahid, said helicopters had reached some areas but road travel was difficult.“There are some villages where the injured and dead haven’t been recovered from the rubble, so that’s why the numbers may increase,” he told journalists.The tremors were felt in neighboring PakistanFilippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said the earthquake intensified existing humanitarian challenges in Afghanistan and urged international donors to support relief efforts.“This adds death and destruction to other challenges including drought and the forced return of millions of Afghans from neighbouring countries,” Grandi wrote on the social media platform X. “Hopefully the donor community will not hesitate to support relief efforts.”A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2023, followed by strong aftershocks. The Taliban government estimated at least 4,000 people perished in that quake.The U.N. gave a far lower death toll of about 1,500. It was the deadliest natural disaster to strike Afghanistan in recent memory.The latest earthquake was likely to “dwarf the scale of the humanitarian needs” caused by the disaster of 2023, according to the International Rescue Committee.Entire roads and communities have been cut off from accessing nearby towns or hospitals and 2,000 casualties were reported within the first 12 hours, said Sherine Ibrahim, the country director for the aid agency.“Although we have been able to act fast, we are profoundly fearful for the additional strain this will have on the overall humanitarian response in Afghanistan,” said Ibrahim. ” Global funding cuts have dramatically hampered our ability to respond to the ongoing humanitarian crisis.”Sunday night’s quake was felt in parts of Pakistan, including the capital Islamabad. There were no reports of casualties or damage.Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he was deeply saddened by events in Afghanistan. “Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. We are ready to extend all possible support in this regard,” he said on the social platform X.Pakistan has expelled tens of thousands of Afghans in the past year, many of them living in the country for decades as refugees.At least 1.2 million Afghans have been forced to return from Iran and Pakistan so far this year, according to a June report by UNHCR.
KABUL, Afghanistan —
Desperate Afghans clawed through rubble in the dead of the night in search of missing loved ones after a strong earthquake killed some 800 people and injured more than 2,500 in eastern Afghanistan, according to figures provided Monday by the Taliban government.
The 6.0 magnitude quake late Sunday hit towns in the province of Kunar, near the city of Jalalabad in neighboring Nangarhar province, causing extensive damage.
The quake at 11:47 p.m. was centered 17 miles east-northeast of Jalalabad, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was just 5 miles deep. Shallower quakes tend to cause more damage. Several aftershocks followed.
Footage showed rescuers taking injured people on stretchers from collapsed buildings and into helicopters as people frantically dug through rubble with their hands.
The Taliban government’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said at a press conference Monday that the death toll had risen to at least 800 with more than 2,500 injured. He said most of the casualties were in Kunar.
Buildings in Afghanistan tend to be low-rise constructions, mostly of concrete and brick, with homes in rural and outlying areas made from mud bricks and wood. Many are poorly built.
One resident in Nurgal district, one of the worst-affected areas in Kunar, said nearly the entire village was destroyed.
“Children are under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble,” said the villager, who did not give his name.
“We need help here,” he pleaded. “We need people to come here and join us. Let us pull out the people who are buried. There is no one who can come and remove dead bodies from under the rubble.”
Homes collapsed and people screamed for help
Eastern Afghanistan is mountainous, with remote areas.
The quake has worsened communications. Blocked roads are forcing aid workers to walk four or five hours to reach survivors. Dozens of flights have operated in and out of Nangarhar Airport, transporting the injured to hospital.
One survivor described seeing homes collapse before his eyes and people screaming for help.
Sadiqullah, who lives in the Maza Dara area of Nurgal, said he was woken by a deep boom that sounded like a storm approaching. Like many Afghans, he uses only one name.
He ran to where his children were sleeping and rescued three of them. He was about to return to grab the rest of his family when the room fell on top of him.
“I was half-buried and unable to get out,” he told The Associated Press by phone from Nangarhar Hospital. “My wife and two sons are dead, and my father is injured and in hospital with me. We were trapped for three to four hours until people from other areas arrived and pulled me out.”
It felt like the whole mountain was shaking, he said.
Rescue operations were underway and medical teams from Kunar, Nangarhar and the capital Kabul have arrived in the area, said Sharafat Zaman, a health ministry spokesman.
Zaman said many areas had not been able to report casualty figures and that “the numbers were expected to change” as deaths and injuries are reported. The chief spokesman, Mujahid, said helicopters had reached some areas but road travel was difficult.
“There are some villages where the injured and dead haven’t been recovered from the rubble, so that’s why the numbers may increase,” he told journalists.
The tremors were felt in neighboring Pakistan
Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said the earthquake intensified existing humanitarian challenges in Afghanistan and urged international donors to support relief efforts.
“This adds death and destruction to other challenges including drought and the forced return of millions of Afghans from neighbouring countries,” Grandi wrote on the social media platform X. “Hopefully the donor community will not hesitate to support relief efforts.”
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2023, followed by strong aftershocks. The Taliban government estimated at least 4,000 people perished in that quake.
The U.N. gave a far lower death toll of about 1,500. It was the deadliest natural disaster to strike Afghanistan in recent memory.
The latest earthquake was likely to “dwarf the scale of the humanitarian needs” caused by the disaster of 2023, according to the International Rescue Committee.
Entire roads and communities have been cut off from accessing nearby towns or hospitals and 2,000 casualties were reported within the first 12 hours, said Sherine Ibrahim, the country director for the aid agency.
“Although we have been able to act fast, we are profoundly fearful for the additional strain this will have on the overall humanitarian response in Afghanistan,” said Ibrahim. ” Global funding cuts have dramatically hampered our ability to respond to the ongoing humanitarian crisis.”
Sunday night’s quake was felt in parts of Pakistan, including the capital Islamabad. There were no reports of casualties or damage.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he was deeply saddened by events in Afghanistan. “Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. We are ready to extend all possible support in this regard,” he said on the social platform X.
Pakistan has expelled tens of thousands of Afghans in the past year, many of them living in the country for decades as refugees.
At least 1.2 million Afghans have been forced to return from Iran and Pakistan so far this year, according to a June report by UNHCR.
More than 200 people were killed and hundreds more injured when a 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit Afghanistan’s eastern region on Sunday, according to state-run media.Rescue workers have been mobilized in several districts of the mountainous region, near the Pakistan border, but there are fears the death toll could rise further.Relief teams have struggled to reach some of the more remote communities and their progress has been hampered by landslides, reported the Taliban’s state-run Bakhtar News Agency (BNA).The earthquake hit just before midnight, 27 kilometers (16.77 miles) north-east of Jalalabad, a city of about 200,000 people in Nangarhar Province, and at a depth of 8km (4.97 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).On Monday, local officials said at least 250 people had been killed and more than 500 others injured in several districts of the mountainous northeastern Kunar province, BNA reported.”The number of casualties and injuries is high, but since the area is difficult to access, our teams are still on site,” health ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman said in a statement, according to Reuters news agency.Nearly half a million people likely felt strong to very strong shaking, which can result in considerable damage to poorly built structures, according to the USGS.Ahmad Zameer, 41, a resident in Kabul, told CNN the earthquake was strong and jolted his neighborhood more than 100 miles from the epicenter. He added that everyone from the nearby apartment buildings rushed to the street in fear of being trapped inside.”Unfortunately, tonight’s earthquake has had human casualties and financial damages in some of our eastern provinces,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid posted on X.”Right now, local officials and residents are making all the efforts to rescue affected ones. Support teams from the capital and nearby provinces are also on their way. All available resources will be used for the rescue and relief of the people,” he added.The earthquake was also felt in several cities in neighboring Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces, the Pakistan Meteorological Department said in a statement.The region was hit by at least five aftershocks, the strongest measuring 5.2-magnitude in the hours after the initial quake, according to USGS.An orange alert was issued by the USGS PAGER system, which predicts economic and human loss after earthquakes.”Significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread. Past events with this alert level have required a regional or national level response,” it said.Afghanistan has a long history of earthquakes, many of which happen in the mountainous Hindu Kush region that borders Pakistan. In October 2023, more than 2,000 people died after a powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck western Afghanistan – one of the deadliest quakes to hit the country in recent years.This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN —
More than 200 people were killed and hundreds more injured when a 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit Afghanistan’s eastern regionon Sunday, according to state-run media.
Rescue workers have been mobilized in several districts of the mountainous region, near the Pakistan border, but there are fears the death toll could rise further.
Relief teams have struggled to reach some of the more remote communities and their progress has been hampered by landslides, reported the Taliban’s state-run Bakhtar News Agency (BNA).
The earthquake hit just before midnight, 27 kilometers (16.77 miles) north-east of Jalalabad, a city of about 200,000 people in Nangarhar Province, and at a depth of 8km (4.97 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
On Monday, local officials said at least 250 people had been killed and more than 500 others injured in several districts of the mountainous northeastern Kunar province, BNA reported.
“The number of casualties and injuries is high, but since the area is difficult to access, our teams are still on site,” health ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman said in a statement, according to Reuters news agency.
Aimal Zahir/AFP/Getty Images
An injured Afghan man receives treatment at a hospital after an earthquake in Afghanistan’s Jalalabad on September 1, 2025.
Nearly half a million people likely felt strong to very strong shaking, which can result in considerable damage to poorly built structures, according to the USGS.
Ahmad Zameer, 41, a resident in Kabul, told CNN the earthquake was strong and jolted his neighborhood more than 100 miles from the epicenter. He added that everyone from the nearby apartment buildings rushed to the street in fear of being trapped inside.
“Unfortunately, tonight’s earthquake has had human casualties and financial damages in some of our eastern provinces,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid posted on X.
“Right now, local officials and residents are making all the efforts to rescue affected ones. Support teams from the capital and nearby provinces are also on their way. All available resources will be used for the rescue and relief of the people,” he added.
The earthquake was also felt in several cities in neighboring Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces, the Pakistan Meteorological Department said in a statement.
The region was hit by at least five aftershocks, the strongest measuring 5.2-magnitude in the hours after the initial quake, according to USGS.
An orange alert was issued by the USGS PAGER system, which predicts economic and human loss after earthquakes.
“Significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread. Past events with this alert level have required a regional or national level response,” it said.
Afghanistan has a long history of earthquakes, many of which happen in the mountainous Hindu Kush region that borders Pakistan. In October 2023, more than 2,000 people died after a powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck western Afghanistan – one of the deadliest quakes to hit the country in recent years.
Doctors may soon have a new way to treat high blood pressure, even among people for whom medicines haven’t worked well in the past.Baxdrostat, an experimental medicine made by AstraZeneca, showed promise in treating people with uncontrolled or resistant high blood pressure in a recent trial. If the medicine gets approved by regulatory authorities, it will be one of the first new approaches to treating high blood pressure in decades, researchers say.Scientists presented the trial results Saturday at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2025 in Madrid and simultaneously published them in the New England Journal of Medicine.For the study, researchers enrolled 800 adults who still had high blood pressure after taking two or more medications for at least four weeks. To qualify for the study, patients’ systolic blood pressure had to be between 140 and 170.Blood pressure is measured in millimeters of mercury, which is abbreviated as mm Hg. The measurement has an upper number, or systolic reading, and a lower number, a diastolic reading. Systolic pressure measures the force of blood as it pumps out of the heart into the arteries; diastolic is the pressure created as the heart rests between beats.Normal blood pressure is less than 120/80 mm Hg, and elevated blood pressure is considered to be from 120 to 129/80 mm Hg. At 130/80 mmHg or higher, according to new U.S. guidelines, a person’s medical provider will want them to take a blood pressure medication if lifestyle changes — including eating healthier, reducing salt in the diet and exercising more — don’t work first.The researchers on the new trial placed the participants into three groups. One received 1 milligram of baxdrostat, another got 2 mg, and another got a placebo, which does nothing. Participants took their dose in addition to medicines they were already taking.At 12 weeks, about 4 in 10 patients taking baxdrostat reached healthy blood pressure levels, compared with less than 2 in 10 who got a placebo.Specifically, participants who got 1 or 2 mg of baxdrostat daily saw their systolic blood pressure – the upper number in the reading – fall around 9 to 10 mm Hg more than those taking a placebo. This reduction, studies show, is large enough to cut cardiovascular risk.When blood pressure is high, the force of the blood pushes against the walls of their blood vessels, making the heart less efficient: Both the vessels and the heart must work harder, and it’s more difficult to get blood to essential organs and cells. Without treatment, high blood pressure will eventually damage the arteries, raising the risk of conditions like a heart attack, stroke, coronary disease, vascular dementia and cognitive problems.Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in the world. Lowering blood pressure is the most modifiable way to avoid such a death.Nearly half of all adults in the U.S. have higher than normal blood pressure, and 1 in 10 people have what doctors call resistant hypertension: Despite being on three or more medications, they are not meeting the goal for blood pressure control.When a patient has high blood pressure, doctors may need to try a variety of medications to see what works best.Adding baxdrostat to the list of options could be a big help for patients, according to Dr. Stacey E. Rosen, volunteer president of the American Heart Association, who was not involved with the new research.“What’s interesting about this medication is that they can really be a wonderful partner, so to speak, with some of the more classically recommended anti-hypertensive medications,” said Rosen, who is also a senior vice president of women’s health and executive director of the Katz Institute for Women’s Health of Northwell Health in New York City.Medication options now on the market control blood pressure in a variety of ways. Some, such as vasodilators, relax and widen arteries and veins to allow blood to get through easier and increase flow. Diuretics primarily work by removing excess fluid and salt from the body by increasing urine production. Centrally acting alpha agonists help prevent the nervous system from responding to stress. ACE inhibitors keep the body from producing angiotensin II, a hormone that makes blood vessels constrict. ARBs, or angiotensin II receptor blockers, help reduce the production of aldosterone, a hormone that promotes salt and water retention. Calcium channel blockers can keep calcium away from the cells of the heart and arteries so they don’t have to work as hard.Each can have different side effects, including dizziness, rapid or slower heart rate, exhaustion, upset stomach and swelling in the legs.Baxdrostat’s side effects, the study showed, were mild overall. The most common problem was abnormalities in potassium and sodium levels, but this was rare.Baxdrostat takes a new approach to managing high blood pressure. It focuses on blocking aldosterone, a hormone created by the adrenal glands that helps kidneys regulate salt and maintain the body’s water balance. Some people produce too much aldosterone, leading their body to retain too much water and salt, pushing up blood pressure.“We’ve also known for a while now that most of us eat too much salt and in doing that, it raises blood pressure. But we’re also increasingly recognizing that aldosterone may have a direct impact on causing damage to the blood vessels, to the heart, to the kidneys,” said Dr. Jenifer Brown, one of the lead investigators and co-author of the published study.Brown said she often sees cardiology patients at Brigham and Women’s who may have had a heart event, so she needs to be aggressive in getting their blood pressure under control to prevent another. Some patients may have trouble tolerating other blood pressure medications. For others, the standard medicines just don’t work well. Baxdrostat could be a good complement, she said.“We really have had the same tools as clinicians for many years,” Brown said. “I would be excited to have an option like this.”In an editorial accompanying the publication, Dr. Tomasz Guzik, a cardiovascular scientist at the University of Edinburgh, and Dr. Maciej Tomaszewski, a cardiovascular expert at the University of Manchester, write that next steps should be to figure out which patients would best respond to this new medicine and provide longer-term data. If the medication works long-term, they wrote, it could become a “central piller of therapy for difficult-to-control hypertension.”AstraZeneca said it plans to submit its data to regulatory agencies before the end of 2025.
Doctors may soon have a new way to treat high blood pressure, even among people for whom medicines haven’t worked well in the past.
Baxdrostat, an experimental medicine made by AstraZeneca, showed promise in treating people with uncontrolled or resistant high blood pressure in a recent trial. If the medicine gets approved by regulatory authorities, it will be one of the first new approaches to treating high blood pressure in decades, researchers say.
Scientists presented the trial results Saturday at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2025 in Madrid and simultaneously published them in the New England Journal of Medicine.
For the study, researchers enrolled 800 adults who still had high blood pressure after taking two or more medications for at least four weeks. To qualify for the study, patients’ systolic blood pressure had to be between 140 and 170.
Blood pressure is measured in millimeters of mercury, which is abbreviated as mm Hg. The measurement has an upper number, or systolic reading, and a lower number, a diastolic reading. Systolic pressure measures the force of blood as it pumps out of the heart into the arteries; diastolic is the pressure created as the heart rests between beats.
Normal blood pressure is less than 120/80 mm Hg, and elevated blood pressure is considered to be from 120 to 129/80 mm Hg. At 130/80 mmHg or higher, according to new U.S. guidelines, a person’s medical provider will want them to take a blood pressure medication if lifestyle changes — including eating healthier, reducing salt in the diet and exercising more — don’t work first.
The researchers on the new trial placed the participants into three groups. One received 1 milligram of baxdrostat, another got 2 mg, and another got a placebo, which does nothing. Participants took their dose in addition to medicines they were already taking.
At 12 weeks, about 4 in 10 patients taking baxdrostat reached healthy blood pressure levels, compared with less than 2 in 10 who got a placebo.
Specifically, participants who got 1 or 2 mg of baxdrostat daily saw their systolic blood pressure – the upper number in the reading – fall around 9 to 10 mm Hg more than those taking a placebo. This reduction, studies show, is large enough to cut cardiovascular risk.
When blood pressure is high, the force of the blood pushes against the walls of their blood vessels, making the heart less efficient: Both the vessels and the heart must work harder, and it’s more difficult to get blood to essential organs and cells. Without treatment, high blood pressure will eventually damage the arteries, raising the risk of conditions like a heart attack, stroke, coronary disease, vascular dementia and cognitive problems.
Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in the world. Lowering blood pressure is the most modifiable way to avoid such a death.
Nearly half of all adults in the U.S. have higher than normal blood pressure, and 1 in 10 people have what doctors call resistant hypertension: Despite being on three or more medications, they are not meeting the goal for blood pressure control.
When a patient has high blood pressure, doctors may need to try a variety of medications to see what works best.
Adding baxdrostat to the list of options could be a big help for patients, according to Dr. Stacey E. Rosen, volunteer president of the American Heart Association, who was not involved with the new research.
“What’s interesting about this medication is that they can really be a wonderful partner, so to speak, with some of the more classically recommended anti-hypertensive medications,” said Rosen, who is also a senior vice president of women’s health and executive director of the Katz Institute for Women’s Health of Northwell Health in New York City.
Medication options now on the market control blood pressure in a variety of ways. Some, such as vasodilators, relax and widen arteries and veins to allow blood to get through easier and increase flow. Diuretics primarily work by removing excess fluid and salt from the body by increasing urine production. Centrally acting alpha agonists help prevent the nervous system from responding to stress. ACE inhibitors keep the body from producing angiotensin II, a hormone that makes blood vessels constrict. ARBs, or angiotensin II receptor blockers, help reduce the production of aldosterone, a hormone that promotes salt and water retention. Calcium channel blockers can keep calcium away from the cells of the heart and arteries so they don’t have to work as hard.
Each can have different side effects, including dizziness, rapid or slower heart rate, exhaustion, upset stomach and swelling in the legs.
Baxdrostat’s side effects, the study showed, were mild overall. The most common problem was abnormalities in potassium and sodium levels, but this was rare.
Baxdrostat takes a new approach to managing high blood pressure. It focuses on blocking aldosterone, a hormone created by the adrenal glands that helps kidneys regulate salt and maintain the body’s water balance. Some people produce too much aldosterone, leading their body to retain too much water and salt, pushing up blood pressure.
“We’ve also known for a while now that most of us eat too much salt and in doing that, it raises blood pressure. But we’re also increasingly recognizing that aldosterone may have a direct impact on causing damage to the blood vessels, to the heart, to the kidneys,” said Dr. Jenifer Brown, one of the lead investigators and co-author of the published study.
Brown said she often sees cardiology patients at Brigham and Women’s who may have had a heart event, so she needs to be aggressive in getting their blood pressure under control to prevent another. Some patients may have trouble tolerating other blood pressure medications. For others, the standard medicines just don’t work well. Baxdrostat could be a good complement, she said.
“We really have had the same tools as clinicians for many years,” Brown said. “I would be excited to have an option like this.”
In an editorial accompanying the publication, Dr. Tomasz Guzik, a cardiovascular scientist at the University of Edinburgh, and Dr. Maciej Tomaszewski, a cardiovascular expert at the University of Manchester, write that next steps should be to figure out which patients would best respond to this new medicine and provide longer-term data. If the medication works long-term, they wrote, it could become a “central piller of therapy for difficult-to-control hypertension.”
AstraZeneca said it plans to submit its data to regulatory agencies before the end of 2025.
WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party’s standing in public opinion polls has sunk to its lowest point in more than 30 years. Many of the party’s own voters think their leaders aren’t fighting hard enough against President Trump. In one survey, the words they used most often were “weak” and “tepid.”
“The party is in shambles,” said James Carville, the political strategist who helped Bill Clinton win the White House after a similar bout of disarray a generation ago.
And yet, in recent weeks, the beleaguered party has begun to exhibit signs of life.
Its brand is still unpopular, but its chances of winning next year’s congressional elections appear to be growing; in recent polls, the share of voters saying they plan to vote Democratic has reached a roughly 5% lead over the GOP. Potential presidential candidates, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, are competing noisily for the title of fiercest Trump-fighter. And they have an ace in the hole: As unloved as the Democratic Party is, Trump is increasingly unpopular, too, with an approval rating sagging to 40% or below in some polls.
“There’s no requirement that people love the Democratic Party in order to vote for it,” Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini said last week. “In an era of negative partisanship, people are motivated to vote more by dislike of the other party than by love for their own.”
So Carville, despite his diagnosis of “shambles,” thinks things are looking up in the long run.
“The Democratic Party’s present looks pretty bad, but I think its future looks pretty good,” he said. “I think we’re going to be fine.”
He cited several straws in the wind: the Democrats’ new energy as they campaign against Trump; the encouraging poll numbers on next year’s congressional elections; and an impressive bench of up-and-coming leaders.
“The talent level in the current Democratic Party is the highest I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Whoever comes out on top of that competition is going to be a pretty strong candidate.”
But that nomination is three years away — and meanwhile, Democrats face daunting hurdles. For one, Trump has pressed Texas and other Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps to cement GOP control of the House of Representatives — an effort that could succeed despite Newsom’s attempt to counter it in California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing a measure to redraw California’s congressional map to aid Democrats.
(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
The Democrats, by comparison, remain leaderless and divided — arguing over the lessons of their 2024 defeat and debating how to regain their lost support among working-class and minority voters.
In a historical sense, the party is going through a familiar ordeal: the struggle a party normally faces after losing an election.
So Carville and other strategists have sketched out variations of what you might call a three-step recovery plan: First, get out of Washington and rally public opposition to Trump. Second, focus their message on “kitchen table issues,” mainly voters’ concerns over rising prices and a seemingly sluggish economy. Third, organize to win House and Senate elections next year.
“We have to do well in 2026 to demonstrate we’re not so toxic that people won’t vote for us anymore,” said Doug Sosnik, another former Clinton aide.
They’re arguing over the lessons of defeat and debating how to regain lost support among working-class and minority voters.
In battling Trump, they say they’ve found a starting point.
“We’ve found our footing. We’ve gone on the offensive,” argued Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who spent most of the summer campaigning across the country. “Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and tax breaks for billionaires have given us a message we can unite around.”
They still have plenty of differences over specific policies — but a spirited debate, some say, is exactly what the party needs.
“The most important task of the Democratic Party is to organize … the most robust debate Democrats have had in a generation,” said William A. Galston of the Brookings Institution, a former Clinton aide who argues that the party needs to move to the center.
Here’s what most Democratic leaders agree on: They’ve heard their voters’ demands for a more vigorous fight against Trump. They agree that they need to reconnect with working-class voters who don’t believe the party really cares about them. They need to cast themselves as a party of change, not the status quo. And they need to begin by regaining control of the House of Representatives next year.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) says the Democrats have “found our footing.”
(Sue Ogrocki / Associated Press)
Most Democrats also agree that they need to focus on a positive message on economic issues such as the cost of living — to use this year’s buzzword, “affordability.”
But they differ on the specifics.
Progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have focused on “fighting oligarchy,” including higher taxes on the wealthy and government-run health insurance.
Khanna, a Silicon Valley progressive, is campaigning for a program he calls “economic patriotism” — essentially, industrial policies to spur investments in strategic sectors.
Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a blunt-spoken populist, wants to make capitalism do more for ordinary workers. “Every Latino man wants a big-ass truck,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “We’re afraid of saying, like, ‘Hey, let’s help you get a job so you can become rich.’”
And from the party’s centrist wing, former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel describes his program as “build, baby, build,” arguing that Democrats should focus on making housing affordable and expanding technical and vocational education.
A sharper debate has opened over social and cultural issues: Should Democrats break with the identity politics — the stuff Republicans deride as “woke” — that animates much of their progressive wing? Moderate Democrats argue that “wokeness” has alienated voters in the center and made it impossible to win presidential elections.
“I think there’s a perception that Democrats became so focused on identity that we no longer had a message that could actually speak to people across the board,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told NPR last month.
The controversy over transgender women and girls in women’s sports has become an early test. Newsom, Buttigieg and Emanuel have broken with the left, arguing that there’s a case for barring transgender women from competition. “It is an issue of fairness,” Newsom said on his podcast in March.
Their statements prompted fierce backlash from LGBTQ+ rights advocates. “I’m now going to go into a witness protection plan,” Emanuel joked in an interview with conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly in July.
Other Democrats have tread more cautiously. “We need to make a compelling economic vision … our first, second and third priority,” Khanna said. Meanwhile, be said, “we can stay true to our values.”
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin was blunter. “We have to stand up for every LGBTQ kid and their family who want to play sports like any other kid,” he said last week.
Those battles will play out over the long campaign, already in its first stirrings, for the next presidential nomination — the traditional way American political parties settle on a single message.
“It takes time for a party to get up off the mat,” acknowledged Sosnik, the former Clinton strategist. “We didn’t get here overnight. We’re not going to get out of it overnight.”
As Labor Day weekend begins, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office is ramping up enforcement on local waterways to ensure safety amid crowded conditions and warm weather.Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Nofziger was patrolling parts of the Sacramento River and American River on Saturday. “There’s just a lot of fast boats out here right now. A lot of people that are drinking. The weather’s hot. They’re trying to stay cool,” he said. He said a lot of his day consisted of educational stops and informing people about the rules on the water. “We’re stopping boaters that are either speeding in areas they’re not supposed to be going over five miles an hour — the no wake zones, between the bridges in Old Sac — if they’re doing anything reckless, or if they don’t have current tags on their boat,” he said. “A lot of times, we can just spread educational awareness and give them warnings.”He said a big focus this weekend is boater cards, which are required for anyone driving a boat or jet ski in the state. “So, all that is just an online course. You register and take the classes and you get a card in the mail. And really what it does is just explains a lot of the boating rules, regulations, so that everyone’s kind of on the same page,” Nofziger said.He said they did hand out one citation Saturday to a boater who did not have a boater card. “Something we ran into today was a boater who was having mechanical issues on his boat and claimed that the reason why he chose to drive at us, instead of around or away from us like normal boaters would have done, was because his boat was having some mechanical problems. That boater did not have a boater card, so he ended up getting a citation for that,” Nofziger said. He emphasized that he wants people to enjoy the weekend, but to do so safely. “Make sure your boat’s running good before you get out in the water and start drifting away. Make sure everyone has life jackets and get your boater safety card. It’s important. And just be safe. Have fun, but be safe,” Nofziger said.The sheriff’s office will have more crews spread throughout the county for the rest of the weekend.
, Calif. —
As Labor Day weekend begins, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office is ramping up enforcement on local waterways to ensure safety amid crowded conditions and warm weather.
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Nofziger was patrolling parts of the Sacramento River and American River on Saturday.
“There’s just a lot of fast boats out here right now. A lot of people that are drinking. The weather’s hot. They’re trying to stay cool,” he said.
He said a lot of his day consisted of educational stops and informing people about the rules on the water.
“We’re stopping boaters that are either speeding in areas they’re not supposed to be going over five miles an hour — the no wake zones, between the bridges in Old Sac — if they’re doing anything reckless, or if they don’t have current tags on their boat,” he said. “A lot of times, we can just spread educational awareness and give them warnings.”
He said a big focus this weekend is boater cards, which are required for anyone driving a boat or jet ski in the state.
“So, all that is just an online course. You register and take the classes and you get a card in the mail. And really what it does is just explains a lot of the boating rules, regulations, so that everyone’s kind of on the same page,” Nofziger said.
He said they did hand out one citation Saturday to a boater who did not have a boater card.
“Something we ran into today was a boater who was having mechanical issues on his boat and claimed that the reason why he chose to drive at us, instead of around or away from us like normal boaters would have done, was because his boat was having some mechanical problems. That boater did not have a boater card, so he ended up getting a citation for that,” Nofziger said.
He emphasized that he wants people to enjoy the weekend, but to do so safely.
“Make sure your boat’s running good before you get out in the water and start drifting away. Make sure everyone has life jackets and get your boater safety card. It’s important. And just be safe. Have fun, but be safe,” Nofziger said.
The sheriff’s office will have more crews spread throughout the county for the rest of the weekend.
A Los Angeles city councilmember has openly opposed Home Depot’s plans to open a new location at Eagle Rock Plaza, claiming the home improvement retailer has been complicit with immigration enforcement operations.
In an Instagram post, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado wrote, “Take your orange aprons somewhere else,” citing a raid that occurred Thursday morning at Westlake Home Depot, one of several at that location since June. Jurado’s district spans from downtown to El Sereno and Eagle Rock.
Home Depot plans to demolish the former Macy’s department store in Eagle Rock Plaza to make space for its new location, The Eastsider reported.
On Thursday, surveillance video obtained by The Times shows federal agents arriving in several vehicles across from the Home Depot and CARECEN Day Labor Center, and immediately running after people, including vendors and day laborers.
As people scattered, federal agents can be seen deploying tear gas.
A man who was apprehended and pinned to the ground by federal officials was punched in the face, according to a statement by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.
“We are disturbed by what can only be described as an act of terror and indiscriminate roundup of Latino street vendors, day laborers, and people who were going about their daily lives,” the organization stated.
At least eight to 15 people were arrested during the operation, according to CHIRLA.
This specific home improvement store on Wilshire Boulevard and South Union Avenue has been the site of four immigration operations since June 6, including “Operation Trojan Horse,” in which half a dozen border patrol agents jumped out of a Penske truck and arrested 16 people.
These raids, Jurado said, “are part of a disturbing pattern across Los Angeles, with ICE repeatedly targeting Home Depot parking lots — common gathering spots for day laborers — without judicial warrants, in clear violation of people’s rights.”
In her post, the councilmember accused Home Depot of “remaining silent.”
“When your name becomes associated with terror and you refuse to speak, you are complicit,” the post read. “Home Depot has chosen power and profit over the working people who sustain it.”
In a statement to The Times, Home Depot spokesperson Sarah McDonald said the company isn’t notified of planned ICE operations and “we’re not requesting them.” In many cases the company doesn’t know arrests happen until after they’re over, she said.
“We’re required to follow all federal and local rules and regulations in every market where we operate,” McDonald said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the Times’ request for comment before publication.
Earlier this month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s block on “roving patrols” across much of Southern California. The ruling maintains a temporary restraining order barring masked and heavily armed agents from snatching people off the streets without first establishing reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. without documentation.
The excessive use of force that occurred during Thursday’s raid “and apparent disregard of community safety standards by federal agents is deeply disturbing, may be a violation of the TRO currently in place, and must be investigated,” CHIRLA stated.
Thousands of workers and union organizers from across California will gather for picnics and marches this weekend to honor the contributions of the nation’s working people.
But the Labor Day celebrations will be tempered by a sobering reality: Unions face mounting pressure to protect their members from the Trump administration’s immigration raids, cuts in Medicaid services and a weakened National Labor Relations Board.
“We know how important we are to preserving and protecting democracy,” said Lorena Gonzalez, head of the California Labor Federation. “We have a special role in that. We are not going to get silenced, and we’re not going to be paralyzed.”
From farm fields to car washes, labor groups have scrambled to support families of the hundreds detained and deported in numerous chaotic and violent raids that have resulted in the deaths of two people —a day laborer and a farmworker — killed while fleeing federal agents.
The raids reverberated across the state’s local labor community in June when David Huerta of SEIU California was injured and detained by law enforcement while documenting the first major immigration enforcement raids in Los Angeles.
“Farmworkers are afraid….They don’t know what’s going to happen from one day to the next with these raids, but they understand the only way we’re going to have power is if we come together,” said Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers.
Romero and other union leaders said their focus remains on organizing more workplaces, while also working to educate people on their rights and staging legal and nonviolent protests against government policies.
“We are all under attack by the federal government right now,” said Jeremy Goldberg, executive director of the Central Coast Labor Council. “The need is tremendous.”
In early August, the Trump administration moved forward with a plan to end collective bargaining with federal unions across a swath of government agencies. The government said the changes were necessary to protect national security, but unions viewed it as retaliation for their participation in lawsuits opposing the president’s policies.
The Trump administration has also proposed sweeping cuts to the staff of the National Labor Relations Board — which is tasked with safeguarding the right of private employees to unionize or organize in other ways to improve their working conditions — and canceled leases for regional offices in many states.
Union officials contend the changes could hobble the board and prevent it from investigating unfair labor practice charges filed by workers and carrying out its other responsibilities, such as overseeing elections.
“Important rules and regulations that were put in place during the Biden administration that were helpful to workers — those are systematically being rolled back,” said Enrique Lopezlira, director of the Low-Wage Work Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
Unions are bracing for further challenges that could arise when Trump finally makes appointments to the federal labor board, which is currently nonoperational, because it doesn’t have enough board members to rule on cases.
But even as many labor leaders have openly opposed the Trump administration, others have taken a more muted approach. Major national unions, such as United Auto Workers and the Teamsters, have supported aspects of the Trump agenda on tariffs abroad and a push for manufacturing jobs at home.
The changes portend tough times ahead for California unions.
John Logan, a professor of U.S. labor history at San Francisco State, said that Trump’s hostility toward California and withholding of federal funds from universities, healthcare facilities and other institutions will squeeze the state budget, with major effects on public sector workers in the form of layoffs and other cost-cutting. And the administration’s relentless immigrant raids are consuming the time, attention and resources of unions, he said.
Although California has a larger share of its workforce represented by unions compared with many other states, that density is overly reliant on public sector workers, and membership of those unions is likely to shrink in the coming years, Logan said.
Unions are “ill-equipped to deal with this moment of crisis,” Logan said. “The labor movement is fighting for its survival over the next four years.”
Challenges are especially acute in the healthcare industry.
Unions representing in-home care providers, nurses and other healthcare workers said their members are already feeling the squeeze wrought by the lead up to and approval of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which includes tax spending cuts that will affect millions of Medicaid recipients while growing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency by thousands of workers.
SEIU Local 2015 President Arnulfo De La Cruz said many in-home care providers who have cared for people for decades are now faced with the prospect that the people they care for are going to lose their healthcare, and that they themselves may lose their healthcare and their jobs.
“To have our healthcare under attack, to have our families under attack — that’s a huge reversal in how we are recognizing essential workers,” De La Cruz said.
Major medical facilities, including Sharp HealthCare, UC San Diego Health and UCSF Health, have in recent months announced plans to cut public health services and conduct hundreds of layoffs, citing significant financial headwinds and the uncertainty of federal funding.
“It’s a nasty bill. There’s nothing beautiful about that bill,” said Cynthia Williams, an Orange County resident and member of AFSCME Local 3930. Williams is a full-time caregiver for both her daughter, who is blind and has cerebral palsy, and her sister, who is a veteran living with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
Williams said the In-Home Supportive Services program — funded primarily by Medicaid — has preemptively cut funding for transportation to her sister’s weekly appointments. The hours Williams is paid for to care for her daughter have been reduced.
“The last few months have been very stressful and very unpredictable,” Williams said.
The landscape around immigration is shifting again under the Trump administration.Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released a memo bringing back “neighborhood investigations,” a method once used to evaluate an immigrant’s moral character. The practice dates back to the 1980s and was discontinued in 1991.See the report in the video aboveNow, immigration attorneys are working to understand what its return could mean for their clients.”It’s not well-defined, like, what the discretion is,” said Brian Blackford, an immigration attorney in Omaha, Nebraska. “Even with this policy memo, we don’t exactly know all the considerations.”According to the USCIS memo, investigators are permitted to talk with people living near an applicant’s residence and place of employment. Blackford said that raises concerns.”Is that going to result in them being denied citizenship because a neighbor doesn’t like them? We don’t know, like, what this entails,” Blackford said.The memo states the practice is meant to improve background checks during citizenship applications. Blackford said it is something he has never seen in his decades-long career.”They would do that to make sure there’s no marriage fraud, but that would be the extent of USCIS investigators looking into somebody that has a pending application before the agency,” he said.The agency memo said neighborhood investigations began in 1981 to better determine a person’s moral character and eligibility for citizenship. The practice stopped in 1991.”They just made the decision to stop doing that and to instead just go off of people’s biometrics, and run their background that way to make the process more streamlined,” Blackford said.Blackford said reinstating the practice could discourage immigrants from applying.”This can have some really chilling effects on speech and on applying for citizenship altogether,” he said.He added that the policy is impacting immigrants seeking status through legal means.”These are people that have been lawful permanent residents for either 3 or 5 years minimum,” Blackford said. In a statement to KETV, USCIS said the agency is ensuring “aliens are being properly vetted” and added the directive will “enhance these statutorily required investigations.”
The landscape around immigration is shifting again under the Trump administration.
Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released a memo bringing back “neighborhood investigations,” a method once used to evaluate an immigrant’s moral character. The practice dates back to the 1980s and was discontinued in 1991.
See the report in the video above
Now, immigration attorneys are working to understand what its return could mean for their clients.
“It’s not well-defined, like, what the discretion is,” said Brian Blackford, an immigration attorney in Omaha, Nebraska. “Even with this policy memo, we don’t exactly know all the considerations.”
According to the USCIS memo, investigators are permitted to talk with people living near an applicant’s residence and place of employment. Blackford said that raises concerns.
“Is that going to result in them being denied citizenship because a neighbor doesn’t like them? We don’t know, like, what this entails,” Blackford said.
The memo states the practice is meant to improve background checks during citizenship applications. Blackford said it is something he has never seen in his decades-long career.
“They would do that to make sure there’s no marriage fraud, but that would be the extent of USCIS investigators looking into somebody that has a pending application before the agency,” he said.
The agency memo said neighborhood investigations began in 1981 to better determine a person’s moral character and eligibility for citizenship. The practice stopped in 1991.
“They just made the decision to stop doing that and to instead just go off of people’s biometrics, and run their background that way to make the process more streamlined,” Blackford said.
Blackford said reinstating the practice could discourage immigrants from applying.
“This can have some really chilling effects on speech and on applying for citizenship altogether,” he said.
He added that the policy is impacting immigrants seeking status through legal means.
“These are people that have been lawful permanent residents for either 3 or 5 years minimum,” Blackford said.
In a statement to KETV, USCIS said the agency is ensuring “aliens are being properly vetted” and added the directive will “enhance these statutorily required investigations.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t nearly as dire, pointing out that crime numbers are down.
But “numbers mean little to people,” Newsom lamented during a press gaggle in his office Thursday, where he ruthlessly trolled Trump with a flags-and-all setup that appeared to mock the president’s marathon Cabinet meeting earlier in the week.
This angst has augured in another get-tough era of crime suppression, culminating with the fulfillment of Trump’s authoritarian fantasy of National Guard troops patrolling in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and potentially more cities to come.
Newsom is now offering up what many have framed as a counterpunch to Trump’s military intervention: A surge of California Highway Patrol officers in strategic locations across the state, basically Newsom-controlled cop boots on the ground to mirror Trump’s troops.
But looking at Newsom’s deployment of more CHP officers as no more than a reaction to Trump misses a larger debate on what really makes our communities safer. Understanding what makes cops different from soldiers — and Newsom’s move different from Trump’s — is ultimately understanding the difference between repression and public safety, force and finesse.
Newsom has been using the CHP to supplement local police departments for years. In 2023, when the Tenderloin area of San Francisco was plagued by open drug use, making it the favorite right-wing example of a failed Democratic-run city, Newsom sent this state force in to help clean it up (though that work continues). The next year, he sent it into Oakland and Bakersfield, both places where auto theft, retail crime and side shows were rampant.
Now, he’s expanding the CHP’s role in local policing to include Los Angeles, San Diego, the Inland Empire and some Central Valley cities including Fresno and Sacramento.
In each of those places, mobile teams of around a dozen officers, all of whom will volunteer for the job, will target specific crimes, criminals or problem areas. These officers won’t just be patrolling or responding to calls like the local force, but hitting targets identified by data or intelligence, or making their presence known in high-crime neighborhoods.
Here’s where Trump’s military approach has an overlap with Newsom’s — and where the two men might agree: It is true that a visible show of armed authority deters crime. Whether it’s the National Guard or the Highway Patrol, criminals, both petty and violent, tend to avoid them.
“We go in and saturate an area with high visibility and view patrol,” said Sean Duryee, commissioner of the California Highway Patrol, standing at Newsom’s side. “The people that have a problem with that are the criminal community.”
The approach seems to be working. I can throw the numbers at you — 400 firearms seized in San Bernardino, Bakersfield, Oakland; 4,000 stolen vehicles recovered in Oakland; more than 9,000 arrests statewide.
But numbers really don’t matter. It genuinely is how a community feels about its safety. Across California, many if not the majority of small and mid-sized law enforcement departments are understaffed. Even big departments such as Los Angeles struggle to hire and retain officers. There are simply not enough cops — or resources such as helicopters or K9 teams — to do the work in too many places, and citizens feel it.
Using these small strike teams of CHP officers fills the gap of both manpower and expertise. And by aiming that usage precisely at troubled spots, it can make underserved communities feel safer, and crime-ridden communities actually be safer.
Tinisch Hollins is the head of Californians for Safety and Justice, an advocacy group that works to end over-incarceration and promote public safety beyond just making arrests. She is “obviously not a huge proponent of sending law enforcement into communities like that,” she said.
She has seen how the CHP has “made an impact” in the Bay Area.
“There are some very effective things happening,” Hollins said.
That buy-in from community, especially skeptical community, is a massive departure from the militarization of Trump, and also hints at the deeper difference between troops and cops.
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, California outlawed controversial carotid restraints that can cut off breathing. The state put in place a method for decertifying officers found guilty of serious misconduct. It increased age and education standards for becoming a peace officer, increased transparency requirements and put more oversight on the use of military equipment by civilian forces, just to name a few reforms.
Most significantly, Newsom is championing a new vision of incarceration and rehabilitation modeled after successful efforts in Norway and other places that centers on the simple truth that arresting people does not end crime.
Most people who are convicted and incarcerated will return to our streets after a few years at most, and if the state does not change their outlook and opportunities, they will also likely return to crime — making us no safer than the day they were first put into cuffs.
But for a time, it seemed to some as if these reforms with their focus away from enforcement and toward alternatives to incarceration had gone too far. Images of marauding groups of retail thieves invading stores filled the news, and reasonably caused anxiety — leading to Californians passing the still-unfunded, tough-on-crime Proposition 36 that sought to create stiffer penalties for some drug and property crimes, along with mandated treatment for addiction, but which could also take money from rehabilitation programs.
As much as Trump, Newsom’s use of the CHP is the response to that pushback on reform, an acknowledgment that enforcement remains a key piece of the crime-stopping dilemma.
But Hollins points out that the rehabilitation aspect, the most innovative and arguably important aspect of California’s approach to crime, is getting lost in the current political climate.
“It’s not just arresting people that brings crime down,” she said. “The [penal] system isn’t going to deal with the drivers of the crime.”
This is where Newsom needs to do better, both on the ground and in his explanations. It may not be popular to talk about rehabilitation, and certainly Trump will seize on it as weak, but it is what works, and what makes the California method different from the MAGA view of crime.
For Trump, the be-all and end-all is the arrest, and the subsequent cruel glee of punishment. He has called for harsher and longer penalties for even minor crimes, and recently demanded the blanket use of the death penalty in all murder cases charged in Washington, D.C. His is the authoritarian view that fear and repression will make us safer.
“We lost grip with reality, the idea that the military can be out there in every street corner the United States of America,” Newsom said Thursday.
Or should be.
Soldiers on our streets just make even law-abiding citizens less free, and ultimately does little to fix the problems of poverty and opportunity that often start the cycles of crime.
This is the showdown happening right now on American streets, and ultimately the showdown between the Democratic view of crime prevention and Trump’s — soldiers or cops, the easy spectacle of compliance induced by the barrel of a gun or a complicated and imperfect system of community and law enforcement working together.
Two people are in the hospital after they were injured in a plane crash Friday morning in New Smyrna Beach, the city’s fire department said on Facebook. It happened around 10:30 a.m. NSB fire and police units responded to the area of South Street and Clarendon Avenue, just outside of the New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport, regarding an airplane crash. Two people were on board at the time of the crash, and both were transported to Halifax Hospital. Area roads are closed. >> This is a developing story and will be updated
NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. —
Two people are in the hospital after they were injured in a plane crash Friday morning in New Smyrna Beach, the city’s fire department said on Facebook.
It happened around 10:30 a.m.
NSB fire and police units responded to the area of South Street and Clarendon Avenue, just outside of the New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport, regarding an airplane crash.
Two people were on board at the time of the crash, and both were transported to Halifax Hospital.
Area roads are closed.
>> This is a developing story and will be updated
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WASHINGTON — Mattresses on the floor, next to bunk beds, in meeting rooms and gymnasiums. No access to a bathroom or drinking water. Hourlong lines to buy food at the commissary or to make a phone call.
These are some of the conditions described by lawyers and the people held at immigrant detention facilities around the country over the last few months. The number of detained immigrants surpassed a record 60,000 this month. A Los Angeles Times analysis of public data shows that more than a third of ICE detainees have spent time in an overcapacity dedicated detention center this year.
In the first half of the year, at least 19 out of 49 dedicated detention facilities exceeded their rated bed capacity and many more holding facilities and local jails exceeded their agreed-upon immigrant detainee capacity. During the height of arrest activity in June, facilities that were used to operating with plenty of available beds suddenly found themselves responsible for the meals, medical attention, safety and sleeping space for four times as many detainees as they had the previous year.
“There are so many things we’ve seen before — poor food quality, abuse by guards, not having clean clothes or underwear, not getting hygiene products,” said Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network, a coalition that aims to abolish immigrant detention. “But the scale at which it’s happening feels greater, because it’s happening everywhere and people are sleeping on floors.”
Shah said there’s no semblance of dignity now. “I’ve been doing this for many years; I don’t think I even had the imagination of it getting this bad,” she added.
Shah said conditions have deteriorated in part because of how quickly this administration scaled up arrests. It took the first Trump administration more than two years to reach its peak of about 55,0000 detainees in 2019.
Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the allegations about inhumane detention conditions false and a “hoax.” She said the agency has significantly expanded detention space in places such as Indiana and Nebraska and is working to rapidly remove detainees from those facilities to their countries of origin.
McLaughlin emphasized that the department provides comprehensive medical care, but did not respond to questions about other conditions.
Detainees do stretches outdoors as a helicopter flies overhead at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Krome detention center in Miami on July 4, 2025.
(Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press)
At the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, the maximum number of detainees in a day in 2024 was 615, four more than the rated bed capacity of 611. In late June of this year, the detainee population reached 1,961, more than three times the capacity. The facility, which is near the Everglades, spent 161 days in the beginning of the year with more people to house than beds.
Miami attorney Katie Blankenship of the legal aid organization Sanctuary of the South represents people detained at Krome. Last month, she saw nine Black men piled into a visitation room, surrounded with glass windows, that holds a small table and four chairs. They had pushed the table against the wall and spread a cardboard box flat across the floor, where they were taking turns sleeping.
The men had no access to a bathroom or drinking water. They stood because there was no room to sit.
Blankenship said three of the men put their documents up to the window so she could better understand their cases. All had overstayed their visas and were detained as part of an immigration enforcement action, not criminal proceedings.
Another time, Blankenship said, she saw an elderly man cramped up in pain, unable to move, on the floor of a bigger room. Other men put chairs together and lifted him so he could rest more comfortably while guards looked on, she said.
Blankenship visits often enough that people held in the visitation and holding rooms recognize her as a lawyer whenever she walks by. They bang on the glass, yell out their identification numbers and plead for help, she said.
“These are images that won’t leave me,” Blankenship said. “It’s dystopian.”
Krome is unique in the dramatic fluctuation of its detainee population. On Feb. 18, the facility saw its biggest single-day increase. A total of 521 individuals were booked in, most transferred from hold rooms across the state, including Orlando and Tampa. Hold rooms are temporary spaces for detainees to await further processing for transfers, medical treatment or other movement into or out of a facility. They are to be used to hold individuals for no more than 12 hours.
On the day after its huge influx, Krome received a waiver exempting the facility from the requirement to log hold room activity. But it never resumed the logs. Homeland Security did not respond to a request for an explanation of the exception.
After reaching their first peak of 1,764 on March 16, the trend reversed.
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) visited Krome on April 24. In the weeks before the visit, hundreds of detainees were transferred out. Most were moved to other facilities in Florida, some to Texas and Louisiana.
“When those lawmakers came around, they got rid of a whole bunch of detainees,” said Blankenship’s client Mopvens Louisdor.
The 30-year-old man from Haiti said conditions started to deteriorate around March as hundreds of extra people were packed into the facility.
Staffers are so overwhelmed that for detainees who can’t leave their cells for meals, he said, “by the time food gets to us, it’s cold.”
Also during this time, from April 29 through May 1, the facility underwent a compliance inspection conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Detention Oversight. Despite the dramatic reduction in the population, the inspection found several issues with crowding and meals. Some rooms exceeded the 25-person capacity for each and some hold times were nearly double the 12-hour limit. Inspectors observed detainees sleeping on the hold room floors without pillows or blankets. Staffers had not recorded offering a meal to the detainees in the hold rooms for more than six hours.
Hold rooms are not designed for long waits
ICE detention standards require just 7 square feet of unencumbered space for each detainee. Seating must provide 18 inches of space per detainee.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Sanitary and medical attention were also areas of concern noted in the inspection. In most units, there were too many detainees for the number of toilets, showers and sinks. Some medical records showed that staffers failed to complete required mental and medical health screenings for new arrivals, and failed to complete tuberculosis screenings.
Detainees have tested positive for tuberculosis at facilities such as the Anchorage Correctional Complex in Alaska and the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California. McLaughlin, the Homeland Security assistant secretary, said that detainees are screened for tuberculosis within 12 hours of arrival and that anyone who refuses a test is isolated as a precaution.
“It is a long-standing practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody,” she said. “This includes medical, dental, and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”
Facility administrators built a tented area outside the main building to process arriving detainees, but it wasn’t enough to alleviate the overcrowding, Louisdor said. Earlier this month, areas with space for around 65 detainees were holding more than 100, with cots spread across the floor between bunk beds.
Over-capacity facilities can feel extremely cramped
Bed capacity ratings are based on facility design. Guidelines require 50 square feet of space for each individual. When buildings designed to those specifications go over their rated capacity, there is not enough room to house additional detainees safely and comfortably.
American Correctional Association and Immigration and Customs Enforcement
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Louisdor said a young man who uses a wheelchair had resorted to relieving himself in a water bottle because staffers weren’t available to escort him to the restroom.
During the daily hour that detainees are allowed outside for recreation, 300 people stood shoulder to shoulder, he said, making it difficult to get enough exercise. When fights occasionally broke out, guards could do little to stop them, he said.
The line to buy food or hygiene products at the commissary was so long that sometimes detainees left empty-handed.
Louisdor said he has bipolar disorder, for which he takes medication. The day he had a court hearing, the staff mistakenly gave him double the dosage, leaving him unable to stand.
Since then, Louisdor said, conditions have slightly improved, though dormitories are still substantially overcrowded.
In California, detainees and lawyers similarly reported that medical care has deteriorated.
Tracy Crowley, a staff attorney at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said clients with serious conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and cancer don’t receive their medication some days.
Cells that house up to eight people are packed with 11. With air conditioning blasting all night, detainees have told her the floor is cold and they have gotten sick. Another common complaint, she said, is that clothes and bedding are so dirty that some clients are getting rashes all over their bodies, making it difficult to sleep.
Luis at Chicano Park in San Diego on Aug. 23, 2025.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
One such client is Luis, a 40-year-old from Colombia who was arrested in May at the immigration court in San Diego after a hearing over his pending asylum petition. Luis asked to be identified by his middle name out of concern over his legal case.
When he first arrived at Otay Mesa Detention Center, Luis said, the facility was already filled to the maximum capacity. By the time he left June 30, it was overcrowded. Rooms that slept six suddenly had 10 people. Mattresses were placed in a mixed-use room and in the gym.
Luis developed a rash, but at the medical clinic he was given allergy medication and sleeping pills. The infection continued until finally he showed it over a video call to his mother, who had worked in public health, and she told him to request an anti-fungal cream.
Luis was held at Otay Mesa Detention Center after his May arrest. It was at capacity when he arrived but by the time he left in June, it was overcrowded, he said.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
Other detainees often complained to Luis that their medication doses were incomplete or missing, including two men in his dorm who took anti-psychotic medication.
“They would get stressed out, start to fight — everything irritated them,” he said. “That affected all of us.”
Crowley said the facility doesn’t have the infrastructure or staff to hold as many people as are there now. The legal system also can’t process them in a timely manner, she said, forcing people to wait months for a hearing.
The administration’s push to detain more people is only compounding existing issues, Crowley said.
“They’re self-imposing the limit, and most of the people involved in that decision-making are financially incentivized to house more and more people,” she said. “Where is the limit with this administration?”
Members of the California National Guard load a truck outside the ICE Processing Center in Adelanto, Calif., on July 11, 2025.
(Patrick T. Fallon / AFP/Getty Images)
Other facilities in California faced similar challenges. At the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, the number of detainees soared to 1,000 from 300 over a week in June, prompting an outcry over deteriorated conditions.
As of July 29, Adelanto held 1,640 detainees. The Desert View Annex, an adjacent facility also operated by the GEO Group, held 451.
Disability Rights California toured the facility and interviewed staffers and 18 people held there. The advocacy organization released a report last month detailing its findings, including substantial delays in meal distribution, a shortage of drinking water, and laundry washing delays, leading many detainees to remain in soiled clothing for long periods.
In a letter released last month, 85 Adelanto detainees wrote, “They always serve the food cold … sometimes we don’t have water for 2 to 7 hours and they said to us to drink from the sink.”
At the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., Rodney Taylor, a double amputee, was rendered nearly immobile.
Taylor, who was born in Liberia, uses electronic prosthetic legs that must be charged and can’t get wet. The outlets in his dormitory were inoperable, and because of the overcrowding and short-staffing, guards couldn’t take him to another area to plug them in, said his fiancee, Mildred Pierre.
“When they’re not charged they’re super heavy, like dead weight,” she said. It becomes difficult to balance without falling.
Pierre said the air conditioning in his unit didn’t work for two months, causing water to puddle on the floor. Taylor feared he would slip while walking and fall — which happened once in May — and damage the expensive prosthetics.
Last month, Taylor refused to participate in the daily detainee count, telling guards he wouldn’t leave his cell unless they agreed to leave the cell doors open to let the air circulate.
“They didn’t take him to charge his legs and now they wanted him to walk through water and go in a hot room,” Pierre recalled. “He said no — he stood his ground.”
Several guards surrounded him, yelling, Pierre said. They placed him in solitary confinement for three days as punishment, she said.
SEOUL — In many parts of the world, convenience stores are the shops of last resort: cigarettes, sodas and laundry detergent. But in South Korea, you might find single malt whiskies, $800 French wines, 24K gold bars, shampoo and conditioner refill stations, televisions or a dine-in instant noodle bar with more than 200 varieties of ramyon.
A customer might be able to pick up a package, wash and dry their clothes, or sign up for a new debit card.
The stores are best known for their numerous feats of “instant-izing” food, a process in which nearly every conceivable dish is turned into a packaged meal: spaghetti, Japanese udon, fried rice that you squeeze out of a tube. These have turned convenience stores into a $25-billion industry in South Korea and those food products are churned out at a staggering pace: up to 70 new food items hit the shelves each week, effectively offering a live feed of South Korean tastes.
“In South Korea’s food retail market, you go extinct if you’re not quick to change,” says Chae Da-in, who says her obsession with convenience stores is decades old. “It’s all about being diverse and fast.”
Known in the national media and on social media as a “convenience store critic,” Chae is the author of three books on the world of convenience store foods, which has led to TV appearances and newspaper interviews.
Every Friday, she tours a handful of convenience stores near her home to keep up with what’s new. Over the last two decades, she estimates she has consumed at least 800 varieties of convenience store samgak gimbap — rice wrapped in dried seaweed and a grab-and-go staple.
Lee Hee Chul, 21, from Incheon, South Korea, cools down his ramyon in a DIY cone made from the ramyon bowl cover at a CU convenience store in a popular tourist area in Myeongdong.
Shoppers prepare their dinner at one of the self-serve machines in the dining area at a CU ramyon convenience store.
In recent years, Chae has watched her obsession go global. Much like South Korean movies, TV shows and music, South Korean convenience stores have become a cultural sensation.
Specific locations, such as the store that appeared in Netflix’s hit series “Squid Game,” have made the news. On TikTok and YouTube, mukbang — videos of people eating — of South Korean convenience store foods have gathered millions of views.
“Giant cheese sausage,” announces one reviewer in a TikTok video series titled “ONLY Eating Food from a Korean Convenience Store.” The meal also includes blue lemonade that comes in a plastic pouch, a “3XL” spicy tuna mayo samgak gimbap and a carbonara-flavored Buldak (“fire chicken”) noodle cup.
South Korean convenience stores are now expanding into nearby countries such as Mongolia or Malaysia. CU, one of the country’s leading operators with more than 600 stores in Asia, is set to open its first U.S. location in Hawaii later this year.
“The percentage of the Asian population in Hawaii is six times that of the mainland U.S., making it a place where there is a high level of familiarity and positive attitudes toward Korean culture,” said Lim Hyung-geun, the head of overseas operations at BGF Retail, CU’s parent company.
“On top of that, we’re seeing the sustained popularity of Korean culture, such as a Korean food boom among American teenagers and young people in their 20s and 30s, which we believe will be a big boost for CU’s future expansion.”
Lim calls CU’s overseas locations “‘miniature South Koreas’ where people can experience the products that have become popular with the K-wave.
“But as is the case here, K-convenience stores aren’t just a place to experience South Korean culture,” he said. “They are also restaurants, cafes and a general amenity.”
In other words, everything stores that are everywhere and open all the time.
***
The GS25 convenience store is collaborating with FC Seoul, a South Korean football club, in the Hongdae neighborhood.
Like many things South Korea has embraced and spun off into something novel, convenience stores are an import to the country. The first such store was American — the Southland Ice Co., which was founded in Texas in 1927 and changed its name to 7-Eleven in 1946. The first of the 7-Elevens opened for business in Seoul in the 1980s.
Today, South Korea is the convenience store capital of the world. Like the bodegas of New York, they have become part of the fabric of contemporary urban life, multifunctional spaces that can be restaurants or coffee shops or bars with microwaves and outdoor seating. Chae calls them the “oasis of the streets.”
“People hang out in convenience stores,” she said. “They’ve become a social place.”
Part of what makes them such a force in the country is their sheer numbers.
There are around 55,000 convenience stores in South Korea — a country the size of Indiana — amounting to one convenience store for every 940 people. In Seoul, where their numbers have quadrupled in the last 15 years, it sometimes feels like there’s one on every corner.
Much of this has to do with the fact that roughly one in every four workers in South Korea is self-employed, a high number relative to other developed countries. For those in this mom-and-pop economy, which includes older workers pushed into early retirement or others who have been boxed out of the traditional labor market, convenience stores offer the most accessible form of entrepreneurship.
“Compared to the hundreds of thousands it would cost to open another business, the main draw of convenience stores is that you can open one with starting capital as little as 20 million won [$14,000],” said Oh Sang-bong, the head of social policy research at the Korean Labor Institute. “Of course it’s not easy. There are a lot of cautionary tales. But there are success stories, too.”
***
Images of the boy band Tomorrow X Together decorate the windows of the Nice to CU music library convenience store in the Hongdae neighborhood of Seoul.
This profusion has made the convenience store business one of the most fast-paced and competitive in the country — one that moves in lockstep with boom-and-bust social media attention spans.
Hit products generate the kind of buzz you might see only for a limited-edition sneaker or the latest iPhone, necessitating preorders or, when inventories inevitably dry up, leading to scalping.
But the lows are abrupt. When it was first released last year, CU’s “Dubai-style chocolate” — an in-house take on the global TikTok food trend — commanded lines outside of stores and sold out in a day. Four months later, sales had dropped to a sixth of what they were.
“The lifespan of products is now incredibly short because social media fads come and go so quickly,” said Kim, a merchandiser for a leading convenience store franchise who asked to be identified only by his surname because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
“In the past when the market wasn’t so saturated, revenue would naturally rise as everyone opened more stores. But now there are so many stores, and then you’re competing not just with other convenience stores but with e-commerce platforms, coffee shops, restaurants — everybody who’s following the same trend.”
Most of Kim’s job involves scrolling through social media platforms such as TikTok, looking for the next hot-ticket item, such as a distant food trend that shows signs of making landfall.
“It’s brutal. It’s like trying to find the eye of a needle over and over again,“ he said. “If you miss something big and a competitor releases it first? Then you’re getting chewed out by your boss.”
Kwon Sung-jun is a chef who specializes in Italian cuisine and the winner of “Culinary Class Wars,” a hit reality cooking competition released by Netflix last year. He has a ritual of stopping by a convenience store every night after work — even if he doesn’t have anything to buy.
“It’s very useful for staying abreast of any trends in the culinary world,” he said, and his routine proved to be pivotal in winning the $223,000 prize for “Culinary Class Wars.”
In one stage of the competition, contestants were tasked with cooking a dish using ingredients sourced from a true-to-life replica of a convenience store on set. Kwon, 30, handily won with a chestnut tiramisu whipped together from chestnuts, milk, coffee and a package of biscuits.
“I came up with the idea in 30 seconds,” he said. “Because I had a mental list of what convenience stores have, I also planned substitute options for each of the key ingredients like chestnut, cream and so on.”
Since winning the competition, he has avoided convenience stores; just two weeks after that episode aired, CU released a mass-produced version of his tiramisu, with Kwon’s face on the packaging.
“It’s a little embarrassing to see those photos of myself,” he said.
***
“Most of the tourists come looking for products related to Korean movies or TV shows like dalgona[a traditional Korean candy] because they saw it on ‘Squid Game,’” says Kim Hye-ryeon, the owner of a GS25 in the Hongdae district of Seoul.
All of this makes running a convenience store no easy feat, says Kim Hye-ryeon, the 52-year-old owner of a GS25 in Seoul’s Hongdae district.
Because franchisees are responsible for picking out their own inventory from the company catalog, which is updated three times a week, running a successful convenience store is less about the labor of stocking shelves and cashing out customers than keeping up with the frenetic cycle of food trends.
“Whenever there’s a popular item, the owners who are a step ahead buy up all the stock so sometimes I can’t get any for my store,” she said. “You have to know what’s popular with young people at all times.”
In recent years, as South Korea’s cultural footprint has expanded, the assignment has gotten even more complicated. Streets that were once quiet are now popular thoroughfares for tourists staying in the guesthouses and Airbnbs that have opened in the area. Global tastes must be accounted for, too.
A customer heads for the exit at a GS25 convenience store.
“There’s been a noticeable increase since the pandemic,” she said. “Before, it was mostly Chinese or Japanese tourists, but now it’s from all over, especially Americans and Europeans.”
From behind the counter, she has been keeping mental notes of what this international consumer base is buying, noting, for example, how her Muslim customers carefully study the labels to check whether the item is halal.
“Most of the tourists come looking for products related to Korean movies or TV shows like dalgona [a traditional Korean candy] because they saw it on ‘Squid Game,’” she said. “They also really like ice creams, especially bingsu [Korean shaved ice].”
Sacramento’s updated ordinance prohibiting unhoused individuals from sleeping outside of City Hall will go into effect on Thursday. Under the ordinance, camping outside City Hall between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. is not be allowed.City leaders said they hope it drives those camping to get the help the city is offering, while also making people feel safer entering City Hall.”We’re not trying to criminalize homelessness. We’re not trying to punish people for, you know, experiencing some sort of tragedy,” Councilman Phil Pluckebaum said. “What we’re trying to do is both create a space that’s appropriate for people coming to city hall to do business and whatever their purpose is, but also make spaces for people that are experiencing homelessness, so that they have somewhere to be with dignity.”The Sacramento City Council voted in late July to prohibit unhoused individuals from sleeping outside City Hall, reversing a 2019 policy that had allowed it. The item passed with a 6-3 vote, with council members Mai Vang, Lisa Kaplan and Caity Maple voting no.Mayor Kevin McCarty had pushed for the ordinance, claiming the cleanup costs outside of city hall were around $350,000 per year.”Having tents or sleeping bags or anything else set up in front of it is just a symbol of an abject failure in our housing policy. So, what we’re trying to do is not just erase the symbol, but also help those folks that are in those spaces,” Pluckebaum said. Throughout August, the city’s Department of Community Response has been leading outreach efforts, informing people about the changes. KCRA 3 spoke with two women who generally sleep outside of city hall on Wednesday. They said its one of the few safe places they have found to sleep. “We’re trying to survive. And City Hall is the only safe haven that we have at the moment.” Donna Valentine said. “Where is everyone supposed to go?””I feel safe because they have the camera and they have security,” Mane Davila said. “We have to figure something out after tomorrow.”Beginning Thursday, they’ll have to find a new place to sleep. Despite the outreach, Davila and Valentine did not accept the resources offered, citing what they consider to be strict rules at shelters.”They did, but unfortunately, I’m not going back to the shelter,” Valentine said. KCRA 3 observed the ordinance take effect on Thursday. Watch in the video below:The enforcement details remain unclear, but any person who violates the new rule could face a fine of at least $250 and face misdemeanor charges. 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. —
Sacramento’s updated ordinance prohibiting unhoused individuals from sleeping outside of City Hall will go into effect on Thursday.
Under the ordinance, camping outside City Hall between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. is not be allowed.
“We’re not trying to criminalize homelessness. We’re not trying to punish people for, you know, experiencing some sort of tragedy,” Councilman Phil Pluckebaum said. “What we’re trying to do is both create a space that’s appropriate for people coming to city hall to do business and whatever their purpose is, but also make spaces for people that are experiencing homelessness, so that they have somewhere to be with dignity.”
The Sacramento City Council voted in late July to prohibit unhoused individuals from sleeping outside City Hall, reversing a 2019 policy that had allowed it. The item passed with a 6-3 vote, with council members Mai Vang, Lisa Kaplan and Caity Maple voting no.
Mayor Kevin McCarty had pushed for the ordinance, claiming the cleanup costs outside of city hall were around $350,000 per year.
“Having tents or sleeping bags or anything else set up in front of it is just a symbol of an abject failure in our housing policy. So, what we’re trying to do is not just erase the symbol, but also help those folks that are in those spaces,” Pluckebaum said.
Throughout August, the city’s Department of Community Response has been leading outreach efforts, informing people about the changes.
KCRA 3 spoke with two women who generally sleep outside of city hall on Wednesday. They said its one of the few safe places they have found to sleep.
“We’re trying to survive. And City Hall is the only safe haven that we have at the moment.” Donna Valentine said. “Where is everyone supposed to go?”
“I feel safe because they have the camera and they have security,” Mane Davila said. “We have to figure something out after tomorrow.”
Beginning Thursday, they’ll have to find a new place to sleep. Despite the outreach, Davila and Valentine did not accept the resources offered, citing what they consider to be strict rules at shelters.
“They did, but unfortunately, I’m not going back to the shelter,” Valentine said.
KCRA 3 observed the ordinance take effect on Thursday. Watch in the video below:
The enforcement details remain unclear, but any person who violates the new rule could face a fine of at least $250 and face misdemeanor charges.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings has accused Florida’s chief financial officer of political motives behind the recent scrutiny of the county, following subpoenas issued to government employees amid a recent audit. During a news conference on Wednesday, CFO Blaise Ingoglia announced subpoenas involving Orange County employees accused of altering emails related to certain programs.”Upon our team’s arrival, we started receiving those tips that Orange County employees were possibly tampering with documents to circumvent our review of their egregious spending,” Ingoglia said.Ingoglia’s office received a tip from someone within the Orange County government alleging that people were changing the names of DEI files. This comes amid a recent audit alleging excessive spending within the county.16 Orange County employees and six grant programs the county supports are under the state’s microscopeThe Florida CFO wants all records on:The Black History Project, Inc.Central Florida Urban League, Inc.Zebra Youth, Inc.Caribbean Community Connections of Orlando, Inc.Orlando Youth Alliance, Inc.Stono Institute for Freedom, Justice, and Security, Inc.”It’s a critical program. I have no problem if the CFO wants to take a look at the program because we are very confident in what we’ve done,” Jeremy Levitt said.Jeremy Levitt is president of the Stono Institute.He says the program has received under 75,000 dollars over two years, and the grant expired last December.”We need to solve one of the critical issues between citizens and law enforcement. So, what we do is train young people in de-escalation.”” You normally ride around this neighborhood and hang out?” Eatonville Police Chief Stanley Murray said during a role-playing event with Levitt.Levitt teaches de-escalation during a traffic stop by knowing your rights and responsibilities.He says they’re a non-partisan and multi-ethnic racial justice and human rights organization.“We’ve trained entire groups of young white children. We’ve trained entire groups of young black and brown children. It doesn’t make any difference to us.Mayor Demings responded to the allegations on Thursday. He said, “Certainly, from a county perspective, we fully cooperated with the DOGE inquiry that was being done here. They didn’t talk to me, but they talked to our staff. And what our staff has said is that they answered whatever questions and provided whatever information was requested of them.”Demings believes the state has not shown any evidence to support the allegations and claims the county has been tried and convicted before the investigation is complete. “This community is a target. This is not about Orange County, and this is not about the employees. This is politically motivated for other reasons,” he said.Demings urged the public to “stand by” as the situation becomes clearer, emphasizing that the attacks are occurring on “good, hard-working people here within Orange County.” Ingoglia says after interviewing county employees, if more subpoenas need to be issued, he will.
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. —
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings has accused Florida’s chief financial officer of political motives behind the recent scrutiny of the county, following subpoenas issued to government employees amid a recent audit.
During a news conference on Wednesday, CFO Blaise Ingoglia announced subpoenas involving Orange County employees accused of altering emails related to certain programs.
“Upon our team’s arrival, we started receiving those tips that Orange County employees were possibly tampering with documents to circumvent our review of their egregious spending,” Ingoglia said.
Ingoglia’s office received a tip from someone within the Orange County government alleging that people were changing the names of DEI files. This comes amid a recent audit alleging excessive spending within the county.
16 Orange County employees and six grant programs the county supports are under the state’s microscope
The Florida CFO wants all records on:
The Black History Project, Inc.
Central Florida Urban League, Inc.
Zebra Youth, Inc.
Caribbean Community Connections of Orlando, Inc.
Orlando Youth Alliance, Inc.
Stono Institute for Freedom, Justice, and Security, Inc.
“It’s a critical program. I have no problem if the CFO wants to take a look at the program because we are very confident in what we’ve done,” Jeremy Levitt said.
Jeremy Levitt is president of the Stono Institute.
He says the program has received under 75,000 dollars over two years, and the grant expired last December.
“We need to solve one of the critical issues between citizens and law enforcement. So, what we do is train young people in de-escalation.”
” You normally ride around this neighborhood and hang out?” Eatonville Police Chief Stanley Murray said during a role-playing event with Levitt.
Levitt teaches de-escalation during a traffic stop by knowing your rights and responsibilities.
He says they’re a non-partisan and multi-ethnic racial justice and human rights organization.
“We’ve trained entire groups of young white children. We’ve trained entire groups of young black and brown children. It doesn’t make any difference to us.
Mayor Demings responded to the allegations on Thursday.
He said, “Certainly, from a county perspective, we fully cooperated with the DOGE inquiry that was being done here. They didn’t talk to me, but they talked to our staff. And what our staff has said is that they answered whatever questions and provided whatever information was requested of them.”
Demings believes the state has not shown any evidence to support the allegations and claims the county has been tried and convicted before the investigation is complete.
“This community is a target. This is not about Orange County, and this is not about the employees. This is politically motivated for other reasons,” he said.
Demings urged the public to “stand by” as the situation becomes clearer, emphasizing that the attacks are occurring on “good, hard-working people here within Orange County.”
Ingoglia says after interviewing county employees, if more subpoenas need to be issued, he will.
President Trump declared Tuesday that federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., should seek the death penalty for murders committed in the capital, claiming without explanation that “we have no choice.”
“That’s a very strong preventative,” he said of his decision. “I don’t know if we’re ready for it in this country, but we have it.”
Trump’s pronouncement is about much more than deterring killings, though. With speed and brazenness, Trump seems intent on creating a new, federal arrest and detention system outside of existing norms, aimed at everyday citizens and controlled by his whims. The death penalty is part of it, but stomping on civil rights is at the heart of it — ruthlessly exploiting anxiety about crime to aim repression at whatever displeases him, from immigration protesters to murderers.
This administration “is using the words of crime and criminals to get themselves a permission structure to erode civil rights and due processes across our criminal, legal and immigration systems in ways that I think should have everyone alarmed,” Rena Karefa-Johnson told me. She’s a former public defender who now works with Fwd.us, a bipartisan criminal justice advocacy group.
Authoritarians love the death penalty, and have long used it to repress not crime, but dissent. It is, after all, both the ultimate power and the ultimate fear, that the ruler of the state holds the lives of his people in his hands.
Though we are far from such atrocities, Spain’s purge of “communists” and other dissenters under Francisco Franco, Rodrigo Duterte’s extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers in the Philippines (though the death penalty remains illegal there) and the routine executions, even of journalists, under the repressive rulers in Saudi Arabia are chilling examples.
What each of those regimes shares in common with this moment in America is the rhetoric of making a better society — often by purging perceived threats to order — even if that requires force, or the loss of rights.
Suddenly, violent criminals become no different than petty criminals, and petty criminals become no different than immigrants or protesters. They are all a threat to a nostalgic lost glory of the homeland that must be restored at any cost, animals that only understand force.
“We have no choice.”
The result is that the people become, if not accustomed to masked agents and the military on our streets, too scared to protest it, fearful they will become the criminal target, the hunted animal.
Already, the National Guard in D.C. is carrying live weapons. With great respect to the women and men who serve in the Guard, and who no doubt individually serve with honor, they are not trained for domestic law enforcement. Forget the legalities, the Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act, which should prevent troops from policing American citizens, and does prevent them from making arrests.
Who do we want these soldiers to shoot? Who have they been told to shoot? A kid with a can of spray paint? A pickpocket? A drug dealer? A flag burner? A sandwich thrower?
We don’t even know what their orders are. What choices they will have to make.
But we do know that police do not walk around openly holding their guns, and certainly do not stroll with rifles. For civilian law enforcement, their guns are defensive weapons, and they are trained to use them as such.
Few walking by these troops, even the most law abiding, can fail to feel the power of those weapons at the ready. It is a visceral knowledge that to provoke them could mean death. That is a powerful form of repression, meant to stop dissent through fear of repercussion.
It is a power that Trump is building on multiple fronts. After declaring his “crime emergency” in D.C., Trump mandated a serious change in the mission of the National Guard.
President Trump with members of law enforcement and National Guard troops in Washington on Aug. 21, 2025.
(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)
He ordered every state to train soldiers on “quelling civil disturbances,” and to have soldiers ready to rapidly mobilize in case of protests. That same executive order also creates a National Guard force ready to deploy nationwide at the president’s command — presumably taking away states’ rights to decide when to utilize their troops, as happened in California.
Trump has already announced his intention to send them to Chicago, called Baltimore a “hellhole” that also may be in need and falsely claimed that, “in California, you would’ve not had the Olympics had I not sent in the troops” because “there wouldn’t be anything left” without their intervention.
Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner, a former acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau, told ABC that “the administration is trying to desensitize the American people to get used to American armed soldiers in combat vehicles patrolling the streets of America. “
Manner called the move “extremely disturbing.”
Add to that Trump’s desire to imprison opponents. In recent days, the FBI raided the home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton, a Republican who has criticized Trump, especially on his policy toward Ukraine. Then Trump attempted to fire Lisa D. Cook, a Biden appointee to the Federal Reserve board, after accusing her of mortgage fraud in another apparent attempt to bend that independent agency to his will on the economy.
On Wednesday, Trump wrote on social media that progressive billionaire George Soros and his son Alex should be charged under federal racketeering laws for “their support of Violent Protests.”
“We’re not going to allow these lunatics to rip apart America any more, never giving it so much as a chance to “BREATHE,” and be FREE,” Trump wrote. “Soros, and his group of psychopaths, have caused great damage to our Country! That includes his Crazy, West Coast friends. Be careful, we’re watching you!”
Consider yourselves threatened, West Coast friends.
But of course, we are already living under that thunder. Dozens of average citizens are facing serious charges in places including Los Angeles for their participation in immigration protests.
Whether they are found guilty or not, their lives are upended by the anxiety and expense of facing such prosecutions. And thousands are being rounded up and deported, at times seemingly grabbed solely for the color of their skin, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arguably the most Trump-loyal law enforcement agency, sees its budget balloon to $45 billion, enough to keep 100,000 people detained at a time.
Despite Trump’s maelstrom of dread-inducing moves, resistance is alive, well and far from futile.
A new Quinnipiac University national poll found that 56% of voters disapprove of the National Guard being deployed in D.C.
This week, the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. for a second time failed to convince a grand jury to indict a man who threw a submarine sandwich at federal officers — proof that average citizens not only are sane, but willing to stand up for what is right.
That comes after a grand jury three times rejected the same kind of charge against a woman who was arrested after being shoved against a wall by an immigration agent.
Californians will decide this in November whether to redraw their electoral maps to put more Democrats in Congress. Latino leaders in Chicago are protesting possible troops there. People are refusing to allow fear to define their actions.
California voters are heavily divided along partisan lines when it comes to President Trump, with large majorities of Democrats and unaffiliated voters disapproving of him and believing the country is headed in the wrong direction under his leadership, and many Republicans feeling the opposite, according to a new poll conducted for The Times.
The findings are remarkably consistent with past polling on the Republican president in the nation’s most populous blue state, said Mark DiCamillo, director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies Poll.
“If you look at all the job ratings we’ve done about President Trump — and this carries back all the way through his first term — voters have pretty much maintained the same posture,” DiCamillo said. “Voters know who he is.”
The same partisan divide also showed up in the poll on a number of hot-button issues, such as Medicaid cuts and tariffs, DiCamillo said — with Democrats “almost uniformly” opposed to Trump’s agenda and Republicans “pretty much on board with what Trump is doing.”
Asked whether the sweeping tariffs that Trump has imposed on international trading partners have had a “noticeable negative impact” on their family spending, 71% of Democrats said yes, while 76% of Republicans said no.
“If you’re a Republican, you tend to discount the impacts — you downplay them or you just ignore them,” while Democrats “tend to blame everything on Trump,” DiCamillo said.
Asked whether they were confident that the Trump administration would provide California with the nearly $40 billion in wildfire relief aid it has requested in response to the devastating L.A.-area fires in January, 93% of Democrats said they were not confident — compared with the 43% of Republicans who said they were confident.
In a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, the effect is that Trump fared terribly in the poll overall, just as he has in recent presidential votes in the state.
The poll — conducted Aug. 11-17 with 4,950 registered voters interviewed — found 69% of likely California voters disapproved of Trump, with 62% strongly disapproving, while 29% approved of him. A similar majority, 68%, said they believed the country is headed in the wrong direction, while 26% said it’s headed in the right direction.
Whereas 90% of Democrats and 75% of unaffiliated voters said the country is on the wrong track, just 20% of Republicans felt that way, the poll found.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the poll.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said the findings prove Trump’s agenda “is devastating communities across California who are dealing with the harmful, real life consequences” of the president’s policies.
“The Trump Administration does not represent the views of the vast majority of Californians and it’s why Trump has chosen California to push the limits of his constitutional power,” Padilla said. “As more Americans across the nation continue to feel the impacts of his destructive policies, public support will continue to erode.”
G. Cristina Mora, co-director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, or IGS, said the findings were interesting, especially in light of other recent polling for The Times that found slightly more nuanced Republican impressions — and more wariness — when it comes to Trump’s immigration agenda and tactics.
On his overall approval and on other parts of his agenda, including the tariffs and Medicaid cuts, “the strength of the partisanship is very clear,” Mora said.
Cuts to Medicaid
Voters in the state are similarly divided when it comes to recent decisions on Medicaid health insurance for low-income residents, the poll found. The state’s version is known as Medi-Cal.
For instance, Californians largely disapprove of new work requirements for Medicaid and Medi-Cal recipients under the Big Beautiful Bill that Trump championed and congressional Republicans recently passed into law, the poll found.
The bill requires most Medicaid recipients ages 18 to 64 to work at least 80 hours per month in order to continue receiving benefits. Republicans trumpeted the change as holding people accountable and safeguarding against abuses of federal taxpayer dollars, while Democrats denounced it as a threat to public health that would strip millions of vulnerable Americans of their health insurance.
The poll found 61% of Californians disapproved of the change, with 43% strongly disapproving of it, while 36% approved of it, with 21% strongly approving of it. Voters were sharply divided along party lines, however, with 80% of Republicans approving of the changes and 85% of Democrats disapproving of them.
Californians also disapproved — though by a smaller margin — of a move by California Democrats and Gov. Gavin Newsom to help close a budget shortfall by barring undocumented immigrant adults from newly enrolling in Medi-Cal benefits.
A slight majority of poll respondents, or 52%, said they disapproved of the new restriction, with 17% strongly disapproving of it. The poll found 43% of respondents approved of the change, including 30% who strongly approved of it.
Among Democrats, 77% disapproved of the change. Among Republicans, 87% approved of it. Among voters with no party preference, 52% disapproved.
More than half the poll respondents — 57% — said neither they nor their immediate family members receive Medi-Cal benefits, while 35% said they did. Of those who receive Medi-Cal, two-thirds — or 67% — said they were very or somewhat worried about losing, or about someone in their immediate family losing, their coverage due to changes by the Trump administration.
Nadereh Pourat, associate director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, said there is historical evidence to show what is going to happen next under the changes — and it’s not good.
The work requirement will undoubtedly result in people losing health coverage, just as thousands did when Arkansas implemented a similar requirement years ago, she said.
When people lose coverage, the cost of preventative care goes up and they generally receive less of it, she said. “If the doctor’s visit competes with food on the table or rent, then people are going to skip those primary care visits,” she said — and often “end up in the emergency room” instead.
And that’s more expensive not just for them, but also for local and state healthcare systems, she said.
Cuts to high-speed rail
Californians also are heavily divided over the state’s efforts to build a high-speed rail line through the Central Valley, after the Trump administration announced it was clawing back $4 billion in promised federal funding.
The project was initially envisioned as connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco by 2026, but officials have since set new goals of connecting Bakersfield to Merced by 2030. The project is substantially over budget, and Trump administration officials have called in a “boondoggle.”
The poll found that 49% of Californians support the project, with 28% of them strongly in favor of it. It found 42% oppose the project, including 28% who strongly oppose it.
Among Democrats, 66% were in favor of the project. Among Republicans, 77% were opposed. Among voters with no party preference, 49% were in favor while 39% were opposed.
In Los Angeles County, 54% of voters were in favor of the project continuing, while 58% of voters in the Bay Area were in favor. In the Central Valley, 51% of voters were opposed, compared with 41% in favor.
State Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San José), who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, said political rhetoric around the project has clearly had an effect on how voters feel about it, and that is partly because state leaders haven’t done enough to lay out why the project makes sense economically.
“Healthy skepticism is a good thing, especially when you’re dealing with billions of dollars,” he said. “It’s on legislators and the governor right now in California to lay out a strategy that you can’t poke a lot of holes in, and that hasn’t been the case in the past.”
Cortese said he started life as an orchard farmer in what is now Silicon Valley, knows what major public infrastructure investments can mean for rural communities such as those in the Central Valley, and will be hyperfocused on that message moving forward.
“There is no part of California that I know of that’s been waiting for more economic development than Bakersfield. Probably second is Fresno,” he said.
He said he also will be stressing to local skeptics of the project that supporting the Trump administration taking $4 billion away from California would be a silly thing to do no matter their politics. Conservative local officials who understand that will be “key to help us turn the tide,” he said.
Last month, California’s high-speed rail authority sued the Trump administration over the withdrawal of funds. The state is also suing the Trump administration over various changes to Medicaid, over Trump’s tariffs and over immigration enforcement tactics.
Mora said the sharp divide among Democrats and Republicans on Trump and his agenda called to mind other recent polling that showed many voters immediately changed their views of the economy after Trump took office — with Republicans suddenly feeling more optimistic, and Democrats more pessimistic.
It’s all a reflection of our modern, hyperpartisan politics, she said, where people’s perceptions — including about their own economic well-being — are “tied now much more closely to ideas about who’s in power.”
