California and three other states sued the Trump administration Wednesday over its plans to slash $600 million from programs designed to prevent and track the spread of HIV, including in the LGBTQ+ community — arguing the move is based on “political animus and disagreements about unrelated topics such as federal immigration enforcement, political protest, and clean energy.”
“This action is lawless,” attorneys for California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota said in a complaint filed in federal court in Illinois against President Trump and several of his officials.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding had been allocated to disease control programs in all four states, though California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office said his state faces “the largest share” of the cuts.
That includes $130 million due to California under a Public Health Infrastructure Block Grant, which the state and its local public health departments use to fund their public health workforce, monitor disease spread and respond to public health emergencies, Bonta’s office said.
“President Trump … is using federal funding to compel states and jurisdictions to follow his agenda. Those efforts have all previously failed, and we expect that to happen once again,” Bonta said in a statement.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the named defendants, repeatedly has turned his agency away from evidence-backed HIV monitoring and prevention programs in the last year, and the Trump administration has broadly attacked federal spending headed to blue states or allocated to initiatives geared toward the LGBTQ+ community.
The White House justified the latest cuts by claiming the programs “promote DEI and radical gender ideology” but did not explain further. Health officials said the cuts were to programs that did not reflect the CDC’s “priorities.”
Neither the White House nor Health and Human Services immediately responded to requests for comment.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said the cuts would derail an estimated $64.5 million for 14 county grant programs, resulting in “increased costs, more illness, and preventable deaths,” the department said.
Those programs focus on response to disasters, controlling outbreaks of diseases such as measles and flu, preventing the spread of diseases such as West Nile, dengue and hepatitis A, monitoring and treating HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, fighting chronic illnesses such as diabetes and obesity, and supporting community health, the department said.
Those cuts also would include about $1.1 million for the department’s National HIV Behavioral Surveillance Project, which is focused on detecting emerging HIV trends and preventing outbreaks.
Dr. Paul Simon, an epidemiologist at the UCLA Fielding School and former chief science officer for the county’s public health department, said slashing the program was a “dangerous” and “shortsighted” move that would leave public health officials in the dark as to what’s happening with the disease on the ground.
Considerable cuts also are anticipated to the City of Long Beach, UCLA and nine community health providers who provide HIV prevention services, including $383,000 for the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s community HIV prevention programs, local officials said.
Leading California Democrats railed against the cuts. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said the move was an unlawful attempt by Trump to punish blue states that “won’t bend to his extremist agenda.”
“His message to the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV is clear: their lives are not a priority, political retribution is,” Padilla said in a statement.
The states argue in the lawsuit that the administration’s decision “singles out jurisdictions for disfavor based not on any rational purpose related to the goals of any program but rather based on partisan animus.”
The lawsuit asked the court to declare the cuts unlawful and to bar the administration from implementing them or “engaging in future retaliatory conduct regarding federal funding or other participation in federal programs” based on the states exercising their sovereign authority in unrelated matters.
In recent weeks, Marin County Registrar Natalie Adona has been largely focused on the many mundane tasks of local elections administrators in the months before a midterm: finalizing voting locations, ordering supplies, facilitating candidate filings.
But in the wake of unprecedented efforts by the Trump administration to intervene in state-run elections, Adona said she has also been preparing her staff for far less ordinary scenarios — such as federal officials showing up and demanding ballots, as they recently did in Georgia, or immigration agents staging around polling stations on election day, as some in President Trump’s orbit have suggested.
“Part of my job is making sure that the plans are developed and then tested and then socialized with the staff so if those situations were to ever come up, we would not be figuring it out right then and there. We would know what to do,” Adona said. “Doing those sort of exercises and that level of planning in a way is kind of grounding, and makes things feel less chaotic.”
Natalie Adona faced harassment from election deniers and COVID anti-maskers when she served as the registrar of voters in Nevada County. She now serves Marin County and is preparing her staff for potential scenarios this upcoming election, including what to do if immigration agents are present.
(Jess Lynn Goss / For The Times)
Across California, local elections administrators say they have been running similar exercises to prepare for once unthinkable threats — not from local rabble-rousers, remote cyberattackers or foreign adversaries, but their own federal government.
State officials, too, are writing new contingency plans for unprecedented intrusions by Trump and other administration officials, who in recent days have repeated baseless 2020 election conspiracies, raided and taken ballots from a local election center in Fulton County, Ga., pushed both litigation and legislation that would radically alter local voting rules, and called for Republicans to seize control of elections nationwide.
California’s local and state officials — many of whom are Democrats — are walking a fine line, telling their constituents that elections remain fair and safe, but also that Trump’s talk of federal intervention must be taken seriously.
Their concerns are vastly different than the concerns voiced by Trump and other Republicans, who for years have alleged without evidence that U.S. elections are compromised by widespread fraud involving noncitizen voters, including in California.
But they have nonetheless added to a long-simmering sense of fear and doubt among voters — who this year have the potential to radically alter the nation’s political trajectory by flipping control of Congress to Democrats.
An election worker moves ballots to be sorted at the Orange County Registrar of Voters in Santa Ana on Nov. 5, 2024.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Trump has said he will accept Republican losses only if the elections are “honest.” A White House spokesperson said Trump is pushing for stricter rules for voting and voter registration because he “cares deeply about the safety and security of our elections.”
Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law, said some of what Trump says about elections “is nonsensical and some is bluster,” but recent actions — especially the election center raid in Georgia — have brought home the reality of his threats.
“Some worry that this is a test run for trying to seize ballot boxes in 2026 and prevent a fair count of the votes, and given Trump’s track record, I don’t think that is something we can dismiss out of hand,” Hasen said. “States need to be making contingency plans to make sure that those kinds of things don’t happen.”
The White House dismissed such concerns, pointing to isolated incidents of noncitizens being charged with illegally voting, and to examples of duplicate registrations, voters remaining on rolls after death and people stealing ballots to vote multiple times.
“These so-called experts are ignoring the plentiful examples of noncitizens charged with voter fraud and of ineligible voters on voter rolls,” said Abigail Jackson, the White House spokesperson.
Experts said fraudulent votes are rare, most registration and roll issues do not translate into fraudulent votes being cast, and there is no evidence such issues swing elections.
A swirl of activity
Early in his term, Trump issued an executive order calling for voters nationwide to be required to show proof of U.S. citizenship, and for states to be required to disregard mail ballots received after election day. California and other states sued, and courts have so far blocked the order.
President Trump walks behind former chairperson of the Republican National Committee Michael Whatley as he prepares to speak during a political rally in Rocky Mount, N.C., on Dec. 19.
(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)
Longtime Trump advisor and ally Stephen K. Bannon suggested U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will be dispatched to polling locations in November, reprising old fears about voter intimidation. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she couldn’t rule that out, despite it being illegal.
Democrats have raised concerns about the U.S. Postal Service mishandling mail ballots in the upcoming elections, following rule changes for how such mail is processed. Republicans have continued pushing the SAVE America Act, which would create new proof of citizenship requirements for voters. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering multiple voting rights cases, including one out of Louisiana that challenges Voting Rights Act protections for Black representation.
Charles H. Stewart, director of the MIT Election Data + Science Lab, said the series of events has created an “environment where chaos is being threatened,” and where “people who are concerned about the state of democracy are alarmed and very concerned,” and rightfully so.
But he said there are also “a number of guardrails” in place — what he called “the kind of mundane mechanics that are involved in running elections” — that will help prevent harm.
California prepares
California leaders have been vociferous in their defense of state elections, and said they’re prepared to fight any attempted takeover.
“The President regularly spews outright lies when it comes to elections in this country, particularly ones he and his party lose,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “We will continue to correct those lies, rebuild much-needed trust in our democratic institutions and civic duties, and defend the U.S. Constitution’s grant to the states authority over elections.”
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber take questions after announcing a lawsuit to protect voter rights in 2024.
(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in an interview that his office “would go into court and we would get a restraining order within hours” if the Trump administration tries to intervene in California elections, “because the U.S. Constitution says that states predominantly determine the time, place and manner of elections, not the president.”
Weber told The Times that the state has “a cadre of attorneys” standing by to defend its election system, but also “absolutely amazing” county elections officials who “take their job very seriously” and serve as the first line of defense against any disruptions, from the Trump administration or otherwise.
Dean Logan, Los Angeles County’s chief elections official, said his office has been doing “contingency planning and tabletop exercises” for traditional disruptions, such as wildfires and earthquakes, and novel ones, such as federal immigration agents massing near voting locations and last-minute policy changes by the U.S. Postal Service or the courts.
“Those are the things that keep us up at night,” he said.
Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan said the county no longer has ballots from the 2020 election.
(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Logan said he is not currently concerned about the FBI raiding L.A. County elections offices because, while Fulton County still had its 2020 ballots on hand due to ongoing litigation, that is not the case for L.A. County, which is “beyond the retention period” for holding, and no longer has, its 2020 ballots.
However, Logan said he does consider what happened in Georgia a warning that the Trump administration “will utilize the federal government to go in and be disruptive in an elections operation.”
“What we don’t know is, would they do that during the conduct of an election, before an election is certified?” Logan said.
Kristin Connelly, chief elections officer for Contra Costa County, said she’s been working hard to make sure voters have confidence in the election process, including by giving speeches to concerned voters, expanding the county’s certified election observer program, and, in the lead-up to the 2024 election, running a grant-funded awareness campaign around election security.
Connelly — who joined local elections officials nationwide in challenging Trump’s executive order on elections in court — said she also has been running tabletop exercises and coordinating with local law enforcement, all with the goal of ensuring her constituents can vote.
“How the federal government is behaving is different from how it used to behave, but at the end of the day, what we have to do is run a mistake-free, perfect election, and to open our offices and operation to everybody — especially the people who ask hard questions,” she said.
Lessons from the past
Several officials in California said that as they prepare, they have been buoyed by lessons from the past.
Before being hired by the deep-blue county of Marin in May, Adona was the elected voting chief in rural Nevada County in the Sierra foothills.
In 2022, Adona affirmed that Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden was legitimate and enforced a pandemic mask mandate in her office. That enraged a coalition of anti-mask, anti-vaccine, pro-Trump protesters, who pushed their way into the locked election office.
Protesters confronted Adona and her staffers, with one worker getting pushed down. They stationed themselves in the hallway, leaving Adona’s staff too terrified to leave their office to use the hallway bathroom, as local, state and federal authorities declined to step in.
“At this point, and for months afterwards, I felt isolated and depressed. I had panic attacks every few days. I felt that no one had our back. I focused all my attention on my staff’s safety, because they were clearly nervous about the unknown,” Adona said during subsequent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In part because she knows what can go wrong, Adona said her focus now is on preparing her new staff for whatever may come, while following the news out of Georgia and trying to maintain a cool head.
“I would rather have a plan and not use it than need a plan and not have one,” she said.
Clint Curtis, the clerk and registrar of voters in Shasta County — which ditched its voting machines in 2023 amid unfounded fraud allegations by Trump — said his biggest task ahead of the midterms is to increase both ballot security and transparency.
Since being appointed to lead the county office last spring, the conservative Republican from Florida has added more cameras and more space for election observers — which, during the recent special election on Proposition 50, California’s redistricting measure, included observers from Bonta’s and Weber’s offices.
He has also reduced the number of ballot drop boxes in the vast county from more than a dozen to four. Curtis told The Times he did not trust the security of ballots in the hands of “these little old ladies running all over the county” to pick them up, and noted there are dozens of other county locations where they can be dropped off. He said he invited Justice Department officials to observe voting on Proposition 50, though they didn’t show, and welcomes them again for the midterms.
“If they can make voting safer for everybody, I’m perfectly fine with that,” he said. “It always makes me nervous when people don’t want to cooperate. Whatcha hiding? It should be: ‘Come on in.’”
Election workers inspect ballots after extracting them from envelopes on election night at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on Nov. 5, 2024, in the City of Industry.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Weber, 77 and the daughter of an Arkansas sharecropper whose family fled Southern racism and threats of violence to reach California, said that while many people in the U.S. are confronting intense fear and doubt about the election for the first time, and understandably so, that is simply not the case for her or many other Black people.
“African Americans have always been under attack for voting, and not allowed to vote, and had new rules created for them about literacy and poll taxes and all those other kinds of things, and many folks lost their lives just trying to register to vote,” Weber said.
Weber said she still recalls her mother, who had never voted in Arkansas, setting up a polling location in their home in South L.A. each election when Weber was young, and today draws courage from those memories.
“I tell folks there’s no alternative to it. You have to fight for this right to vote. And you have to be aware of the fact that all these strategies that people are trying to use [to suppress voting] are not new strategies. They’re old strategies,” Weber said. “And we just have to be smarter and fight harder.”
Armed with that knowledge, you can now go out and win yourself a few bar bets by asking someone to name, say, even two of those running.
Meantime, fear not. Your friendly columnists Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria have surveyed the field, weighed the odds, pondered California’s long history and concluded … they have absolutely no clue what will happen in the June 2 primary, much less who’ll take the oath of office come next January.
Barabak: End homelessness. Elevate our public schools to first-class rank. Make housing and college tuition affordable. Eliminate crime. End disease and poverty. Put a chicken in every pot. Make pigs fly and celestial angels sing. And then, in their second year …
Seriously, there’s a pretty large gap between what voters would like to see happen and what a governor — any governor — can plausibly deliver. That said, if our next chief executive can help bring about meaningful improvement in just a few of those areas, pigs and angels excepted, I’d venture to say a goodly number of Californians would be pleased.
Broadly speaking, my sense when talking to voters is they want our next governor to push back on Trump and his most egregious excesses. But not as a means of raising their national profile or positioning themselves for a run at the White House. And not to the exclusion of bettering their lives by paying attention to the nitty and the gritty, like making housing and higher education more readily available and, yes, fixing potholes.
Chabria: All that is fair enough. As the mom of two teens, I’d especially like to see our university system be more affordable and accessible, so we all have our personal priorities. Let’s agree to this starting point: The new governor can’t just chew gum and walk. She or he must be able to eat a full lunch while running.
But so far, candidates haven’t had their policy positions break through to a big audience, state-focused or not — and many of them share broadly similar positions. Let’s look at the bits of daylight that separate them because, Republicans aside, there aren’t canyon-size differences among the many candidates.
San José Mayor Matt Mahan, the newest entry in the race, is attempting to position himself as a “can’t-we-all-just-get-along” centrist. How do you think that will go over with voters?
Barabak: You’re having me tiptoe uncomfortably close to the Make A Prediction Zone, which I assiduously avoid. As I’ve said before, I’m smart enough to know what I don’t know. (Many readers will doubtless question the underlying premise of the former if not the latter part of that statement.)
I think there is at least a potential for Mahan to tap into a desire among voters to lower the hostilities just a bit and ease up on our constant partisan war-footing.
You might not know it if you marinate in social media, or watch the political shout-fest shows where, as in nature, the loudest voices carry. But there are a great many people working two or even three jobs, ferrying their kids to soccer practice, worrying about paying their utility and doctor bills, caring for elderly parents or struggling in other ways to keep their heads above water. And they’re less captivated by the latest snappy clap-back on TikTok than looking for help dealing with the many challenges they face.
I was struck by something Katie Porter said when we recently sat down for a conversation in San Francisco. The former Orange County congresswoman can denigrate Trump with the best of ‘em. But she said, “I am very leery of anyone who does not acknowledge that we had problems and policy challenges long before Donald Trump ever raised his orange head on the political horizon.”
California’s homelessness and affordability crises were years in the making, she noted, and need to be addressed as such.
I heard Antonio Villaraigosa suggest something similar in last week‘s gubernatorial debate, when the former Los Angeles mayor noted the state has spent billions of dollars in recent years trying to drastically reduce homelessness with, at best, middling results. “We cannot be afraid to look in the mirror,” he said.
That suggests to me Mahan is not the only candidate who appreciates that simply saying “Trump = Bad” over and over is not what voters want to hear.
Chabria: Certainly potholes and high electricity bills existed before Trump. But if the midterms don’t favor Democrats, the next governor will probably face a generational challenge to protect the civil rights of residents of this diverse state. It’s not about liking or disliking Trump, but ensuring that our governor has a plan if attacks on immigrants,the LBGTQ+ community and citizens in general grow worse.
I do think this will matter to voters — but I agree with you that candidates can’t simply rage against Trump. They have to offer some substance.
Porter, Swalwell and Becerra, who have the most national experience and could be expected to articulate that sort of vision, haven’t done much other than to commit to the fight. Steyer and Thurmond want to abolish ICE, which a governor couldn’t do. Mahan has said focusing on state policy is the best offense.
I don’t think this has to be a charisma-driven vision, which is what Newsom has so effectively offered. But it needs to bring resoluteness in a time of fear, which none of the candidates to my mind have been able to project so far.
But this all depends on election results in November. If Democrats take Congress and are able to exert a check to this terrible imbalance, then bring on the asphalt and fix the roads. I think a lot of what voters want from a governor won’t fully be known until after November.
Barabak: The criticism of this collective field is that it’s terminally boring, as if we’re looking to elect a stand-up comic, a chanteuse or a juggler. I mean, this is the home of Hollywood! Isn’t it the birthright of every California citizen to be endlessly entertained?
At least that’s what the pundits and political know-it-alls, stifling yawns as they constantly refresh their feeds on Bluesky or X, would have you believe.
Voters elected Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor — that’s two movie stars in the state’s 175-year history — and, from the way the state is often perceived, you’d think celebrity megawattage is one of the main prerequisites for a chief executive.
But if you look back, California has seen a lot more George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis types, which is to say bland-persona governors whom no one would mistake for box-office gold.
It seems to me no coincidence that Schwarzenegger, who arrived as a political novelty, was replaced by Jerry Brown, who was as politically tried-and-true as they come. That political pendulum never stops swinging.
Which suggests voters will be looking for someone less like our gallivanting, movie matinee governor and someone more inclined to keep their head down in Sacramento and focus on the state and its needs.
Who will that be? I wouldn’t wage a nickel trying to guess. Would you care to?
Chabria: I certainly don’t care to predict, but I’ll say this: We may not need or get another Terminator. But one of these candidates needs to put some pepper flakes in the paste if they want to break out of the pack.
With the Trump administration reportedly in talks to create an anti-fraud task force for California, state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta on Thursday vehemently denounced what he described as the administration’s “reckless” and “false” rhetoric about fraud plaguing the state.
At a news conference at the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles, Bonta said the Trump administration’s claims that state programs are overrun by fraud and that its government was itself perpetrating or facilitating this fraud was “outrageous and ridiculous and without basis.”
Bonta said most states struggle with some fraud from outside actors, saying that “anywhere there’s money flowing there’s a risk” and that the state’s Department of Justice has thrown immense resources into cracking down on illicit activities and recovering funds for taxpayers.
As a politicized national fight over waste, fraud and abuse led by Republicans have targeted California and its Democratic leadership, Bonta and other state officials have moved swiftly to combat the claims.
In California, Bonta said, authorities have recovered nearly $2.7 billion through criminal and civil prosecutions since 2016, including some $740 million through Medi-Cal fraud related prosecutions, about $2 billion under the state’s False Claims Act, and an additional $108 million from a task force focused on rooting out tax fraud in the underground economy.
State authorities have frequently partnered with the federal government in the past on such investigations and welcome a good-faith partnership in the future, Bonta said.
CBS News reported on the creation of a California-focused fraud task force earlier this week, citing multiple unnamed sources familiar with the plans. The outlet, whose new editor in chief, Bari Weiss, has been aligned with Trump and spearheaded a major overhaul of the news organization, reported that the president plans to soon sign an executive order naming Vice President JD Vance as head of a group that would also include the head of the Federal Trade Commission as vice chairman.
Trump’s rhetoric fueled doubts about California programs and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s leadership at the start of the year, when he declared that “the fraud investigation of California [had] begun.”
On the president’s social media platform, in formal letters and in recent news conferences, officials in the Trump administration have alleged fraud in child care, hospice funding and unemployment benefits.
Last week, the topic took center stage again when Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, posted a video accusing Armenian crime groups of carrying out widespread hospice fraud in Los Angeles.
That viral video received more than 4.5 million views on X.
Oz’s video received fierce backlash from California politicians and the local Armenian community, who collectively alleged that it contained baseless and racially charged attacks on Armenians.
The video shows Oz being driven around a section of Van Nuys where he says that about $3.5-billion worth of medicare fraud has been perpetrated by hospice and home-care businesses, claiming that “it’s run, quite a bit of it, by the Russian Armenian mafia.”
He also points to Armenian language signs, incorrectly referring to them as written in a cerulean script, and saying “you notice that the lettering and language behind me is of that dialect and it also highlights the fact that this is an organized crime mafia deal.”
Newsom filed a civil rights complaint against Oz on Jan. 29, asking the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate the “racially charged and false public statements” made in the video.
On Monday, California Sen. Adam Schiff followed suit, demanding an independent review of Oz’s alleged targeting of Armenian American communities.
“To suggest markers of Armenian culture, language, and identity are indicative of criminality underscores a discriminatory motive that could taint any investigation into fraud and incite the further demonization of the community,” Schiff said in a statement.
Glendale City Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian said in an interview that Oz’s statements feed into the Trump administration’s playbook of using allegations of fraud to sow racial divisions.
“This time the focus just happens to be the Armenians,” he said. “In places like Minnesota, it’s the Somali community.”
California has been investigating healthcare fraud since a 2020 Los Angeles Times investigation uncovered widespread Medicare fraud in the state’s booming but loosely regulated hospice industry.
From 2010 to 2020, the county’s hospices multiplied sixfold, accounting for more than half of the state’s roughly 1,200 Medicare-certified providers, according to a Times analysis of federal healthcare data.
Scores of providers sprang up along a corridor stretching west from the San Gabriel Valley through the San Fernando Valley, which now has the highest concentration of hospices in the nation.
The state Department of Justice has charged more than 100 people with hospice-related fraud since 2021 and shuttered around 280 hospices in the last two years, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.
But those shuttered hospices barely represent a dent in the massive hospice home healthcare industry. There are 468 hospice facilities in the Van Nuys area alone, according to the state database of medical facilities.
There are 197 licensed medical practices, including 89 licensed hospices, in a single two-story building located at 14545 Friar St. in Van Nuys — suggesting a concentration of fraudulent businesses.
When asked why the number of licensed medical practices in Van Nuys and at that address are so high, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health said that the department is committed to fighting fraud and unable to comment on pending investigation.
Recent turmoil in Minnesota has demonstrated the potential ripple effects of allegations levied by the Trump administration.
Ahead of sending in thousands of immigration enforcement agents into the Midwest state, Trump had repeatedly cited a fraud case involving funds for a child nutrition program involving COVID-19 pandemic relief funds.
He used the case, which involved a nonprofit where several Somali Americans worked, to vilify the immigrant community, even though the organization was run by a white woman. After the state became a lightning rod, Gov. Tim Walz dropped his reelection plans.
At Thursday’s news conference, Bonta described major cases in other states, such as $11.4 million healthcare fraud and wire fraud conspiracy involving a nursing assistant in Florida and a $88.3 million Medicaid fraud case in in Ohio involving over billing by a pharmacy benefit manager — to show abuse of state programs is not unique to California — or to blue states.
“We know Vance hails from Ohio, so maybe he should take a look in his own backyard before leading an unnecessary political stunt focused on California,” Bonta said. “We thought we should set the record straight.”
Times staff writers Melody Gutierrez and Dakota Smith contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s repeated calls to “nationalize” elections drew swift resistance from California officials this week, who said they are ready to fight should the federal government attempt to assert control over the state’s voting system.
“We would win that on Day One,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta told The Times. “We would go into court and we would get a restraining order within hours, because the U.S. Constitution says that states predominantly determine the time, place and manner of elections, not the president.”
“We’re prepared to do whatever we have to do in California,” said California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, whose office recently fought off a Justice Department lawsuit demanding California’s voter rolls and other sensitive voter information.
Both Bonta and Weber said their offices are closely watching for any federal action that could affect voting in California, including efforts to seize election records, as the FBI recently did in Georgia, or target the counting of mailed ballots, which Trump has baselessly alleged are a major source of fraud.
Weber said California plays an outsized role in the nation and is “the place that people want to beat,” including through illegitimate court challenges to undermine the state’s vote after elections, but California has fought off such challenges in the past and is ready to do it again.
“There’s a cadre of attorneys that are already, that are always prepared during our elections to hit the courts to defend anything that we’re doing,” she said. “Our election teams, they do cross the T’s, dot the I’s. They are on it.”
“We have attorneys ready to be deployed wherever there’s an issue,” Bonta said, noting that his office is in touch with local election officials to ensure a rapid response if necessary.
The standoff reflects an extraordinary deterioration of trust and cooperation in elections that has existed between state and federal officials for generations — and follows a remarkable doubling down by Trump after his initial remarks about taking over the elections raised alarm.
Trump has long alleged, without evidence and despite multiple independent reviews concluding the opposite, that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He has alleged, again without evidence, that millions of fraudulent votes were cast, including by non-citizen voters, and that blue states looked the other way to gain political advantage.
Last week, the Justice Department acted on those claims by raiding the Fulton County, Ga., elections hub and seizing 2020 ballots. The department also has sued states, including California, for their voter rolls, and is defending a Trump executive order seeking to end mail voting and add new proof of citizenship requirements for registering to vote, which California and other states have sued to block.
On Monday, Trump further escalated his pressure campaign by saying on former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s podcast that Republicans should “take over the voting in at least 15 places,” alleging that voting irregularities in what he called “crooked states” are hurting his party. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
On Tuesday morning, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, appeared to try to walk back Trump’s comments, saying he had been referring to the Save Act, a measure being pushed by Republicans in Congress to codify Trump’s proof-of-citizenship requirements. However, Trump doubled down later that day, telling reporters that if states “can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”
Bonta said Trump’s comments were a serious escalation, not just bluster: “We always knew they were going to come after us on something, so this is just an affirmation of that — and maybe they are getting a step closer.”
Bonta said he will especially be monitoring races in the state’s swing congressional districts, which could play a role in determining control of Congress and therefore be a target of legal challenges.
“The strategy of going after California isn’t rational unless you’re going after a couple of congressional seats that you think will make a difference in the balance of power in the House,” Bonta said.
California Democrats in Congress have stressed that the state’s elections are safe and reliable, but also started to express unease about upcoming election interference by the administration.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) said on “Meet the Press” last week that he believes the administration will try to use “every tool in their toolbox to try and interfere,” but that the American people will “overcome it by having a battalion of lawyers at the polls.”
California Sen. Adam Schiff this week said recent actions by the Trump administration — including the Fulton County raid, where Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard put Trump on the phone with agents — were “wrong” and set off “alarm bells about their willingness to interfere in the next election.”
Democrats have called on their Republican colleagues to help push back against such interference.
“When he says that we should nationalize the elections and Republicans should take over, and you don’t make a peep? What is going on here?” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday. “This is the path that has ruined many a democracy, and our democracy is deep and strong, but it requires — and allows — resistance to these things. Verbal resistance, electoral resistance. Where are you?”
Some Republicans have voiced their disagreement with Trump. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday that he is “supportive of only citizens voting and showing ID at polling places,” but is “not in favor of federalizing elections,” which he called “a constitutional issue.”
“I’m a big believer in decentralized and distributed power. And I think it’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one,” he said.
However, other Republican leaders have commiserated with Trump over his qualms with state-run elections. House Majority Leader Mike Johnson (R-La.), for example, took aim at California’s system for counting mail-in ballots in the days following elections, questioning why such counting led to Republican leads in House races being “magically whittled away until their leads were lost.”
“It looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove that? No, because it happened so far upstream,” Johnson said. “But we need more confidence in the American people in the election system.”
Elections experts expressed dismay over Johnson’s comments, calling them baseless and illogical. The fact that candidates who are leading in votes can fall behind as more votes are counted is not magic but math, they said — with Democrats agreeing.
“Speaker Johnson seems to be confused, so let me break it down. California’s elections are safe and secure. The point of an election is to make sure *every* eligible vote cast is counted, not to count fast,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) wrote on X. “We don’t just quit while we’re ahead. It’s called a democracy.”
Democrats have also expressed concern that the administration could use the U.S. Postal Service to interfere with counting mail-in ballots. They have specifically raised questions about a rule issued by the postal service last December that deems mail postmarked on the day it is processed by USPS, rather than the day it is received — which would impact mail-in ballots in places such as California, where ballots must be postmarked by election day to be counted.
“Election officials are already concerned and warning that this change could ultimately lead to higher mailed ballots being rejected,” Senate Democrats wrote to U.S. Postal Service Postmaster General David Steiner last month.
Some experts and state officials said voters should make a plan to vote early, and consider dropping their ballots in state ballot drop boxes or delivering them directly to voting centers.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that California this fall may use its new election map, which is expected to send five more Democrats to Congress.
With no dissents, the justices rejected emergency appeals from California Republicans and President Trump’s lawyers, who claimed the map was a racial gerrymander to benefit Latinos, not a partisan effort to bolster Democrats.
Trump’s lawyers supported the California Republicans and filed a Supreme Court brief asserting that “California’s recent redistricting is tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”
They pointed to statements from Paul Mitchell, who led the effort to redraw the districts, that he hoped to “bolster” Latino representatives in the Central Valley.
In response, the state’s attorneys told the court the GOP claims defied the public’s understanding of the mid-decade redistricting and contradicted the facts regarding the racial and ethnic makeup of the districts.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed re-drawing the state’s 52 congressional districts to “fight back against Trump’s power grab in Texas.”
He said that if Texas was going to redraw its districts to benefit Republicans so as to keep control of the House of Representatives, California should do the same to benefit Democrats.
The voters approved the change in November.
While the new map has five more Democratic-leaning districts, the state’s attorneys said it did not increase the number with a Latino majority.
“Before Proposition 50, there were 16 Latino-majority districts. After Proposition 50, there is the same number. The average Latino share of the voting-age population also declined in those 16 districts,” they wrote.
It would be “strange for California to undertake a mid-decade restricting effort with the predominant purpose of benefiting Latino voters and then enact a new map that contains an identical number of Latino-majority districts,” they said.
Trump’s lawyers pointed to the 13th Congressional District in Merced County and said its lines were drawn to benefit Latinos.
The state’s attorneys said that too was incorrect. “The Latino voting-age population [in District 13] decreased after Proposition 50’s enactment,” they said.
Three judges in Los Angeles heard evidence from both sides and upheld the new map in a 2-1 decision.
“We find that the evidence of any racial motivation driving redistricting is exceptionally weak, while the evidence of partisan motivations is overwhelming,” said U.S. District Judges Josephine Staton and Wesley Hsu.
In the past, the Supreme Court has said the Constitution does not bar state lawmakers from drawing election districts for political or partisan reasons, but it does forbid doing so based on the race of the voters.
In December, the court ruled for Texas Republicans and overturned a 2-1 decision that had blocked the use of its new election map. The court’s conservatives agreed with Texas lawmakers who said they acted out of partisan motives, not with the aim of denying representation to Latino and Black voters.
“The impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in a concurring opinion.
California’s lawyers quoted Alito in supporting their map.
Florida State offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn announced his retirement Monday after 35 years in coaching.
The former Auburn, University of Central Florida and Arkansas State head coach spent just one season with the Seminoles in 2025.
‘After 35 years, it’s time for me to step away from coaching,’ Malzahn said in a statement. ‘I am excited to spend more time with my family and focus on the next chapter of my life. I want to thank Coach (Mike) Norvell for giving me the opportunity to coach at such a prestigious program.’
Norvell promoted co-offensive coordinator and receivers coach Tim Harris to replace Malzahn, 60.
Florida State led the Atlantic Coast Conference in rushing (218.7 yards per game) and total offense (472.1) in Malzahn’s lone season as the play-caller in Tallahassee.
Malzahn compiled a 105-62 record as head coach at Arkansas State (2012), Auburn (2013-20) and UCF (2021-24), including a 3-7 record in bowl games.
During his first season at Auburn in 2013, the Tigers lost 34-31 to Florida State in the BCS Championship game and finished 12-2. Malzahn was named the national and SEC Coach of the Year.
Malzahn coached in the high school ranks from 1991-2005 before becoming the offensive coordinator at Arkansas in 2006. After two seasons as an assistant coach at Tulsa (2007-08), he joined Auburn as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2009-11. In 2010, Tigers quarterback Cam Newton won the Heisman Trophy and Auburn completed a 14-0 season with a national championship.
He drew disparaging notice during a presidential rant and captured headlines after being blocked from delivering a high-profile speech, allegedly at the behest of the White House.
All the while, another governor and Democratic presidential prospect was mixing and mingling in the rarefied Swiss air — though you probably wouldn’t know it.
Flying far below the heat-seeking radar, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear leaned into the role of economic ambassador, focusing on job creation and other nutsy, boltsy stuff that doesn’t grab much notice in today’s performative political environment.
Like Newsom, Beshear is running-but-not-exactly-running for president. He didn’t set out to offer a stark contrast to California’s governor, the putative 2028 Democratic front-runner. But he’s doing so just the same.
“I think by the time we reach 2028, our Democratic voters are gonna be worn out,” Beshear said during a conversation in his state’s snowy capital. “They’re gonna be worn out by Trump, and they’re gonna be worn out by Democrats who respond to Trump like Trump. And they’re gonna want some stability in their lives.”
Every candidate enters a contest with a backstory and a record, which is condensed to a summary that serves as calling card, strategic foundation and a rationale for their run.
Here’s Andy Beshear’s: He’s the popular two-term governor of a red state that three times voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
He is fluent in the language of faith, well-liked by the kind of rural voters who have abandoned Democrats in droves and, at age 48, offers a fresh face and relative youth in a party that many voters have come to see as old and ossified.
Beshear’s not-yet-candidacy, still in the fledgling phase, offers a mix of aspiration and admonition.
Democrats, he said, need to talk more like regular people. Addiction, not substance use disorder. Hunger, not food assistance.
And, he suggested, they need to focus more on things regular people care about: jobs, healthcare, public safety, public education. Things that aren’t theoretical or abstract but materially affect their daily lives, like the costs of electricity, car insurance and groceries.
“I think the most important thing we should have learned from 2024 is [Democratic voters are] gonna be looking for somebody that can help them pay that next bill,” Beshear said.
He was seated in the Old Governor’s Mansion, now a historic site and Beshear’s temporary office while the nearby Capitol undergoes a years-long renovation.
The red-brick residence, built in the Federal style and completed in 1798, was Beshear’s home from age 6 to 10 when his father, Steve, lived there while serving as lieutenant governor. (Steve Beshear went on to serve two terms as the state’s chief executive, building a brand and a brand name that helped Andy win his first public office, attorney general, in 2015.)
It was 9 degrees outside. Icicles hung from the eaves and snowplows navigated Frankfort’s narrow, winding streets after an unusually cold winter blast.
Inside, Beshear was seated before an unlit fireplace, legs crossed, shirt collar unbuttoned, looking like the pleasantly unassuming Dad in a store-bought picture frame.
He bragged a bit, touting Kentucky’s economic success under his watch. He spoke of his religiosity — his grandfather and great-grandfather were Baptist preachers — and talked at length about the optimism, a political rarity these days, that undergirds his vision for the country.
“I think the American people feel like the pendulum swung too far in the Biden administration. Now they feel it’s swung way too far during the Trump administration,” Beshear said. “What they want is for it to stop swinging.”
He went on. “Most people when they wake up aren’t thinking about politics. They’re thinking about their job, their next doctor’s appointment, the roads and bridges they drive, the school they drop their kids off at, and whether they feel safe in their community.
“And I think they desperately want someone that can move the country, not right or left ideologically, but actually forward in those areas. And that’s how I think we heal.”
Beshear doesn’t shy from his Democratic pedigree, or stray from much of the party’s orthodoxy.
He’s walked the picket line with striking auto workers, signed an executive order making Juneteenth a state holiday and routinely vetoed anti-gay legislation, becoming the first Kentucky governor to attend an LGBTQ+ celebration in the Capitol Rotunda.
“Discrimination against our LGBTQ+ community is unacceptable,” he told an audience. “It holds us back and, in my Kentucky accent, it ain’t right.”
For all of that, Beshear doesn’t shrink from taking on Trump, which, essentially, has become a job requirement for any Democratic officeholder wishing to remain a Democratic officeholder.
“From insulting our allies to telling struggling Americans that he’s fixed inflation and the economy is amazing, the President is hurting both our families’ financial security and our national security,” Beshear posted on social media. “Oh, and Greenland is so important he’s calling it Iceland.”
But Beshear hasn’t turned Trump-bashing into a 24/7 vocation, or a weight-lifting contest where the winner is the critic wielding the heaviest bludgeon.
“I stand up to him in the way that I think a Democratic governor of Kentucky should. When he’s doing things that hurt my state, I speak out,” Beshear said. “I filed 20 lawsuits, I think, and we’ve won almost all of them, bringing dollars they were trying to stop from flowing into Kentucky.
“But,” he added, “when he does something positive for Kentucky, I also say that too, because that’s what our people expect.”
Asked about the towel-snapping Newsom and his dedicated staff of Trump trollers, Beshear defended California’s governor — or, at least, passed on the chance to get in a dig.
“Gavin’s in a very different situation than I’m in. I mean, he has the president attacking him and his state just about every day,” Beshear said. “So I don’t want to be critical of an approach from somebody that’s in a very different spot.
“But the approach also has to be unique to you. For me, I bring people together. We’ve been able to do that in this state. That’s my approach. And in the end, I’ve gotta stay true to who I am.”
And when — or make that if — both Newsom and Beshear launch a formal bid for president, they’ll present Democratic voters a clear choice.
Not just between two differing personalities. Also two considerably different approaches to politics and winning back the White House.
Judge says she won’t halt Minnesota immigration enforcement surge as a lawsuit proceeds
The lawsuit sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope
This 13 page document lays out DHS policy for use of force. Now these rules apply to Customs and Border Protection, ICE, and Secret Service and make it clear what protocols agents should follow before any use of force is applied. And while it’s easy to look back and replay video over and over after the fact, experts we talked to told us agents need to rely on these policies and training, especially in critical moments. Unfortunately, It, it’s for me as *** field office director, this all of this is very um upsetting. Darius Reeves, *** former ICE field office director, spent nearly 20 years with ICE and Homeland Security, *** time when he says their operations were not drawing public attention. No one had any idea about ICE. We were very professional, we were very clean, and this is. There are far too many US citizens being involved. What troubles Reeves now isn’t just the outcome of recent encounters, but whether ICE and Border Patrol are following their own use of force and de-escalation policies. When is use of force an option? If it’s an immediate Imminent threat. The National Investigative Unit reviewed the Department of Homeland Security’s use of force policy alongside video from the two recent killings of Alex Preddy and Renee Good and talked with experts including Reeves. DHS policy is clear officers should attempt de-escalation, issue verbal commands, reassess when resistance stops, and discontinue force once an incident is under control. Video from the encounter involving 30 seven-year-old Alex Preddy shows in the minute before the shooting, Preddy is recording from *** distance. Agents push *** woman who grabs onto Preddy. He’s then pushed. An agent pushes another woman near Preddy, who then steps in with an open hand up, then turns away from the agent as he’s sprayed with *** chemical. They continually sprayed him even when his back was to them, and then everybody piles on. Based on the video we’ve seen, in your opinion. Was deadly force used correctly on Alex Peretti? Absolutely not. The second case involving Renee Good raises *** different policy question. DHS rules place strict limits on the use of deadly force in and around vehicles. Mark Brown used to train ICE agents and explains the strict rules. The general practice was that They went away from shooting in the moving vehicles. Reeves and Brown add that incidents need to be carefully examined afterward to prevent future violations. Are we debriefing every day after, you know, to see, OK, what are we doing for our own accountability? This is *** major travesty, um. And you, you’re going to have to stick to the policy. The DHS policy states that every agent must be trained in use of force and de-escalation policies at least once *** year, and every 2 years they must conduct less than lethal force training. The policy we reviewed was last updated in 2023. Reporting in Washington, I’m national investigative correspondent John Cardinelli.
Judge says she won’t halt Minnesota immigration enforcement surge as a lawsuit proceeds
The lawsuit sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope
A federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota and the Twin Cities as a lawsuit over it proceeds.Video above: Examining DHS use-of-force policiesA federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota and the Twin Cities as a lawsuit over it proceeds.Judge Katherine M. Menendez on Saturday denied a preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed this month by state Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul.It argued that the Department of Homeland Security is violating constitutional protections. The lawsuit sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope. Lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”The ruling on the injunction focused on the argument by Minnesota officials that the federal government is violating the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which limits the federal government’s powers to infringe on the sovereignty of states. In her ruling, the judge relied heavily on whether that argument was likely to ultimately succeed in court.The federal government argued that the surge, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, is necessary in its effort to take criminal immigrants off the streets and because federal efforts have been hindered by state and local “sanctuary laws and policies.” State and local officials argued that the surge is retaliation after the federal government’s initial attempts to withhold federal funding to try to force immigration cooperation failed.”Because there is evidence supporting both sides’ arguments as to motivation and the relative merits of each side’s competing positions are unclear, the Court is reluctant to find that the likelihood-of-success factor weighs sufficiently in favor of granting a preliminary injunction,” the judge said in the ruling.U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi took to social media Saturday to laud the ruling, calling it “another HUGE” legal win for the Justice Department on X.Federal officers have fatally shot two people on the streets of Minneapolis: Renee Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) —
A federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota and the Twin Cities as a lawsuit over it proceeds.
Video above: Examining DHS use-of-force policies
A federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota and the Twin Cities as a lawsuit over it proceeds.
Judge Katherine M. Menendez on Saturday denied a preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed this month by state Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
It argued that the Department of Homeland Security is violating constitutional protections. The lawsuit sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope. Lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”
The ruling on the injunction focused on the argument by Minnesota officials that the federal government is violating the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which limits the federal government’s powers to infringe on the sovereignty of states. In her ruling, the judge relied heavily on whether that argument was likely to ultimately succeed in court.
The federal government argued that the surge, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, is necessary in its effort to take criminal immigrants off the streets and because federal efforts have been hindered by state and local “sanctuary laws and policies.” State and local officials argued that the surge is retaliation after the federal government’s initial attempts to withhold federal funding to try to force immigration cooperation failed.
“Because there is evidence supporting both sides’ arguments as to motivation and the relative merits of each side’s competing positions are unclear, the Court is reluctant to find that the likelihood-of-success factor weighs sufficiently in favor of granting a preliminary injunction,” the judge said in the ruling.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi took to social media Saturday to laud the ruling, calling it “another HUGE” legal win for the Justice Department on X.
Federal officers have fatally shot two people on the streets of Minneapolis: Renee Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.
Judge says she won’t halt Minnesota immigration enforcement surge as a lawsuit proceeds
The lawsuit sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope
This 13 page document lays out DHS policy for use of force. Now these rules apply to Customs and Border Protection, ICE, and Secret Service and make it clear what protocols agents should follow before any use of force is applied. And while it’s easy to look back and replay video over and over after the fact, experts we talked to told us agents need to rely on these policies and training, especially in critical moments. Unfortunately, It, it’s for me as *** field office director, this all of this is very um upsetting. Darius Reeves, *** former ICE field office director, spent nearly 20 years with ICE and Homeland Security, *** time when he says their operations were not drawing public attention. No one had any idea about ICE. We were very professional, we were very clean, and this is. There are far too many US citizens being involved. What troubles Reeves now isn’t just the outcome of recent encounters, but whether ICE and Border Patrol are following their own use of force and de-escalation policies. When is use of force an option? If it’s an immediate Imminent threat. The National Investigative Unit reviewed the Department of Homeland Security’s use of force policy alongside video from the two recent killings of Alex Preddy and Renee Good and talked with experts including Reeves. DHS policy is clear officers should attempt de-escalation, issue verbal commands, reassess when resistance stops, and discontinue force once an incident is under control. Video from the encounter involving 30 seven-year-old Alex Preddy shows in the minute before the shooting, Preddy is recording from *** distance. Agents push *** woman who grabs onto Preddy. He’s then pushed. An agent pushes another woman near Preddy, who then steps in with an open hand up, then turns away from the agent as he’s sprayed with *** chemical. They continually sprayed him even when his back was to them, and then everybody piles on. Based on the video we’ve seen, in your opinion. Was deadly force used correctly on Alex Peretti? Absolutely not. The second case involving Renee Good raises *** different policy question. DHS rules place strict limits on the use of deadly force in and around vehicles. Mark Brown used to train ICE agents and explains the strict rules. The general practice was that They went away from shooting in the moving vehicles. Reeves and Brown add that incidents need to be carefully examined afterward to prevent future violations. Are we debriefing every day after, you know, to see, OK, what are we doing for our own accountability? This is *** major travesty, um. And you, you’re going to have to stick to the policy. The DHS policy states that every agent must be trained in use of force and de-escalation policies at least once *** year, and every 2 years they must conduct less than lethal force training. The policy we reviewed was last updated in 2023. Reporting in Washington, I’m national investigative correspondent John Cardinelli.
Judge says she won’t halt Minnesota immigration enforcement surge as a lawsuit proceeds
The lawsuit sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope
A federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota and the Twin Cities as a lawsuit over it proceeds.Video above: Examining DHS use-of-force policiesA federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota and the Twin Cities as a lawsuit over it proceeds.Judge Katherine M. Menendez on Saturday denied a preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed this month by state Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul.It argued that the Department of Homeland Security is violating constitutional protections. The lawsuit sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope. Lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”The ruling on the injunction focused on the argument by Minnesota officials that the federal government is violating the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which limits the federal government’s powers to infringe on the sovereignty of states. In her ruling, the judge relied heavily on whether that argument was likely to ultimately succeed in court.The federal government argued that the surge, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, is necessary in its effort to take criminal immigrants off the streets and because federal efforts have been hindered by state and local “sanctuary laws and policies.” State and local officials argued that the surge is retaliation after the federal government’s initial attempts to withhold federal funding to try to force immigration cooperation failed.”Because there is evidence supporting both sides’ arguments as to motivation and the relative merits of each side’s competing positions are unclear, the Court is reluctant to find that the likelihood-of-success factor weighs sufficiently in favor of granting a preliminary injunction,” the judge said in the ruling.U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi took to social media Saturday to laud the ruling, calling it “another HUGE” legal win for the Justice Department on X.Federal officers have fatally shot two people on the streets of Minneapolis: Renee Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) —
A federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota and the Twin Cities as a lawsuit over it proceeds.
Video above: Examining DHS use-of-force policies
A federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota and the Twin Cities as a lawsuit over it proceeds.
Judge Katherine M. Menendez on Saturday denied a preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed this month by state Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
It argued that the Department of Homeland Security is violating constitutional protections. The lawsuit sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope. Lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”
The ruling on the injunction focused on the argument by Minnesota officials that the federal government is violating the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which limits the federal government’s powers to infringe on the sovereignty of states. In her ruling, the judge relied heavily on whether that argument was likely to ultimately succeed in court.
The federal government argued that the surge, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, is necessary in its effort to take criminal immigrants off the streets and because federal efforts have been hindered by state and local “sanctuary laws and policies.” State and local officials argued that the surge is retaliation after the federal government’s initial attempts to withhold federal funding to try to force immigration cooperation failed.
“Because there is evidence supporting both sides’ arguments as to motivation and the relative merits of each side’s competing positions are unclear, the Court is reluctant to find that the likelihood-of-success factor weighs sufficiently in favor of granting a preliminary injunction,” the judge said in the ruling.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi took to social media Saturday to laud the ruling, calling it “another HUGE” legal win for the Justice Department on X.
Federal officers have fatally shot two people on the streets of Minneapolis: Renee Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.
Shep Wainright sure would like to rent you a fancy new soundstage.
Last week, he opened a $230-million movie and television studio on the edge of the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles nestled alongside the dramatic new Sixth Street Bridge.
The state-of-the-art complex has five sound stages, offices and other proper movie studio features such as a mill, commissary and base camp.
“We just had all the major networks, all the major streaming platforms walk through this facility and they can’t believe how nice it is,” said Wainright, managing partner of East End Studios.
But so far, no one has signed up to make a project at East End Studios’ newest property, even as state and local leaders tout new tax incentives to boost the film industry.
“Everyone is doing their best to try to bring productions back to Los Angeles,” said Wainright, “but it’s pretty dire.”
The $230-million East End Studios – Mission Campus opened last week in Boyle Heights. It has five sound stages, offices and other production facilities.
(East End Studios)
The challenges facing owners of local sound stages came into sharp relief last week when one of the largest landlords in Hollywood — Hackman Capital Partners — said it was turning over the historic Radford Studio Center in Studio City to Goldman Sachs.
After years of aggressive sound stage development across Southern California — fueled by a surge in TV production and low interest rates — the writing was on the wall as filming activity dropped to historic lows.
The average annual sound stage occupancy rate dropped to 63% in 2024, the most recent year data are available, according to FilmLA, a nonprofit that tracks filming in the L.A. area.
The 2024 rate is down from 69% the prior year and is well below the average occupancy rate of 90% seen between 2016 and 2022, according to FilmLA data.
An upcoming report for 2025 is expected to reveal little change in occupancy levels, said spokesman Philip Sokoloski. The group recently reported a16% drop in film and TV shoot days last year compared with 2024.
Those busy days were heady, but they weren’t built to last, said real estate broker Carl Muhlstein, who helps arrange sales and leases of studios and other large entertainment facilities.
The dawn of the streaming era set off a scramble to grab market share among newcomers like Netflix and old-timers like Paramount and Disney, who created hundreds of original scripted televisions shows. By 2022, during the height of so-called peak TV, nearly 200 shows were in production industry-wide.
“It was all about speeding to market and capturing eyeballs by throwing billions of dollars” at creating new shows and movies, Muhlstein said. “They were all building platforms.”
Landlords raced to build or buy sound stages to accommodate all the production, and they may have overshot the mark.
In 2021, independent studio giant Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management paid $1.85 billion for Radford Studio Center, a popular lot dating to silent film days that gave Studio City its name.
For Culver City-based Hackman, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Shortly after it bought Radford Studio Center, the industry began to see theatrical slowdowns from the pandemic, the 2023 dual writers’ and actors’ strikes and the cutback in spending at the studios.
California also lost market share to rivals as producers continued to migrate to other states and countries offering lower costs — and bigger tax breaks.
“Los Angeles has the best infrastructure, the best crews, and the deepest creative talent in the world for film production, but California has failed to keep the industry competitive with tax credits offered by other states and countries,” Chief Executive Michael Hackman said in a statement. “We are now witnessing the cumulative impact of years of policy neglect compounded by the effects of COVID, strikes, and changes in industry trends.
‘We’re going to have fewer studios’
— Real estate broker Carl Muhlstein
“The flight of production from Los Angeles has caused extraordinary economic damage, job losses and declines in our tax base,” Hackman said. “If policymakers level the playing field, Los Angeles can recover and remain at the center of the entertainment industry where it belongs.”
The problem for Hackman was that it bought Radford during “peak demand,” said Kevin Klowden, a Milken Institute fellow, focused on entertainment and technology. “Expect that whoever buys it is clearly going to look at the economics of it differently.”
Other studios face similar challenges to Radford’s, Muhlstein said.
“Unfortunately, this could be the first of several foreclosures,” he said. “We’re going to have fewer studios.”
He didn’t identify other studios in distress, but said some have less filming business than Radford does and are facing more painful cost increases when refinancing short-term loans they took out to buy the properties.
“More content is being produced in more places at lower costs by increasingly widespread teams,” Muhlstein said. “You can go to London, you can go to Hungary, you can go to Vancouver. “
There is hope in the industry that local production — and with it, soundstage usage — will get a boost from California’s revamped film and TV tax credit program, which was overhauled last year.
In addition to boosting the annual amount allocated to the production incentive program, state lawmakers expanded eligibility criteria to include new kinds of shows, including large-scale competition shows and 20-minute-per-episode shows.
With that boost, FilmLA expects to see an increase to the current soundstage usage, but below the 90% occupancy of the peak TV period.
“Our hope is that we can reach that sustainable place with a space for anyone who needs it as well as work opportunities for the crew here,” Sokoloski said.
But the dynamics of streaming series, with shorter episode orders, doesn’t create the same economies of scale and consistent occupancy rates that network shows once did, Klowden said.
“Under the new incentives and with the city actively trying to court productions back and make things easier, will things move back?” Klowden said. “That’s the real issue.”
A representative of L.A. Center Studios in downtown L.A., where “Mad Men,” “The Rookie,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and many other movies and TV shows were filmed, declined to comment.
The head of tiny but historic Occidental Studios is looking to bail out — for the right price. Craig Darian put the Los Angeles studio that was once used by silent film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks on the market for $45 million last year.
“Business has slowed but what little debt the studio has is at a low rate and not coming due any time soon, he said. “We’re looking for the correct exit. We’re not eager to sell.”
Occidental is among the oldest continually operating studios in Hollywood, used by pioneering filmmakers Cecil B. DeMille, D.W. Griffith and Pickford, who worked there as an actor and filmmaker in its early years.
More recently the three-acre lot has been used for television production for shows including “Tales of the City,” “New Girl” and HBO’s thriller “Sharp Objects.”
“We mourn what everybody’s going through,” Darian said. “We’re in the land of ‘I don’t know.’ I think that’s a truism for everyone trying to figure things out.”
With independent studios facing challenges finding tenants to rent their sound stages and services, old-line studio titans such as Warner Bros., Fox and NBCUniversal may gain an edge, analysts said.
“The large corporate studios are going to gain market share because we’re going to go back to the old system,” Muhlstein said, “where they finance your film or television show and then distribute it.”
Despite the dramatic pullback in production, Fox Corp. continues to inch forward with its massive $1.5-billion expansion on the Fox lot, which is adjacent to Century City, according to people familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment. The long-term project was unveiled two months before the L.A. production economy collapsed when the Writers Guild of America went on strike.
Production on Rupert Murdoch’s lot has slowly been increasing after Walt Disney Co. relinquished its space to consolidate operations in Burbank.
The reboot of the iconic television show “Baywatch” will largely film on the lot as well as Venice Beach, to stay true to the original, Fox said. The lot is home to a major chunk of Fox Sports productions, including “Fox NFL Sunday,” and “Fox NFL Kickoff.”
The lot also hosts in-studio production across all of Fox Sports for linear and digital channels.
Some are optimistic the state’s expanded film tax credits will stimulate more local film activity.
Wainright says the incentives are starting to produce some “green shoots” for the industry.
“I would like to think that 2024 and 2025 are kind of the bottom and that we’re going to be pulling ourselves up.”
Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.
Voting is the most elemental of democratic exercises, a virtuous act residing right up there alongside motherhood and apple pie. But Trump has treated it as a cudgel, something dark and sinister, fueling a partisan divide that has increasingly undermined faith in the accuracy and integrity of our elections.
One result is a batch of new laws making it harder to vote.
Since the 2020 presidential election — the most secure in American history, per the Trump administration’s own watchdogs — at least 30 states have enacted more than 100 restrictive laws, according to New York University’s Brennan Center and the Democracy Policy Lab at UC Berkeley, which keep a running tally.
In California, state Sen. Carl DeMaio and allies are working to qualify a November ballot measure that would require a government-issued ID to vote, a solution in desperate search of a problem.
“We have the lowest level of public trust and confidence in our elections that we have ever seen,” the San Diego Republican said in launching the effort, sounding the way someone would by lamenting the damage a fire has done while ignoring the arsonist spreading paint thinner all around.
Amid all the manufactured hysteria, there is a place that is unique in America, with no voter registration requirement whatsoever.
If you’re a U.S. citizen, 18 years or older and have lived in North Dakota for 30 days prior to election day, you’re eligible to vote. It’s been that way for more than 70 years, ever since voter registration was abolished in the state in 1951.
How’s it working?
Pretty darn well, according to those who’ve observed the system up close.
“It works excellent,” said Sandy McMerty, North Dakota’s deputy secretary of state.
“In general, I think most people are happy with this,” political scientist Mark Jendrysik agreed, “because it lowers the record-keeping burdens and saves money.”
Jendrysik, who teaches at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, said voter registration was abandoned at a time when the state — now redder than the side of a barn — had vigorous two-party competition and, with it, a bipartisan spirit of prairie populism.
“There was an idea we should make it easier to vote,” Jendrysik said. “We should open up things.”
What a concept.
Walk-up voting hasn’t made North Dakota a standout when it comes to casting ballots. In the last three elections, voter turnout has run close to the national average, which puts it in the middle of the pack among states.
But there also hasn’t been a high incidence of fraud. In 2022, a study by the state auditor’s office found it “exceptionally” unlikely an election in North Dakota could be fraudulently influenced. (Again, like the country as a whole.)
In fact, Jendrysik said he can’t recall a single case of election fraud being prosecuted in the 26 years he’s lived in North Dakota and followed its politics.
It’s not as though just anyone can show up and cast a ballot.
Voting in North Dakota requires a valid form of identification, such as a state-issued driver’s license, a tribal ID or a long-term care certificate. It must be presented each and every election.
By contrast, a California voter is not required to show identification at a polling place before casting their ballot — though they may be asked to do so if they are voting for the first time after registering to vote by mail and their application failed to include certain information. That includes a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Could North Dakota’s non-registration system be replicated elsewhere?
North Dakota is a sparsely populated state with hundreds of small communities where, seemingly, everyone knows everyone else. There are about 600,000 eligible voters, which is a lot more manageable number than, say, California’s 30 million adult-age residents. (California has more than a dozen counties with north of half a million registered voters.)
“It’s unique to this state,” Jendrysik said, “and I think if they hadn’t done it decades ago, it would have never happened.”
(Fun fact: North Dakota also has no parking meters on its public streets, owing to a state law passed in 1948, according to Jendrysik, who has published two academic papers on the subject.)
McMerty, of the secretary of state’s office, believes others could emulate North Dakota’s example.
It would require, she suggested, rigorous data-sharing and close coordination among various state agencies. “We’re updating our voter rolls daily — who’s obtained a driver’s license, births, deaths. That kind of thing,” McMerty said.
Again, that’s a much easier task in a state with the population the size of North Dakota’s. (About 800,000 at last count.)
And there’s no particular impetus for others to end their systems of voter registration — unless it could be proved to significantly boost turnout.
We should be doing all we can to get people to vote and invest in our beleaguered political system. Rather than wasting time chasing shadows and phantoms or indulging the delusions of a sore-loser president.
(Photo credit: Mark Stewart / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
Olivia Hamlin tallied 20 points off the bench on 9-of-15 shooting to lead BYU to a 73-61 upset of No. 19 Texas Tech on Wednesday evening in Provo, Utah.
After the Red Raiders opened the scoring with a 3-pointer, the Cougars (15-4, 4-3 Big 12) scored the next seven points, led 25-16 after one quarter and never trailed the rest of the way. Delaney Gibb scored 18 and Lara Rohkohl added 15 and eight boards for BYU, which shot 47.3% from the floor and 44.4% from outside the arc.
Texas Tech (19-2, 6-2) has lost two straight games since its 19-0 start. Snudda Collins (17 points) and Bailey Maupin (11) were the only two Red Raiders in double figures as the team shot 33.3% from the floor.
The Red Raiders had 21 turnovers which the Cougars turned into 24 points and were nearly doubled up in paint points (36-20).
No. 3 UCLA 96, Purdue 48
Gabriela Jaquez (25 points) led five players in double figures as the Bruins doubled up the Boilermakers in Los Angeles.
Lauren Betts added 16 points and 10 rebounds and Kiki Rice had 15 points and 10 rebounds for UCLA (18-1, 8-0 Big Ten), which ran its winning streak to 12. The Bruins made 53.7% of their shots, 13 of 22 3-pointers (59.1%), racked up 16 steals and forced 23 turnovers (32 points off).
Nya Smith led Purdue (10-9, 2-6) with 14 points on 6-of-13 shooting while Avery Gordon added 13 off the bench. The Boilermakers were outscored in all four quarters and by 12-plus points in three of those.
No. 14 Baylor 73, UCF 48
The Bears’ Taliah Scott posted 22 points on 8-of-18 shooting in a comfortable victory over the Knights in Waco, Texas.
Baylor (18-3, 7-1 Big 12) sprinted out to a 14-4 lead early on, then gradually added to its advantage before attaining its largest lead of the game, 25 points, with the game’s final score.
Darianna Littlepage-Buggs chipped in with 13 points and 18 rebounds. UCF (10-9, 2-6), paced by Khyala Ngodu’s 11 points and 12 rebounds and Kristol Ayson’s 10 points off the bench, shot just 30% for the game.
No. 22 West Virginia 53, Arizona State 43
Kierra Wheeler’s 16 points helped the Mountaineers survive a game of wild swings in a Big 12 win over the Sun Devils in Morgantown, W. Va.
West Virginia (16-4, 6-2) built a 10-point advantage in the first half, then fell behind 37-29 with a little more than a minute left in the third quarter. The Mountaineers chipped that deficit down to three by the end of the period, then outscored Arizona State 19-6 the rest of the way.
Sydney Shaw added 11 points and Gia Cooke had 10 for West Virginia. The Sun Devils (17-3, 4-3) were paced by 15 points apiece from McKinna Brackens and Gabby Elliott.
Wisconsin 63, No. 24 Nebraska 60
Gift Uchenna scored 22 points and grabbed 14 rebounds as the Badgers upset the Cornhuskers in Madison, Wis.
The Badgers (13-7, 5-4 Big Ten) built a 17-15 lead after one quarter before pressing their advantage to 38-25 at the half. A strong second-half push from the Cornhuskers came up short. Nebraska was powered by Amiah Hargrove’s 15 points, Eliza Maupin’s 13 points and 13 rebounds and Britt Prince’s 11 points.
Nebraska (14-5, 3-5) carried a two-point lead into the fourth quarter, and from there the teams went back and forth. The Cornhuskers held a 60-57 lead with 2:12 to play before Kyrah Daniels, who scored 19 points, hit a tying 3-pointer. Daniels then collected an offensive rebound and absorbed a foul, after which she hit a free throw to regain the lead. After a Nebraska turnover, Uchenna provided the final margin with her layup.
No. 25 Washington 81, Penn State 65
Sayvia Sellers scored a game-high 24 points to lead the Huskies to a win over the Nittany Lions in Seattle.
Avery Howell paired 13 points with 12 boards for her fourth double-double of the season for Washington (15-4, 5-3 Big Ten), which has won three straight games since a two-game skid. The Huskies led by 10 after one quarter before trailing early in the third quarter, requiring an extended 16-5 run to extend its advantage back to 11 late in the stanza.
Gracie Merkle tallied 19 points for Penn State (7-13, 0-9), which has lost nine straight and 12 of 13 since a 6-1 start. The Nittany Lions forced 14 turnovers while committing eight but were outrebounded 49-29.
As Los Angeles grapples with a housing shortage, it could learn from San Diego, which has proved better at convincing construction companies to build more.
The city is more welcoming to developers, industry insiders say, with fewer regulations and fees, better planning and less rent control.
“It is easier to build in San Diego over Los Angeles because of its legal structure, political culture and defined processes,” said Kevin Shannon, co-head of capital markets at real estate brokerage Newmark, which is overseeing the sale of a sprawling development site in San Diego that is zoned to have thousands of apartments.
The result: As of last quarter, the number of new apartments under construction in San Diego County rose 10% from three years earlier, CoStar data show. New apartment construction in Los Angeles County tumbled 33% over the same period, hitting an 11-year low in the three months through December. San Diego is expanding its apartment pool at nearly twice the rate of L.A. and other major city clusters in the state.
View of An apartment building is under construction in downtown San Diego on Jan. 16, 2026. The city is more welcoming to developers than Los Angeles, industry insiders say,
(Sandy Huffaker / For The Times)
L.A.’s vacancy rate is among the lowest in the country and rental rates are among the highest nationwide. Still, the supply of fresh rental units, which make up the bulk of new housing in Los Angeles, is thinning out despite robust demand.
Although local lawmakers create regulations to protect renters and keep rents down, hoping to combat homelessness, developers and economists warn that the wrong regulations often can add to the cost of building and maintaining apartments, making it hard to make a profit on new and existing projects. People who already have apartments may be protected, but over the long run, fewer are built, they say.
Rent control has been at the center of the debate recently. The city of Los Angeles just tightened its rent control.
It has just lowered the cap on rent increases for rent-stabilized apartments, a massive portion of the city’s housing stock that houses nearly half of the city’s residents. Although the cap doesn’t apply to units built after 1978, it still discourages developers, as it sends the wrong signal to those already worried about restrictions.
At the state level, a similar housing bill that would have halved the cap on rent increases to 5% a year died in the Assembly last week. Assemblymembers decided that too many restrictions can be counterproductive.
“That sounds nice and humanly caring and all that and warm and fuzzy, but someone has to pay,” said Assemblymember Diane Dixon (R-Newport Beach). “How far do we squeeze the property owners?”
San Diego doesn’t have traditional rent control, though it does enforce less restrictive statewide tenant protections.
In Los Angeles, Measure ULA, known as the mansion tax, is another top reason that developers decide to build elsewhere. They also point to other local regulations that make it challenging to evict tenants who don’t pay their rent.
“L.A. has been redlined by the majority of the investment community,” apartment developer Ari Kahan of California Landmark Group said in October.
It’s easier to do business in San Diego because of its real estate development policies, project approval process and overall business-friendly attitude, industry insiders said. It outlines what it wants in a general plan, and if projects line up with that, they can be approved at the city staff level.
“San Diego has a clear, enforced General Plan, and for the most part, it sticks to it,” Shannon said. “San Diego updates its Community Plan and then lets projects proceed if they comply.”
“In contrast, L.A.’s General Plan is outdated and inconsistent,” he said. “Almost everything requires discretionary approvals.”
A view of the downtown San Diego skyline Jan. 16, 2026. It’s easier to do business in San Diego because of its real estate development policies, project approval process and overall business-friendly attitude, industry insiders said.
(Sandy Huffaker / For The Times)
Elected officials in L.A., including the City Council, have the discretion to decide whether a new project can be built, which can add months to its approval process as the proposal winds through City Hall and public meetings.
“The City of San Diego continues to prioritize the permitting and development of new homes to address our region’s housing needs and support a better future for all San Diegans,” said Peter Kelly, a spokesman for the city Planning Department. “Through updated community plans, streamlined permitting processes and proactive implementation of state housing laws, we are working to increase housing supply and affordability in all neighborhoods.”
The city updates its Land Development Code annually to streamline the permitting process and accelerate housing production, he said. It also adds capacity to build new homes through rezoning and updates to the city’s community plans, with a focus on placing new homes and jobs near transit, parks and services.
“If we can bring more supply, it will hopefully bring down rents,” said Kip Malo, a real estate broker in JLL’s San Diego office.
Most new apartments are being built outside of downtown San Diego, Malo said. “The city has made a concerted effort to try to clean up downtown and it has gotten better, but it’s still got a ways to go.
Of course, developers in San Diego still face the same headwinds that affect developers in other cities, such as interest rates that make construction loans more expensive than they have been in years past.
Recent policy out of Washington also hasn’t helped. Higher tariffs have driven up the prices of construction materials and equipment, while the crackdown on undocumented workers has thinned and spooked much of the international workforce on which the industry depends.
An apartment building is under construction in downtown San Diego on Jan. 16, 2026. In L.A., elected officials, including the City Council, have the discretion to decide whether a new project can be built, which can add months to its approval process as the proposal winds through City Hall and public meetings.
(Sandy Huffaker / For The Times)
California’s construction industry depends on immigrant workers. Around 61% of construction workers in the state are immigrants, and 26% of those are undocumented, according to a June report from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.
San Diego is “still California,” Malo said, and has hurdles to get projects approved that aren’t faced by builders in Texas and other states with more lax requirements for new projects, Malo said, but “the political winds have shifted in developers’ favor.”
An Indiana state court judge and his wife were in stable condition Monday as authorities continued to search for suspects who shot the couple the day before at their Lafayette home.Steven Meyer, a Tippecanoe Superior Court judge, suffered an injury to his arm, and his wife, Kimberly Meyer, had a hip injury from the attack, authorities said.Officers responded Sunday afternoon to a report of a shooting in the residential area about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis to find the couple injured. They were treated for their wounds, and officers recovered shell casings from the scene.Lafayette Police said the investigation remains active and involves local, state and federal agencies. They have not released a motive or suspect description.Mayor Tony Roswarski assured the community that every available resource was being used to apprehend the person or people responsible for what he called “this senseless, unacceptable act of violence.”Kimberly Meyer said in a statement Monday that she has “great confidence” in investigators and is grateful to the officers and medical professionals who helped her and her husband.The shooting had other Indiana judges worried for their safety, with state Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush urging them to “please remain vigilant in your own security.”“I worry about the safety of all our judges,” she wrote in a letter to the state’s judges. “As you work to peacefully resolve more than 1 million cases a year, you must not only feel safe, you must also be safe. Any violence against a judge or a judge’s family is completely unacceptable.”
LAFAYETTE, Ind. —
An Indiana state court judge and his wife were in stable condition Monday as authorities continued to search for suspects who shot the couple the day before at their Lafayette home.
Steven Meyer, a Tippecanoe Superior Court judge, suffered an injury to his arm, and his wife, Kimberly Meyer, had a hip injury from the attack, authorities said.
Officers responded Sunday afternoon to a report of a shooting in the residential area about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis to find the couple injured. They were treated for their wounds, and officers recovered shell casings from the scene.
Lafayette Police said the investigation remains active and involves local, state and federal agencies. They have not released a motive or suspect description.
Mayor Tony Roswarski assured the community that every available resource was being used to apprehend the person or people responsible for what he called “this senseless, unacceptable act of violence.”
Kimberly Meyer said in a statement Monday that she has “great confidence” in investigators and is grateful to the officers and medical professionals who helped her and her husband.
The shooting had other Indiana judges worried for their safety, with state Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush urging them to “please remain vigilant in your own security.”
“I worry about the safety of all our judges,” she wrote in a letter to the state’s judges. “As you work to peacefully resolve more than 1 million cases a year, you must not only feel safe, you must also be safe. Any violence against a judge or a judge’s family is completely unacceptable.”
The battle over a new tax on California’s billionaires is set to heat up in the coming months as citizens spar over whether the state should squeeze its ultra-rich to better serve its ordinary residents.
The proposed billionaire tax that triggered the tempest is still far from being approved by voters or even making the ballot, but the idea has already sparked backlash from vocal tech moguls — some of whom have already shifted their bases outside the state.
Under the Billionaire Tax Act, Californians worth more than $1 billion would pay a one-time 5% tax on their total wealth. The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the union behind the act, said the measure would raise much-needed money for healthcare, education and food assistance programs.
A group of Los Angeles labor unions said Wednesday that it is proposing a ballot measure to raise taxes on companies whose chief executive officers earn 50 times more than their median-paid employees.
Here is how this fight could continue to play out in the Golden State:
Who would be affected?
The California billionaire tax would apply to about 200 California billionaires who reside in the state as of Jan. 1. Roughly 90% of funds would go to healthcare and the rest to public K-14 education and state food assistance.
The tax, due in 2027, would exclude real estate, pensions and retirement accounts, according to an analysis from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, a nonpartisan government agency. Billionaires could spread out the tax payment over five years, but would have to pay more.
Which billionaires are already distancing themselves from California?
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Google is still headquartered in California, but December filings to the California Secretary of State show other companies tied to Page and Brin recently converted out of the state.
One filing, for example, shows that one of the companies they managed, now named T-Rex Holdings, moved from Palo Alto to Reno last month.
Business Insider and the New York Times earlier reported on these filings. Google didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel
Thiel Capital, based in Los Angeles, announced in December it opened an office in Miami. The firm didn’t respond to a request for comment. Thiel recently contributed $3 million to the political action committee of the California Business Roundtable, which is opposing the ballot measure, records provided to the Secretary of State’s Office show.
Oracle co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison
Years before the wealth tax proposal, Ellison began pulling back from California, but he’s continued to distance himself farther from the state since the proposal emerged.
Last year, Ellison sold his San Francisco mansion for $45 million. The home on 2850 Broadway was sold off-market in mid-December, according to Redfin.
Oracle declined to comment.
DoorDash co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Andy Fang
Fang, who was born and raised in California, said on X that he loves the state but is thinking about moving.
“Stupid wealth tax proposals like this make it irresponsible for me not to plan leaving the state,” he said.
DoorDash didn’t respond to a request for comment.
What would it still take to become law?
To qualify for the ballot, proponents of the proposal, led by the healthcare union, must gather nearly 875,000 registered voter signatures and submit them to county elections officials by June 24.
If it makes it on the November ballot, the proposal would be the focus of intense scrutiny and debate as both sides have already lined up big war chests to bombard voters with their positions. A majority of voters would need to approve the ballot measure.
Lawyers for billionaires have also signaled the battle won’t be over even if the ballot measure passes.
“Our clients are prepared to mount a vigorous constitutional challenge if this measure advances,” wrote Alex Spiro, an attorney who has represented billionaires such as Elon Musk in a December letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
What are the initiative’s chances?
It’s unclear if the ballot measure has a good chance of passing in November. Newsom opposes the tax, and his support has proved important for ballot measures.
In 2022, he opposed a ballot measure that would have subsidized the electric vehicle market by raising taxes on Californians who earn more than $2 million annually. The measure failed. The following year, he opposed legislation to tax assets exceeding $50 million. The bill was shelved before the Legislature could vote on it. A bill that would impose an annual tax on California residents whose net worth surpassed $30 million also failed in 2020.
However, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) have backed the wealth tax proposal, and Californians have passed temporary tax measures before. In 2012, they approved Proposition 30 to increase sales tax and personal income tax for residents with an annual income of more than $250,000.
Could it solve California’s problems?
The Legislative Analyst’s Office said in a December letter that the state would probably collect tens of billions of dollars from the wealth tax, but it could also lose other tax revenue.
“The exact amount the state would collect is very hard to predict for many reasons. For example, it is hard to know what actions billionaires would take to reduce the amount of tax they pay. Also, much of the wealth is based on stock prices, which are always changing,” the letter said.
California economist Kevin Klowden said the tax could create future budget problems for the state. “The catch is that this is a one-off fix for what is a systemic problem,” he said.
Supporters of the proposal said the measure would raise about $100 billion and pushed back against the idea that billionaires would flee.
“We see a lot of cheap talk from billionaires,” said UC Berkeley law professor Brian Galle, who helped write the proposal. “Some people do actually leave and change their behavior, but the vast bulk of wealthy people don’t, because it doesn’t make sense.”
Still, the pushback has been escalating.
Palo Alto-based venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya estimates that the lost revenues from the billionaires who have already left the state would lead to more losses in tax revenues than gained by the new tax.
“By starting this ill-conceived attempt at an asset tax, the California budget deficit will explode,” he posted on X. “And we still don’t know if the tax will even make the ballot.”
The union backing the initiative says “the billionaire exodus narrative” is “wildly overstated.”
“Right now, it appears the overwhelming majority of billionaires have chosen to stay in California past the Jan. 1 deadline,” said Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff at SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West. “Only a very small percentage left before the deadline, despite weeks of Chicken Little talking points claiming a modest tax would trigger a mass departure.”
Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
A new fee for travelers without REAL ID starts soon. Here’s what to know about the changes ahead and what to do if you don’t have a REAL ID. In December, the Transportation Security Administration announced that passengers who do not present an acceptable form of ID and still want to fly will have an option to pay a $45 fee.When will the TSA start charging the $45 fee?According to the TSA, the use of TSA Confirm.ID and a $45 fee to use this identity verification will begin on Feb. 1. The fee only applies to travelers without an acceptable form of ID.Why is the TSA charging this fee, and what does it cover? According to TSA officials, the fee “ensures that non-compliant travelers, not taxpayers, cover the cost of processing travelers without acceptable IDs.” The $45 fee allows passengers without accepted ID to use TSA Confirm.ID for a 10-day travel period.What is TSA Confirm.ID and do I have to use it?TSA ConfirmID is an identity verification system that will establish passengers’ identities at security checkpoints.While using TSA ConfirmID is voluntary, TSA officials say that if you choose not to use it and don’t have an acceptable ID, you may not be allowed through security and could miss your flight.Can I pay the fee online before I travel?Yes. The TSA has a step-by-step guide to pay the $45 fee online here.If I don’t have a REAL ID or don’t pay the $45 fee ahead of time, how long will it take to get through security?According to a recent news release from the TSA, travelers without REAL IDs that use TSA ConfirmID at the airport “will be subject to additional ID verification, screening measures and potential delays.””Travelers who appear at the TSA checkpoint without a REAL ID or other acceptable form of ID and have not already paid the TSA ConfirmID fee will be subject to additional delays which may result in a missed flight,” the TSA release says. “It is important that airline travelers plan ahead to ensure they have an acceptable form of ID to avoid these additional delays as the process can take up to 30 minutes.” TSA officials urge any traveler without REAL ID or acceptable identification to pay the fee online before traveling. For passengers arriving at the airport without paying the fee in advance, there will be information about how to pay at marked locations at or near the security checkpoint in most airports. What are the acceptable uses of ID?Acceptable forms of ID include:REAL ID-compliant driver’s licenses or other state photo identity cards issued by Department of Motor Vehicles (or equivalent)State-issued Enhanced Driver’s License (EDL) or Enhanced ID (EID)U.S. passportU.S. passport cardDHS trusted traveler cards (Global Entry, NEXUS, SENTRI, FAST)U.S. Department of Defense ID, including IDs issued to dependentsPermanent resident cardBorder crossing cardAn acceptable photo ID issued by a federally recognized Tribal Nation/Indian Tribe, including Enhanced Tribal Cards (ETCs)HSPD-12 PIV cardForeign government-issued passportCanadian provincial driver’s license or Indian and Northern Affairs Canada cardTransportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC)U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Employment Authorization Card (I-766)U.S. Merchant Mariner CredentialVeteran Health Identification Card (VHIC)How do I get a REAL ID?Each state handles the REAL ID process differently. You should visit your state’s driver’s licensing agency website to find out exactly what documentation is required, but at a minimum, you’ll need to provide documentation showing your full legal name, date of birth, Social Security number, two proofs of address of principal residence and lawful status.Some states may have additional requirements, so check with your state’s driver’s licensing agency website before visiting them in person for additional guidance and assistance.
A new fee for travelers without REAL ID starts soon. Here’s what to know about the changes ahead and what to do if you don’t have a REAL ID.
In December, the Transportation Security Administration announced that passengers who do not present an acceptable form of ID and still want to fly will have an option to pay a $45 fee.
When will the TSA start charging the $45 fee?
According to the TSA, the use of TSA Confirm.ID and a $45 fee to use this identity verification will begin on Feb. 1. The fee only applies to travelers without an acceptable form of ID.
Why is the TSA charging this fee, and what does it cover?
According to TSA officials, the fee “ensures that non-compliant travelers, not taxpayers, cover the cost of processing travelers without acceptable IDs.”
The $45 fee allows passengers without accepted ID to use TSA Confirm.ID for a 10-day travel period.
What is TSA Confirm.ID and do I have to use it?
TSA ConfirmID is an identity verification system that will establish passengers’ identities at security checkpoints.
While using TSA ConfirmID is voluntary, TSA officials say that if you choose not to use it and don’t have an acceptable ID, you may not be allowed through security and could miss your flight.
Can I pay the fee online before I travel?
Yes. The TSA has a step-by-step guide to pay the $45 fee online here.
If I don’t have a REAL ID or don’t pay the $45 fee ahead of time, how long will it take to get through security?
According to a recent news release from the TSA, travelers without REAL IDs that use TSA ConfirmID at the airport “will be subject to additional ID verification, screening measures and potential delays.”
“Travelers who appear at the TSA checkpoint without a REAL ID or other acceptable form of ID and have not already paid the TSA ConfirmID fee will be subject to additional delays which may result in a missed flight,” the TSA release says. “It is important that airline travelers plan ahead to ensure they have an acceptable form of ID to avoid these additional delays as the process can take up to 30 minutes.”
TSA officials urge any traveler without REAL ID or acceptable identification to pay the fee online before traveling. For passengers arriving at the airport without paying the fee in advance, there will be information about how to pay at marked locations at or near the security checkpoint in most airports.
What are the acceptable uses of ID?
Acceptable forms of ID include:
REAL ID-compliant driver’s licenses or other state photo identity cards issued by Department of Motor Vehicles (or equivalent)
State-issued Enhanced Driver’s License (EDL) or Enhanced ID (EID)
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Employment Authorization Card (I-766)
U.S. Merchant Mariner Credential
Veteran Health Identification Card (VHIC)
How do I get a REAL ID?
Each state handles the REAL ID process differently. You should visit your state’s driver’s licensing agency website to find out exactly what documentation is required, but at a minimum, you’ll need to provide documentation showing your full legal name, date of birth, Social Security number, two proofs of address of principal residence and lawful status.
Some states may have additional requirements, so check with your state’s driver’s licensing agency website before visiting them in person for additional guidance and assistance.
With the end of federal COVID-19 emergency funding and the inherent volatility of state income tax revenues, California school districts are in an era of financial uncertainty. Fortunately, Jurupa Unified School District is already several years into the process of finding ways to track and control expenses while still supporting teachers and staff so they can provide the best possible educational experience for our students. Here’s how we’re making staffing and payroll processes more efficient, starting with the perennially challenging extra duty.
Getting a handle on extra duty
In addition to our salaried staff, we have a number of part-time, hourly, and what we call “extra duty” assignments. Because a significant amount of our funding comes from grants, many of our assignments are temporary or one-time. We fill those positions with extra duty requests so we’re not committed to ongoing payroll obligations.
For many years, those extra duty requests and time cards were on paper, which meant the payroll department was performing redundant work to enter the information in the payroll system. The request forms we used were also on paper, making it very difficult to track the actual time being used back to the request, so we could be sure that the hours being used were within the limitations of the request. We needed a better control mechanism that would help school sites stay within budget, as well as a more formal budget mechanism to encumber the department and site budgets to cover the extra duty requests.
Budgeting can get very complicated because it’s cross-functional. It includes a position-control component, a payroll component, and a financial budgeting component. We needed a solution that could make all of those universes work together. The mission was either to find a system or build one. Our county office started a pilot program with our district to build a system, but ultimately decided against continuing with this effort due to the resources required to sustain such a system for 23 county districts.
Our district engaged in a competitive process and chose Helios Ed. Within six months, our team developed and launched a new system to address extra duty. Since then, we have saved more than $100,000 in staffing costs, time expenses, and budget overruns because of the stronger internal controls we now have in place.
A more efficient (and satisfied) payroll department
Eliminating redundant data entry and working with data instead of paper has allowed us to reduce staffing by two full-time equivalents–not through layoffs, but through attrition. And because they have a system that is handling data entry for them, our payroll department has more time to give quality to their work, and feel they are working at a level more aligned to their skills.
Finding efficiencies in your district
While Jurupa Unified has found efficiencies and savings in these specific areas, every school district is different. As many California district leaders like to say, we have 1,139 school districts –and just as many ways of doing things. With that in mind, there are some steps to the process of moving from paper to online systems (or using online systems more efficiently) that apply universally.
Sit down and identify your objectives. What are the critical components that you must have?
Make the decision to make or buy. When COVID first hit, Jurupa Unified created its own invoice-routing system through SharePoint. We’ve also built an excursion request process in PowerApps that handles travel, conferences, and field trips. As our county office found out, though, when you’re bringing a number of functionalities together, it can make more sense to work with a vendor you trust.
If you choose to buy software, be certain that it can do precisely what you need it to. If a vendor says they can develop a functionality along the way, ask to see the new feature before you buy.
Be certain the vendor will be responsive. When it comes to a function such as payroll, you’re dealing with people’s livelihoods, and you need to know that if there’s something wrong with the system, or if you need help, that help is just a phone call away.
Putting in a new payroll management system has made an enormous difference for our district, but it’s not the end of our cost-cutting process. We’re always looking at our different programs to see where we can cut back in ways that don’t impact the classroom. Ultimately, these changes are about ensuring that resources stay focused where they matter most. While budgets fluctuate and funding streams remain unpredictable, my team and I come to work every day because we believe in public education. I’m a product of public education myself, and I love waking up every day knowing that I can come back and support today’s students and teachers.
Jacqueline Benson, Jurupa Unified School District
Jacqueline Benson is the director of fiscal services at Jurupa Unified School District. She can be reached at jacqueline_benson@jusd.k12.ca.us.
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A top Trump administration lawyer pressed a federal judge Wednesday to block a newly enacted California law that bans most law enforcement officers in the state from wearing masks, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Tiberius Davis, representing the U.S. Department of Justice, argued at a hearing in Los Angeles that the first-of-its-kind ban on police face coverings could unleash chaos across the country, and potentially land many ICE agents on the wrong side of the law it were allowed to take effect.
“Why couldn’t California say every immigration officer needs to wear pink, so it’s super obvious who they are?” Davis told U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder. “The idea that all 50 states can regulate the conduct and uniforms of officers … flips the Constitution on its head.”
The judge appeared skeptical.
“Why can’t they perform their duties without a mask? They did that until 2025, did they not?” Snyder said. “How in the world do those who don’t mask manage to operate?”
The administration first sued to block the new rules in November, after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the No Secret Police Act and its companion provision, the No Vigilantes Act, into law. Together, The laws bar law enforcement officers from wearing masks and compel them to display identification “while conducting law enforcement operations in the Golden State.” Both offenses would be misdemeanors.
Federal officials have vowed to defy the new rules, saying they are unconstitutional and put agents in danger. They have also decried an exception in the law for California state peace officers, arguing the carve out is discriminatory. The California Highway Patrol is among those exempted, while city and county agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department, must comply.
“These were clearly and purposefully targeted at the federal government,” Davis told the court Wednesday. “Federal officers face prosecution if they do not comply with California law, but California officers do not.”
The hearing comes at a moment of acute public anger at the agency following the fatal shooting of American protester Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis — rage that has latched on to masks as a symbol of perceived lawlessness and impunity.
“It’s obvious why these laws are in the public interest,” California Department of Justice lawyer Cameron Bell told the court Wednesday. “The state has had to bear the cost of the federal government’s actions. These are very real consequences.”
She pointed to declarations from U.S. citizens who believed they were being abducted by criminals when confronted by masked immigration agents, including incidents where local police were called to respond.
“I later learned that my mother and sister witnessed the incident and reported to the Los Angeles Police Department that I was kidnapped,” Angeleno Andrea Velez said in one such declaration. “Because of my mother’s call, LAPD showed up to the raid.”
The administration argues the anti-mask law would put ICE agents and other federal immigration enforcement officers at risk of doxing and chill the “zealous enforcement of the law.”
“The laws would recklessly endanger the lives of federal agents and their family members and compromise the operational effectiveness of federal law enforcement activities,” the government said in court filings.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent on duty Aug. 14 outside the Japanese American National Museum, where Gov. Gavin Newsom was holding a news conference in downtown Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Davis also told the court that ICE‘s current tactics were necessary in part because of laws across California and in much of the U.S. that limit police cooperation with ICE and bar immigration enforcement in sensitive locations, such as schools and courts.
California contends its provisions are “modest” and aligned with past practice, and that the government’s evidence showing immigration enforcement would be harmed is thin.
Bell challenged Department of Homeland Security statistics purporting to show an 8,000% increase in death threats against ICE agents and a 1,000% increase in assaults, saying the government has recently changed what qualifies as a “threat” and that agency claims have faced “significant credibility issues” in federal court.
“Blowing a whistle to alert the community, that’s hardly something that increases threats,” Bell said.
On the identification rule, Snyder appeared to agree.
“One might argue that there’s serious harm to the government if agents’ anonymity is preserved,” she said.
The fate of the mask law may hinge on the peace officer exemption.
“Would your discrimination argument go away if the state changed legislation to apply to all officers?” Snyder asked.
“I believe so,” Davis said.
The ban was slated to come into force on Jan. 1, but is on hold while the case makes its way through the courts. If allowed to take effect, California would become the first state in the nation to block ICE agents and other federal law enforcement officers from concealing their identities while on duty.
SACRAMENTO — A week after a Minnesota woman was fatally shot by a federal immigration officer, California legislators moved forward a bill that would make it easier for people to sue federal agents if they believe their constitutional rights were violated.
A Senate committee passed Senate Bill 747 by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), which would provide Californians with a stronger ability to take legal action against federal law enforcement agents over excessive use of force, unlawful home searches, interfering with a right to protest and other violations.
California law already allows such suits against state and local law enforcement officials.
Successful civil suits against federal officers over constitutional rights are less common.
Wiener, appearing before Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, said his bill has taken on new urgency in the wake of the death of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota, the 37-year-old mother of three who was shot while driving on a snowy Minneapolis street.
Good was shot by an agent in self-defense, said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who alleged that Good tried to use her car as a weapon to run over the immigration officer.
Good’s death outraged Democratic leaders across the country, who accuse federal officers of flouting laws in their efforts to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants. In New York, legislators are proposing legislation similar to the one proposed by Wiener that would allow state-level civil actions against federal officers.
George Retes Jr., a U.S. citizen and Army veteran who was kept in federal custody for three days in July, described his ordeal at Tuesday’s committee hearing, and how immigration officers swarmed him during a raid in Camarillo.
Retes, a contracted security guard at the farm that was raided, said he was brought to Port Hueneme Naval Base. Officials swabbed his cheek to obtain DNA, and then moved him to Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. He was not allowed to make a phone call or see an attorney, he said.
“I did not resist, I did not impede or assault any agent,” Retes said.”What happened to me that day was not a misunderstanding. It was a violation of the Constitution by the very people sworn to uphold it.”
He also accused Department of Homeland security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin of spreading false information about him to justify his detention. DHS said in a statement last year that Retes impeded their operation, which he denies.
Retes has filed a tort claim against the U.S. government, a process that is rarely successful, said his attorney, Anya Bidwell.
Lawsuits can also be brought through the Bivens doctrine, which refers to the 1971 Supreme Court ruling Bivens vs. Six Unknown Federal Agents that established that federal officials can be sued for monetary damages for constitutional violations. But in recent decades, the Supreme Court has repeatedly restricted the ability to sue under Bivens.
Wiener’s bill, if passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, would be retroactive to March 2025.
“We’ve had enough of this terror campaign in our communities by ICE,” said Wiener at a news conference before the hearing. “We need the rule of law and we need accountability.”
Representatives for law enforcement agencies appeared at Tuesday’s hearing to ask for amendments to ensure that the bill wouldn’t lead to weakened protections for state and local officials.
“We’re not opposed to the intent of the bill. We’re just concerned about the future and the unintended consequences for your California employees,” said David Mastagni, speaking on behalf of the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California, which represents more than 85,000 public safety members.
Wiener’s bill is the latest effort by the state Legislature to challenge President Trump’s immigration raids. Newsom last year signed legislation authored by Wiener that prohibits law enforcement officials, including federal immigration agents, from wearing masks, with some exceptions.
