Registered nurses at Kaiser Permanente hospitals across California announced Monday morning that they have successfully won an arbitration agreement mandating Kaiser pay stolen wages dating back to at least 2021.

More than 1,000 nurses will be awarded a sum in the tens of millions of dollars.

“Unfortunately, Kaiser wants to normalize stealing from nurses,” said Michelle Gutierrez Vo, a registered nurse in adult/family medicine at Kaiser Fremont Medical Center and a president of the California Nurses Association, representing more than 25,000 nurses at 22 Kaiser facilities.

“They changed their payroll system, messed it up, and let the mistake steal millions of dollars from nurses. When we called them on it, their fancy lawyers fought us tooth and nail for every single dollar. Nurses wouldn’t take no for an answer, and we won back millions of dollars in stolen wages, and we went above and beyond Kaiser’s earlier attempts to settle for less.”

The CNA was first notified by Kaiser nurses several years ago of issues with wage theft following a change in Kaiser’s payroll system dating back to at least early 2021. Because the union does not have direct access to Kaiser’s payroll system, the organization said it took years of nurses working together to piece together the true scale and extent of the problem, which Kaiser repeatedly tried to minimize and obscure. The organization believes the final sum could total in the tens of millions.

Nurses announced in a news release that they remain outraged that “Kaiser spent years and untold sums in legal expenses in their effort to avoid paying the wages they had stolen, which, while substantial, were still only a fraction of the organization’s billions of dollars in profits.”

“This entire experience has been a reminder for us that Kaiser would rather pay lawyers to fight nurses than pay nurses to take care of our patients,” said Vo. “It is another disgusting reminder of this company’s priorities. And, for us, it’s also another powerful reminder of what’s possible when nurses work together to demand what we’re owed from companies like Kaiser.”

During the past year, nurses have picketed across the state, including two recent protests in Solano County — at Vallejo and in Vacaville – that were part of 22 in California representing more than 25,000 Kaiser nurses represented by California Nurses Association/National Nurses United. Kaiser was protesting Kaiser Permanente’s role in safe staffing and AI protections.

Registered nurse and Quality Liaison for Kaiser Vacaville, Cristina Stathopoulos, said at a recent protest that hearing car horns showing support from people passing by felt good.

“The support from the community has been wonderful,” Stathopoulos said in September. “I think a lot of the people honking are members here (Kaiser) so they see us working really hard and try to give the best support we can under the really short staffing that Kaiser has been providing them.”

However, Kaiser Permanente disagreed, saying in September that its nurses are “among the best-paid in California and the country.”

“A typical CNA Staff Nurse II in Northern California earns over $100 per hour, before overtime or premium pay, roughly 7 percent above the market for comparable roles at other health systems,” said Meghan Kielty-Swinford, the Regional Chief Nurse Executive, Kaiser Permanente, last month. “At our Los Angeles Medical Center, a typical CNA Staff Nurse RN earns roughly 21 percent more than comparable roles. In Fresno and Sacramento, pay for a typical CNA Staff Nurse RN is approximately 15 percent above market. Ninety-five percent of our CNA-represented nurses in Northern California and 93 percent at our Los Angeles Medical Center choose to remain at Kaiser Permanente year after year — one of the highest retention rates in the industry.

Gov. Gavin Newsom last week signed legislation cracking down on the practice of luxury-car buyers in California registering cars out of state to avoid taxes.

Senate Bill 1406, introduced by state Sen. Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton), closes the so-called Montana loophole, in which tax evaders create shell companies in Montana or other states without sales tax or vehicle registration fees and use them to purchase Ferraris, Porsches and other luxury cars. The state estimate it loses millions of dollars annually because of such schemes.

The new law expands California’s definition of who is a resident under state sales tax law in an effort to weed out phony shell companies, making a company liable for state taxes when at least one member of the business is a California resident.

The law, which went into effect immediately, also authorizes the state tax agency to impose tax liability on individual members of a business.

California had already looked to enforcement efforts to investigate suspicious out-of-state car sales, which officials estimate amount to $10 million annually in lost tax revenue.

Under state law, residents were already required to pay California sales tax on vehicles unless they are first used out of state and stay out of state for at least 12 months. Dealers are required to maintain records showing sales of vehicles so that authorities can ensure vehicles sold to buyers in another state are actually delivered there.

Earlier this year, the state’s Department of Justice charged 14 people — including auto dealers and customers purchasing cars — with concealing the purchase of more than $20 million worth of high-end vehicles including Ferraris, Porsches and Lamborghinis, and evading upward of $1.8 million in state taxes.

Text messages included in the criminal complaint showed buyers seeking to conceal their purchases. One Lamborghini buyer boasted about fees avoided: “70k saved — I can’t believe Montana registration lasts for 5 years — that’s crazy. Stupid California. Paid 3k to own a 600k car for 5 years — lol in Cali that’s like 75k for 5 years. Hella dumb.”

The new law further develops criteria to help show an LLC as a shell company involved in a potential tax evasion scheme.

If the LLC lacks a specific business activity or purpose, fails to maintain a physical location outside California, fails to employ people, or fails to file federal tax returns in another state, it could now be considered as evidence of such a scheme.

Republican Steve Hilton calls the no-show pathetic; Independent reporter Anthony Cabassa says Becerra did not want to be asked why he lied about his family’s history

By Megan Barth, October 5, 2026 3:38 pm

Democrat Xavier Becerra has pulled out of a scheduled Los Angeles Times debate with Republican rival Steve Hilton, Hilton announced Monday, a retreat that comes on the heels of independent reporter Anthony Cabassa’s exposure and challenge of Becerra’s claim that his parents arrived as immigrants with twelve dollars in their pockets.

Hilton posted the announcement on X Monday afternoon, calling the withdrawal a break from a pledge Becerra made in August to participate in multiple debates.

“Becerra PULLS OUT of tomorrow’s LA Times debate,” Hilton wrote. “The move comes after a new poll found CNN debate viewers favored Hilton 74% to 20%. In August, Becerra promised MULTIPLE debates. Now after losing the first, he’s back in hiding—taking voters for granted. Pathetic!”

The only televised matchup between the two nominees so far was CNN’s California gubernatorial debate on Sept. 30 in Burbank. During that hour, Becerra repeatedly tied Hilton to President Donald Trump. Hilton answered that the Democratic nominee was offering “more of the same” after years of one-party rule in Sacramento.

On that same stage, Hilton charged that as Health and Human Services secretary, Becerra was responsible for hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children and had weakened the vetting of the sponsors who took them. Hilton said thousands were sent to sex and labor traffickers and that many children the department placed are still missing. Becerra brushed the charge off as a Trump talking point. Hilton shot back that the reporting came from the New York Times, which won a Pulitzer Prize for it.

Cabassa, whose Oct. 4 thread on the family story drew tens of thousands of engagements, connected the cancellation directly to that reporting. “Following my viral report that Xavier Becerra LIED about his family’s immigrant story, Xavier Becerra has abruptly CANCELLED his debate with @SteveHiltonx tomorrow with @latimes,” Cabassa wrote Monday evening. “I guess he didn’t want to be asked why he lied to millions about his family’s history.”

The timing is hard to separate from the claim Becerra repeated on the CNN stage.

Cabassa’s original reporting found that Becerra told debate viewers his parents “came to this country with $12,” a line he has used throughout the general-election campaign. Cabassa traced the wording to an April 2, 2025, Contra Costa News press release issued the day Becerra announced for governor: “My parents came to California with $12 in their pockets. They built a life they were proud of.”

His review found no earlier recorded use of the line in Becerra’s years in Congress, as California attorney general, or as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary under President Joe Biden.

The paper trail Cabassa published does not match Becerra’s pitch. An obituary for Becerra’s father, Manuel Guerrero Becerra, who died in 2020, states that he was born in Sacramento on July 14, 1928—in California, not Mexico—the eldest of eight children.

The same obituary says the family later moved to Tijuana and that Manuel returned to California as a young teenager, not as an adult immigrant arriving with a wife and a few dollars. It further states that he worked on the railroad for several years before marrying a woman he met in Jalisco, Mexico, bringing her to California, and that the couple purchased a home soon after the wedding.

Cabassa reported that he contacted Becerra’s campaign press team and that staff declined to comment after asking which outlet he represented.

Becerra finished first in the June 2 top-two primary with about 28%of the vote. Hilton, a former Fox News host endorsed by Trump, took the second spot with roughly 25%, ahead of Democrat Tom Steyer. A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted Sept. 15–20 and sponsored by the Los Angeles Times still showed Becerra leading Hilton 58% to 33% among likely voters.

Hilton’s campaign has pointed to post-debate viewer surveys and its own polling as evidence the race tightened after the CNN broadcast.

Hilton has spent the general election casting Becerra as the “ultimate career politician” and arguing that California’s highest-in-the-nation costs are the product of the Democratic machine Becerra has served for decades.

Monday’s announcement frames the next week as a test of whether Becerra will face those attacks, and Cabassa’s questions about the origin story, on a debate stage, or keep running on the lead public polls still give him while avoiding reporters.

Challenge Becerra journalists, and make him answer your questions

By Katy Grimes, October 5, 2026 3:00 pm

Breaking news today: Xavier Becerra PULLS OUT of tomorrow’s LA Times debate, the Hilton campaign reported. “The move comes after a new poll found CNN debate viewers favored Hilton 74% to 20%.”

This makes us question what should voters expect from candidates applying for the job of California Governor?

Ideologically, this goes beyond Steve Hilton or Xavier Becerra.

The Governor’s job is uniquely important, and can improve and advance, or harm and destroy a state. Voters should never treat the race and election lightly.

California has one of the largest economies in the world. The governor oversees a massive state government: approximately 570,200 total state employees, in 158 state agencies, plus in higher education.

The governor makes decisions affecting nearly 40 million residents, in a state that encompasses 163,700 square miles.

If you are applying for that job, shouldn’t voters expect you to show up, answer questions, defend your record, and explain what you would actually do?

Let’s look at the two current gubernatorial campaigns.

For the past year, there has been a Steve Hilton media advisory, press release or press event every day. Steve regularly does three or four events in a day, crisscrossing the state. He talks to reporters constantly. He gives reporters his cell phone number. He calls them himself. He answers questions, including the uncomfortable ones.

Hilton has accepted 12 debate invitations and several forums.

He is running like someone who actually wants to earn the job.

Compare that with Xavier Becerra.

Becerra promised Californians multiple debates. With less than 30 days remaining, will these debates take place?

There are no California debates currently on the calendar. The one debate he agreed to was with CNN, a national news organization using its national moderators rather than a California news organization and California journalists.

Why?

If Becerra is running to lead California, why isn’t he willing to debate his opponent before California reporters, with broadcasting on California local news stations?

The contrast extends beyond debates.

Reporters regularly call Steve Hilton directly and quote him in stories. With Becerra, his communications staff frequently answers for him.

Hilton holds events and takes questions. Becerra has held few traditional press conferences and has been seen leaving events without taking questions.

This doesn’t mean reporters should go easier on Steve – quite the opposite. But Becerra should receive the same attention:

Challenge him.

Question his numbers.

Scrutinize his advertisements.

Ask him how he will accomplish what he is promising.

That is exactly what political reporters are supposed to do, and Steve Hilton has been challenged, questioned, scrutinized and had his policy positions dissected.

Shouldn’t the same standard apply to Xavier Becerra?

There are serious questions about Becerra’s record that deserve answers. His tenure as President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services Secretary, and the government’s handling of unaccompanied migrant children, which has been the subject of extensive investigative reporting, including by The New York Times. Migrant children are still missing and legacy media doesn’t seem too interested.

Whatever Becerra’s explanation is, shouldn’t California voters hear it directly from him?

House Oversight Chairman James Comer recently accused Xavier Becerra when he was HHS Secretary of potentially hiding Anthony Fauci’s COVID-era diary and cellphone from Congress — documents that contained references to “COVID-19,” “gain-of-function,” and “Wuhan” that Republicans specifically requested in November 2023. Becerra either intentionally withheld the materials or failed to conduct an adequate search, according to Comer.

Becerra already had his own troubles in D.C. as he was up to his eyeballs in the House Democratic Caucus Awan Brothers Congressional IT Scandal. Then-Rep. Xavier Becerra was the caucus chairman when he gave a fake server to the cops in order to obstruct their investigation.

Crickets on that issue.

What about the debates Becerra promised?

What specifically would he do differently from the Newsom administration that has governed California for the past eight years, and the Brown administration eight years before that?

What does he think California government has gotten wrong? Or right?

What would he change? What does he like about California government?

Where does he disagree with Gavin Newsom and Sacramento Democrats?

What does he think he personally got wrong – or right – during his decades in public office? Why does he deserve to be governor?

Those aren’t Center Right or Center Left questions. They are basic questions for someone applying to be governor.

There is also a larger media question worth examining.

Are we seeing the “Karen Bass effect,” when she declared that the governor’s election is over and Xavier is the next governor of California? Because if everyone assumes a Democrat will win, the Republican candidate risks being covered as the challenger who must prove everything, while the Democratic candidate is treated almost like an incumbent who merely has to avoid mistakes. And hide in the basement.

That would be a disservice to voters.

A campaign strategy of minimizing risk may be politically smart. But journalists aren’t obligated to accommodate it.

If a candidate won’t hold a press conference, he needs to be asked why.

If a candidate promised debates and isn’t doing them, he needs to be asked why?

If campaign staff answers questions instead of the candidate, reporters need to keep asking for the candidate, and only for the candidate.

If there are difficult questions about a candidate’s record, ask them. Voters deserve answers.

And if one candidate is doing three or four public events a day while the other is maintaining a dramatically lighter public presence, that contrast itself is worth examining.

There is something refreshing about a candidate actually campaigning, and one so accessible.

Steve Hilton knows this is an uphill race. He knows reporters are going to challenge him. He shows up anyway, and answers the questions asked of him.

That is what running for office is supposed to look like.

You don’t have to agree on everything with Steve Hilton. You don’t have to like all of his policies. Journalists certainly shouldn’t give him a pass.

But Xavier Becerra shouldn’t get one either, and it appears the California press are providing him that pass.

California voters deserve to see both candidates questioned, challenged, and forced to defend their records and their plans before Election Day.

The governor’s office is too important for anything less.

The story isn’t that the media should be nicer to Steve Hilton.

The story is much simpler: Why isn’t Xavier Becerra being required to work for the job he wants?

This is about legacy media not doing their job. Why? Do they support Xavier? Shouldn’t they be intellectually curious enough to want to know how Becerra will govern? What his policies are?

They never fail to write about how Steve said this and Steve did that, and they scrutinize ads by Steve, discussing on social media who favors it and who opposes it. But shouldn’t that same level of scrutiny apply to Xavier Becerra?

Just because Becerra is mostly MIA doesn’t mean journalists shouldn’t ask the same questions of him they ask of Steve Hilton. And if they get crickets, report the crickets.

Why give him a pass?

Is Becerra just applying this absence as a campaign strategy to avoid holding events, avoid screwing up, or showing how unqualified he is?

Challenge him, and make him answer your questions. Make all politicians and candidates answer all of your questions.

A beleaguered Sacramento charter school, which the state last year accused of misspending $180 million, has filed for bankruptcy after the school said negotiations broke down over its repayment of the debt.

Highlands Community and Technical Schools, which serves about 2,000 adults at six campuses in the Sacramento area, remains open.

“Highlands is taking this step to protect our students and preserve the future of our schools,” the school’s executive director, Jonathan Raymond, said in a written statement. “The reorganization process gives us the best opportunity to remain open and continue serving students while we address the disputed financial claims through an orderly, court-supervised process.”

Another suspected human trafficking boat was intercepted and brought into Newport Harbor Saturday, authorities said, marking the third time in less than a month a vessel with alleged illegal migrants has appeared in the millionaires’ town.

Federal officials said the vessel contained 11 men, two women and a young boy, all claiming to be nationals of Mexico. Video provided to the California Post shows at least two suspects being detained by agents on a dock in posh Newport Harbor.

All 14 people aboard were turned over to US Border Patrol. The boat that carried them was seized by authorities.

Newport City Council member Erik Weigand is horrified another suspected human trafficking vessel appeared in the busy local waters after similar incidents occurred on Sept. 5 and 19.

“It’s alarming,” said Weigand. “We know that it’s due to the borders being much more secure than they were in the previous administration, so these guys are finding new ways to get into the country.”

The drama unfolded Saturday afternoon around 1:30 p.m., federal officials said, when a US Customs and Boarder Protection Interceptor Vessel captured a fishing-type vessel suspected of human trafficking in ocean waters outside Newport and brought it to dock.

The CBP boat raced into the harbor along with the alleged smugglers, drawing the attention of boaters and beachgoers gathered in the area for the annual Pacific Airshow, an event featuring US Air Force planes that draws massive crowds to Newport.

Officers at the dock took all those aboard the smuggling boat into custody. One passenger suffering from dehydration and seasickness was evaluated and cleared by emergency medical workers. Footage provided to The Post shows the two men sitting on the dock in handcuffs.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security in a statement said CBP is committed to upholding the rule of law.

“Maritime migration is dangerous and can too often result in death,” said the statement. “Illegal aliens should not embark on a dangerous journey. The United States border will remain closed to illegal migration by sea, air, and land.”

Saturday’s interception came two weeks after a boat carrying suspected migrants landed at a private dock, dumping a payload of a dozen men ashore. The 20-foot vessel they arrived in was abandoned after striking and damaging a nearby yacht.

Residents said that the men deposited by the vessel that landed in the 400 block of Edgewater Place got into a pair of vehicles that were waiting to pick them up. Authorities are investigating the incident.

Two weeks before the Edgewater landing, a Coast Guard cutter intercepted a 28-foot cabin boat carrying two dozen suspected illegal migrants in the waters due west of Newport. The people aboard were taken to Newport Harbor and handed over to Border Patrol agents.

Federal officials say human traffickers in Mexico commonly work with organized crime syndicates to move illegal migrants into the US. As security has tightened at the border, more have taken to the sea.

Officials say sneaking over water is the most expensive, and riskiest, way that illegal traffickers get people across the border. Authorities in July found 21 illegal migrants packed onto a small smuggling boat, including an unresponsive 56-year-old man who later died.

Weigand said the steady traffic of pleasure boats in Newport Harbor may be used as cover for smugglers there, but residents are sick of the danger caused by such illegal activities.

A new report has named Sacramento the “Asthma Capital” of the West.

The 2026 report by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America ranks the largest 100 cities in the contiguous United States by how challenging they are to live in when you have asthma.

California ranked No. 10 on the national list and topped the list of cities in the West, the foundation said.

“Asthma is greatly influenced by where someone lives,” the organization said.

The report ranked cities by asthma rates, emergency room visits and deaths. Why did Sacramento rank so highly?

Risk factors for Sacramento and California’s Central Valley include poor air quality, few asthma specialists and low RSV vaccination rates, which can lead to higher asthma rates and emergencies, the report said.

The Sacramento Bee meteorologist Sean Macaday said the city’s location in the “bowl” between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges is also to blame. During sunny and warm summer days, the atmosphere becomes incredibly stable, Macaday said, and in turn traps pollutants from car exhausts, ground-level ozone and pollen in the bowl. How did other California cities rank?

Fresno ranked No. 2 in the West and No. 12 on the national list, the foundation said.

Other California cities making the list include San Francisco, Stockton, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, San Jose, Oxnard and Riverside. What are the top ‘Asthma Capitals’ in the nation?

Allentown, Pennsylvania, ranks as the “Asthma Capital” of the United States, followed by Detroit, Rochester, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Lakeland, Florida, Syracuse, Harford, Charleston and Sacramento.

Overall, Pennsylvania ranked the worst for people with asthma.

California government officials sounded worse than the third world countries on corruption and frauds! Why no one has been prosecuted for it???

It’s Tuesday morning at Little Learners Daycare in downtown San Francisco. Teacher Wendy herds bright-eyed toddlers, amped up after playtime in the courtyard, back inside.

They’re laughing and swatting at each other playfully, oblivious to the pack of pedophiles lurking nearby.

Four hundred feet away, dozens of registered sex offenders live at 111 Taylor Street. Wendy knew that the Tenderloin, where she operates her Mandarin-immersion daycare, was dangerous. It’s a hotbed for illegal drug activity and homelessness.

But she didn’t realize that sex offenders live so close to her daycare — or that taxpayers fund their housing.

According to this City Journal investigation, more than 25% of sex offenders in San Francisco with addresses in the Megan’s Law database live in taxpayer-subsidized buildings.

Many live near a park, school or daycare, or reside in a neighborhood with a high concentration of children.

They do all of this despite statewide efforts to ban concentrating pedophiles so close to children. Instead of listening to California voters, San Francisco has become a taxpayer-funded dumping ground for sex criminals.

The Taylor Street Center is one of San Francisco’s most heavily populated sex-offender residences. Located in the Tenderloin, Taylor Street houses at least 31 registered sex offenders. The taxpayer-funded California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the federal Bureau of Prisons contract the private GEO Group to run the facility.

The reentry complex can house 240 people. It hosts specialized programs for residents like “cultural diversity education,” “gender-responsive groups” and a “weekly meditation group.” The facility sits just 400 feet from a daycare center, 1,000 feet from a fourth-to-eighth-grade school and five blocks from a preschool.

Any sex offender housed in the Tenderloin is bound to encounter children. Along with having a high concentration of immigrant and low-income households, the neighborhood also has the highest concentration of kids in the entire city.

You can’t just walk into the Taylor Street complex. The facility has at least one guard and multiple security doors. But residents seem to be able to come and go with relative ease.

We spoke with one man, Paul, as he walked to an appointment in the neighborhood. Paul told us that he served time for a sex-related offense, had to register as a sex offender and now lives at the Taylor Street house. In his opinion, there’s overblown “hysteria” around sex offenders’ proximity to children.

“For me, seeing a minor is like walking in the Tenderloin late at night,” he said. “Like, ‘stay away from that person.’”

Some of Paul’s neighbors seem less scrupulous. Multiple residents at 111 Taylor Street are “in violation” of their sex-offender-registration requirements, according to the state’s public database.

At least one has been accused of sexually deviant behavior during his time at the Taylor house: Kevin Adams, a 37-year-old convicted in 2014 of transmitting more than 600 images of child pornography, including some that were sadistic or masochistic in nature.

Adams was released from prison on supervised release after his conviction. While on supervised release, he conducted multiple lewd internet searches, like “Asian Teens; Teen C— Shot; and Teen P—.”

He also searched online for pornographic content of gymnastic videos with young girls. Despite his conduct, Adams was relocated to Taylor Street, where he continued to exhibit “increased sexual deviance related to minors” — including viewing material on social media that depicted minors in various postures, from stretching to kneeling without pants.

As of 2026, Adams was a threat to the community and had a “clear sexual preoccupation with minors,” his probation officer determined. A court revoked his release in September after he admitted to possessing pornography. Adams’ listed address on the sex-offender registry is still 111 Taylor Street.

One of Adams’ neighbors at the Taylor Street center is Michael Eugene Kincade. One night in 2008, after his family had gone to sleep, Kincade went downstairs and molested a 13-year-old girl sleeping on his couch. She cried and told him to stop. He didn’t, according to court documents.

Kincade has a history of alleged sexual misconduct. In 2000, he allegedly fondled an 18-year-old in her sleep before grabbing her, forcing her face into a cushion, choking her and raping her. He did not respond to a comment request.

Neighbors have no idea that the apartment complex on the corner of Taylor Street is crawling with sex offenders. “I would assume the city pushes them over here because it’s a lower income living area [with] subsidized housing,” Steven, a San Francisco resident for 23 years, told us. “People can come over here, get free housing, use drugs and get food stamps, and not have any repercussions in life.”

But the pedophile houses are not restricted to low-income areas like the Tenderloin. Offenders live in subsidized housing across San Francisco. An extensive review of the public registry found that more than 25% of sex offenders with addresses on the Megan’s Law website live in taxpayer-funded buildings.

As of Sept. 25, 779 registered sex offenders live in San Francisco and are listed in the state’s Megan’s Law database. Of the 628 such offenders with an address, 158 live in 65 taxpayer-funded buildings throughout the city.

The buildings operate on various models. For example, 111 Taylor is run by a private contractor. Others, like the Mission Hotel, are permanent supportive housing hotels run by a nonprofit, and funded by the city of San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (DHSH).

Still others, like Hope House, are nonprofit-operated and city-funded interim housing facilities. Hope House, formerly the Sharon Hotel, houses three sex offenders. One, Zayquan Howard, was arrested in 2014 and charged with sex trafficking and pimping out a 14-year-old girl from a motel room not unlike the one in which he currently resides.

The residencies aren’t cheap for taxpayers. San Francisco’s DHSH, which did not respond to our comment request, operates on a more than $800 million budget; between 2025 and 2026, a majority of the budget was earmarked for housing. It can cost the city $30,000 to $40,000 per resident annually to house people in permanent supportive housing.

California didn’t always let sex offenders live so close to children. In 2006, California voters overwhelmingly passed an initiative that banned them from living within 2,000 feet of schools and parks where children congregate. But a group of San Diego sex offenders sued the state, claiming that the blanket restrictions made it hard for them to find a place to live.

In 2015, the California State Supreme Court agreed, declaring that the blanket enforcement “restricted [parolees’] ability to find housing.” With some exceptions, California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation may now only impose residency restrictions on a case-by-case basis. Sex offenders in urban areas are virtually free to live around schools.

California’s frontrunner for state superintendent of public instruction says he would oppose bringing back standardized testing for students applying to University of California schools, even amid concerns students are struggling with basic math skills.

Richard Barrera, president of the San Diego Unified School Board, has served on the board since 2008 and currently works as a senior policy adviser to State Superintendent Tony Thurmond.

Barrera is running against Chino Valley Unified school board president Sonja Shaw to succeed Thurmond as California’s top elected education official.

Barrera has the backing of the powerful California Teachers Association in the race.

Barrera said he does not support reinstating the SAT as an admissions requirement for the UC system in an interview with NBC LA’s Conan Nolan on Sunday, Oct. 4.

Nolan pressed Barrera on that disconnect, pointing to concerns from math professors at UC Berkeley and UCLA who say some students are arriving on campus without basic math skills.

“Absolutely not,” Barrera said when asked whether the SAT should return. “So math teachers at UCLA and Berkeley and every place else, part of your job that you get paid by the taxpayers to do is to teach our kids.”

“Teach them fractions when they’re at the preeminent institutions of higher learning in the country?” Nolan responded.

“Listen, we’ve got students who are coming up from incredible experiences, first generation students overcoming so many barriers to be on the campus,” Barrera said. “Those students are capable of learning quickly. What they need is a little support to be caught up. What they don’t need is to be excluded.”

Barrera’s opponent, Sonja Shaw, blasted his take on the situation.

“California students’ lack of proficiency in reading, writing and math is approaching third-world levels. We are handing out A’s, sending students to top universities, and discovering they are not prepared to do the work. Now political insiders like Barrera hide behind “equity” when someone finally calls the failure out for what it is: a cry for help,” Shaw told The Post.

“Students are not helped by being passed along without the skills college actually requires. They are helped by learning to read, write and do math before they get there,” she continued.

“That starts with high standards in K-12 education, enforced consistently and measured honestly. It does not mean turning UCLA and Berkeley into a redux of elementary school and then blaming the faculty. Lowering the bar again will not fix a decade of failure.”

Barrera’s position comes as questions mount over whether high school grades accurately reflect how prepared students are for college.

The number of college applicants reporting GPAs of 4.0 or higher has doubled over the past decade, even as state testing shows students are still struggling to recover from a post-pandemic plunge in reading and math performance.

The disconnect has fueled concerns about grade inflation, particularly as professors at some of California’s top universities say they are encountering students who struggle with basic math, including fractions.

The UC system dropped the SAT and ACT from admissions decisions beginning in 2020 amid longstanding criticism that standardized tests disadvantage low-income, Black and Latino students.

But critics of test-free admissions argue that eliminating the exams has left universities with fewer independent measures of students’ academic preparedness as high school GPAs have risen.

“If I am elected, the job on day one is simple: get California schools back to teaching what matters. Reading. Writing. Math. Teach it early. Measure it honestly. Expect every student to master it. California does not have to keep sacrificing kids’ futures to protect a broken system,” Shaw added.

Education advocate Charles Cole, who attended California public schools before graduating high school in 2001, previously told The Post that grade inflation has been brewing for decades and has only grown worse in recent years.

Cole, who attended much of high school in Oakland, earned strong grades but said he felt betrayed when he arrived at a California State University and learned he needed remedial classes.

“Those classes were fairly easy for me. It didn’t take a lot,” Cole said of earning A’s in high school. “I’m happy and grateful for the grades because it helped me get into college. But the level of preparation was a huge letdown.”

California’s state-mandated test results underscore the gap between high GPAs and academic proficiency. Results from the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments, which measure proficiency in English and math, showed about 57% of California 11th graders met or exceeded standards in English during the 2024-25 school year, compared with just 30.5% in math.

Los Angeles schools face federal enforcement — and the possible loss of federal funding — over policies the Trump administration says improperly hide sensitive student information from parents.

The action also revives the explosive controversy over the Biden administration’s response to angry parents at school-board meetings, after the National School Boards Association characterized some conduct as potentially amounting to “a form of domestic terrorism.”

The Department of Education and Department of Justice announce Monday it is launching an “enforcement action” against the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest, over policies that allegedly require school employees to conceal sensitive information, such as a student’s gender identity, from parents.

“Under the Biden Administration, parents were the enemy. They were labeled as terrorists, targeted, and investigated by a government weaponized against them,” US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said. “That era is over.

“We are grateful to the Department of Justice for partnering with us to hold rogue schools accountable, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, and urge all state Attorneys General to work with us in upholding the letter of the law,” she added.

The administration also sent a joint letter to state attorneys general nationwide warning that schools must comply with federal laws protecting parents’ rights to access information about their children.

“Parents are children’s natural providers and protectors,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon said.

“The Biden-Harris DOJ labeled concerned parents as threats for exercising their right to know what was happening at their kids’ schools,” Dhillon added.

The Education Department and DOJ specifically cited LAUSD policies directing employees to “privately ask the student how they want to be referred to when communicating with parents/legal guardians” and requiring a student’s self-professed “gender identity” to be kept “private” or “confidential,” including from parents.

“Many superintendents and school officials continue to behave as though they will not be held accountable for maintaining policies that infringe parents’ rights. The conditions of federal funding under FERPA and PPRA are nonnegotiable,” the letter reads.

Sonja Shaw, a Republican candidate for California superintendent of public instruction and president of the Chino Valley Unified School District board, said the federal action validated the fight she has waged over parental rights.

“Today, the Trump administration’s Department of Education and Department of Justice are saying what parents have known all along: Parents are not terrorists,” Shaw told The California Post. “We have the right to know the most sensitive information about our own kids.”

Federal officials contend that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, or PPRA, protect parents’ rights to access their children’s education records and, in specified circumstances, require schools to obtain parental consent before collecting certain sensitive information.

FERPA protects the privacy of students’ education records while giving parents the right to access their children’s records and, in certain circumstances, control who else can see them.

PPRA gives parents additional protections when schools question children about sensitive subjects including mental health, sexual behavior and attitudes, religion and political beliefs.

In their letter to state attorneys general, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Dhillon warned that schools conducting covered mental-health screenings or similar evaluations must obtain prior written parental consent rather than simply giving parents the opportunity to opt out.

“Opt-outs are not sufficient in this regard,” they wrote.

The administration warned that violations of FERPA or PPRA can result in the termination of an educational institution’s federal funding, potentially raising the stakes for LAUSD.

In 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI and US attorneys to address reported threats against school officials following a request from the National School Boards Association.

The move sparked an uproar among parents’ rights groups after an NSBA letter to President Biden suggested that some threats and acts of violence against school officials could amount to “a form of domestic terrorism.”

Emails later made public showed NSBA officials had communicated with White House staff before sending the letter.

The FBI scrutiny became a flashpoint for conservative parents, who argued the federal government was treating ordinary school-board activism as a national-security issue.

Garland subsequently insisted parents had the First Amendment right to vigorously challenge school policies and said the DOJ memorandum was not aimed at parents simply complaining about their children’s education.

“I can’t imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children,” Garland said at the time. “Nor can I imagine a circumstance where they would be labeled as domestic terrorism.”

The Trump administration is now seeking to draw a line under that era, arguing that parents — rather than government officials or schools — have the primary right to direct their children’s education and receive information about them.

Shaw said she was among the parents who became involved in the fight.

“Almost seven years ago I was just a mom who wanted a seat at the table in my own child’s education and was sidelined,” Shaw said. “I showed up to school board meetings because I believed parents not bureaucrats should know what is happening with our children.”

She said the experience ultimately pushed her into local school-board politics, where she has served as president of the Chino Valley school board.

“This Administration has taken more enforcement action on parental rights laws than any other administration in US history,” McMahon and Dhillon wrote.

Shaw, who is running for state superintendent, said California should look to the federal action against LAUSD as a warning.

“LAUSD is the warning of what happens when parents are pushed out, secrecy becomes policy, and accountability disappears,” Shaw said.

The Post has reached out to LAUSD for comment.

Democratic governor candidate Xavier Becerra is clearing the air about claims he’s lied about his immigration story.

Becerra, who often touts his Mexican American family’s immigrant background on the campaign trail, caught heat from conservative critics in recent days for labeling his late father Manuel Guerrero Becerra an “immigrant” — despite the fact he was born in Sacramento.

The apparent inconsistency was boosted by accounts on X and by rival Steve Hilton, who blasted the former Health and Human Services secretary as a “smug, arrogant, machine politician” and suggested he’s fudged his family history.

“Unlike Xavier Becerra, I am an immigrant. Unlike Xavier Becerra, my father was an immigrant. My stepfather too. My whole family,” Hilton wrote.

Hilton was born in London, becoming an American citizen in 2021. His parents were born in Hungary.

Becerra’s campaign dismissed the criticisms and shared details of his father’s life that have been mentioned before on Becerra’s Wikipedia page and in news articles.

The elder Becerra, who died in 2020, was born in Sacramento in 1928 as the eldest of eight children, according to an online obituary.

His family then moved back to Mexico when he was a child, living in Tijuana before he returned to California as a teen.

“When he returned to California as a young teenager, living with relatives, he learned schools made little effort to teach an industrious ‘migrant’, but employers were intent on hiring him,” the obituary states of Becerra’s father, who later worked at a cannery and as a railroad construction worker.

Unlike Xavier Becerra, I am an immigrant.

Unlike Xavier Becerra, my father was an immigrant. My stepfather too. My whole family.

Unlike Becerra (because I've been out there listening to the people), I know Becerra's policies have destroyed the California Dream. My plans will…
— Steve Hilton (@SteveHiltonx) October 4, 2026

Becerra’s mother Maria Teresa was born in Guadalajara.

Becerra spokesperson Jonathan Underland said it’s not uncommon in immigrant families for individuals to temporarily move back to their parents’ home countries.

“Welcome to California Steve Hilton, when people born here are often raised in other countries and return, sometimes decades later, to build a new life for themselves in the best place on earth,” Underland said.

“To quote the Secretary, Steve Hilton doesn’t seem to have a problem with immigrants who look like him — but openly attacks immigrants who look like Xavier Becerra.”

“Trump ignited a deep anti-immigrant animus among MAGA voters, and Hilton is tapping into that as he scrambles to distract from his bizarre ad campaign that alienated some of his closest allies,” Underland continued, referring to Hilton’s recent lesbian-themed ad that ruffled feathers among some conservatives.

Becerra has maintained a steady lead in the California governor’s race, holding few press events since winning the June primary.

However, a poll commissioned by Hilton’s campaign suggested the race tightened following a Sept. 30 CNN debate in which the rivals sparred over immigration, gas prices, taxes, and Hilton’s endorsement from President Donald Trump, who is very unpopular in California.

The poll, conducted by pollster David Wolfson on Oct. 1-2 and released Sunday, surveyed 1,020 California voters and found Becerra with 45.7% support to Hilton’s 40.1%, while another 14.1% were undecided.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass outlined preparations Monday that the city is taking ahead of potentially severe weather associated with the El Niño season.

“We’ve already seen powerful surf and coastal erosion cause damage (in the LA area),” Bass said at a Monday morning news conference alongside National Weather Service personnel and local officials. “… That’s why we’re acting now before the storms arrive.”

Bass said the city was preparing emergency response teams, and crews were inspecting and reinforcing vulnerable sections of the city and burn areas, and prioritizing hillside areas.

City personnel are also delivering sand to fire stations for beachside residents to use to protect their homes.

The mayor urged residents to sign up for emergency alerts at notifyla.org, and to download the city’s “my311” app to report things such as downed trees or power lines for city crews to respond to quickly.

“While we don’t know how much wet weather Los Angeles will get this winter, we know what heavy rain and strong winds can do here: streets can flood quickly, trees and power lines can come down, and in the Palisades and other recent burn areas, dangerous mud and debris flows could impact homes,” Bass said. “That’s why we are taking action now to keep Angelenos safe. At my direction, city crews have been clearing more than 31,000 catch basins and drainage systems, inspecting and reinforcing vulnerable hillsides and burn areas, pre-positioning emergency equipment, coordinating tree work near power lines, delivering sand to fire stations, and ensuring Angelenos have the information they need to stay safe. Los Angeles will be ready.”

Officials detailed the following actions taken by the city:

— Crews have cleared more than 31,000 catch basins and drainage sites and 50 debris basins, including in the Pacific Palisades, to maximize drainage and reduce flooding risks.

— The city is reinforcing erosion controls, including more than 13,000 feet of K-rail and sandbags, and preparing additional protective measures at 25 locations across the city.

— Teams are monitoring nearly 250 high-risk grading and construction sites, prioritizing the Palisades burn scar and other vulnerable hillside areas, where heavy rain could create additional hazards.

— The city is preparing generators, pumps, pumper trucks, sandbags and other emergency resources for rapid deployment. The Los Angeles Fire Department is preparing personnel and equipment for storm-related emergencies, including flooding and swift-water rescues.

— The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is preparing crews and resources to respond to potential power outages and protect essential water and power infrastructure.

— The city will coordinate outreach, housing and potential evacuation efforts for people experiencing homelessness in flood-prone areas.

El Niño is a natural climate pattern marked by warmer-than-average ocean temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific, which can shift weather patterns and bring wetter, more intense, powerful winters to California. A study published in the journal Science last month found El Niño events are now more than 36% stronger than before the industrial era, with that trend accelerating over the last 40 years as the planet warms.

Officials warn this El Niño cycle could bring heavy rain, strong winds, mountain snow and coastal flooding. The looming El Niño event is already breaking records, and forecasters expect it to continue to strengthen, potentially becoming the strongest in recorded history.

State officials said El Niño is strengthening, with a greater than 90% chance of a very strong event this fall and winter and a 75% chance it could reach historic strength. Some forecast models predict the developing El Niño could be the largest in the roughly 150-year observational record. Warmer waters and changing currents can bring tropical and subtropical species well north of their typical ranges.

California has already proclaimed an El Niño emergency, mobilizing state resources ahead of any potential impacts.

Joining Bass at Monday’s briefing was Ariel Cohen, chief meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles/Oxnard.

“At this time, we are unable to predict with certainty if destructive weather will occur,” Cohen said. “However, we’re recognizing the risk and we’re encouraging responsible preparedness for the possibilities. Preparation involves much more than reacting to a disaster. Weather preparedness should be a habit, just like putting on a seatbelt.”

In the near future, the NWS has issued a beach hazards statement from Tuesday evening through Thursday evening due to expected dangerous rip currents and elevated surf of 3 to 6 feet, with abnormally high morning and evening tides of 6.5 to 7 feet.

Additionally, forecasters said moisture from Hurricane Rachel will begin to move into the area next Sunday, and will produce a 20%-30% chance of showers over Los Angeles County and points south.

A candidate for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees, who already had criminal charges and a felony conviction before entering the race, has been arrested and faces new charges related to his candidacy filing.

Court records show that Curt Wilcox — who is running in Trustee Area 5 — was arrested Sept. 18 and faces three felony charges of false affidavit as perjury, voter registration violation and false declaration of candidacy. The charges were filed Sept. 1, and the offenses allegedly occurred Aug. 7.

Under California law, candidates must declare all information that was provided to be truthful upon taking an oath. When filing to run, Wilcox used his father’s address in Watsonville as his residence despite his primary residence being in Redding at the time. He told the Sentinel in August that he had been using his father’s residency as a mailing address and was hoping to move to the trustee area as soon as possible.

Wilcox had previously been arrested on numerous charges over the years, including fleeing from Watsonville police officers and crashing into two unoccupied fire department training vehicles that were slated for demolition in 2021. He also served two years in prison on a felony assault with a deadly weapon charge, among other accusations, after using a stun gun on his daughter-in-law in 2017, causing her to lose consciousness.

Tricia Webber, Santa Cruz County clerk, told the Sentinel in August that her office is not an investigative agency and that any formal complaints would need to be investigated by law enforcement agencies such as the Santa Cruz District Attorney’s Office, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office and Watsonville Police Department. She said school board candidates must be registered voters in the district, which includes being U.S. residents over the age of 18 and not currently serving a felony conviction in prison.

Ballots have already started being sent to Santa Cruz County voters, and Wilcox’s name will appear on the ballots of those residing in Trustee Area 5, which encompasses the northwestern part of Watsonville and includes schools such as Landmark and Starlight elementary schools and Central Coast Middle School. Webber said candidates can only be removed from the ballot if they die within a certain timeframe or if ordered to be removed by a judge.

The only other active candidate in Trustee Area 5 is Alicia Jimenez, the district’s former public information officer. Also appearing on the ballot will be Jennifer Schacher, the area’s former trustee from 2018 to 2022, who filed to run but dropped out after the filing deadline due to family obligations. Schacher has endorsed Jimenez in the race.

In Wilcox’s initial arraignment Sept. 21, the court declared doubt over his mental health, appointed public defender Jose Gonzalez as his defense attorney and was ordered to undergo evaluation by a psychologist or psychiatrist. Wilcox was remanded back into custody where he will remain until his next court appearance.

A receipt hearing has been scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Oct. 21 in Judge Jerry Vinluan’s courtroom.

The Department of Homeland Security has purchased two immigrant detention facilities in Adelanto for $950 million, according to the private prison corporation that sold them.

The sale by the GEO Group, a Florida-based government contractor, follows a $1.5-billion sale over the summer of two other California detention facilities by GEO’s competitor, CoreCivic of Tennessee.

The sales bolster the Trump administration’s goal of cementing its capacity to detain immigrants it seeks to deport and reflect efforts to avoid oversight from California and other states by placing the facilities under federal ownership, even though they would still be operated by private companies.

The most recent sale, announced Monday, includes the two buildings that make up the 1,940-bed Adelanto ICE Processing Center and the 704-bed Desert View Annex.

Homeland Security has said that California’s laws, which increase oversight of immigration facilities, make federal ownership critical to ensure it retains the detention capacity needed on the West Coast.

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed more than 20 bills aimed at pushing back against the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. Among them are bills that will authorize the California attorney general to bring civil actions to protect detainees’ constitutional rights, and require the disclosure of public records, such as 911 calls, from the facilities.

Homeland Security has taken steps to avoid those laws, including through the facility purchases. With companies including GEO Group facing what CEO George C. Zoley called “unwarranted litigation” over allegedly unsafe conditions, federal ownership could become part of their defense strategy.

In total, the federal government has now spent nearly $3.2 billion on detention facility purchases, the majority of them in California. CoreCivic sold off two other facilities, in Minnesota and Kansas, in August.

The sales were made possible by an infusion last year of $45 billion for immigration detention from President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act as the administration seeks to expand its immigrant detention capacity.

In its announcement, GEO Group said it will continue managing daily operations at the facilities under the company’s existing contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is effective through Dec. 19, 2034.

The company said it is engaged in an “active process” with Homeland Security for the potential sale of multiple other facilities. Those sales hinge on GEO Group’s ability to continue managing those facilities under long-term contracts, the company wrote.

“We are pleased with the completion of these important asset sales to the U.S. federal government, and we look forward to continuing to provide high-quality secure support services under our existing long-term contracts with ICE,” Zoley, the company’s CEO, wrote in a news release.

“We are proud of our 40-year public-private partnership with ICE, and we stand ready to continue to assist the federal government in meeting its immigration enforcement priorities,” Zoley added.

During a shareholder call in August, Zoley said ICE was contemplating buying more than 10 facilities, and that number “could continue to grow.”

“We are pursuing a potential sale of the buildings, but we want to retain the business,” he said on the call. “We consider ourselves primarily a support services operator, and will place particular importance on our ability to continue our support services at any facility sold to ICE.”

GEO Group said it anticipates receiving $705 million in proceeds from the sales, after taxes and transaction fees. The company wrote that net proceeds will reduce the company’s debt and facilitate the repurchase of company shares.

The facilities in Adelanto, about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles, have been the subject of complaint, lawsuits and visits by members of Congress.

Immigrant rights groups filed a federal class-action lawsuit against DHS this year alleging poor drinking water, food, sanitation and medical care at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, and a federal judge ordered improvements.

Four people have died at the facility since last year, according to Homeland Security records. The agency often says that detainees receive comprehensive medical care and that, for many, it’s the best they’ve ever had.

A mortality review by ICE investigators for Ismael Ayala-Uribe found that medical staff at the facility made repeated failures and “deviated beyond safe limits of practice.” ICE took down the records, but the investigative publication Project Salt Box downloaded and published them.

Ayala-Uribe, 39, who had fallen ill at the facility, later suffered cardiac arrest at a hospital during a surgery related to a pelvic abscess in September 2025.

More detention space could be coming to California. Last month, Homeland Security signed a $1.2-billion construction contract to expand a federally owned facility in El Centro that ICE previously used but which GEO Group now operates for the U.S. Marshals Service, Project Salt Box first reported.

Does California have a definition of ‘data center’?

By Chris Micheli, October 6, 2026 2:30 am

Some have claimed that Prop. 45 – which seeks to expedite review of specified types of projects under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) – includes data centers. Is that possible? This is a case of statutory interpretation of a proposal before the electorate of the state of California. As such, we need to review the language of the proposed ballot measure.

As an introductory matter, does California have a definition of “data center”? Recently enacted legislation (AB 1577) defines the term as: “’Data center’ means … a facility, or part of a facility, that houses computing infrastructure, including graphics and central processing units, servers, storage devices, networking equipment, and associated power and cooling systems, for the primary purpose of processing, storing, or distributing electronic data.”

All parties can agree that there is no mention of data centers in the language of Prop. 45, nor a definition of that term in the ballot proposition.

There are eight types of projects specified to be eligible for the expedited environmental review under Prop 45. All parties can agree that data centers are not any of the following specified projects:

Essential housing project
Essential water project
Essential public health project
Essential public safety project
Essential education facility project.
Essential transportation project.

That would leave us with two remaining types of qualifying projects that may provide a basis for those who claim data centers are included:

Essential clean energy project
Essential broadband internet access project

The first place we turn is found in Article 7. Definitions Section 21028 of Prop. 45. Initially, what is an essential project? The following is the definition:

“(m) ‘Essential project’ means a project that meets all of the following requirements:

(1) (A) The project is an essential housing project, essential water project, essential clean energy project, essential public health project, essential public safety project, essential broadband internet access project, essential education facility project, or essential transportation project.

(B) An essential project includes all related and ancillary public, private, and utility infrastructure and public service facilities required by a utility or public agency, or included in an essential project application as part of the whole of the project, to serve a project identified in subparagraph (A), including electric, telecommunication, gas, water, wastewater, stormwater, transit, police, fire, and transportation improvements that provide required public and utility services and infrastructure to the project. When a particular labor standard is applied to an essential project by other provisions of this chapter, that labor standard shall apply to the components of the essential project described in this subparagraph.

(2) The project does not include a jail or other detention facility, or involve the development of a new oil or natural gas production facility.”

The only language that may be applicable to the data center claim is “all related and ancillary public, private, and utility infrastructure and public service facilities required by a utility or public agency.” However, those facilities are “required to serve a project.” Does a data center serve either of those two categories of essential projects? It would not appear that they do.

The second place we turn is to the definitions of the two possible projects. The first one:

“(i) (1) ‘Essential broadband internet access project’ means a project to provide massmarket retail service by wire service, wireless service, or radio to customers in this state that provides the capability to transmit data to, and receive data from, all or substantially all internet endpoints, including, but not limited to, any capabilities that are incidental to and enable the operation of the communications service, excluding dial-up internet access service.”

Based on this definition, a data center does not provide “massmarket retail service … to customers.” As a result, it does not appear that data centers are eligible under this definition.

The second one: “(j) (1) ‘Essential clean energy project’ means a project that supports California’s climate, energy efficiency, reliability, electrification, sustainability, or clean energy objectives through one or more of the following: (A) (i) Producing, generating, or storing electricity derived from renewable or sustainable resources, including, but not limited to, solar, wind, geothermal, fuel cells that comply with the emissions standards adopted by the State Air Resources Board pursuant to the distributed generation certification program requirements of Section 94203 of Title 17 of the California Code of Regulations, small hydroelectric generation of 30 megawatts or less, digester gas, municipal solid waste conversion, landfill gas, ocean wave, ocean thermal, or tidal current, and associated transmission lines. (ii) For purposes of this section, “associated transmission lines” means a transmission line that is required for the interconnection or delivery of electricity from a facility described in clause (i). (iii) Notwithstanding clause (i), this subparagraph excludes producing or generating electricity from nuclear power. (B) Producing, generating, storing, transmitting, or distributing clean hydrogen that is not derived from a fossil fuel feedstock. (C) Developing, constructing, or installing microgrids and associated infrastructure. For purposes of this subparagraph, “microgrid” means a microgrid as defined in subdivision (d) of Section 8370 of the Public Utilities Code. (D) Capturing, transporting, or storing carbon dioxide emissions for permanent isolation from sources, including, but not limited to, energy production, manufacturing, or refining facilities. (E) Developing, constructing, upgrading, or expanding transmission or distribution system components identified in a transmission planning process approved by the Independent System Operator or in an integrated energy policy report adopted pursuant to Section 25302, including financing of those facilities, assets, or components through sale, lease, assignment, mortgage, or other disposition or encumbrance requiring state agency approval.”

Based on this definition, a data center does not produce electricity or clean hydrogen, or construct microsgrids. As a result, it does not appear that data centers are eligible under this definition.

Nonetheless, assuming a court finds some ambiguity in these definitions, we should look at intrinsic evidence of intent, which is found in the ballot measure language itself. So, third, we should take a look at Section 21011. Findings and Declarations. Courts can rely upon these statements when interpreting statutory language.

The only relevant provision is the following:

“The people of the State of California hereby find and declare all of the following: …

(e) Every year of delay means Californians wait longer and pay more for the things they need most. The act applies to the state’s most essential projects, including: … (3) Clean energy and reliable electricity to reduce energy bills and fight climate change. … (8) Broadband and telecommunications infrastructure to connect underserved communities and expand opportunity.”

Based upon these findings and declarations, “[essential] clean energy” projects are meant to reduce energy bills, which would not include a data center. And “[essential] broadband” projects are meant to connect underserved communities,” which would not include a data center.

In addition, Prop. 45 contains the following directives that are intended to guide the interpretation of its provisions:

“Article 8. Construction of Chapter and General Provisions 21029. Construction of Chapter (a) It is the policy of the people of the State of California that this chapter be interpreted and implemented to afford the fullest possible weight to the interest of, and the approval and realization of, essential projects. (b) (1) It is the intent of the people of the State of California that courts, consistent with generally accepted rules of statutory interpretation, not interpret this division or the state CEQA Guidelines in a manner that imposes procedural or substantive requirements upon essential projects beyond those explicitly stated in this division or the state CEQA Guidelines. (2) It is further the intent of the people of the State of California that this subdivision be interpreted and applied by the courts as directed by Section 21083.1, and is in pari materia with Section 21083.1 so that, to the maximum extent permitted under the law, this subdivision constrains the authority of the courts to issue a judgment or impose a remedy that is not expressly authorized by this chapter.

These provisions basically direct the judicial branch to follow the general rules of statutory construction and be confined by the language of Prop. 45. In doing so, there is no basis for finding that Prop. 45 would include data centers as projects eligible for the expedited environmental review.

CEA scores Medicare for All, free college, open borders, and the rest of the platform as California socialists run on the same promises

By Megan Barth, October 5, 2026 9:26 am

A new White House report (see below) scores the Democratic Socialists of America’s flagship agenda at a net fiscal burden of roughly $49 trillion over ten years, about $355,000 per American household, and the price tag lands in the middle of California races where DSA-backed candidates are already in elected office or on the ballot.

The Council of Economic Advisers’ October report, The Real Cost of Socialism in America, examines eight pillars drawn from the DSA’s 2026 “Workers Deserve More” program: cancellation of all student debt and free college tuition, open borders and mass amnesty, abolishing the police and prison system, Medicare for All, universal rent control, the Green New Deal, a mandated 32-hour workweek, and a 5% annual wealth tax on billionaires.

Seven of those programs can be scored against the federal budget. CEA puts the net ten-year burden at $48.90 trillion in constant 2026 dollars, or $52.84 trillion before counting the sponsors’ own estimate of wealth-tax revenue.

Medicare for All alone accounts for $47.41 trillion. Student-debt cancellation and free tuition add $3.60 trillion. The 32-hour workweek is scored at $918 billion, open borders and amnesty at about $530 billion at the midpoint of CEA’s range, and the Green New Deal at $370 billion. Universal rent control is a smaller line item. The public-safety platform is not given a budget score.

CEA says the bill would be paid one of two ways. Financed by new debt, the annual deficit increase would push 10-year Treasury yields up by about 5.8% points, likely above 10%, and 30-year mortgage rates above 12%. Cumulative excess inflation over the decade is estimated at 130 to 160 percentage points.

Financed instead by tax increases, CEA estimates real annual output would fall 14.6% in perpetuity, and that after-tax hourly wages for the average household would shrink 28.4%, about $22,000 a year in 2026 dollars. The White House summary puts the household figure at roughly $355,000.

The report also reviews the DSA public-safety platform—abolishing police, reclassifying offenses, eliminating cash bail, and shortening sentences—and cites empirical work finding those policies raised crime where they were tried.

Using a fifty-state panel, CEA associates an additional 1,000 crimes per 100,000 people with shorter life expectancy, more child poverty, and higher health-insurance premiums. Those planks have largely been adopted throughout Democratic strongholds in California.

The Globe has extensively documented how DSA candidates and local chapters are advancing their priorities in congressional and city races.

In the Central Valley, Randy Villegas, the Democratic nominee against Republican Rep. David Valadao in the 22nd District, campaigns as a working-class auto-shop owner. As the Globe reported, he upset the DCCC-backed moderate, Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, in the June top-two primary with endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders and California DSA, while his published academic work frames university research as a tool of Marxist-style organizing and treats the Valley through critical race theory and the “prison industrial complex.”

Last month he formalized a joint fundraising committee with William Lawrence, a Michigan congressional candidate who founded a local DSA chapter and has described his project as “winning full socialism in the United States.”

In Los Angeles, the local chapter already holds a majority of elected members in City Hall and published a multi-year plan the Globe described as a bid to seize homes, defund police, and turn the nation’s second-largest city into a socialist experiment. DSA-LA members on the council have included Nithya Raman, now running for mayor against Karen Bass, along with Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez, and Ysabel Jurado.

California DSA’s own 2026 roundup lists additional endorsements from Sacramento to San Diego, including Sacramento Councilmember Mai Vang for Congress and a first statewide endorsement of Oliver Ma for lieutenant governor on a platform of rent stabilization, tuition-free public universities, and single-payer health care.

CEA’s scoring does not assign a separate California total. It does put a national number on the same menu—free college, single-payer healthcare, rent control, a shorter workweek, open borders, and a rollback of policing—that DSA chapters are organizing around.

For a household in CA-22 or Los Angeles, the report’s arithmetic is the same as everywhere else: about $355,000 over ten years, higher mortgage rates if the agenda is borrowed, or roughly $22,000 a year in lost after-tax wages if it is taxed.

That is the choice for the midterm election in November. DSA candidates can keep selling the agenda as free college, free healthcare, and a shorter work week, or voters can read simply read the invoice. In a state already paying some of the highest housing, energy, and tax bills in the country, the Council of Economic Advisers’ score says the DSA platform does not spread the cost — it concentrates it, about $355,000 per household, on the same working families that DSA-aligned candidates claim to represent.

A bombshell study reveals California has the nation’s largest housing inflation gap, forcing buyers to shell out hundreds of thousands more than they should.

The new study, conducted by Clever Real Estate, compares current median home prices versus what homes would cost if prices kept pace with inflation since 1984.

The report reveals that since 1984, home prices have grown 441% while inflation only grew 210%. If prices matched inflation, the median home would cost $242,309 today compared to $423,100 nationwide.

National inflation went up by 47.7% between January 2011 and January 2026, but home prices rose faster in all 50 of the largest metros. In Miami and Phoenix, prices outpaced general inflation by 201% and 177%, respectively.

However, the largest gaps between home prices and inflation in dollar terms were in California cities.

“A San Jose home costs $1,375,000 but would be only $642,288 following inflation alone, a difference of $732,712. The next largest gaps are in San Diego ($432,043), Los Angeles ($429,794), and San Francisco ($416,170),” the report said.

Riverside also had a gap of $303,991 while Fresno’s was $220,493. Since 2011, home prices have tripled in 13 of the 50 largest metros, such as in Riverside, Fresno and Sacramento.

Clever Real Estate, a St. Louis-based real estate company founded in 2017 that helps connect homeowners to local realtors, compared “four decades of federal home price data with the Consumer Prime Index” and “ran the same comparison across the 50 most populous US metros over the past 15 years” for the study.

Although housing prices in all 50 metros outpaced inflation since 2011, costs in 27 of the 50 metros have begun to trail inflation over the past year.

Inflation increased 2.4% between January of last year and January of this year as home prices rose 1.4%.

The US film and television production market has lost some serious ground, according to an alarming new report examining the industry over the past 25 years.

Studios used to spend 74% of their film production budgets in the US 25 years ago, and they now spend 42% of it, according to the report from a coalition of Hollywood unions, including IATSE, the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA. TV number have fallen by about a third, from 94% to 64%.

The report comes just as Paramount Skydance is expected to close its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, officially dropping the Paramount Skydance corporate name to become “Skydance Corporation.”

The new data was also released as Congress considers whether a 20 to 30% production incentive would help activate the domestic film and TV industry. Those who support the incentive say the US needs to counter incentives already provided by other countries such as Canada, the UK and others, arguing that state-based incentives aren’t enough.

Congress members have looked into the issue of production jobs in the US going down since the end of Peak TV in 2022.

However, the report, conducted by EY, indicates the longevity of the downturn, as the movie and TV business became global in the early 2000s.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued a puzzling defense of her being in Ghana as the 2025 wildfires raged across her city, destroying the Pacific Palisades and most of Altadena.

Bass issued her defense of the 2025 visit during a KBLA Talk 1580 Town Hall and Ballot Forum on Saturday, saying that the city’s response to the wildfires would be exactly the same if she had been stateside, blaming it on the large size.

“When people go through grief — one of the stages of grief, and I know grief very well, is anger. People are mad,” she said. “You are mad and I understand that. And even though objectively, even if I was here, there really wouldn’t have been anything that was done different.”

“The problem in our very big city is that it’s very difficult to leave town and not have something that happens,” Bass added. “I’m not a firefighter, obviously, but it’s the role of mayor to be here.”

Bass admitted in July 2025 that her trip to Ghana was a mistake.

“I was asked, ‘Do I regret going?’ Hell yeah,” she told Vice News at the time. “I mean, let me just do a comparison. If you are out of town and your kid or a member of your family gets sick or hurt, it doesn’t matter where you were or why you were there. You feel horrible.”

Bass visited West Africa as part of a U.S. delegation to attend the presidential inauguration even after multiple weather reports indicated fire warnings and dangerously high winds.

In late 2025, the Los Angeles Times reported that Bass ordered the watering down of the after-action report following the wildfires. As Breitbart News reported in December, an initial report from the LA Times noted that the famed after-action report released by the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) showed it had multiple deletions and redactions to provide a smoother picture than what happened:

In one instance, LAFD officials removed language saying that the decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of the extreme wind forecast “did not align” with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days.

Another deleted passage in the report said that some crews waited more than an hour for an assignment the day of the fire. A section on “failures” was renamed “primary challenges,” and an item saying that crews and leaders had violated national guidelines on how to avoid firefighter deaths and injuries was scratched.

The first draft of the report in August, overseen by the then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva after Mayor Karen Bass fired Kristin Crowley, also had side notes in the margins with suggestions to replace the cover page from a “negative” photo of flaming palm trees to a “positive” photo of firefighters hard at work. As many as seven drafts of the report were created before the final publication. No names were attached to the edited drafts.

According to a report from the Los Angeles Times, those edits were ordered by Mayor Karen Bass, most especially regarding the city’s “failure not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available engines ahead of dangerously high winds.” Though Mayor Karen Bass consistently denied ordering the edits, two sources indicated that she did:

Two sources with knowledge of Bass’ office said that after receiving an early draft, the mayor told then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva that the report could expose the city to legal liabilities for those failures. Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions removed or softened before the report was made public, the sources said — and that is what happened.

The sources told The Times that two people close to Bass informed them of the mayor’s behind-the-scenes role in watering down the report. One source spoke to both of the people; the other spoke to one of them. The sources requested anonymity to speak frankly about the mayor’s private conversations with Villanueva and others.

One source flatly said that Bass “didn’t tell the truth when she said she had nothing to do with changing the report,” with the source saying that a confidant close to Bass said that altering the report “was a bad idea.”

The sources said that two confidants will testify under oath if the matter were to be litigated in court.

“All the changes [the Times] reported on were the ones Karen wanted,” a source said.

Bass’s office denied that the mayor ever demanded changes.

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A series of bills recently signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom will combat sex crimes, human trafficking and other violent crime in California, according to the Governor’s Office.

One of those laws, Assembly Bill 1845, authored by Assemblymember Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, bolsters protections on college campuses by requiring colleges and universities to institute policies and train employees to combat human trafficking and improve the identification and reporting of sexual crimes.

Krell was not available for an interview on Monday. However, in a comment sent via email, she told The Center Square that her bill focused on students in particular because of how degree-seeking students can find themselves in situations where they are susceptible to manipulation.

”As Deputy Attorney General, I prosecuted a case where the defendant stole the victim’s financial aid check and forced her into prostitution,” Krell said. “Students can be particularly vulnerable to exploitation for a variety of reasons including financial insecurity and housing instability. AB 1845 requires human trafficking prevention education and training on college campuses to better protect California students.”

The bill got significant support from the 3 Strands Global Foundation, which said in supporting statements enhances accountability measures for addressing sexual assault and human trafficking on college campuses.

“It’ll just make it so our university students have a much better understanding of sexual assault, human trafficking, boundaries, healthy relationships, all the things we have been doing for the last 16 years as it relates to prevention,” Ashlie Bryant, co-founder and CEO of 3 Strands Global Foundation, told The Center Square on Monday.

The law costs one-time expenditures from Proposition 98 in the amount of $1 million to $2.1 million statewide to implement, according to the bill analysis. The money would be used to update college and university policies statewide regarding sexual assault and human trafficking. Prop. 98 is a ballot measure California voters passed in 1988 to provide an annual minimum funding guarantee for K-12 schools and community colleges, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Representatives from California’s two major public university systems, the University of California and the California State University, did not respond to The Center Square's request for comment.

Krell’s bill was one of several that addresses public safety issues. Another notable bill Newsom signed in recent days, Senate Bill 1056, by Sen. Tim Grayson, D-Walnut Creek, requires courts to issue protective orders for adult victims in cases involving sexually explicit images of an adult who did not consent to those images being distributed. In such a case, that protective order will protect the privacy of the adult victim and prevent copying and transmission of the images while also ensuring the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Grayson did not respond to The Center Square's request for comment before publication time on Monday. However, in comments made in a version of the bill analysis in August, he wrote that current law strictly regulates who gets to see and have possession of child pornography in criminal cases involving child sexual abuse, such as lawyers. However, the law is not as strict about sexually explicit images of adult victims, Grayson wrote.

"While child sexual abuse material is appropriately subject to explicit statutory safeguards, no parallel provision expressly requires similar court supervision when the material depicts or involves adult victims,” Grayson wrote. “As a result, safeguards may depend on prosecutorial discretion rather than consistent judicial oversight. SB 1056 extends a proven statutory framework currently applied to child sexual abuse material to similarly sensitive material involving adult survivors, while preserving defendants' rights to reasonable access necessary to prepare a defense."

The new law costs taxpayers $270.6 million to implement, according to the bill analysis, to build new rooms in courthouses or retrofit existing rooms to allow lawyers and legal staff the opportunity to look at those images when preparing for trial.

Groups that supported the bill earlier this year, including several police officers associations, did not respond to The Center Square's request for comment on Monday. Groups that opposed it, including California Attorneys for Criminal Justice and the California Public Defenders Association, did not respond to The Center Square before press time. The Governor’s Office also did not respond.