Both sides dig in ahead of threatened government shutdown
LAT, MICHAEL WILNER: "Washington is barreling toward a government shutdown Tuesday night, with few signs of an off-ramp as Democrats and Republicans dig in for a fight over government spending.
Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill is insisting on an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits as part of a package to fund the government. At least seven Democratic votes are needed in the Senate to pass a seven-week stopgap bill that cleared the House last week."
Which of these 2025 bills will Gavin Newsom sign?
CALMatters, STAFF: "The fate of hundreds of bills recently approved by the Legislature now rests with Gov. Gavin Newsom. He has one month to sign or veto any measures passed in the final days before the session ended Sept. 13.
As his attention turns ever more toward national politics, how might Newsom’s approach change this year? What bill signings will he highlight to the public or bury in a late-night news dump? Could he veto more proposals as he tries to distance himself from contentious liberal policies and chart a more moderate image?"
Gov. Gavin Newsom signs AI regulations, bucking Big Tech
Sac Bee, LIA RUSSELL: "After months of lobbying on both sides from Big Tech, safety advocates and Hollywood A-listers, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed off on artificial intelligence regulations that are expected to be a model for other states looking to rein in the burgeoning technology.
Newsom had hinted in recent days that he would support guardrails on artificial intelligence, which has become Silicon Valley’s raison d’être in recent years as it has automated entry-level jobs and upended industries from banking to the arts. Companies have poured billions into the burgeoning technology despite questions about its financial sustainability and the costs of its high demand for electricity and water being passed onto consumers."
Newsom and Trump are closer on crime, homelessness than either might admit
Chronicle, SOPHIA BOLLAG: "In nationally televised interviews and viral social media posts, Gov. Gavin Newsom has aggressively criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to send federal troops into Los Angeles and other Democratic-led cities. Less publicized have been Newsom’s own initiatives to clear homeless encampments and deploy state police to deal with high crime rates — a continuation of work that began before Trump took office.
The dynamic illustrates a tightrope that Newsom is walking as he eviscerates Trump’s policies even as he highlights his own, fundamentally similar approach to crime and homelessness."
Toni Atkins ends bid to become California’s first woman and LGBTQ governor
Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI: "The field of candidates to be California’s next governor in 2026 shrank Monday when former state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins withdrew from the race.
“There is simply no viable path forward to victory,” she said in a statement."
San Francisco’s first ‘equity’ weed store was an epic failure. City Hall insiders may still pocket millions
Chronicle, CHRIS ROBERTS: "Shawn Richard stood in a surging Haight-Ashbury crowd one morning in December 2019, golden scissors in his hands. If anyone deserved to cut the ribbon on what should have been San Francisco’s marquee cannabis store, it was the “king of legal weed.”
Richard has said he started dealing drugs at 13 and later landed in prison. He kept selling after he came home, stopping only when his little brother was slain at age 20 on Easter Sunday of 1995. Tragedy inspired Richard to remake himself into a nonviolence advocate. And now, at the sunny end of this long arc, he was the city’s model marijuana-industry success story."
Nonprofits, puppy mills, a “giant mess” and more, with Jennifer Fearing (PODCAST)
Capitol Weekly, STAFF: "Host Rich Ehisen is back from the wilderness, just in time to welcome lobbyist Jennifer Fearing. Fearing is perhaps California’s best known “White Hat” lobbyist – she largely represents animal rights orgs, environmental groups and other nonprofits – and is recognized for punching above her weight. High on her priority list this session were three bills that would curtail “puppy mill” sales in the state; SB 312, AB 519 and AB 506 have passed the legislature and are currently waiting on the governor’s signature. She spoke with us about those bills, about the unstable environment nonprofit orgs have found themselves in, what she, and her clients are doing about it. And of course we asked her about First Dog Sutter Brown."
The Micheli Minute, September 29, 2025
Capitol Weekly, STAFF: "Lobbyist, author and McGeorge law professor Chris Micheli offers a quick look at what’s coming up this week under the Capitol Dome."
Waiting for affordable medications is a matter of life and death (OP-ED)
Capitol Weekly, FRANCISCO PRIETO: "“Sorry doc, but I just can’t afford my insulin.”
As a practicing physician for over 30 years, I have heard those words too many times from my patients. Young and old, type 1 or type 2 diabetes- it doesn’t matter. The cost of insulin has skyrocketed over the last few decades, and people feel the crunch in their pockets, and in their worsening health."
Emergency abortion denials by Catholic hospitals put woman in danger, lawsuit claims
LAT, CLARA HARTER: "A California woman is suing Dignity Health, alleging two hospitals denied her emergency abortion services due to their Catholic directives, violating state law and putting her life in danger.
During two separate pregnancies, Rachel Harrison’s water broke at just 17 weeks — a condition that can cause deadly complications. An abortion is typically the course of action recommended by doctors, but on both occasions staff members at Dignity Health hospitals refused to act because they detected a fetal heartbeat, the lawsuit alleges."
UCLA reclaims hundreds of research grants that Trump cut off over alleged antisemitism
CALMatters, MIKHAIL ZINSHTEYN: "The Trump administration has restored almost all of the 500 National Institutes of Health grants it suspended at UCLA in July in response to a federal judge’s order last week.
Attorneys in the U.S. Department of Justice submitted a court-mandated update on the status of the grant restorations Monday evening. They report that the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, has restored all but nine grants to UCLA health science researchers, though that figure may be even smaller."
Opposition surrounds renaming new Pell grants after Trump
LAT, KIMBERLEE KRUESI: "A proposal to brand a new type of federal Pell Grant as “Trump Grants” has sparked pushback from Rhode Island lawmakers who want the program to retain the name of its creator: the state’s longest-serving U.S. senator, Claiborne Pell.
The name change is tucked inside a House spending bill for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education for the coming fiscal year."
Small district to pay $7.5 million as the latest to settle lawsuits over sexual abuse decades ago
EdSource, THOMAS PEELE: "On the eve of what was expected to be a long and gut-wrenching trial, a small school district in Santa Barbara County has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit for $7.5 million with two brothers, now 65 and 68 years old, who claimed a long-dead principal molested them in the 1970s.
The brothers had sought $35 million for the harm they said they suffered, an attorney for the youngest brother said."
Students return to burned-down elementary school in Palisades -- in temporary bungalows
LAT, HOWARD BLUME: "Students will return Tuesday morning to a temporary campus at the site of Marquez Elementary, about nine months after it burned to the ground in the devastating Palisades fire — prompting celebration and some concerns as the school and the surrounding community struggle to recover.
For the Los Angeles Unified School District, the quick return marked a signature accomplishment."
California needs biomass energy to meet its wildfire goals. Its projects keep going South
LAT, NOAH HAGGERTY: "Arbor Energy is, essentially, a poster child of the kind of biomass energy project California keeps saying it wants.
The state’s goal is to reduce wildfire risk on 1 million acres of wildlands every year, including by thinning overgrown forests, which is expected to generate roughly 10 million tons of wood waste annually. Arbor hopes to take that waste, blast it through a “vegetarian rocket engine” to produce energy, then sequester all of the carbon the process would generate underground."
Salmon reach new milestone after California’s massive dam removal
Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "A year after the celebrated removal of four dams on the Klamath River, salmon have etched a new milestone in their push into once-inaccessible waters in California and Oregon.
Oregon wildlife officials last week captured video of a chinook salmon passing the first of two dams that still remain on the river above the sites of the former dams. Those remaining dams continue to pose obstacles for fish."
California’s rainy season has started. Here’s what to expect
Chronicle, GREG PORTER: "California’s rainy season is officially underway, and the first week of October will keep the pattern active. It’s a reminder that October often plays as a transition month, and this year looks no different.
Through the first weekend of the month, the West Coast will sit under the influence of a broad trough of low pressure. For California, that means continued cooler-than-normal temperatures with clouds along the coast. Widespread rain is unlikely, but the setup favors scattered showers in the coastal ranges and the Sierra Nevada. Southern California will remain mostly dry."
Disney’s handling of Jimmy Kimmel fallout highlights big challenges for next leader
LAT, MEG JAMES: "A 10-second bit by ABC comedian Jimmy Kimmel plunged Walt Disney Co. into a full-blown crisis that rippled across America.
President Trump, the Federal Communications Commission chief and others were angered this month over Kimmel’s remarks about the Charlie Kirk shooting, which they said had suggested the suspect was a “Make America Great Again” Republican. Kimmel asserted Trump supporters were “trying to score political points” from the tragedy."
Buyer at major California grocery chain took bribes to carry certain wines, prosecutors claim
Chronicle, ESTHER MOBLEY: "A former wine buyer for a powerful California grocery chain accepted “lavish vacations,” luxury watches and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gift cards in exchange for carrying certain wines in his stores, according to prosecutors.
The buyer, Patrick Briones, was charged last week in federal court in Oakland with commercial bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States. One of the wine suppliers who allegedly influenced him, Bryan Barnes, pleaded guilty earlier this year to commercial bribery in a scheme worth around $360,000."
Most Bay Area renters are ‘cost-burdened’ — especially in these areas
Chronicle, CHRISTIAN LEONARD: "Most households that rent in the Bay Area were considered “cost-burdened” last year, but the rate is even higher in the outer, less expensive parts of the region.
About 56% of the Bay Area’s renter households paid at least 30% of their pre-tax income toward housing costs in 2024, estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show. Housing officials and researchers often use that threshold to help identify families whose housing costs are so high that they may struggle to pay for other necessities."
Inside the Menendez parole hearings: How fame and notoriety collide with justice
CALMatters, JOE GARCIA: "Two Ivy League brothers. Two Beverly Hills parents. Two tabloid murders. The true crime spotlight refuses to let go of Erik and Lyle Menendez.
From the first news of their arrest in 1990, the Menendez brothers have been defined by sensationalized headlines. Their separate trials dominated cable television in 1993. Plot twists of witness tampering, an unscrupulously recorded therapy confession and claims of lifelong sexual abuse all played out in the public eye before juries deadlocked."
Former L.A. County deputy admits criminal role in crypto ‘Godfather’ schemes
LAT, CONNOR SHEETS: "A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy pleaded guilty Monday to two federal crimes in connection with his side work for a cryptocurrency magnate who referred to himself as “the Godfather.”
Michael David Coberg, 44, of Eastvale is the latest of several former deputies to admit participation in the sprawling illegal enterprise run by Adam Iza, who pleaded guilty this year to an array of crimes."
Half a billion dollars for a sinking California highway? Gavin Newsom may OK it
Sac Bee, ARIANE LANGE: "Gov. Gavin Newsom may greenlight a half-billion-dollar effort to widen a North Bay highway that Caltrans has acknowledged is sinking under its own weight.
The plan before Newsom would raise low-lying parts of Highway 37 no more than 8 inches. A document from a 2011 meeting shows that a Caltrans official told attendees that the corridor needed to be raised at least 6 to 7 feet to accommodate sea level rise. By 2016, the consensus was that the highway needed to be raised 10 feet."
Can driverless cars get tickets? What happened when Bay Area police pulled over a Waymo
LAT, SUHAUNA HUSSAIN: "Police in San Bruno were patrolling for drunk drivers when they observed a car traveling erratically.
But this couldn’t be chalked up to an impaired or distracted driver. There wasn’t anyone behind the wheel at all."
READ MORE -- If a driverless Waymo commits a traffic violation, who gets the ticket? -- Chronicle, RACHEL SWAN
