Feed aggregator

Five candidates are vying for Santa Cruz Mayor in the June 2 election. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local)

Monterey County Supervisor, District 2

Last Monterey County update: 8:08 p.m. June 2

Candidate Total Glenn Church 5,345 (71.79%) Ramon Gomez 2,100 (28.21%)

Note: This story will be updated as additional vote counts are released.

MONTEREY COUNTY >> Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church had a sizeable lead with 71% in early election results 8 p.m. Tuesday. His challenger, Ramon Gomez, trailed with 28% of the vote. 

Preliminary election results will be updated throughout Tuesday night, and the following days as staffers process ballots. Final results must be certified by June 30. 

The two candidates described their positions on important local issues for Santa Cruz Local’s election guide. Here’s a quick look at how they differ:

Glenn Church

Ramon Gomez

Help economic development?

• Continue support of the recently-formed Pajaro Business Group, which advocates for the needs of the business community.

• Encourage apprenticeship programs and other opportunities for youth to learn about career paths.

Address wage theft from farm workers?

• Connect local workers with state labor authorities.

• Visit farms to educate workers about their rights.

Increase affordable housing?

• Allow small apartment buildings on single-family lots.
• Encourage smaller homes, which are “affordable by design.”

• Consider building on county property.
• Ensure affordable housing is also built on the Monterey Peninsula.

Prevent renter displacement?

• Create a rental registry.
• Find ways to punish highest-charging landlords.

• Fund tenant legal organizations.
• Do outreach about tenant rights.

Improve emergency response times?

• Continue to advocate for more Sheriff’s deputies and faster ambulance response.

• Allow response from Santa Cruz County ambulances.
• Create an Inspector General to oversee the Sheriff’s Office.

Ensure equitable infrastructure funding?

• Carry out investments under way for roads, parks and the renovated Porter-Vallejo mansion.

• Create equitable funding formulas.
• Prioritize a new plan for long-term development in Pajaro.

Expand health care access?

• Expand Esperanza Care as quickly as possible.
• Consider using a future hotel tax hike for large-scale expansion.

• Consider locally-funded and state-funded methods for expanding health care access.

(function() { window.mc4wp = window.mc4wp || { listeners: [], forms: { on: function(evt, cb) { window.mc4wp.listeners.push( { event : evt, callback: cb } ); } } } })(); Stay informed on Santa Cruz County’s biggest issues. Santa Cruz Local’s newsletter breaks down complex local topics and shows residents how to get involved. Email address:
mc4wp.forms.on('subscribed', function(form) { // gtag.js if(form.id == '6954') { gtag('event', 'subscribe', {'event_category': 'newsletter_prompt', 'event_label':'top_of_story'}); } }); Leave this field empty if you're human:

Questions or comments? Email info@santacruzlocal.org. Santa Cruz Local is supported by members, major donors, sponsors and grants for the general support of our newsroom. Our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support. Learn more about Santa Cruz Local and how we are funded.

Learn about membership Santa Cruz Local’s news is free. We believe that high-quality local news is crucial to democracy. We depend on locals like you to make a meaningful contribution so everyone can access our news. Learn about membership

The post Incumbent Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church leads in early election results appeared first on Santa Cruz Local.

Who’s your dream celebrity governor, and what’s their alter ego?

Santa Cruzans continue to embrace Ayurveda, the ancient Indian wellness system that views health as deeply personal and rooted in balance.

Bouchaine Winery’s 2024 Vin Gris of Pinot Noir is a pale-pink Napa Valley Carneros wine made for warm days, friends and summer sipping.

A cartoon by Keef Knight. Related | One-hit blunder: America 250 musicians are dropping like flies…

Source

Sci-fi franchises that start with the word “Star” sure tend to have a long shelf life. Obviously, there’s Star Wars and Star Trek, but folks often forget there is also Stargate. Recently, Amazon MGM Studios announced that a new Stargate series was making its way to Prime Video. But according to Variety, those plans are now very much on the back burner. Martin Gero, who was a writer on the long-running series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis, was going to spearhead the revival. But now, Amazon has decided that Gero’s plans were not welcoming enough to non-Stargate diehard fans.MGM Television

Stargate began as a 1994 movie starring James Spader and Kurt Russell, and became a modest hit. It never got a direct sequel, but it inspired the hit series Stargate SG-1. That show ran for 10 seasons and starred Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping, and Christopher Judge. Then came yet another spinoff series, Stargate Atlantis, which then ran for five more seasons between 2004 and 2008. Stargate Universe followed in 2011, and then an animated series. Since that time, there were two direct-to-video Stargate movies, and most recently, the web series Stargate Origins in 2018. And then, there are all the video games, novels, and comic books.

Amazon maintains that they are still looking for ways to explore the franchise, and hopefully, revive it properly. But much like Hulu’s executives said that their canceled revival of Buffy the Vampire Slayer required too much knowledge of the previous series, it may be that Amazon wants to use the familiar Stargate name and discard the rest. Which would be a shame to its legion of loyal fans out there. Maybe they choose to revive it first as a movie on Prime Video, before committing to another series. In any event, it seems the wait for a new Stargate project is now longer than anyone previously believed. But one day, we are certain those intergalactic portals will open up once more.

The post Prime Video Halts Development on New STARGATE Revival Series appeared first on Nerdist.

Back in December, we learned Amazon was wasting no time in making new Tomb Raider games. Or, at the very least, remaking old ones. Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will be the second game to remake the 1996 original Tomb Raider. While the initial announcement said the game would debut in 2026, today during Sony’s State of Play, we learned the game’s release date. It’s not this year, it’s next. February 12, 2027 to be exact. Still, we did get a trailer for the game and it…sure looks like a PS5 update of the original. If you wanted to see Lara Croft run from dinosaurs on modern hardware, this is your guy.

I do love that, while Amazon, Crystal Dynamics, and Flying Wild Hog, clearly understand the need to ground such a realistic looking game in some kind of reality, Lara Croft still raids tombs in wholly unrealistic fashion. What kind of archaeologist is she? The updated graphics are stunning, we can see the DNA of that polygonal platformer in there. Lara Croft even still does her trademark (and wholly unnecessary) slow gymnastics dismount on all climbing. It was formative for kids 30 years ago. While a lot of the more recent games have given Lara human antagonists to shoot up, the first game had her fight…dinosaurs. Here we get to see updated, feathered varieties. Because science.

Amazon Game Studios

The December announcement also said a second, fully original Tomb Raider game, Catalyst, was on the way for 2027. That one will likely come out later in the year, if not totally move to 2028.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post TOMB RAIDER: LEGACY OF ATLANTIS Delayed to 2027 appeared first on Nerdist.

Even in a future of robot taxis, someone still has to return the things passengers leave behind.

The Trump administration is scrapping plans to create a $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate allies of the Republican president, the Justice Department’s top official said Tuesday in retreating from a program that faced setbacks in the courts and a fierce political backlash that had threatened to stall key elements of the White House agenda. “We are not moving forward with the fund, period,”…

Source

For almost 100 years, CBS has been one of the most well-known and respected news media brands in the United States. But since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the brand and its parent network have lost respect, influence, and esteem as they’ve bent to Trump’s will. While the right has often lashed out at media that doesn’t parrot the company line, the targeting of CBS…

Source

Steven Spielberg has had a long association with aliens. One that continues to this day, with the upcoming Disclosure Day. In 1977, his Close Encounters of the Third Kind became a massive hit. And it transformed how the world perceived UFOs and alien contact. After its success, Spielberg planned to continue this theme with a darker alien tale, a horror film titled Night Skies. But eventually, the terrifying tale evolved into the cuddly classic E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Now, author Max Evry, author of A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune, takes readers on a new journey in his book Stranded on Earth: How Night Skies Became E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Evry’s new book even has a cool new trailer, which you can watch below:

Evry’s book is part film history and part investigative chronicle. It follows Spielberg’s fascination with UFOs and extraterrestrial storytelling from his teenage feature Firelight in the ’60s through 1977’s CE3K. The book covers the ambitious production of Night Skies, a sci-fi horror film that gradually evolved into E.T. Thanks to extensive research and new interviews with Spielberg collaborators, Evry uncovers the creative chaos, studio politics, abandoned concepts, and radical rewrites that transformed a scary alien movie into one of the most beloved films of all time. Below is the book’s official synopsis:

For years, Night Skies has been an asterisk in the shadow of that era’s most popular movie. The story of this unmade project is just as fascinating as how E.T. itself came to be. My book explores both, and so much more. As with my book on David Lynch’s Dune, the deeper I dug, the bigger — and wilder — the story became.

1984 Publishing

The book also covers how elements of Night Skies morphed into another Spielberg project, Poltergeist. A film written and released the same year as E.T, and even filmed in the same neighborhood. Gremlins also contained elements of Night Skies, with one benevolent unearthly creature among an assortment of malicious ones. For fans of one of the most exciting filmmakers in Hollywood history, in the era when he was working at the peak of his powers, this is one read they’ll not want to miss.

Stranded on Earth hits bookstores and online retailers in October from 1984 Publishing.

The post New Book Tells How a Lost Spielberg UFO Film Became E.T. appeared first on Nerdist.

The cybersecurity company is nearing a $300 million round led by Evolution Equity Partners.

Over four decades ago, Watsonville made national headlines when rank-and-file workers at Watsonville Canning, who had been on strike for eighteen months, triumphantly returned to work on their own terms. Strike leader Cuca Lomeli stated, “Perhaps up ahead, we can change the future in Watsonville.” 

This vision of Watsonville as a place that actually serves the people and reflects the interests of the working-class, Latino majority of this city is why Elias Gonzales, whose campaign slogan is “Securing Our Future Now,” is the most visionary and pragmatic choice for District Four supervisor.

The 1987 cannery strike victory strengthened democracy in Watsonville. We have the strike to thank for bilingual city council meetings and the election of the city’s first Latino mayor. The strike is also indirectly tied to the successful MALDEF lawsuit, Gomez v. Watsonville, that overturned a racist system of at-large voting in favor of district voting. Because of the refusal of the people of Watsonville to accept a broken and discriminatory electoral system that did not serve our interests, we have the power to choose a supervisor who genuinely centers community needs, who has worked tirelessly with our youth, and who will not trample on our future by allowing toxic lithium battery plants to be placed in our midst. 

Gonzales is the change that Watsonville needs. He has known the underside of the rock and used that knowledge to advocate for community needs. Having grown up in a one-bedroom apartment above Fox Theater and temporarily experienced homelessness with his family, Gonzales went on to earn two degrees from Cabrillo College and a BA from CSU Monterey Bay where he completed a capstone research project on Chicano youth and gang involvement in Watsonville. 

Guided by a commitment to give back, or as he puts it, “to pour back to my village,” Gonzales mentored local youth in his work with MILPA, an organization that cultivates next-generation leaders. 

Lourdes Barraza, mother to two teenaged children who participated in MILPA’s programming, observed Gonzales’s mentorship firsthand. 

“While at MILPA, Elias inspired our local teens to be leaders in their community utilizing Indigenous philosophy and practices,” she says. “He taught our community’s youth to recognize the value of their lived experiences.”

As community organizer, Celeste Gutiérrez states, “At the end of the day, he is accountable to the people. That is what sets him apart.” Community accountability is all the more urgent because district voting alone has not been sufficient to ensure that the people of Watsonville are heard. 

The historical relationship of Watsonville as “an economic and political colony” of Santa Cruz has meant that the interests of Watsonville have been subordinated to moneyed interests. It has also meant that resources, including low-wage labor, flow from south to north county. Geographically situated next to Santa Cruz yet worlds apart, Watsonville has served as the shadow reality to the fantasy of Santa Cruz as a fabled place of sun, surf, and “slow coast” lifestyle. “Why can’t we build jobs here?” Gonzales asks, “Why can’t we bring resources to Watsonville? Why does it have to be a jail?” 

As Gonzales points out, “Most of us are low-income field-working families that don’t have the time to come out and advocate for our needs. We have two families per household because we can’t afford it. How does a field worker who makes $30,000 live in this county? You need $150,000 to survive here.” This is why he has affordability as his top campaign priority. At a time when the cost of living is skyrocketing and working-class residents are being priced out of Watsonville, Gonzales is committed to expanding affordable housing and safeguarding and strengthening renters’ rights. 

Gonzales is also the sole candidate in the District 4 field to secure the endorsement of the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers. As former interim PVUSD superintendent Murry Schekman states, “As I observed when I worked in the school district, Elias has shown himself to be an advocate of the young and an advocate of those who aren’t represented.” 

When hundreds of teachers, students, and the community turned out at school board meetings for nearly two years to fight for ethnic studies, Gonzales was there to advocate for a curriculum that reflected and honored the experiences, knowledge, and values of the Watsonville community. “We are 86% Latino yet our histories are not included,” he stated. “Our families have knowledge–educación we call it,which means values more than teachings.”

Gonzales’s two opponents have outpaced him in campaign donations. This is testament to his unimpeachable integrity–indeed, to the ethical commitments that are an explicit part of his campaign. As Gabriel Barraza, a local member of SEIU, states, “He has not taken money from wealthy people or corporations because he does not take money from sources that do not align with his values. He will not be afraid to take on the wealthy developers and big agriculture because he owes them nothing.” 

Today as we cast our ballots, let’s elect a true representative of the people, Elias Gonzales.  

•••

Pájaro Valley for Ethnic Studies and Justice (PVESJ) is a coalition of community organizers, teachers, ethnic studies practitioners, parents, and students who coalesced as a grassroots formation in the fight for ethnic studies in Pajaro Valley Unified School District. 

The old adage about Wolverine dating way back in the pages of Marvel Comics is that he’s the best there is at what he does, but what he does isn’t very nice. For 50+ years, the Canucklehead has proven that true time and again. Insomniac Games, makers of the upcoming Wolverine PlayStation 5 game, is not skimping on any of the claw-filled violence. During Sony’s State of Play, Insomniac dropped one of the bloodier gameplay trailers we’ve ever seen. In the extended look, Logan slaughters a bunch of Reavers in truly gory fashion. And we even see Jean Grey getting in on the action. Enjoy the Rated-M for Mature video below.

The stunning trailer showcases the game’s over-the-shoulder camera as Wolverine descends on the Mutant hunters attempting to make off with a small group of Morlocks (the most outcast of outcast Mutants). You almost feel bad for the hateful, biomechanically upgraded jerks as Wolverine goes to absolute town. I love that there appears to be a mechanic in-game that cleans off the blood from Wolvie’s costume in between kills.

Insomniac

The very end of the trailer has a quick montage of other parts of the game. These include Wolverine in his Patch tux, a scary looking ninja, a battle with Omega Red, Mystique stabbing a guy, Wolverine fighting a very Deadpool-coded ninja, and quite a bit of Sabretooth. Legitimately not sure what more folks could want from a Wolverine game.

What we don’t yet know is how much traversal this game will feature. We see a bit of our hero riding a motorcycle in-gameplay, as well as what looks like it could be a very large city to explore. Insomniac, of course, are the people behind the Spider-Man games, which had incredible traversal. But that’s a major part of Spidey’s whole deal. Not sure if that really needs to be there for Wolverine. It could be a lot more linear.

Insomniac

Between this, X-Men ’97 premiering next month, and Avengers: Doomsday this winter, 2026 is shaping up to be a very good year for fans of the X-Men. Mutant supremacy now, Bub.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post Gory WOLVERINE Gameplay Trailer Gives Us Angry Jean Grey appeared first on Nerdist.

California’s gubernatorial primary comes to a close Tuesday as voters choose from an extensive field of candidates hoping to replace termed-out Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The end of the voting period, which began in early May, concludes a chaotic contest without a clear front-runner. Candidates tried to elbow each other out in the final stretch as each sought to convince voters that they were best prepared to lead the most populous state and one of the world’s largest economies.

California puts all candidates on a single primary ballot regardless of party, and the top two finishers advance to the November general election. About 60 candidates were on the ballot, most of them largely unknown to the state’s roughly 23 million voters.

On the Democratic side, top contenders include Xavier Becerra, a former state attorney general and U.S. health secretary; Tom Steyer, a billionaire climate activist; Katie Porter, a former member of Congress; and Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose.

The two most prominent Republicans are conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

The Democrats campaigned on fighting Trump administration attacks on the state’s liberal policies, while Republicans vowed to bring change after more than 15 years of Democratic leadership in Sacramento. But the through line of the race was how to tackle the state’s notoriously high cost of living.

Drivers were paying $6.08 per gallon at the pump as of the end of May, $1.65 higher than the national average, according to AAA. Meanwhile the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office has estimated that the typical home is about $775,000, more than double the national average. And Californians pay the second-highest residential electricity rates behind Hawaii, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Some candidates proposed suspending the state’s gas taxes, which total roughly 70 cents a gallon, while others floated subsidizing in-state tuition at public colleges. A few of the Democrats said they would eliminate private health insurance in favor of a government-run system with no premiums, while the Republicans vowed to increase oil and gas production and reduce regulations.

“The truth is that we’ve gone off track — we’ve got one-party rule,” Hilton said at a debate in May. “The results have been such a disappointment. It is time for some balance.”

Primary system creates uncertainty

Earlier in the race, Democrats worried about possibly being locked out of the general election even though they count 45% of the state’s registered voters compared to Republicans’ 25%.

The concern was that their relatively crowded field of candidates could split the Democratic vote enough for the two Republicans to advance under the single primary system, which was first used at the statewide level in 2014.

Two candidates from the same party have never made the general election in a California governor’s race, though it happened twice for U.S. Senate elections in 2016 and 2018.

Recent developments, however, have diminished Democrats’ fears as a few candidates emerged as leading contenders. In the race’s final days it was Hilton warning that Republicans could be locked out if they failed to coalesce behind him.

Candidates squabbled over their records

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s resignation and withdrawal from the race after sexual assault allegations were made against him left an opening for Becerra, who previously had struggled to gain traction.

Highlighting his long political resume, Becerra started raising more money and won the endorsements of powerful labor groups and Latino legislative leaders.

But that momentum also made him a target, and his rivals criticized his leadership as health secretary including his handling of an influx of unaccompanied migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021, when Becerra’s Department of Health and Human Services was responsible for shelters where they were housed. Some of them were criticized as having inadequate living conditions, and there were also concerns about authorities failing to thoroughly vet sponsors with whom some children were placed.

“The secretary has never met a crisis that he couldn’t ignore,” Mahan said at a debate in April.

Steve Hilton (left) and Tom Steyer speak during a break in a California gubernatorial debate hosted by CBS Bay Area and the San Francisco Examiner in San Francisco on May 14. Credit: Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press, pool

Steyer’s campaign spent or booked more than $203 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio, according to tracker AdImpact. On the campaign trail, he was attacked over past investments in fossil fuels and private prisons at a hedge-fund he founded in the 1980s and left more than a decade ago. And some accused him of trying to buy the election.

“This race will come down to those who’ve earned it versus those who are trying to buy it,” Becerra told CNN in April.

Republicans, for their part, never coalesced behind a strategy to send both Hilton and Bianco to the general election, and the two fought to consolidate support. President Donald Trump’s endorsement in April of Hilton, a former political adviser to a conservative British prime minister, likely boosted him among GOP voters and diminished Bianco’s chances of advancing.

Trump on Monday evening again urged people to vote for Hilton, saying Democrats have done an “absolutely horrendous job” running the state.

“Steve can turn it around, before it is too late, and, as President, I will help him to do so!” Trump posted on his social media platform.

A final result could take a while

All California voters receive a mail ballot, and election officials count those that are received up to a week after Election Day so long as they are postmarked by then. That often results in a drawn-out count, with no winners declared until days or even weeks later.

It is the first time in over two decades that there has not been a political superstar in the governor’s race. In 2003, A-list actor and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger rocketed into office in a recall election that ousted then-Gov. Gray Davis; in 2010, former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown cemented a political comeback by winning nearly three decades after his first two terms; and in 2018, Newsom had already established a national profile after stints as lieutenant governor and San Francisco mayor and won easily.

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

The post California holds crowded primary in race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Even ransomware cartels make mistakes, and in this case, it was a biggie that could have landed the responsible crim in a Russian gulag: accidentally infecting a company located in a Commonwealth of Independent States country. In what threat-hunter Dominic Alvieri deemed the ransom “dumbass of the day,” Nova, the affiliate program for ransomware crew RAlord, on Tuesday issued an apology to Eriell Group, a major oilfield services company with headquarters in Uzbekistan and a corporate office in Moscow. Apparently, Eriell contacted Nova and notified the ransomware operators about an affiliate's mess-up. The affiliate has since been banned from the criminal operation, we’re told. In addition to issuing a “formal apology,” the ransomware gang promised to assist Eriell with the recovery process “free of charge.” The malware slingers claimed they didn’t encrypt any files, and pledged not to leak any of the stolen data. “Apparently, the first rule of ransomware club, you don't attack organizations in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), is still very much in effect in 2026,” Recorded Future threat intelligence analyst Allan Liska told The Register. While cybercrime is technically illegal in Russia and other CIS countries, their governments often provide safe harbor for extortionists and other financially motivated crims - especially if they also happen to work day jobs as state-sponsored hackers - and local police look the other way unless the gangs infect any in-country organizations. Some crews, like the DragonForce cartel, VanHelsing ransomware-as-a-service group, and notorious LockBit operators, expressly prohibit their gang members and affiliates from hitting Russian and other CIS targets. We’re guessing that the Nova affiliate will be high up on all of these gangs’ do-not-hire lists for quite a while. Still, they aren’t the first cybercriminal, Russian-speaking or otherwise, to make seriously dumb mistakes. Earlier this year, notorious data-leak-and-extortion crew Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters claimed they had gained "full access" to Resecurity's systems and stolen "everything." Resecurity later offered its "congratulations" to the cybercrime crew, which had fallen into the threat intel team's honeypot – resulting in a subpoena being issued for one of the data thieves. Pro-Russian hacktivist crew CyberVolk got sloppy when they debuted a ransomware service late last year. They hardcoded the master keys - this same key encrypted all files on a victim's system - into the executable files, thus allowing victims to recover encrypted data without paying any extortion fees. While that mess-up worked in the victim orgs’ favor, another coding error committed by Sicarii malware developers makes it nearly impossible for companies to recover their files: the Sicarii encryptor generates a new cryptographic key pair during every execution - but then discards the private key, meaning there's no recoverable master key. Similarly, a programming mistake in Nitrogen ransomware prevents the gang's decryptor from recovering victims' files, again making paying up futile. Trellix VP of threat intel strategy John Fokker recently told us that he got so sick of seeing the security industry "glorifying threat actors,” that he and his team decided to troll the baddies, and started publishing the Dark Web Roast. “These are just individuals, they just use computers, and they just want to steal your data and make money,” Fokker told The Register. “They're not mythical. They don't have superpowers." And just like any other individual - or superhero - they sometimes slip up, and give the rest of us a moment of snarky joy. ®

Salesforce’s planned acquisition of Contentful should give its Headless 360 product – which CEO Marc Benioff gushed about during earnings last week – a much-needed shot in the arm, an analyst told The Register. Headless 360 takes the Salesforce logic and data layers and presents them inside other applications the user might be operating, such as WhatsApp, Slack, ChatGPT, or Claude. During the call last week, Benioff said it had seen rapid adoption, including a fivefold increase in usage among customers at Anthropic. But it came with limitations. “It lacked the enterprise-grade content layer to drive the customer facing digital experiences,” Forrester principal analyst Chuck Gahun told The Register. “Enterprise customers that wanted to build a marketing website around product listing and detail pages (powered by Salesforce B2B and B2C commerce), ended up relying on different software vendors. Now, Agentforce agents can query customer data, assemble and deliver content driven digital experiences that are dynamic.” It is also another step to move users off of the Salesforce UI, while preserving its unique data and functions. Gahun said that the headless strategy transitions Salesforce's place in the enterprise from a keeper of CRM records and customer data into a system of action where APIs and MCP server calls are able to produce results for business users. “Contentful was one of the strongest headless CMS vendors, with an API-first founding architectural principle. All content management and delivery platform capabilities were accessible via high-fidelity APIs, including an app framework to build, package and distribute frontend and backend apps that are customizable,” Gahun told The Register. Salesforce has been on a buying spree with the purchases of Convergence AI, Bluebirds, Regrello, Informatica, Qualified, Cimulate, and Momentum, all announced or closed within the last year. President and chief operating and financial officer Robin Washington told analysts in September that Salesforce has no plans to slow down M&A. “If we see other things out there that make sense, we're going to buy them,” she said. Gahun has been covering Contentful as a content management system for nearly four years. He said with Salesforce adding Contentful as the digital experience layer on top and with Informatica's customer and enterprise data, it has the potential to unlock better digital and customer experiences for Salesforce. “As digital content begins driving context for agents and answer engines, Salesforce now has a unique seat at that business logic table: powered by context, content, and data - flowing through its next gen enterprise agentic SaaS platform,” he said. The acquisition of Contentful is expected to close later this year, subject to regulatory conditions. Salesforce has not publicly disclosed the purchase price of Contentful. A spokesperson told The Register that it had no comment beyond its statement when asked for more information about the deal. In its statement, Salesforce said Contentful is trusted by 4,800 customers worldwide and gives users a single content layer across email, mobile and web for any use case. “Together, Agentforce and Contentful will move enterprises from static, channel-specific content to dynamic content orchestration – assembling 1:1 experiences at scale based on context, channel, language, and business rules,” Salesforce said. ®

As protests inside and outside of Newark’s Delaney Hall continue into their second week, federal, state, and local officials are vying over the future of the privately-run ICE detention center and former prison in New Jersey. 

This morning, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka held a press conference, calling for the facility’s closure and threatening further legal action against GEO Group, the company that operates it. A few hours later, the state of New Jersey also sued the private prison giant, seeking a court order for full access by health inspectors, who since Wednesday have lacked it.

ICE and Homeland Security agents beat and arrested dozens of protesters outside Delaney last week, until state police took over the area on Friday, eventually pushing protesters blocks away into a designated ‘protest zone’ as New Jersey Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill implored activists to “lower the temperature.”

Baraka also pointed to conditions inside Delaney, referencing a detained person who had a miscarriage and was not given medical attention.

Beginning Sunday, under Baraka’s orders, the city of Newark established a curfew for the half-mile radius around Delaney Hall—and that evening, state police promptly tear-gassed and arrested even more protesters and members of the press than ICE agents had done earlier in the week. Meanwhile, people detained inside said they experienced physical violence from guards as retribution for speaking out. 

At a Tuesday press conference outside Delaney Hall, Baraka remarked that state police’s “training was not appropriate for what was happening in this area at the time” and objected to tactics that “kind of resembled what ICE was doing in the first place.”

Baraka announced that Newark municipal police, who the mayor contended are “more trained in de-escalation,” would be taking over the area. “I might say that we probably should have done that earlier, jumped in and had a louder voice,” he said. 

The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to questions on why local government delayed involvement.

“I think it was escalated the minute ICE showed up on the scene,” Baraka, who was arrested last year while attempting to enter the facility, added. “We obviously thought that the interactions between ICE agents, Homeland Security, state police and residents were troubling.” He also pointed to conditions inside Delaney, referencing a detained person who had a miscarriage and was not given medical attention.

The city of Newark has been fighting in court for the past year to shut down Delaney Hall, alleging that GEO Group failed to get the proper permits to reopen the facility as a detention center in 2025. Now, Baraka said, the cities plans to expand that lawsuit to include safety violations. “This is not just…a code enforcement dispute,” Baraka said. “This is a dispute about human lives.”

Hundreds of Delaney Hall detainees have been engaged in hunger and labor strikes for nearly two weeks. They’ve turned down GEO Group–provided food and refused to work as janitorial, maintenance, and kitchen laborers within the facility—work for which they are paid as little as a dollar a day. They have four main demands: an end to coercive pressure from ICE agents to “self-deport,” a review of their immigration cases and habeas corpus petitions, an opportunity to speak with Gov. Mikie Sherrill in person inside Delaney Hall, and ultimately, their release from ICE custody.

New Jersey officials have largely not acknowledged these demands—including Baraka, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Sherrill, who has not met with immigrants inside Delaney Hall or fully funded their legal defense. Regardless, activists say their organizing inside and outside the facility has led to some victories. 

Cosecha New Jersey, an advocacy group in communication with people inside Delaney Hall, posted on Instagram that “an increased number of people have been released from detention,” since the strike began, including all pregnant people incarcerated there, “thanks to the urgency and pressure from families and the public.” About a thousand people, however, remain locked inside.

In a social media post Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security characterized New Jersey’s lawsuit against GEO Group as “frivolous.” 

“Just last week on May 28, four representatives of the New Jersey State Health Department arrived at approximately 11:00 AM,” the DHS X account posted. “They entered the facility and inspected the foodservice department.” That inspection, however, left out the medical unit, sleeping areas, and toilets, according to a press release from New Jersey’s Attorney General—and the state’s lawsuit stipulates that officials must be allowed to inspect the whole building.

“We believe that the way GEO Group opened up Delaney Hall was in contravention to municipal laws and state laws from the very beginning,” Baraka said in his Tuesday press conference. “We’re going to argue even further that this should be closed because of health and human safety.”

When Tulsi Gabbard announced she was stepping down as director of National Intelligence a little over a week ago, many let out sighs of relief that a Vladimir Putin apologist was no longer in control of the country’s spy agencies. But it was likely that President Donald Trump would replace her with someone even worse. On Tuesday, he confirmed that to be the case, when he announced that he was…

Source

A cartoon by Mike Luckovich. Related | Democrats devise plan to block Trump’s insurrectionist slush fund…

Source