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American progressives may have felt a twinge of sympathy or even support last week for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as she became the umpteenth target of one of Donald Trump’s churlish social media fusillades. Trump claimed she “begged” him for a photo op; she fired back that that was ridiculous.

It was amusing, but it was also a bit aberrational, because in general, the right-wing Meloni is Trump’s ideological ally. Instead, it’s the 41-year-old leader of the Italian Opposition (an official role), socialist Elly Schlein, whom progressives in the United States and elsewhere should be learning about. Schlein hopes to beat Meloni in Italian national elections, which must be held before the end of 2027.

We’re involved in a global battle between left and right, liberal democracy and populist authoritarianism. And the reality is that the global right has been much better at aligning together than the left. Steve Bannon is an architect of this, starting early in the first Trump term to organize international forces to do his bidding. With Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán felled by democratic forces in his own country, Meloni now stands as the most important right-wing leader in Europe.

The U.K. will elect a new prime minister this year. Italy will be the next big one. Meloni’s defeat in 2027, a year before the U.S. presidential elections, would send a powerful message to Republican leaders in the U.S. and to corporate interests so closely aligned with the right wing in Europe and here at home.

Schlein, who won her party’s leadership unexpectedly in 2023, is hardly the prototype of an Italian politician. A gay woman with a Jewish Ukrainian American father and an Italian mother, she was raised in Lugarno, Switzerland. She holds triple citizenship: American, Italian, and Swiss. She attended the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the world, engaging there in left-wing movement politics as she built a base of support outside the traditional party structure before surprising the old guard with her leadership victory of the Partido Democratico (Democratic Party, or P.D.) three years ago.

She began that leadership campaign 20 points behind. “When I was elected, we had just hit our historically lowest in the polls,” she said in an interview. “There were many people betting on the end of the party or a split.” Schlein says she sought to “rebuild the credibility of the party on two basic issues: the defense of the public health care system and minimum wage, and the fight against precarious jobs.”

I sat with her recently on a sweltering early summer day in the Central Rome party headquarters, where we talked for nearly two hours as she covered a range of topics with no notes. The P.D. is an amalgam of previously large parties in Italy that includes the former Communist Party of Italy, or PCI; the Socialist Party; and the Christian Democrats (the latter two are former ruling parties, while the PCI was once the largest Communist party in the Western world). Today, the P.D. is the largest party in a coalition including smaller parties with diverse political positions that Schlein must corral to succeed, especially on foreign policy and defense spending.

Warm, wonkish, and unpretentious, Schlein is passionate about politics and ideology, weaving a narrative completely opposite to that of her nemesis, Meloni. Her international collaborators include Senator Bernie Sanders, Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula de Silva, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. She’s quite familiar with U.S. politics, having volunteered twice for Barack Obama’s presidential races.

Schlein’s base mirrors much of the Italian left (and much of the international left), with core support coming not from working-class voters but from the intellectual elite in the big cities. “It’s a huge problem for them to speak to the voters who are living in the small cities in the rural zone,” Professor Marc Lazar, of Rome’s Luiss University, told me. But capturing the working class and poorer sectors of Italian society from Meloni is a must for Schlein if she is to be victorious for a party that hasn’t won a national election since 2016.

Italy is Europe’s third-largest economy, yet it is also one of the continent’s poorer nations. Largely dependent on exports, it’s been hard hit by Trump’s tariffs policy and the Iran war. Think Italian wine, pasta, olive oil, and designer fashion—all of which rely on the U.S. as the largest market. The choice for producers is to earn less on each product or charge more.

But the most critical vulnerability for Italy’s economy is the mess created by Trump in the Strait of Hormuz, an avenue through which most of Italy’s imported gas flows. The Italian economy is overly dependent on natural gas imports.

All of this should make Meloni vulnerable for reelection in 2027. Her pro-market policies have proven problematic for Italy. She expanded privatization of Italy’s health care system, already one of the weakest public systems on the continent. She is privatizing higher education, expanding the casual workforce, and opening detention centers for migrants—though in Albania, not Italy, using outsourced Italian police.

This latter project of Meloni’s, according to Schlein, underscores Meloni’s ill-conceived policies. The somersaults she has turned to try to keep her initial idea intact would put Trump to shame. “Understand how she works with propaganda while facts are somewhere else,” Schlein told me. “She said they would host asylum-seekers in these centers—36,000 migrants a year. It was clearly against European law and the Italian Constitution.”

After the European courts ruled that Meloni’s government couldn’t wholly reject asylum-seekers inside Italy, Schlein said that Meloni, “instead of declaring failure,” moved already detained migrants from Italy to Albania. “With taxpayer money for her propaganda, she prolongs the suffering” and subcontracts the work at a much higher cost.

And the numbers are ridiculously low: “not 36,000 a year, but 536 migrants in two years,” Schlein said, quoting data from the Italian president’s office. “Since these detainees can’t be returned to their home countries directly from Albania, Italy will have to pay to have them come to Italy and then deport them,” she added.

Meanwhile, Schlein has her governing agenda ready with “five main priorities: health, education, decent jobs, industrial policies, digital, and the ecological transition, in a way that redistributes the benefits of renewable energies.”

Employment opportunities for Italian youth are minimal, as are incentives for women in the workforce. “After four years of Meloni, our growth rate is at zero,” Schlein says. “It’s the image of the complete failure of the economic and social policies of a right-wing nationalist government.… Progressives cannot accept this. We must readapt those rules to fight a new form of exploitation, especially of the young generation.”

It’s an understatement to point out that a national campaign between two women is unprecedented in heavily patriarchal, Catholic Italy. Meloni echoes the American right wing in promoting what she considers traditional family values (though she herself is separated from her former partner, with whom she had a daughter out of wedlock). She regularly touts: “I’m Giorgia, I’m a woman, I’m a mother, I’m a Christian!” Schlein’s retort is: “I am a woman. I love another woman. I am not a mother, but I am not less of a woman for this.”

It’s hard to say how well this riposte might play. Support for same-sex unions hit a high of 80 percent in Italy in one 2025 poll. And yet, Italy remains the only country in Western Europe where same-sex marriage is not legal.

Schlein will try to build her case more around policy than emotion. “The right wing talks a lot about the support of traditional families and traditional values,” she told me, “but they are cutting funds for kindergartens, and they blocked a proposal of the opposition that aims at having, like in other European countries, five months of paid parental leave for both parents.”

The digital economy and AI are also on Schlein’s mind, where she has an ally in another leader in Rome: Pope Leo. “I think this last Papal Encyclical … shows the risks of this unregulated progress of technology,” she said, referring to the pope’s recent forceful statement on technology and the global economy. She also wants to “ensure that the added value and benefits of technology are equally shared through society, and are redistributed, which is a fundamental word for the left and progressives in general.”

Schlein endorses an EU-wide platform on AI and digital, as a matter of “national security,” asking “what can France, Italy, Spain, or Germany do alone when you have 500 billion investment on AI in the U.S. and 500 billion investment from China?” She proposes a European research center, across the 27 EU countries. “Otherwise, we’re out of the game.”

Having served in the European Parliament, Schlein describes herself as “so passionate” about European federalism. “None of the big challenges we have ahead of us, including wars, inequalities, climate change, public health, different pandemics,” she believes, can be handled by one European country.

Schlein says that unlike Meloni, she would not have capitulated to Trump’s demand that NATO allies expand military expenditure to 5 percent of their gross domestic product, because it “will be the end of the economy and welfare of this country. Meloni should have done what [Spanish Prime Minister] Pedro Sanchez did and said, ‘I am loyal to the alliance. I will respect all the capacity objectives set by NATO,’ but not give in to Trump.”

Defense and military policies are precisely where Schlein must stealthily maneuver among the left coalition. There are internal contradictions among these parties, regarding pacifism, the willingness to be part of a European Defense Pact, and on strategy regarding Ukraine and Israel-Palestine.

Schlein told me: “We should continue to support Ukraine as we always did with Partido Democratico.… Putin has rewritten borders with the use of military force.… Trump is too sensitive … to the arguments of Putin. You cannot negotiate a just and lasting peace without the people who were criminally invaded sitting at the table.”

On the Middle East, Schlein tries to navigate a policy that defends both Israelis and Palestinians. “We were all happy about a ceasefire. But the problem we saw in the peace plan, so called, from Trump is that there were two important points missing—the end of the illegal occupation in the West Bank, and a clear perspective for the recognition of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.” She said Hamas “cannot be the future of Gaza” and that the Palestinian Authority “must go through reforms.” Meanwhile, “[Benjamin] Netanyahu and his extremist ministers,” along with Trump, must be held accountable for violating international law, she said.

So, can she defeat Meloni? Two recent elections offer a split analysis. Meloni suffered a major loss attempting to change the Italian Constitution in March to reduce the judiciary’s role. Schlein told me this vote succeeded with “an intergenerational bridge.” Young people who don’t turn out in force did this time at 67 percent, along with voters over 60, to defeat Meloni. It’s precisely the type of alliance Schlein needs to win in 2027. In municipal elections held in late May, however, the right largely held off the left’s challenges, with significant wins in Venice and Reggio Calabria.

But Schlein’s optimism and energy are contagious. Without doubt, she has mobilized a forlorn left. “The match is on. We are competitive,” she smiled. Importantly, she has expressed a willingness to run in a primary election with other parties in the alliance, assuming a victory will bring her greater credibility, and she believes “is the best solution for us to keep the coalition united.”

Before we parted, Schlein showed me her bracelet, “Testardamente Unitari,” meaning “Stubbornly United,” which she said she wears all the time, underscoring her determination. It’s the prerequisite she needs to beat Meloni, challenge Trumpian policies, and help stave off Steve Bannon’s dream of a MAGA-fied Europe.

The Supreme Court paved the way for the Trump administration to deport more than 350,000 Haitian and Syrian nationals in the United States who were previously protected by Temporary Protected Status designations. In doing so, the court effectively blessed Trump’s bigotry towards Haitians and dealt potentially catastrophic damage to federal civil-rights laws.

The court’s ruling in Mullin v. Doe dealt with two separate issues. One was whether Congress had barred the plaintiffs from seeking judicial review of the Secretary of Homeland Security’s decision to revoke the TPS designation for both Haiti and Syria. The other was whether the Haiti TPS revocation was illegal because it was made with a racially discriminatory purpose.

Both countries at issue experienced tremendous upheaval in the 2010s. Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake in 2010 that killed as many as 160,000 people and destroyed large swaths of the country and especially the capitol, Port-au-Prince. The ensuing social and economic crisis fueled political unrest and ubiquious gang violence. Gunmen stormed the presidential compound and killed Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, and the country has yet to elect a constitutional successor.

Syria also saw massive civilian displacements during its thirteen-year civil war, which began in 2011 as a protest movement against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. More than 650,000 people died in the ensuring conflict. Assad fled the country in 2024 as rebel forces captured Damascus. While the new government has built ties with major powers to end economic sanctions and rebuild the country, much of Syria’s economy and infrastructure remains in ruins.

Federal law allows the secretary of homeland security to grant temporary protected status—also known as TPS—to foreign nationals inside the United States when they are unable to return to their home countries due to extraordinary circumstances, like natural disasters or civil wars. While the law does not create a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship, it does generally protect TPS recipients from deportation without some other cause.

The Obama administration invoked TPS for Haitian and Syrian nationals in 2010 and 2012, respectively. Under federal law, the secretary of homeland security must conduct a review every 18 months to determine if the country in question “no longer continues to meet the conditions for designation.” The law requires the secretary to “consult with appropriate agencies of the government” before reaching that determination.

Since TPS status can hinge entirely on an executive-branch official’s determination, those protected from removal by it became a logical target for Trump officials after they retook power last year. The second Trump administration has dedicated itself to ethnically cleansing the United States, both by shutting down legal pathways for immigration and by removing as many non-white people from the country as possible through deportation.

To that end, the Trump administration has constructed a vast network of deportation warehouses to pressure people to leave by holding them in unsanitary and unsafe conditions. It has dismantled the nation’s refugee-resettlement program with the sole exception of white Afrikaners from South Africa. It has even claimed the power to abolish birthright citizenship by executive order; the Supreme Court will rule upon the legality of that step later this month.

In keeping with that goal, Trump also issued an executive order last year that instructed executive-branch officials to take a more “limited” approach to TPS designations. Then-Secretary Kristi Noem announced soon thereafter that she would be terminating the TPS designations for Haiti and Syria. A group of TPS recipients responded by suing her and the department to challenge her decision on multiple grounds. (Markwayne Mullin, who replaced Noem as secretary earlier this spring, is now the lead defendant.)

Congress, using its jurisdiction-stripping powers, had included a provision in the statute to forbid courts from exercising “judicial review of any determination of the [secretary] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state.” As a result, the TPS recipients had no ability to challenge the designation itself—for example, to argue that it was not yet safe to return to their home country.

Instead, the TPS recipients argued that they weren’t challenging Noem’s determination itself. Instead, they argued that she had illegally reached that determination by improperly following the law’s consultation requirement with other federal agencies. Alito, writing for the majority on Thursday, argued that the judicial-review bar applied to the entire deliberative process. “If the final agency action is unreviewable, then so too are subsidiary determinations,” he concluded. “This important principle ensures that challengers cannot avoid a judicial-review bar by creative pleading or clever lawyering.”

In the Haiti case, the district court also found that the TPS designation was illegal on Equal Protection Clause grounds because race was a motivating factor. It applied the Supreme Court’s test from the 1977 case Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corporation, which requires courts to evaluate whether race was a “motivating factor” by, among other things, looking into “evidence of intent” that can include “contemporary statements” by key officials.

It is not surprising that the district court ruled against the administration because Trump is vehemently and publicly racist towards Haitians. Accordingly, the court concluded that Trump had acted, “at least in part, with racial animus” because the president “repeatedly invoked racist tropes of national purity.” Findings like this are typically subject to clear-error review by appeals courts. In other words, they aren’t supposed to be overturned as long as they are “plausible,” Kagan noted in her dissent.

With Trump, that should be an easy threshold. “The evidence [the plaintiffs] have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print,” Kagan noted. “Indeed, one measure of the President’s way of speaking about Haitians is to compare it with the majority’s, which is unfailingly respectful.”

She cited Alito’s assertion that “poverty and deprivation are no reflection on character, and there is no justification for denigrating the character of Haitians who suffer from and bear no responsibility for their country’s ills.” At the same time, Kagan also quoted from Trump’s public comments about Haitians at length:

Haitians are “eating the dogs . . . . They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that live [in Springfield, Ohio].” And: Haitians are also eating “other things too that they’re not supposed to be.” And: Haitians in the United States “probably have AIDS.” And: Haiti is a “shithole country,” which is “filthy, dirty, [and] disgusting.” And: Haitian immigration is “like a death wish for our country.” And: Haitians, along with some others, are “poisoning the blood” of our country. And: “Why is it we only take people from shithole countries” like “Haiti [and] Somalia”? “Why cannot we have some people from Norway [and] Sweden?” The majority briefly replies that those remarks are not “overtly racial,” but it is hard to know what that means. Haitians are Black. (Norwegians and Swedes not so much.)

Alito, along with his five colleagues, divided up Trump’s statements into four categories. Some “express strong objections to the immigration that this country has experienced in recent decades” and to “many of the immigrants who have come here, particularly those who have come […] illegally,” which Trump “associate[s] with crime and other social ills.” Alito could have hardly sanitized them more than if he had used Clorox.

Other statements, Alito claimed, “express great displeasure with TPS” in general or “broadly denigrate the countries for which TPS designations have been granted—including Haiti—portraying them as hellish places to live.” Finally, Alito noted, some of Trump’s comments “malign Haitians who have come to the United States.” If only there were a shorter word to describe that.

After completing this act of transmutation, Alito then insisted that “none of the cited statements by either the president or the secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications.”

This is a deeply disturbing assessment on two levels. First, it is historically and linguistically illiterate. “The references—of filth, disease, and primitiveness—are shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes,” Kagan continued, quoting from precedent. “It is hard to imagine the statements being made today of any White community.” A Martian who arrived on Earth yesterday might be forgiven for not hearing echoes of Nazi Germany when the president says that a minority group is “poisoning the blood” of our country. Six Supreme Court justices have no excuse.

Alito and the court’s other conservative justices are more than capable of discerning discriminatory intent from public officials’ remarks in other contexts. In 2012, he and his conservative colleagues joined an opinion by then-Justice Anthony Kennedy that inferred anti-religious bigotry from a member of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for using the word “despicable” to describe a Christian baker’s refusal to sell wedding cakes to a same-sex couple. Trump’s language towards Haitians was considerably stronger than that. Indeed, the court’s conservatives routinely ascribe discriminatory intent in other religious-freedom cases where legitimate policy rationales are given.

Second, and perhaps more ominously, Alito’s opinion completely butchers the Arlington Heights test, which is commonly used in civil-rights cases. Under that test, the plaintiffs should prevail so long as they can prove race was a “motivating factor,” even if it wasn’t the sole or primary factor. Alito flipped the rule around by claiming that Trump’s remarks “expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications.” In short, any pretextual explanation for Trump’s comments could overcome the interpretation that they were racist.

Arlington Heights did not anticipate that a president would be as openly racist as Trump. It anticipated a more subtle search, which is why the court in 1977 urged judges to take into account the “historical background” of a policy, as well as a “specific sequence of events leading up to a challenged decision” and “departures from the normal procedural sequence.” The court’s decision came in a case involving zoning policy just over a decade after the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s passage. It envisioned applying to subtle forms of racial discrimination after the demise of overt ones.

Alito, once again, got it backward. The search for context as described by Arlington Heights was meant to identify racist rationales that might be otherwise cloaked by officials. To Alito, however, that search is actually meant to find pretexts to exonerate Trump. “Because application of that standard calls for consideration of the context in which a challenged statement was made, the immigration context is an important factor,” he wrote.

Kagan and her fellow dissenting justices thought this to be ridiculous. “No very ‘sensitive inquiry,’ of the kind Arlington Heights compels, is needed to see them for what [Trump’s statements] are; judges, as we often say, are ‘not required to exhibit a naiveté from which ordinary citizens are free,’” she explained.

This is hardly new territory for Alito: He performed the same pretzel-twisting to make it impossible to bring racial-gerrymandering claims in Louisiana v. Callais earlier this term. At the same time, rewriting Arlington Heights in this fashion is arguably worse because, unlike Callais, it applies in a much wider range of legal contexts. If the court’s reworked test applies outside of the immigration context, it could excuse a much greater range of bigotry by public officials, veiled or otherwise, than the current status quo.

Alito further excuses Trump’s remarks by claiming the plaintiffs themselves had given Trump a race-neutral reason by citing “the present administration’s general stance on immigration.” (As I’ve noted before, Alito has a hobby of sorts of making disfavored litigants act against their own interest.) He noted, puckishly, that the Trump administration had ended TPS for a wide range of countries from Asia, Africa, and South America and took this as evidence of a lack of racist intent.

“Most would regard this as a racially diverse group of countries, but [the plaintiffs] see them all as ‘non-white’ nations,” Alito claimed. “They claim that TPS has not been terminated for any predominantly white nation, and they therefore infer that the reason for the termination of the TPS designation for Haiti was having a predominantly nonwhite population.”

But, Alito noted, the reason that they haven’t done so is because no European country, except for war-torn former parts of Yugoslavia, had ever fallen under TPS and lost it. (Ukraine currently has one, he noted, but it won’t be up for review until later this year.) “The great majority of countries granted TPS have ranked among the poorest nations of the world, and no European nation falls into that category,” Alito coyly observed.

In the end, it comes as no real surprise that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority takes no issue with Trump’s description of Haiti as a “shithole country,” nor that it finds no racist motivation in describing them as eating people’s pets or poisoning the blood of the American Volk. They don’t see Trump’s remarks or actions as racist because they apparently agree with him.

For nine months I’ve been making a stink about the Trump administration’s imminent sale of the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, which houses the richest store of New Deal murals in Washington, D.C., including a series of Ben Shahn frescoes, situated along both sides of a 70-foot lobby corridor, that would be very, very hard to remove (and require a great deal of expertise to preserve). Shahn judged these murals “the best work I’ve done,” and I don’t disagree; they’re stunning to see in person.

Now there’s good news to share. On Thursday the General Services Administration, which manages real estate for the federal government, signaled for the first time that it wants to cancel the sale, based on an aspect that I didn’t know about—and which has nothing to do with the Cohen being (in the words of Gray Brechin, founder of the nonprofit Living New Deal) “a kind of Sistine Chapel of the New Deal.”

Earlier this month I was able to report a tiny glimmer of good news—two House Republicans had voted for an appropriations amendment introduced by Rep. Chellie Pingree, Democrat of Maine, to compel public release of a GSA feasibility study about refurbishing the Cohen. The amendment failed, but it was the first signal that we might see some bipartisan interest in saving the building. (For my earlier pieces about all this, click here, here, here, and here; see also follow-up coverage in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and USA Today.)

This week’s news is much better, and from the unlikeliest forum—a public meeting of the Public Buildings Reform Board, an independent government agency that, in a May 2025 report recommended the Cohen building’s sale and gave no indication that the Cohen was anything other than a cavernous and underutilized structure that nobody would ever miss. I have a strong suspicion that the PBRB didn’t know at the time about the Cohen’s art works (which in addition to the Shahns include important art works by Philip Guston, Seymour Fogel, and others).

Now, Ben Peters of The Washington Business Journal reported Thursday, the PBRB is putting the brakes on the sale. At the end of last year the Trump administration was so hot and bothered to unload four properties in Washington’s Southwest quadrant, including the Cohen, that the White House started soliciting bids—illegally, I might add—to demolish the buildings (since the land is what real estate developers really crave). The demolition didn’t happen, but this spring two of the four buildings were sold at, respectively, one-tenth and one-fifth of market value (in a local market for commercial real estate that was already seriously depressed). A third building outside the Southwest quadrant, the Old Post Office, also sold below market, but that’s a more complicated story of kleptocratic self-dealing by President Donald Trump.

At Thursday’s hearing, according to Peters, board member Michael Capuano said that “Our analysis shows that absent an identified anchor tenant with Southwest, the market is not ready to absorb all of this additional square footage.” Translation: We just staged two embarrassing fire sales in Southwest, so maybe we’d better slow the hell down. According to Peters, board members also expressed concern that the federal government has not yet agreed with the local District government on a master plan to redevelop the Southwest neighborhood.

But I haven’t even told you yet the really good news.

Making an appearance at the hearing was Rich Butterworth, senior analyst and adviser with the GSA’s Office of Real Property Utilization and Disposal and a career civil servant. Butterworth said (this is Peters’ paraphrase): “Infrastructure complications with the 1.2 million-square-foot Cohen Building at 330 Independence Ave. SW are prompting officials to potentially consider pulling it from a disposal list and instead attempt to reinvest in the property for continued government use.”

Having been focused on the Shahn murals throughout my reporting, my first thought on reading this was that “infrastructure” is a very odd word to describe precious art. But it turns out Butterworth wasn’t talking about any of the building’s murals or friezes. He was talking about the difficulty posed by the fact that the Cohen has a sort of Siamese twin, the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Federal Building, which houses staff for the Health and Human Services department, and which the federal government does not intend to sell.

The Switzer and the Cohen were built simultaneously, in roughly the same Egyptian-Revival-Meets-Art-Deco style, on opposite sides of C Street. They were designed by the same architect, Charles Z. Klauder, probably best known for building the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. And it turns out Klauder, when he designed these twin buildings, decided to save Uncle Sam a little money by having them share certain underground guts—heating and electrical equipment, I’m told, and some other utility-related gewgaws.

Apparently the two buildings are conjoined sufficiently that separating the Cohen from the Switzer in order to sell it would cost the federal government a lot of money that nobody gave a moment’s thought to until five minutes ago. Well, maybe the GSA thought about it, quietly. But Senator Joni Ernst, who wrote an amendment into a water resources bill last year requiring the Cohen’s sale, almost certainly did not. (She didn’t know about the art, even though the Cohen is situated a mere two blocks from the Capitol.) To sell the Cohen, Butterworth informed the committee, wouldn’t save the government money; it would cost the government money, because, he said, it would be “extremely expensive to replicate or sever those utilities.” Butterworth continued:

While a lot of people would like to see this building disposed of — and given its underutilization rate, we understand why — our thought is, unless we can solve that problem, that might be a building that’s better reinvested in and get back to a utilization rate that would make sense and justify the level of investment.

The way to save the Cohen, it turns out, is to save a bunch of dirty pipes and cables and ducts that you can’t even see because they run underneath C Street. With this revelation, Butterworth just made it a whole lot easier for Congress to stop the sale. Let’s raise a glass to the remarkable foresight of Charles Klauder.

“We remain concerned,” Mary Okin, assistant director of The Living New Deal, told me, “since the building is still on the accelerated disposal list, but we welcome any public announcement suggesting the building is not going to go up for sale.”

I do too, and I think probably we’re going to get one.

The California Science Center has unveiled its Space Shuttle Endeavour exhibit, featuring the retired spacecraft mounted in launch position with the familiar orange external tank and twin solid rocket boosters. The exhibit will be housed in the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, which is due to open on November 13, 2026, after a multi-year construction effort. Endeavour arrived at the California Science Center in 2012 after an overland journey from LAX. Following several years parked in what can best be described as a jumped-up hangar, it has now been moved into a vertical position with the tank and boosters attached. The museum isn't quite done. Although the Space Shuttle is now in place, months of artifact and exhibit installation work remain before visitors will be welcomed to view the vehicle. Prior to the installation, Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center in Florida was the de facto Space Shuttle exhibit, showing the vehicle as if on orbit with payload bay doors open. The California Science Center has upped the ante with a view of a Space Shuttle as if it were ready for launch. According to the museum, as well as admiring the stack, visitors will be able to ascend 140 feet alongside the vehicle in a gantry-style elevator, "evoking the experience of astronauts preparing for launch." The tank, ET-94, is the last remaining flight-qualified external tank and is mated to "real solid rocket boosters," the museum says. The earthquake risk posed by the 185-foot-tall stack has been addressed with a hefty concrete slab, approximately eight feet thick and weighing 1,800 tons, supported by six triple pendulum isolators. As construction got underway in 2023, Dennis Jenkins, a former NASA space shuttle engineer and director of the science center's Endeavour display project, told collectSPACE.com: "There is a 3-foot (0.9-meter) moat around the floating concrete slab so it can move three feet in any direction. "We don't dampen vertical motion, so whatever vertical motion the earthquake gives us is what we get, but horizontal motion we can move three feet in any direction." Jenkins also noted that the flight loads the vehicle was designed to take during launch meant that the hardware would likely survive "without permanent damage." Discovery, the most-flown surviving Space Shuttle orbiter, is currently at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. While Endeavour is now in launch position, and Atlantis is displayed as though on orbit, Discovery's ultimate fate remains unclear as lawmakers argue over whether and how it should be transported to Houston, Texas – a logistical challenge that could make the California Science Center's achievement seem like child's play. ®

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for its newsletters.

California Forever, the tech billionaire-backed group that hopes to build a city from scratch on farmland in the outer San Francisco Bay Area, is lobbying state leaders to fast-track a massive shipbuilding deal that would kick-start its development after years of local opposition. 

The billionaires behind the project are seeking a deal to expedite environmental reviews of the development and, if necessary, bypass county restrictions on building by being absorbed into Suisun City boundaries. They’ve hired former Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Hertzberg — Democratic architects of landmark environmental laws — to make their case, and are using the prospect of luring a major shipbuilder to California to accelerate the dealmaking.

California Forever has pursued its project for nearly a decade, though the vision has shifted: At first pitched as a walkable city with cottages, bike lanes and even a water park, the plan then added a major shipbuilding operation and, last summer, a manufacturing hub. 

California Forever’s proponents, led by the state’s powerful building trades union along with realtors, peace officers and pro-housing groups, argue the latest proposal would boost the state’s economy and bring an estimated half a million jobs to California. And now, a prospective tenant has emerged: Defense company Saronic Technologies, Inc., which builds autonomous vessels for use in national security, is deciding between California and Texas for its next factory. The state must fast-track the development or lose the deal, supporters argue.

The developers are seeking the state’s permission to use an 18-year-old environmental impact report for the shipyard development, limit any legal challenges to the project to 270 days, and allow Suisun City to annex their land if needed, according to Steinberg and Hertzberg. 

“In short, if legislation is not approved, California will lose billions of dollars in investments and tens of thousands of jobs this summer to Texas and other states,” proponents wrote in a joint letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders this week.

But some locals and lawmakers are skeptical, arguing that details about the project remain scarce. The proposed development would convert vast farmlands into factories and risk harming the surrounding ecosystem, they said, which deserves rigorous environmental review under the landmark California Environmental Quality Act that proponents are seeking to expedite. 

“For a project this scale in this location, it is what the [law] was designed for,” said Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Napa Democrat who represents the area. “A central question for the people of Solano County is: Is this going to be for the community or is this a conversion project that leaves them behind?”

State Sen. Christopher Cabaldon during a Senate floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento in February 2025. Credit: Fred Greaves for CalMatters

Opponents also slammed California Forever for pursuing relief behind closed doors with state leaders and circumventing local opposition. Since 2018, the group has secretly bought up agricultural land, shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars to court local residents and spent at least $330,000 lobbying the governor and legislative leaders for favorable legislation.

“I think they know that the only way this actually happens is under cover of darkness, by trying to essentially get the governor to work this plan for them,” said Jordan Grimes, legislative director at Greenbelt Alliance, which has advocated for streamlined environmental reviews for housing projects.

Secretive beginnings foment distrust

For residents of Solano County, an agricultural community on the outskirts of the Bay Area that includes coastal areas next to a deep-water shipping lane, the suspicion around California Forever has been hard to shake. 

The group’s subsidiary, Flannery Associates, started buying up farmland in 2018, eventually acquiring 62,000 acres while routinely refusing to answer questions about its backers. Some farmers later alleged the company used strong-arm tactics to get them to sell. 

In 2023, Flannery’s backers were unmasked as a group of wealthy venture capitalists including the founders of LinkedIn and Netscape, all led by former Goldman Sachs trader and real estate developer Jan Sramek. Marc Andreessen, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, holds investments in both California Forever and Saronic, the defense company eyeing California. Andreessen’s firm did not immediately return a CalMatters inquiry for comment.

Despite rocky beginnings, California Forever needed the majority of Solano County voters on its side due to a 1984 “orderly growth” law that requires voters to approve development on unincorporated land. 

In 2024, the company debuted the East Solano Plan to rezone 17,500 acres of agricultural land for a dense, 400,000-person city. The proposal was set to go before voters that year, but its backers pulled it following powerful grassroots opposition, poor polling and a county assessment that found holes in the plan. Sramek acknowledged the group likely moved too fast and said the initiative would go back before voters in 2026. 

Instead, the group has pivoted. The East Solano Plan has become the Suisun Expansion Plan and the Solano Shipyard. In January 2025, Suisun City’s city council directed its manager to explore expanding the city’s limits through annexation, which is now underway, although it could take years.

Highway 113 runs through land where California Forever plans to put its new city in Solano County. Credit: Loren Elliott for CalMatters

“The annexation and the ship building have been a clear way to work around the need for voter support in Solano County,” said Nate Huntington, a member of the grassroots group Solano Together, which formed in response to the secretive land purchases. Huntington pointed out that California Forever hasn’t even submitted a proposal for a shipbuilding facility to the county. 

“All of this has been happening in backrooms of Sacramento, and it’s not been publicly available.”

Seeking state environmental relief

California Forever is now selling the development to the state as a major incentive to lure manufacturers and shipbuilders to California — and the subsequent need for housing to accommodate the promised jobs. 

The company wants the governor and state lawmakers to cut red tape for the development and require enough housing for the new jobs. Steinberg and Hertzberg told CalMatters they are contemplating legislation to that end, but only after California Forever signs a lease with a manufacturer or shipbuilder. 

Their plan would allow the governor to designate construction on company land as “environmental leadership development projects,” which would effectively require any litigation to be resolved within 270 days. Steinberg authored the state law streamlining that process in 2013.

State law requires government agencies to prepare a report for any project that might have a significant impact on the environment. Instead of assessing the impact of the proposed shipyard, Steinberg and Hertzberg’s proposal would use a 2008 report, which designated the area where the shipyard would go as “water-dependent industrial usage.” Most of California Forever’s 7,500-acre planned footprint does not have that designation.

Steinberg told CalMatters the report is sufficient since the site has changed little.

“The state and county need the ability to say yes now to these numerous opportunities,” he said in a text. A new report, he said, “would require years of additional delay and lost opportunities.”

But the report is outdated, Cabaldon argues.

“This is completely different,” he said. “Just the notion that you would just say, ‘We are not going to do any assessments at all and we’ll just rely on this old one’ — that is not consistent with what the public interest is.” 

Steinberg and Hertzberg also want the state to require enough housing in the area, but to allow surrounding cities and Solano County to permit local housing developers to build first. 

But if local governments aren’t willing to or cannot build enough housing within the timeline the manufacturer or the shipbuilder wants, Steinberg and Hertzberg’s proposal would allow Suisun City to annex adjacent California Forever-owned county land into its city boundaries — a controversial idea that has drawn fierce local opposition. The move would be a “last resort,” Steinberg and Hertzberg stressed repeatedly.

The annexation would effectively bypass the county’s orderly growth initiative, which requires voters to have a say in development. 

“The shipbuilders and manufacturers need certainty on a much faster timeline,” Steinberg said.

Cabaldon said the pitch to build new housing to accommodate theoretical jobs is “fantastical,” noting that Saronic, the proposed ship-builder, is a leader in automation. 

“There’s no indication that this is going to generate on an ongoing basis that many jobs, and certainly not more jobs than we have housing for even today without building a single additional unit,” he said.

Historic union agreement prompts support

In January, California Forever announced it had signed a 40-year deal with the Napa/Solano Building Trades Council and Northern California Carpenters Union to use union labor to build its development. The agreement was an important political alliance for CEO Sramek, bringing more influential advocates to the table. 

According to Digital Democracy, both the Building Trades Council and the Carpenters Union have given roughly $10 million in direct donations to legislative candidates since 2000. 

Those advocates made themselves heard over the past few weeks, following a Texas county court approving significant tax incentives to lure Saronic to Brownsville. In a statement, Saronic said its nationwide search is still “active and ongoing.”

The California Alliance For Jobs, an alliance of influential construction companies and workers, drafted two letters in quick succession calling for legislative leaders to streamline the California Forever expansion and shipyard. 

“We champed at the bit to go all in to get this project moving, and to get legislation through Sacramento this session,” said Joshua Arce, the CEO of the alliance.

Suisun City Councilmember Princess Washington, who has consistently been the sole vote on the council against the annexation plan, said she feels organized labor is being used as “political pressure” to win approval. 

“Processes are slow, but they’re done that way through government to ensure that it’s being done correctly, that all parties of interest are being treated fairly, and there’s checks and balances,” Washington said. 

“It’s unheard of for a project to be done as quickly as they want it to be done.”

In a statement, California Forever spokesperson Jim Wunderman said any shipyard project will comply with all California environmental and land use laws. He said county supervisors already approved using the 2008 impact report, and that legislation would allow the group to “meet prospective employers’ timelines.”

He said by pursuing expansion within Suisun City, California Forever is following the community’s preferences by channeling new growth into existing cities.

An ongoing presence in the Capitol

Since 2024, California Forever has spent at least $330,000 lobbying the Legislature and governor’s office on bills and other actions, according to campaign finance records. 

Steinberg and Hertzberg told CalMatters they were hired in April as “special counsel,” not lobbyists, meaning they are spending less than a third of their time talking with public officials. 

Grimes, who said he respects Steinberg for leading landmark environmental land use reforms in the Legislature, said he’s disappointed in his advocacy for California Forever, “a project that is antithetical to all of this.”

Sheep graze on land where California Forever plans to build its new city in Solano County. Credit: Loren Elliott for CalMatters

California Forever reported spending $90,000 lobbying the governor’s office and the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, GO-Biz, last year on “federal shipbuilding activities and California business attraction and retention activities.” 

GO-Biz spokesperson Willie Rudman did not respond to questions about whether the agency plans to offer specific incentives to Saronic, saying the office had “discussed relevant state incentive programs with Saronic and explained how they operate.” 

Last fall though, GO-Biz helped organize a bid for Saronic to settle in Solano County. County staff reported during a board meeting that GO-Biz supported a legislative effort to override the county’s “orderly growth” law. 

County supervisors rushed through a proposal to change the boundaries of the Solano Shipyard to comply, but with just days remaining before the end of the legislative session, Assemblymember Lori Wilson, a Democrat from Suisun City, said there wasn’t time to introduce legislation. 

Since then, Wilson said, the proposal has been on the table, but “nothing’s been requested” of her office by California Forever. 

The company also urged lawmakers to act fast or risk losing the shipbuilder to Texas last year — a negotiating tactic common in economic development, Cabaldon said. 

But Cabaldon argued that Saronic will decide where to place its shipyard based on “defense needs of the United States of America” instead of state incentives.

“We have to negotiate with our eyes open.”

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A proposal that would have set a first-of-its-kind minimum wage for certain housing construction workers in California is dead for the year in the face of fierce opposition from a major construction union coalition. 

Assembly Bill 1751 would fast-track the approval of new townhouses. In exchange for using the law, developers would have been required to pay their workers at least $28 per hour. 

In a hearing before the state Senate Housing Committee, Oakland Democrat Buffy Wicks, a co-author of the bill, reluctantly agreed to strip out the minimum wage “based on the staunch opposition to this change by the Building Trades.”

Sen. Jesse Arreguín, the committee’s chair, ultimately made the stripping of the wage measure a condition of his approval. The Berkeley Democrat vowed to pursue a policy that would “establish some minimum floor” in the coming months that would be acceptable to all parties, including the the State Building and Construction Trades Council.

The council, known colloquially in Sacramento as “the trades,” is a union coalition made up of electricians, plumbers, sheet metal workers and other skilled trades. It has rallied against the measure since it was introduced in April, arguing that it would undermine federally determined “prevailing wage” rates — even higher minimum wage levels required for publicly funded projects.

The state’s unionized carpenters, a regular political foe of the trades on housing policy, disputed that characterization, arguing that residential construction workers rarely work on jobs where pay is determined by federal public work rules. The bill is sponsored by the New California Coalition, a centrist political advocacy group composed largely of business groups. 

After the wage provision was pulled, the trades — whose members showed up in droves to the hearing — went neutral on the bill.

The bill ultimately passed through the Senate Housing Committee, but not before a number of Democratic members expressed frustration with the stripping of the wage language. 

“We do have a segment of folks who do need to make more than just the minimum wage,” said Sen. Lena Gonzalez, a Long Beach Democrat. 

Wicks ended her testimony on a similar note.

“The idea to raise the floor from $16 to $28 seems like it should be an easy thing for us to do in this legislative body as Democrats,” she said. 

Even with the wage language jettisoned, trouble could lie ahead for AB 1751. Another Democrat on the committee, Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, noted that the changes made Wednesday did not address her concerns over the bill’s circumvention of local land-use authority. Durazo chairs the Local Government committee, where the bill heads next week.

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As the mercury climbs to disgusting heights, The Reg FOSS desk has picked out a few FOSS highlights from its overflowing mailbox, in case you fancy some Super Productivity while monitoring your AI habit. Prism Carbon Tracker The Prism carbon tracker is a neat idea for helping to instill a tiny bit of self control in the more dedicated botlickers on your development team. It's a plugin that integrates into Visual Studio Code. As the developer uses various "online coding assistants," Prism shows an estimate of how much CO₂ they're releasing in the process of outsourcing their mental activity to a datacenter somewhere. As the plugin's homepage says: "It captures token usage from GitHub Copilot Chat, Claude Code, and runtime LLM API calls, then calculates CO₂ equivalents and surfaces them in the sidebar, status bar, and a live dashboard." Prism comes out of a collaborative effort between the University of Bristol and ustwo, a majority employee-owned "global digital product studio." Ustwo's Nick Hegarty said: "Developers are not the problem, but a fundamental part of the solution. By making AI emissions visible during development, we hope to create greater awareness and support better decision-making. We believe even directional estimates can be valuable if they help start conversations and encourage more thoughtful AI usage." The emissions estimate uses "a transparent token-to-energy-to-carbon methodology informed by Green Software Foundation guidance and recent academic research." Super Productivity Maintainer Johannes Milan wrote to tell us about "Super Productivity." Normally a name like that would set our mental alarm bells ringing, but he did it just right. As a handy lesson for all the other breathlessly excited organizations out there, this is how to do it: with no hyperbole, and a terse text-only email with no formatting. He told us: "I maintain Super Productivity, a mature MIT-licensed local-first task manager and time tracker. It runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, web, and mobile; has Linux packages for Flatpak, Snap, AppImage, deb, and rpm; and works without accounts or telemetry." This is a good intro, so what does it do? It is "a local-first productivity app that is not another cloud suite: tasks, timeboxing, Pomodoro, time tracking, review, and issue tracker integrations in one offline-capable app." The phrase "local-first" twice makes us think he has a better idea of our interests than the PR people who tell us that they liked a random article from three years ago and so should write about their new AI-based product. If you want to see the source, it's on GitHub, and if you are more used to a bit of hyperbole, the product's homepage TAMOSS TAMOSS is a far more specialized tool, but may be very valuable to the people who need it. The name is short for Time-Addressable Media Open Source Store, and the product's homepage says "TAMOSS is an open source, Kubernetes-native implementation of the BBC TAMS API." Which of course merely left us wondering what the BBC TAMS API was, but happily, the Beeb has a bit over 100 years of experience at explaining stuff. It has some pretty good educational resources of its own. We suggest starting with the BBC R&D division's TAMS in 2025 – we found the introductory video there packed a decent summary into three and a half minutes. TAMS, short for Time-Addressable Media Store, is an API for a server that "can be used to store, query and access segmented media over HTTP." Most audio-visual media online is in the form of single, big, fat media files, which contain video, soundtrack, subtitles and more, all mixed together. This is very unhelpful if you want to edit the material, split off a soundtrack, or slow part of it down or whatever. It's a lowest common denominator sort of thing, but that's what all the tools understand and what existing servers know how to send. The TAMS spec lets a client request and receive separate parts of this (the sound, or the video, or both, or other data) by timeline using AMWA NMOS-compatible UUIDs over HTTP. NMOS here is the Networked Media Open Specifications from the Advanced Media Workflow Association. Did you know the BBC has its own GitHub? Us neither, but on it you'll find the open source TAMS API spec. The TAMS standard has its own site as well, and the Beeb hosts the BBC R&D white paper that the spec is based on. TAMS is a spec, not a product. There's nothing you can deploy there, which is where LiveWyer, a London-based Kubernetes and cloud-native consultancy, came in. It developed TAMOSS as open source, and it's publishing it for free under the Apache 2.0 license. The company told us "it lets any organisation run a fully functional, TAMS-compatible media store on its own infrastructure, whether that's from a laptop or a production cluster. No proprietary licensing, no vendor lock-in." ®

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On Nov. 3, Californians will vote on 14 statewide ballot measures on environment, taxation, election, housing and healthcare.

For months, interest groups sponsoring ballot initiatives spent heavily on ad blitzes and signature gathering to get on the ballot, but some agreed to withdraw high-profile proposals after striking deals with state leaders or other interest groups this week, ahead of Thursday’s deadline to finalize the November ballot.

Rideshare giant Uber and the state’s trial lawyers pulled rival measures in a deal with state lawmakers and healthcare labor unions, and the California Hospital Association agreed to pull two measures that would have capped hospital executive pay and restricted spending by healthcare unions.

Here’s what’s on your November ballot:

Billionaire tax

What it does: This high-profile measure would apply a one-time 5% wealth tax on the assets of roughly 200 California billionaires, to be paid over five years. Ninety percent of the revenue would go to pay for healthcare for low-income Californians and 10% toward education and food assistance programs.

Supporters: Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West, independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Teamsters California and AFSCME California

Opponents: Gov. Gavin Newsom, prominent billionaires including Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen, the California Teachers Association, California Primary Care Association and California Medical Association

Audit new tax spending

What it does: This measure in response to the billionaire tax proposal would require state audits of programs funded by new taxes. It would also apply revenue from new taxes to the state’s spending cap, which requires that spiking revenue go back to taxpayers or toward education. That would effectively cancel out the wealth tax proposal. If voters approve both measures, the one with more votes will prevail.

Supporters: Building a Better California, primarily funded by Brin and venture capitalists John Doerr and Michael Moritz, and Reform California, led by GOP Assemblymember Carl DeMaio of San Diego

Opponents: Proponents of the billionaire tax initiative

Prohibit new personal property tax and retroactive taxes

What it does: This measure is also aimed at undercutting the wealth tax proposal. It would prevent new taxes on personal property, which would offset the wealth tax. If both pass, the one with more votes prevails. 

Supporters: Building a Better California and Reform California

Opponents: Proponents of the billionaire tax initiative

Make high-earner income tax permanent

What it does: The measure seeks to make permanent a temporary income tax — up to 12% — on high earners that voters approved in 2012. The tax applies to household income over $721,000 for couples and over $360,000 for individuals. The tax generates between $5 billion and $15 billion each year for K-12 schools and community colleges. It is set to expire in 2031.

Supporters: The California Teachers Association, California Federation of Teachers and California School Employees Association

Opponents: California Taxpayers Association

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks about his state budget proposal May 14 in Sacramento. Credit: Jeff Chiu / Associated Press Higher threshold for local special taxes

What it does: This would raise the threshold for citizen-driven special tax ballot initiatives to pass from a simple majority to two-thirds, making it harder to impose or increase taxes. The measure, placed on the ballot at the last minute by state lawmakers, reflects a deal state leaders struck with Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. 

Supporters: Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, California legislators, Newsom

Affordable housing bond

What it does: This would allow the state to borrow a record $11.25 billion for affordable housing, with $10 billion to buy, build, rehabilitate and preserve affordable homes and $1.25 billion to help veterans buy homes.

Supporters: Newsom, Democratic state lawmakers, the California Apartment Association and AFL-CIO California

Opponents: Republican state lawmakers

$25 billion homebuying loan

What it does: This would create a $25 billion mortgage loan program for home buyers who make less than 200% of the area median income. The measure would offer fixed-rate mortgages for up to 17% of the purchase price on homes priced under $1.5 million. Home buyers must pay at least 3% of their down payment. 

Supporters: Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Hertzberg, Building a Better California, the California Association of Realtors, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and Western States Regional Council of Carpenters

Rainy day fund

What it does: This constitutional amendment from top Democratic leaders would allow the state to deposit up to 20% of its general fund tax revenue into its rainy day fund each year, instead of the current 10%. The state could also spend some tax revenue to pay down its $20 billion federal unemployment insurance debt.

Supporters: Newsom and legislative Democrats

Opponents: Legislative Republicans

Expedited environmental review

What it does: This would amend the state’s landmark California Environmental Quality Act to create deadlines for environmental reviews of most housing, transportation, water, health and clean energy projects to speed up permitting and limit the court’s ability to stop or delay developments.

Supporters: California Chamber of Commerce, Building a Better California, the California Building Industry Association, Pacific Gas & Electric and Edison International

Opponents: Clean and Healthy California, a coalition of environmental advocates and the California State Building and Construction Trades Council

Voter ID

What it does: This constitutional amendment would require voters to present government-issued ID when voting in person or the last four digits of their ID number when voting by mail. Voters would be required to state under the penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. 

Supporters: Reform California, GOP U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert, and state Sen. Tony Strickland of Huntington Beach

Opponents: League of Women Voters of California, ACLU California Action and California Donor Table

Public campaign financing

What it does: This measure would allow state and local political candidates to tap into public funds for their campaigns. Public campaign financing has been banned in California since 1988. State lawmakers approved the measure last year to send it to voters this November.

Supporters: California Common Cause, California Clean Money Campaign and ACLU California Action

Opponents: California Taxpayers Association

Recall election reform

What it does: After a recall, this constitutional amendment would eliminate the election to pick a successor immediately, such as when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced recalled Gov. Gray Davis, instead leaving the post vacant until it’s filled in a separate election. It would also allow the recalled official to run for the office again.

Supporters: League of Women Voters, California Common Cause and Secretary of State Shirley Weber

Opponents: Election Integrity Project California

Clinic funding

What it does: This measure would require federally qualified health centers to spend 90% of revenue on direct patient care and services that aid in providing care to low-income and underserved people. Clinics that don’t comply would be fined; the money would go into a state-operated account for worker training and staffing. 

Supporters: Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West

Opponents: The California Primary Care Association, which represents clinics; the California Medical Association, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and the California Teachers Association

Immunology research bond

What it does: This would allow the state to borrow $8.4 billion in debt to research immune system-based technologies for treating conditions including cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s. The money would be divided between a University of California-affiliated nonprofit and a grant for public or nonprofit institutions. Any resulting technology and drugs from the research would be sold at 20% below the national average. 

Supporters: Gary Michelson, philanthropist and funder of the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, Meyer Luskin, philanthropist and institute board member, The ALS Association, The Alzheimer’s Association and Blood Cancer United

Opponents: Robert Kaplan, former associate director of the National Institutes of Health

CalMatters’ Ben Christopher contributed reporting.

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After Donald Trump kicked off his personalized celebration of America’s 250th birthday with a rally on the National Mall on Wednesday night, news accounts described the event as very sparsely attended. Trump himself practically begged for more people to show up to the next event set for July 4. Amusingly, this comes after Fox News madly hyped the Wednesday rally in an effort to drum up excitement. But then, as Matt Gertz of Media Matters reports in a good piece on all this, Fox grappled with the bad initial turnout by largely avoiding any discussion of it. We think that’s pretty revealing. So we talked to Gertz about all of it: We discuss why Trump’s gala is so important for the broader, more sinister Trump-Fox project that’s underway, the real reason Trump-Fox want our the 250th anniversary to be a celebration of Trump’s “personalist” rule, and what it will really mean if it’s all a bust. Listen to this episode here.

EPISODE 12 "What's everybody here for?" the Boss asks, peering worriedly at the long line of people extending out of the wedged-open door of Mission Control, continuing on down the corridor. "It's the amnesty," the PFY replies. "The amnesty?" "Oh, I forget!" the PFY says. "You've not been here that long. Every year or so we run an amnesty, where users can fess up to damaging, destroying, or losing our equipment, no questions asked." "No questions?" "Well, typically they'll explain what they did, because it's amnesty day – for one day only – and there's no retribution." "Retribution?!" "Yeah. Well, take this bloke. This is his six-month-old laptop. It's a laptop that we expressly told him – several times – not to carry around with the cables still plugged in. And what did he do?" "I... uh..." "He caught it in the lift door, damaging the power socket so that it only works if you put a book on the plug to hold it in a particular position." "Well, surely you can repla-" "The rest of the USB-C functionality – i.e. the ability to use a dock, plug in an external mouse, etc., no longer works from that port." "Can't he use another port?" "Remember how I said several times? Yeah... There are no ports left. So anyway, retribution would normally see him 'upgraded' to a 19-inch i3 series 3 laptop, retrofitted with lead-acid batteries, along with an OHP and some slides – for his presentations." "But not today," I say, entering the conversation and handing our user a new-ish replacement machine. "Today we'll take his laptop and replace it with a similar model from a location where it's not needed." "So... you're just replacing people's equipment?" the Boss asks, as our user wanders off happily. "Sometimes. Other times, people just want to admit to, say, plugging an HDMI cable directly into a meeting room display instead of using the wall socket provided – then tripping over the cable and munging up the only spare HDMI socket in the screen. Then sneaking out of the room and pretending it was like that when they came in. Isn't that what happened?" The next user in front of us looks rather sheepish. "But no matter!" I continue. "We'll move that screen to another location with a lower use requirement, and it'll be good as new!" Our next user departs, relieved. "How's all this being paid for?" "As he said," the PFY responds, nodding at me, "we often just move items to an area that has a lower use requirement – somewhere the damage is unlikely to be noticed, or to someone that everybody hates. The rest of the damaged items were – tragically – destroyed in that fire." "What fire?" "The big fire we had," I reply. "When was that?" the Boss gasps. "Tomorrow morning," I say. "Probably." "Yes," the PFY says. "The big fire in the storage room. Like the one about four years ago – after which the insurance company told us we couldn't store large quantities of isopropyl in the building." "Or the one about two years ago, when the insurance company told us that storing piles of small pieces of timber – kindling, they called it, though the PFY maintained that he'd bought it to make a three-dimensional model of a CPU – on top of a piece of powered-up equipment with a dodgy heatsink during stress testing." "No," the PFY says, "we're very cautious about that sort of stuff now. Anyway, changing the topic a little – I'm thinking about taking up a hobby." "Really?" I cry. "I collect matchboxes and matchbooks – I've got boxes of them. Would you like me to bring in my collection to show you, tomorrow maybe?" "I was more thinking about collecting antique firearms," the PFY admits. "And it turns out there's a local company who supplies bulk black powder – with next-day delivery!!" "Wait a minute," the Boss interrupts. "That's not how insurance works." "Sure it is. All the stuff's damaged. We're just... consolidating... our claim. Think of the admin fees that a single large claim will save the insurer. They should be thanking us." "No," the Boss insists. "So what do we tell this user?" I say, pointing to the next in line. "By the look of it she has a laptop that her children have been using... as... an ice cream container?" "I… uh..." she says. "I'll let you decide," the Boss says smugly. "But we're not spending money on your little side hustle – and we're not indulging in insurance fraud." ... The next day ... "There's something wrong with my laptop," the Boss says. "The keys are sticking." "Have you been using this as an ice cream container?" the PFY asks, looking at the keyboard carefully. "No." "It certainly looks like it." "Wait. That's not my laptop!" "Sure it is. It was on your desk, wasn't it?" "Yes, but it's not my laptop!" "Please. Next you'll be telling me that your wall monitor didn't always have a broken HDMI cable." "What?! Look, I want my old laptop back!" "Ah, you mean the one with the broken USB-C ports." "NO. I want MY old laptop." "But that IS your old laptop. I could check the serial number in the fixed asset register, but I'm pretty sure it'll match that machine." "I bet it won't." "Oh it does. I just checked it this morning, coincidentally. In fact, I checked all your asset numbers and all of them match. The iPad with the cracked screen, the multifunction printer that's had vinyl run through it..." "I don't have a multifunction printer." "The asset register says you do. A real monster, with four A3 trays. I'm surprised you didn't smell the burned plastic when you opened the door." "Was that what that smell…" "Then there's the secure shelf unit with the electronic lock that doesn't have a way of supplying power when the internal battery runs out. Apparently that's where you keep all those spare laptops with the broken hinges. That said, not many of our users have a portable diesel backup generator that you accidentally filled with petrol after taking it camping." "I've never BEEN camping," the Boss sighs. "OK, you win. We can have an amnesty day." "Yeah. We did. It was yesterday. One day only. TODAY, you just have a lot of broken crap." "So, nothing in my office works?" the Boss snaps. "There is a gas-powered fire starter in your top drawer," the PFY suggests. "Oh, and a 5 kg carton of black powder." "They're on top of that generator..." I add. ® BOFH: Previous episodes on The Register The Compleat BOFH Archives 95-99

ON CALL Supporting IT and keeping it secure is a serious endeavor. Which is why The Register lightens up Friday mornings with a fresh installment of On Call, the reader-contributed column that shares your tales of tech support trauma. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Colin" who told us about a recent gig at a customer that decided to improve the security of its Microsoft 365 implementation – chasing the Secure Score that Redmond uses to rate resilience. "We spent a good amount of time working with the customer and agreed a rollout plan to ensure multi-factor authentication (MFA) was enabled across the board in accordance with a security baseline." Colin and his crew knew what to do, so when they flicked the switch on various upgrades, all went smoothly. Until it didn't. "The following morning, one of the senior directors of the company – who was allegedly the COO of a cybersecurity company – called our service desk and started yelling." Amid the yelling and accusations, Colin and his colleagues picked out an allegation that the company had been brought to its knees by the need to register for MFA, which had crippled an invoicing system and would surely result in ruin within a disastrously short time frame. "Once she allowed us to speak, it turned out that the problem only impacted three or four phones," Colin wrote. The support team investigated and quickly learned the real problem was with the invoicing software, which promised MFA support but relied on buggy software to make it happen. The director didn't care for that explanation and ordered an instant rollback that we understand remains in place. Colin found it stunning that the former COO of a security company wasn't willing to wait for a workaround, so delivered the desired result: no MFA, and worse security. He told us this client often made nonsensical requests, such as demanding that a particular engineer – who cannot drive – visit a remote site ASAP to fix a printer. On another occasion, the same person claimed Colin's work on M365 caused a power outage! Have you ever been told to make IT worse? If so, click here to send On Call an email so we can make the column better on a future Friday. ®

Microsoft has oh-so-quietly extended its offer of extended security updates for consumer users of Windows 10. The Windows giant ended support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, when it stopped shipping fixes and updates – unless users coughed up for an extended patch package. Redmond’s offer for business users includes an option for an extra three years of support, albeit with ratcheting costs that demonstrate Microsoft has an enormous preference for customers to adopt Windows 11. Consumer users of Windows 10 could acquire an extra year of patches any time up to October 13, 2026. In the last couple of days, Microsoft’s page explaining extended security support changed to mention users can sign up until October 12, 2027. Microsoft hasn’t explained why it’s extended the offer but it’s not hard to guess why: millions of users continue to use the OS – HP says 30 percent of its customers haven’t moved. StatCounter found that 26 percent of all Windows users it can see online continue to use Windows 10. The global population of active Windows boxes exceeds one billion, so hundreds of millions of PCs running Windows 10 remain in service. Microsoft has already committed to providing business customers with patches until 2028, so isn’t giving itself a massive amount of extra work by extending support for ordinary punters. Redmond will charge $30 for a year of extra patches, a far smaller sum than the price of the new PC that many users will need to get decent performance out of Windows 11 – or to run it at all given the newer OS requires TPM 2.0 and at least 4GB of RAM plus 64GB of storage. PC prices are also on the rise thanks to the AI boom meaning deep-pocketed hyperscalers are paying a premium for memory and solid-state storage devices. No tech manufacturer is immune: Apple has hiked Mac and iPad prices to cover the rising cost of RAM. Microsoft knows that’s a problem for the PC market because it recently said its developers are “lowering the baseline memory footprint for Windows.” That effort hasn’t yet delivered a change to Microsoft’s requirement for PCs running Windows 11 to employ 4GB of memory – or 16GB on AI PCs. Keeping Windows 10 secure for a little while longer might earn Microsoft some grudging appreciation – and a few bucks it might not be able to access from fresh Windows 11 license sales at a time punters are keeping their wallets shut. ®

⚡ Quick Take

• Supergirl has had a few origin stories in the pages of DC Comics over the decades.
• The 2026 movie uses the character’s first origin from the Silver Age.
• It ignores many of the changes the comics made in the modern iterations.

The character of Supergirl has existed in DC Comics for almost 70 years, and in that time, the character has had several different iterations of her backstory. Far more than her cousin Kal-El, whose origin story has remained fairly consistent for nearly nine decades. But which origin story is the DCU version of Kara Zor-El, played by Milly Alcock, using as its basis? Director Craig Gillespie went back to the very beginning in Supergirl. And they ignored many of the changes made in the more modern iterations.

DC Comics/DC Studios Supergirl’s Silver Age Origin Has Her Born After Krypton’s Destruction

Supergirl’s first appearance was in Action Comics #252, back in 1959. In this story, Kara explained her backstory to Superman when she landed on Earth. She explained to her cousin that she hailed from Argo City, a domed city that survived the destruction of Krypton. Zor-El’s intention with the dome was to keep Argonians healthier by breathing the purified air of the city. In a very Silver Age convention, we learned that when Krypton exploded, the chunk of the planet with Argo City on it just floated away, containing thousands of Kryptonian survivors alive, thanks to the dome.

DC Comics

Eventually, Zor-El and his wife, Alura, gave birth to a daughter on Argo, named Kara. She grew up there, but the Argonian society began to collapse once Zor-El discovered that the bedrock underneath Argo was becoming Kryptonite. This was during the time Kara hit her teens. Slowly, the Kryptonite in the soil began to poison the population. Zor-El and Alura, to protect their daughter, decided to send her to Earth to survive this second destruction. The 15-year-old Kara rocketed to Earth, where her superpowered older cousin Kal-El welcomed her, and she became the heroine Supergirl.

New Supergirls, New Origin Stories DC Comics

Supergirl famously died in the event series Crisis on Infinite Earths, back in 1985. And she remained dead for almost two decades. In that time, another heroine took on the name Supergirl. But she wasn’t a version of Kara, but an artificial lifeform from another dimension. Superman: The Animated Series introduced a version of Kara where she was Superman’s spiritual cousin, but not his literal one. In the DCAU, Argo wasn’t a chunk of Krypton, but a neighboring world that died when Krypton blew up. Kara was its sole survivor, whom Kal-El adopted as his cousin. But soon, the true Kara Zor-El would return to mainstream DC continuity, with a twist to her origin.

Supergirl’s 21st Century Origin Revision: Now Superman’s Older Cousin DC Comics

In 2004, DC reintroduced Kara, once again Superman’s teenage cousin. But this time, with a twist. This version of Kara was not born on Argo City after Krypton’s destruction. She was born on Krypton before its death, and knew her cousin Kal as a baby. Her father sent her to Earth to protect and raise her baby cousin when she was a teenager. But a meteor shower knocked her ship off course, and she didn’t arrive until her baby cousin was the adult hero Superman. This is the version introduced in 2004 by Jeph Loeb and Michael Turner, in the Batman/Superman story “The Supergirl from Krypton.” Smallville used a version of this origin, and later, the CW Arrowverse Supergirl series used a variation of it as well.

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The Complete Supergirl Costume History

When DC rebooted its universe in the 2011 series Flashpoint, it resulted in the New 52 universe. And Kara’s origin changed yet again. She was still sent to Earth to raise her baby cousin, but she landed in Siberia of all places. The 2023 Flash movie went with a version of this Kara Zor-El, even keeping her landing in Russia and being kept prisoner. But this new wrinkle was short-lived. In 2021, a high-profile new comic book would shine a light on the classic origin once more.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow Restores the Classic Origin DC Comics

The 2021 graphic novel Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, by Tom King and Bilquis Evely, restored the classic 1959 version of her origin. Which is what the new DCU version is going with. However, this series is not in continuity with the mainline DC Universe. According to the recent New History of the DC Universe by Mark Waid, Kara was a teenager when Kal was born, sent to Earth to raise him, but became stuck in a time warp. That’s the current canon in 2026. But with the DCU version restoring Kara’s classic 1959 origin story, it’s probably only a matter of time before it becomes canon in the comics again as well.

The post SUPERGIRL Doesn’t Use the Character’s Modern Origin appeared first on Nerdist.

⚡ Quick Take

• Supergirl (2026) features its lead character reacting differently to different colors of suns.
• This is very true in DC Comics history.

In Supergirl, Kara Zor-El is exposed to a green sun, which begins to poison her, and rob her of her powers first. But even the most hardcore DC Comics fans out there might not be aware of how different colored suns alter the biochemistry of those from Krypton, like Superman and Supergirl. Just as there are multi-colored Kryptonites, and many colored Lantern Corps besides green, the DCU also has many different suns. And they all have vastly different consequences on those who wear the ‘S’ shield. But let’s start with one of the deadliest suns for super folk, the green one.

Green Suns DC Comics

A green sun is pretty rare in the pages of DC Comics, although we do see one in Supergirl. A verdant star doesn’t just rob a Kryptonian of their powers like a red sun; it does so while slowly killing them. It basically does what green Kryptonite also does to them, only on a larger scale. Kal-El first came across a green sun in Superman #155 from 1962, in the story appropriately titled “Under a Green Sun.” The comic book Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, on which Supergirl is based, introduced the concept of the green sun not only taking her powers away, but also slowly poisoning her.

Yellow Suns DC Comics

Famously, Earth’s yellow sun is what gives Superman and Supergirl their powers. We’re talking about the baseline “Super” powers here, like super strength, invulnerability, flight, x-ray vision, heat vision, super hearing, freeze breath, and super speed. Any being native to a red sun world gains their powers under a yellow star, and that doesn’t just include Kryptonians. The alien Daxamites, like the hero Mon-El, fall under this rule as well. Even animals from red sun worlds get the same powers as humans under a yellow star, as proven by Krypto the Super dog. Yellow stars are why the supers are super.

Red Suns DC Comics

Since Krypton orbited a red sun named Rao, all native beings lose their powers under a similar red sun. A red sun isn’t like Kryptonite, as it won’t kill a Kryptonian. It will just render them powerless, as they would be if they were still on their homeworld. If Superman or Supergirl travels to Earth’s future where the yellow sun has turned red, they will lose all their powers, although not instantly. The first story to show Superman losing his abilities under a red sun world was in 1963, in Superman #164. In that story, Lex Luthor tricks Superman into traveling to a red sun world, so the two can have a fair fight. This story established red suns as taking away Superman’s powers.

Blue Suns DC Comics

In an early 2000s Action Comics story from writer Geoff Johns and Superman: The Movie director Richard Donner, we learned that Bizarro’s twisted version of Earth, actually called Hrtae (you try and pronounce it) orbits a blue sun. So what does a blue sun do to Kryptonians? It actually gives them all new powers, like “Superman vision,” which allows the Man of Steel to shoot beams out of his eyes that give regular folks Kryptonian powers. He gave his own Pa Kent powers this way, albeit briefly. The “extra charge” is supposedly because blue suns are much hotter than yellow ones. But not as hot as the next sun, which can really give Kal-El and Kara a boost.

Orange Suns DC Comics

An orange sun (sounds like a fruit drink) doesn’t strip Superman and Supergirl of their powers, but it does reduce them in half. Which makes all the sense, since it’s right between red and yellow on the spectrum. A trip to an orange sun world will give Kryptonians powers equivalent to Superman’s powers back in the Golden Age. This was back when he could “leap tall buildings in a single bound,” but not actually fly. The most recent example of Superman encountering an orange star was in 2020’s Superman #27, by writer Brian Michael Bendis.

White Suns DC Comics

A white sun is the hottest known sun in the DCU. And what it does to Kryptonians is nothing short of making them gods. A white sun will enhance Superman and Supergirl’s powers to nearly omnipotent levels. Under a white sun, Kryptonians can manipulate time, teleport, and create energy constructs, similar to Green Lantern. It also gives them tactile telekinesis, a power usually reserved for Superboy/Conner Kent. The first instance of Superman getting a power increase like this was in a ’70s issue of Super Friends, with a white dwarf star. It also gave non-Kryptonians (like Jimmy Olsen) powers. In 2023, in Action Comics #1050, DC added even more powers to his white sun upgrade.

RELATED ARTICLE

Christopher Reeve’s 1978 Cape Fabric Used for SUPERGIRL Cape Black Suns

The opposite of a white sun is a black sun. One of these robs a Kryptonian of their powers, but not as a red sun does. Since black suns emit no solar energy, they literally drain away the powers from a Kryptonian. So they don’t just stop powering up Kryptonian cells, they drain them like a battery.

Violet Suns DC Comics

Yes, there are even violet/purple suns in the DC Universe. Although, as far as we can tell, they’ve only appeared in one Superman story, way back in the Bronze Age of Comics. Under a purple star, a Kryptonian can actually warp reality, creating objects merely with their mind. Essentially, a purple sun gives someone from Krypton “mind over matter” powers. In the story “Mind Over Money,” from 1982’s Superman #371, Kal-El flies too close to a violet star going supernova, and absorbs the energy. He can then (temporarily) will what ever he thinks into existence. While we don’t think violet stars are official DC canon after many reboots, back in the early ’80s, it was. We’d like to think the late, great Prince was born under such a star. It would sure explain the musical superpowers.

DC Comics

Are there other colored suns out there in the DCU? What would a teal sun do to Supergirl, or a pink sun to Superman? We’d like to think one day, we’ll find out. In the meantime, Supergirl, starring Milly Alcock, is now playing in theaters everywhere.

The post How Different Colored Suns Affect Supergirl and Superman appeared first on Nerdist.

Chinese cybersecurity vendor Qihoo 360 claims it’s built an AI bug-finder that’s better than Anthropic’s Mythos model. CEO Zhou Hongyi revealed the model in a speech at the 14th Beijing Cybersecurity Conference, which Qihoo 360 organizes. Chinese media outlets have transcribed the talk, in which Zhou described Mythos as “equivalent to a ‘cyber nuclear weapon’,” because the USA’s ban on foreign nationals accessing the model gives America a tool with which to find flaws in software upon which other nations rely. Zhou thinks China needs equivalent capabilities as a deterrent, but suggested replicating Mythos is not a viable approach. “Mythos follows a typical large-scale model approach: the strongest model, the strongest computing power, and the strongest chips – a strategy of sheer brute force,” he said. “However, this path has an implicit prerequisite: your model capabilities must be sufficiently strong. Objectively speaking, domestically developed models still lag behind by 20 percent to 30 percent in underlying capabilities.” The CEO therefore thinks China can’t wait for its own models to catch up and needs to find another way to build Mythos-grade bug-finders. Helpfully, Qihoo 360 has found those alternative methods by distilling its 20 years of experience fighting cyber-threats and colossal malware library into security-specific models and agents. The company has put that to work in what Zhou described as a “multi-agent swarm.” “If the American approach is about cultivating a genius hacker, the 360 approach is about organizing a professional attack and defense team,” he said. “When faced with a target, the swarm doesn't perform single-point analysis, but rather collaborates: first, it models the threat and filters high-risk attack surfaces; then, it follows the data flow across files to discover potential vulnerabilities.” The company’s agents apparently “automatically build sandbox environments, automatically generate exploit code, and conduct real-world testing. The result is that every vulnerability is ‘confirmed’ rather than just suspected. After completing a task, the swarm also summarizes and reviews its performance, becoming smarter with each use. This is something a single large model can hardly do.” Qihoo calls this approach “Tulongfeng” and says it’s already finding flaws in open-source and commercial software. “We automatically discovered a Windows kernel privilege escalation vulnerability that had been dormant for five years, an Office remote code execution vulnerability that had been dormant for eight years, and an Excel vulnerability that had been dormant for 10 years, earning official recognition from Microsoft,” Zhou boasted. The CEO said the tool found plenty of flaws in OpenClaw – a feat that human researchers have also achieved. Zhou said Qihoo 360 has created another AI-powered security tool called “Yitianzhen” that automatically simulates potential attacks against an organization’s cyber-defenses, then suggests and/or implements remediations. The company has created an alliance of local cybersecurity companies to use it and create a bulwark against Project Glasswing – the group of entities Anthropic allows to use Mythos under controlled conditions. US authorities have sanctioned Qihoo 360 on grounds that it probably supplies China’s military. China's National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) often cites and publicizes the company’s research, sometimes in its documents that allege the US hacks itself to make China look bad. ®

Watsonville Community Hospital has appointed veteran healthcare executive Tim Moran as its interim chief executive officer as the community-owned hospital begins a search for a permanent leader.

The Pajaro Valley Health Care District Board of Directors unanimously approved Moran’s appointment during its June 24 meeting. He will replace current CEO Stephen Gray, who announced earlier this month that he is resigning. Gray’s last day is July 10, and Moran will begin July 11.

Moran is expected to serve as interim CEO for six months while the board conducts a search for a permanent replacement.

Board Chair Tony Nuñez said the hospital needed a leader who could provide stability during the transition.

“At this critical moment for Watsonville Community Hospital, our community needs and deserves a leader who can provide consistency and will support staff and physicians,” Nuñez said in a statement.

Moran previously served as interim CEO of Watsonville Community Hospital from December 2011 through March 2012. He has more than 30 years of healthcare leadership experience, according to the hospital.

Most recently, Moran was CEO of Chino Valley Medical Center, a 116-bed hospital in San Bernardino County. Before that, he led Tri-City Medical Center, a public district hospital in Oceanside, where he oversaw strategic planning, physician recruitment and partnerships, including an affiliation with UC San Diego Health.

The leadership change comes as Watsonville Community Hospital continues its recovery under public ownership. The hospital was purchased by the Pajaro Valley Health Care District in 2022 after community leaders and local governments raised funds to prevent its closure.

The board also created a CEO Recruitment Ad Hoc Committee to oversee the search for a permanent chief executive. Directors Emily Balli and Aleandra Friel were appointed to the committee.

According to the hospital, the committee will develop the recruitment process, gather input from staff, physicians, labor groups, community partners and the public, and recommend candidates for consideration by the full board. The search is expected to take several months.

Hospital officials said Watsonville Community Hospital has recently improved its financial position, citing positive operating revenue and more than $10 million in emergency state funding. Officials also pointed to recent patient safety ratings and ongoing Measure N-funded equipment upgrades as signs of continued progress.

penAI reportedly plans to share its newest model, GPT 5.6, with a select group of partners instead of to the broader public. The reason: the Trump administration told it to.

⚡ Quick Take

• Hasbro faces backlash after contractually requiring child actors to sign away the rights to their voices for use by AI.

Hasbro is facing controversy after asking its Peppa Pig child actors to sign the rights to their voices away to AI.

This is not the first time actors—specifically children—are being asked to do this. Because shows want to keep the same sound as long as they run, and children’s voices change as they age, studios are attempting to combat this with AI.

Hasbro

Over 1,000 people have signed an open letter condemning these clauses for child actors. The letter was created by the Agents of Young Performers Association (AYPA), and defends the rights of children to own the rights to their voices.

Though the letter technically named no names, according to Deadline, they were referring to Peppa Pig.

“Any agreement involving a child’s voice should be fully exempt from all AI usage. No child should have their future professional identity shaped by an AI model created before they were old enough to understand its consequences. Their voice should not become a permanent commercial asset before they have the legal and personal capacity to decide for themselves.”

These kinds of deals can have lifelong repercussions for child actors. They get no say in what their parents do with the rights to their voice, and once they reach adulthood, those consequences don’t just go away.

Issues when it comes to child actors’ rights and treatment have been in the public eye of late. After the lengthy Dan Schneider controversy, a whole world of mistreatment of Disney and Nickelodeon kids came to light. Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV was an exposé docu-series about abused child actors. I’m Glad My Mom Died was a memoir by Disney star Jennette McCurdy discussing her mother’s abusive control over her life and stardom.

Hasbro

While this is not quite as immediate a threat to children’s safety, it is one to their well-being and future careers. According to Deadline, Hasbro has acknowledged the letter’s existence.

“The protection of child performers is core to who Hasbro is, it’s part of our DNA. As industry standards around AI continue to evolve, we are committed to engaging with this issue in a responsible and transparent manner.”

There have been no confirmed updates to the contracts.

The post PEPPA PIG Child Actors Required to Sign Voice Rights to AI appeared first on Nerdist.

AI-POCALYPSE Several leading US AI companies joined with former US government officials on Thursday to form a bipartisan coalition focused on helping to prepare workers for the AI tsunami, even as many companies seem to be in a race to see who can replace human workers the fastest. Founded by former US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, RAISE US aims to "design and pilot new corporate incentives to retrain and redeploy workers, new approaches to support people through job transitions, and new training models tied to changing employer demand." The announcement talks up employer incentives but makes no mention of worker rights. It does, however, tease the possibility of wage insurance and career navigation "so changing jobs no longer means financial ruin." Winning political support for such benefits seems unlikely in a country where the federal minimum wage, frozen at $7.25 since 2009, "is at its lowest real value in 77 years," and healthcare costs could erase the solvency protection promised by wage insurance. Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and the OpenAI Foundation – vendors of the AI models inspiring recent layoffs – are anchor partners in RAISE US initiative. But its corporate backing is broader still, with financial sponsorship from Bank of America and the support of more than two dozen major companies and foundations. Amazon, having sacrificed 14,000 jobs on the altar of AI transformation last fall, said, "For Amazon, joining RAISE US is a natural extension of what we have been doing for years: investing in people, partnering with governments, and building programs that help workers and communities succeed." Microsoft, which ousted about 9,000 employees last July and recently dangled buyouts before a similar number of staff, offered a similar endorsement from VP and president Brad Smith. RAISE US intends to focus on: state workforce policy and programs; employer-driven worker transition plans; worker education and re-training programs; and policy recommendations. "America has a technology strategy for leading the global AI competition," said Raimondo, who will serve as CEO of RAISE US, in a statement. "It does not yet have a people strategy – and we cannot lead without one. If we build the best AI systems in the world and leave millions of Americans behind, we won’t have won anything; we’ll have automated our own decline." We haven't yet automated away software developer roles, but there are signs that's happening for designers and marketers. A recent employment report from venture capital firm SignalFire notes that tech hiring is at 25 percent less than what it was before the 2019 COVID pandemic, on a 12-month trailing basis. But some jobs have fared better than others. Engineering hiring is down only 11 percent during this period at major tech companies and is up seven percent at startups. Designers have fared worse, with hiring down 48 percent at large tech companies and down 22 percent at startups. Marketing roles have declined 36 percent at large organizations and are down 18 percent at startups. And among product managers, hiring is down 39 percent at tech giants but up two percent at startups. Amid this overall retrenchment, software engineers are proportionally more in demand, accounting for 55 percent of tech hiring, compared to 46 percent seven years ago. The AI job apocalypse is most evident among new hires with less than a year of experience, and college graduates. SignalFire's data shows that in 2016, about 22 percent of new hires at major tech companies had a year or less of experience. Today, that figure is about eight percent. Among startups, where about 15 percent of new hires were inexperienced a decade ago, today that number is just three percent. "The critical systemic risk arises when an entire industry stops investing in early-career talent," SignalFire says in its report. "By eliminating its new grad pipeline to optimize current balance sheets, the tech industry could face a severe leadership vacuum over the next decade." RAISE US certainly has its work cut out for it as its members keep cutting jobs. ®

It was a bad, bad week for immigrants at the nation’s highest court, a naked display of power and xenophobia where the Supreme Court conservatives started with their—well, President Donald Trump’s—desired result and worked backward. In a brutal series of 6-3 decisions, the conservatives upended settled law in favor of making Trump’s brutal anti-immigrant crackdown the law of the land.

Source