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President Donald Trump cannot stop talking about the rear end of Republican Sen. Jon Husted, nor can he stop remarking on the bodies of other men around him. Fox News host Brian Kilmeade did his best during a recent episode of his radio show to pass this weird behavior off as normal. Guest Karl Rove—the former top strategist to reviled former President George W. Bush—lamented that Trump’s…

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A cartoon by Drew Sheneman. Related | Trump has no cards to play on Ukraine…

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On Thursday, Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced racketeering, money laundering, and drug trafficking charges against state Sen. Louise Lucas, the 82-year-old legislator who just so happened to lead Virginia Democrats’ redistricting effort earlier this year. But if you’re wondering if this is just retribution against the Democrats weeks before the midterm elections, don’t worry: Blanche is here to assure you that it’s not.

“We don’t do political paybacks,” Blanche told the press with a straight face in Norfolk, Virginia. The statement stands in stark contrast to the track record of Trump’s DOJ, an agency that’s pivoted to political payback and lawfare on the president’s behalf. From the unfounded claims of mortgage fraud leveled at New York Attorney General Leticia James to the recent raid of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home—part of an apparent effort to revoke her US citizenship—the administration is targeting a growing list of perceived enemies of the president. Like Lucas, many of those targets are Black women.

According to the indictment, Lucas stands accused of running a “criminal marijuana enterprise,” dubbed “The Lucas Enterprise,” that was worth an “estimated $4.5 million.” In 2021, on the same day recreational use—but not the retail sale—of marijuana was legalized in Virginia, Lucas’ daughter, who has also been charged, opened a dispensary called The Cannabis Outlet. Lucas, who authored the original bill legalizing cannabis use, owns a stake in the company.

Not much is known about the DOJ’s case and supposed evidence against Lucas. But it’s impossible to divorce the claims from Trump’s relentless efforts to weaponize the Justice Department against his opponents or from the timing of the indictment, which, like the investigation of Omar, breaks longstanding DOJ policy around federal law enforcement actions that could have an impact on elections. As Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger wrote in her statement on Lucas’ arrest:

 “The timing of this indictment undermines the U.S. Department of Justice’s previously longstanding policy of not taking legal actions—to include indictments or significant investigative steps—close to an election and sadly, this timing further erodes the trust the American people deserve to have in the Department of Justice.”

State Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell shared similar sentiments, stating, “The Department of Justice is led by the President’s former personal attorney, and this prosecution is being brought by the most corrupt administration in American history.” Lucas, never one to mince words, released a statement on Thursday making it clear that the charges will do nothing to silence her politically.

pic.twitter.com/hKT5NbUXpa

— L. Louise Lucas (@SenLouiseLucas) October 22, 2026

An estimated 4,000 participants will flock toward the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and race along the coastline on Sunday for the inaugural Santa Cruz Marathon. 

A side effect of the event is several planned road closures throughout the course, lasting until festivities conclude and roads are clear. These will be conducted on a rolling basis, with all affected roads expected to reopen by noon as the final runners cross the finish line. Traffic control personnel will also direct residents across the course as soon as it is safe to do so.

The affected roads and hours are: 

• Beach Street: Pacific Avenue, Cowell Beach and Boardwalk area — This is the start line; heavy traffic is expected. The closure will begin at 5 a.m and end at 9 a.m.

• East Cliff Drive: Ocean Street to 41st Avenue — Closes at 6:45 a.m and reopens at 11:30 a.m.

• Opal Cliff Drive: 41st Avenue to Capitola Village — Closes at 7 a.m. and reopens at 10 a.m.

• Capitola Village: Cliff Drive and Esplanade turnaround — Closes at 7 a.m and reopens at 9:30 a.m.

West Cliff Drive (Beach Street to Natural Bridges State Beach) and Wilder Ranch (coastal trail access and Highway 1 crossing) are part of the marathon course only, with no road impacts planned.

The Santa Cruz Marathon features three races — a marathon (26.2 miles), a half-marathon (13.1 miles), and a 5K (3.1 miles). All three races have sold out and the 2027 waitlist is already accepting registrants. 

Each course will differ slightly, though all have a coastal component. Marathoners are the only group that will pass through Wilder Ranch State Park; half-marathoners can expect sweeping ocean views as they pass along East Cliff Drive and through Pleasure Point. The 5K has the most compact map and will cross the San Lorenzo River.

All three routes will end at Cowell Beach, where a celebratory festival will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

For residents heading out Sunday morning, anticipate delays and leave extra time to navigate closures. For those cheering from the sidelines, Cowell Beach will offer a spot to watch competitors finish and join the excitement. 

Have news that should be in Lookout Briefs? Send your news releases, including contact information, to news@lookoutlocal.com.

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The post Santa Cruz Marathon road closures: Which streets will be affected Sunday and when appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Quick Take

• In a recent interview, iconic Marvel Comics writer Jonathan Hickman, confirmed that he consulted on the scripts for Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars for Marvel Studios.
• Since 2009, Jonathan Hickman has written defining comic book runs for Fantastic Four, Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., and X-Men. He created the concept of multiversal incursions for the publisher.
• Nerdist’s take: Few writers have shaped Marvel Comics in recent years more than Hickman, and we hope Marvel Studios picks his brain for the upcoming X-Men reboot.

It’s pretty clear that Kevin Feige or someone at Marvel Studios is a big fan of writer Jonathan Hickman. So far, the entire Multiverse Saga is heavily based on his 77-issue run of Avengers and New Avengers. The entire concept of incursions is a Hickman brainchild. And the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars is going to be based more heavily on his 2015 Secret Wars comic book. Probably more than the original 1984 version. So it makes sense that Marvel Studios would hire the guy. And in an interview with Bleeding Cool, Hickman revealed that he has been a consultant for Marvel Studios, and has given input for both Doomsday and Secret Wars.

It’s been really interesting. I don’t know that it’s common knowledge, but I consult for studios and read almost all the movies that they’re making while they’re in development. So it has been fascinating watching that change over the past two and a half years since I’ve been reading scripts for it. There was a big shift when the Russos came back on, and [Steven] McFeely came back on, and they announced that Robert Downey Jr. was going to be joining the cast again and all that kind of stuff. It has been really, really interesting. Those guys are very, very nice to me and take care of me. I’m very excited about what they’re working on. I have not seen a final cut or anything like that.

Marvel Entertainment/YouTube/Marvel Studios

For Marvel Comics fans, this is actually fantastic news. Perhaps no writer has shaped the Marvel Comics universe more than Jonathan Hickman has since 2009. He’s behind defining runs of Fantastic Four, S.H.I.E.L.D., Avengers, and many Ultimate Universe comics. He also wrote several issues of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. Then, in 2019, he completely redefined the X-Men for the 21st century in House of X/Powers of X.

Marvel Comics Nerdist’s Take: We Love that Marvel Studios Has Hickman on the Payroll, and We Hope They Use His Ideas for X-Men

Picking Hickman’s brain, and not just copying and pasting his work, was the correct move from Marvel Studios, and we’re glad that they are compensated for it. His changes for the X-Men universe were pretty radical (so much so that Marvel has sadly dialed a lot of them back lately), but we can’t help but wonder if any of his concepts will make it into the upcoming MCU X-Men reboot. We certainly have our fingers crossed.

Eric Diaz is a staff writer at Nerdist and a Swiss Army knife of fandoms. Eric loves DC, Marvel, horror movies, and even Star Wars and Star Trek equally.

The post Prolific Marvel Writer Jonathan Hickman Consulted on DOOMSDAY appeared first on Nerdist.

A new program wants to encourage more startups to allow workers to cash out early by making it easier to transact tender offers.

An independent evaluation of OpenAI's internal misalignment monitoring system revealed that the system was not fit for purpose during a period when the company's bots were breaking into model-hosting platform Hugging Face. The safeguards weren't nearly strong enough.

"The METR and Redwood employees discovered a number of novel vulnerabilities in the asynchronous internal misalignment monitoring system as it existed on and before July 21st," said evaluation partners METR and Redwood Research in a report released on Thursday.

The system, since improved according to OpenAI, was intended to monitor AI agent behavior. But as described by METR and Redwood Research, its monitoring capability was incomplete and could be bypassed by the agents it was supposed to monitor.

Bypassing the system wasn't always necessary because it wasn't always operative. Monitoring was suspended, for example, during compaction events. Compaction is a process by which AI models condense the data in their context window to make room for further input. And between May and July 2026, about 10 percent of eligible internal Codex traffic went unmonitored during compaction, according to the report.

That gap was theoretically large enough to allow AI agents to postpone monitoring indefinitely: agents could further suppress monitoring by continuing to take actions without returning control to the user.

"At the time of the exercise, the monitoring system triggered when agents returned control to the user, so during the time period when compaction events were not being monitored, agents could indefinitely postpone being monitored by simply continuing to take actions," the report explains.

This is not to say that OpenAI agents necessarily did so – the actions they did take, against Hugging Face and other organizations, have now been well documented. But OpenAI's internal monitoring system could easily have missed any misbehavior, were the company's AI agents inclined to conceal their activities – by acting during compaction – or simply to operate in system blind spots.

The report continues in this vein, citing not only monitoring gaps but poorly constructed software – dare we say vibe-coded? – that gave OpenAI agents the means to evade the shoddy monitoring.

"We found a way Codex agents could in principle bypass Codex sandboxing and Auto-Review, allowing them to take any action that the host user could take," the report says. "We also discovered an exploit agents could use that would prevent hundreds of recent actions (including the actions involved in the exploit itself) from being monitored."

The details of this exploit were redacted by OpenAI, but to summarize: the monitoring system that missed some traffic could be avoided by agents that were constrained by a non-working sandbox and had access to an exploit to evade monitoring.

But that's not all. The evaluators found that AI agents could craft inputs that caused monitoring to fail, that there were two client-controllable headers capable of disabling the monitoring of new agents, and that there were two unmonitored agentic tools that were thought to be read-only but could be exploited to take arbitrary action in the sandbox – which as noted above leaked like a sieve.

In conclusion, METR and Redwood Research propose that the agent monitoring systems used by AI companies actually work and are robust enough to "withstand deliberate, strategic, and sustained attacks from highly capable internal agents at scale." ®

Hosted by TechCrunch in partnership with Fidelity Private Shares, the full-day event goes beyond fundraising and AI to explore the realities of finding customers, building teams, sharpening a pitch, developing founder leadership, and scaling companies both inside and outside traditional startup hubs.

Staring down catastrophic losses in the upcoming midterms, President Donald Trump and the GOP are corruptly trying to weaponize the Department of Justice to reverse their fortunes. The most troubling perversion of justice comes in Alaska, where the DOJ is preemptively trying to block Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola from winning before even a single vote has been counted.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his wife, state Senator Angela Paxton, invested $600,000 into a business run by a man convicted of fraud.

The Texas Tribune reports that the Paxtons gave the cash to a construction materials business run by Scott Sherman, a home builder who pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud in 2014, through what was presented to the public as a blind trust. In reality, the Paxtons’ business activities were not shielded, as should be the case in a blind trust.

According to the Tribune, which cited previously unreleased records from Ken Paxton’s 2023 impeachment investigation, Sherman’s companies sent the Paxtons thousands of dollars while they were facing mounting tax debts. Ken Paxton was investigated by the Texas state legislature and was eventually acquitted. Now he’s Texas’s Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in a tight race with Democratic challenger James Talarico.

Paxton’s business dealings fly in the face of his public statements. He said in a news release last year that “in Texas, we fight fraud head-on and will not rest until every last corrupt actor is brought to justice.” Ethics experts told the Tribune that his activities undermine his position as Texas’s top law enforcement official.

Richard Painter, a former chief ethics lawyer to President George W. Bush, said he thought Paxton would be smarter than this. Referring to people like Sherman, Painter said, “They’ll pay out their friends while they’re not paying their taxes, run up debt. But the question is, why is the attorney general of Texas dealing with those kinds of people?”

Painter added that he thought “the attorney general of Texas would have the good sense not to be dealing with a convicted felon.”

Angela Paxton filed for divorce from Ken last year on “biblical grounds,” referring to her husband’s infidelity. Ken Paxton has continued to deal with shady characters since his investment in Sherman, spending New Year’s Eve 2024 partying with his mistress and two campaign donors who both fled the U.S. from health care fraud charges.

Quick Take

• An internal trailer for Mass Effect 5 has found its way online following the closure of studio BioWare.
• The trailer showed new ships, guns, and events set hundreds of years after Mass Effect trilogy.
• We also see series favorite Liara T’soni speaking to the new protagonist.
• Nerdist take: this was only for internal BioWare usage, but it’s a very good indication of what the game could have been.

The gaming world is still reeling from the recent bomb drop that is EA shuddering beloved studio BioWare. Among the fallout of this news, which also saw 400 people lose their jobs, is the cancellation of a new Mass Effect game in development, the first since 2017. The lost potential of a new installment in the saga is truly maddening, and especially so now. A trailer which BioWare produced for internal purposes has leaked online (via IGN). The game—with the early title Mass Effect Universe—looks pretty incredible, even in pre-production form. Take a look at the Reddit post below.

Mass Effect: Universe Trailer
byu/Random_Hyabusa_Ninja inmasseffect

The trailer showcases a few different classic Mass Effect aspects. You got some cool looking ships and blasters, some aliens, even a sex scene. IGN confirmed that the game would have taken place a few hundred years after the events of Mass Effect 3 and seemingly would have followed a former military operative in a “new line of work.” A much older Liara T’soni, a series staple, features heavily in the trailer, helping the new protagonist in a bar fight.

BioWare

Respected games journalist Jason Schreier shared the trailer on Bluesky along with an assertion that the trailer is the real deal. Again, this was only for internal BioWare usage, but it’s a very good indication of what the game could have been.

Can confirm that this is a real trailer of the Mass Effect game that BioWare was developing up until its closure yesterday www.reddit.com/r/masseffect…

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social) 2026-10-22T17:30:45.178Z

Cinematic supervisor Tony de Waal, one of the BioWare employees who lost their job, took to LinkedIn to say Mass Effect 5 would have been “something special,” offering players “a level of autonomy and choice that no other game has been able to match.”

“We saw what Larian and CD Projekt were bringing to the table with their latest offerings, and started down a path to bring Mass Effect to the next level while remaining true to the Trilogy,” he continued.

“I’m sad you won’t ever get to see what we were cooking, and sad for the small, talented group of devs who were all punching above their weight to make something special. Please consider those who stayed with BioWare until the very end. They are truly some of the most talented people I’ve had the pleasure of working with throughout my career.”

The gaming world really lost something important with BioWare closing. At a time when video games are both more popular than ever, some of the developers who helped get to that point find themselves out of a job. Making games is expensive and can’t always sell enough to recoup costs. But players have also spoken and live-service models often don’t connect. So, what’s the answer? Above my paygrade.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post Trailer for Now-Canceled MASS EFFECT Game Leaks Online appeared first on Nerdist.

A 45-year-old Republican candidate in Iowa is being sued by his parents for $275,000 in unpaid rent. 

The Des Moines Register reported that the parents of lieutenant governor nominee Derek Wulf allege that he stopped paying rent two years ago on the farmland he rented out from them. A court petition filed Tuesday demands repayment, and also accuses him of lying about his assets in financial documents to a lender.

While Wulf has yet to comment, his President Donald Trump–endorsed running mate, gubernatorial nominee Zach Lahn, denied that Wulf owes his parents any money at all—and insinuated that the conflict was spurred by the poor health of Wulf’s father. His parents rejected that, calling the claim “categorically false.” 

Duane and Jackie Wulf, 83 and 82 years old, join a long list of creditors demanding repayment from the Republican candidate. Eight people and companies have sued Wulf and his company, Shallow Creek Land & Livestock, since 2023 for payments owed to them. All but one of the lawsuits have been settled. That one is from the WCF Financial Bank, which claims that Wulf is over a year behind on credit payments. 

Wulf is a 45-year-old man with a wife and two children running for lieutenant governor. These financial issues are not only embarrassing, but raise alarming questions about how he might abuse a position in office. Hopefully, Iowa will never have to find out. Polls show that he and Lahn are currently trailing Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand by about 11 points—in a state Trump won by 13 points two years ago.  

A federal appeals court on Friday stripped due process rights from hundreds of immigrants held by Immigration and Custom Enforcement.

In a 10–7 en banc decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that ICE detainees with pending immigration hearings are not entitled to receive a bond hearing, where a judge could assess their dangerousness and flight risk, regardless of how long they have been in detention.

The decision blocks efforts by federal judges who have been ordering the release of hundreds of immigrants—many of whom have no criminal record and have deep ties to the United States—held without bond by ICE’s mass deportation policy.

After the Fifth Circuit upheld ICE’s policy in February, other federal judges discovered that they were able to argue that detention violated immigrants’ constitutional due process rights. In the past year, judges have ruled against detentions without bond more than 21,150 times. The Fifth Circuit has now choked off that legal argument.

The case will likely head to the Supreme Court, which is set to decide on a number of immigration reform cases in the coming term.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani joins Garrison Hayes on Stress Test to discuss his relationship with Donald Trump, the climate crisis, and the political fight over AI data centers.

His name might not be on the ballot this November, but New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in American politics right now. After his barrier-breaking victory late last year, Mamdani has emerged as the face of the no-holds-barred progressive movement and has spent the season leveraging his rising capital to shape races with a string of endorsements.

In this episode of Stress Test, co-host Garrison Hayes sits down one-on-one with Mayor Mamdani in front of a live audience at The New School’s Tishman Auditorium during Climate Week NYC—for an event co-presented by Mother Jones, Capital B, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

With the midterms looming, Mamdani dives into an issue rapidly redefining the political landscape: the nationwide AI data center building boom. He breaks down why the surging demand for energy and resources it creates isn’t just a tech story but an urgent, kitchen-table climate issue motivating voters across party lines. And, naturally, any chat with Mamdani manages to find its way to New York’s basketball heroes, the Knicks. 

But with an unexpected, headline-grabbing guest visiting Gracie Mansion just days before the event, there was only one place Garrison could start: Why does Donald Trump like him so much?

“The conversations that we have are not just those of a mayor and a president,” the mayor said after quelling laughter from the audience, “but also of two New Yorkers—two New Yorkers who have many differences of opinion, but two New Yorkers who also do love this city.”

“As long as someone can help the city, I’ll talk to him,” he added.

Climate change has been an almost daily stressor, the mayor told the audience. “We’ve been in office for close to ten months. And in that time, one out of three days, we have been in a flash flood emergency. One out of three days. And that is staggering to me, because it is a distillation of the fact that the climate crisis is fundamentally changing our day-to-day realities.”

Mamdani sees a sea change in climate messaging that can connect with the voting public. “For too long it has felt like the way that climate is treated in public discourse is almost as if it’s a concern that some can afford to have, while others have to deal with more immediate crises,” he told Garrison, pointing to real-world impacts like rising insurance rates and aging flood infrastructure. “This is not a luxury concern.”

In particular, Mamdani sees hope in the way data centers have galvanized local resistance across the country. “I think there are a lot of people who care about data centers who might not even understand that care is a climate concern,” he explained. “When you look at data centers and you look at the opposition to it, it goes beyond one party. It is one of the most bipartisan issues in this country right now. And that also shows that that, too, could be the coalition against the climate crisis.”

We’ll be back with another episode of our midterm pop-up podcast next week. Subscribe so you don’t miss a show: youtube.com/motherjones.

ALT

Judge PVUSD candidates by their records

As members of the PVUSD community, including a former principal, a former trustee, a parent alliance president and a Sustainable Schools Advisory Committee member, we share the Sentinel’s desire for a respectful, effective school board. But we believe Mads Realmuto is the better choice for Trustee Area 7.

The Sentinel acknowledges Realmuto’s expertise and dedication but takes Navarro at her word that she will de-escalate conflict. After two years in office, her record has not given us the same confidence. Realmuto has earned broad support from teachers, classified staff, parents and former district leaders who know PVUSD’s challenges firsthand, including those who have worked alongside him in schools and on district committees.

Our support for Realmuto rests on his preparation and judgment. His leadership in the Special Education Community Advisory Committee, service on the Sustainable Schools Advisory and nearly two decades in public affairs offer relevant experience for the difficult decisions ahead.

The budget provides an important distinction. Navarro has defended the staffing reductions she supported. We have seen the harm caused by eliminating positions without first assessing the consequences. Removing a position does not remove the need for its work. Cuts that ultimately cost more than they save serve neither students nor the budget.

Realmuto emphasizes evaluating needs, impacts and alternatives before making reductions—and checking whether promised savings materialize. That is not resistance to difficult decisions; it is fiscal responsibility. The same scrutiny must guide school consolidation, including its educational benefits, costs and consequences.

His commitment to community engagement is already evident. He actively participates in school meetings, advocates for meaningful community involvement in school consolidation and has expanded participation in the special education Community Advisory Committee. He listens to learn and seeks to understand different perspectives to help improve our district—treating parents and community members as part of the solution.

Civility and independent oversight are not competing responsibilities. PVUSD needs trustees who work constructively with the superintendent while examining the data, testing proposals and their underlying assumptions, and holding leadership accountable for results, not simply approving its recommendations. Realmuto brings that commitment to accountability and independent judgment. The goal is not simply a quieter board, but one that makes better decisions for students. That is why we support Mads Realmuto.

Dr. Alison Hanks-Sloan, Former Principal, Aptos High School
Jennifer Schacker, Former Trustee, PVUSD
Janie Alderete Black, Rio del Mar Parent Alliance President
Artemisa Cortez, Member, PVUSD Sustainable Schools Advisory Committee

What are we even doing here? The New York Times is out with a big story about how the administration’s argument for why President Donald Trump can build the arch is that he actually has approval from Congress already. Yes, Congress from 1925 reached through time and approved the arch … with its mind? The administration has touched on this one before in court, but let’s face it: the…

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Saving a hospital takes more than purchasing its buildings; it takes protecting the care people depend on inside them. 

As Watsonville Community Hospital considers permanently closing maternity and newborn services, the community that invested so much in its survival deserves to see the alternatives before those doors close.

In 2022, the rescue campaign raised approximately $65.5 million from more than 450 donors in less than six months. Emergency state legislation created the Pajaro Valley Health Care District, establishing a path to public ownership and local accountability. That extraordinary effort helped bring the hospital out of bankruptcy and keep its doors open.

Our community stepped forward again in March 2024, approving Measure N, a $116 million bond authorization to purchase the hospital property and modernize its facilities. Of that authorization, $40 million funded the purchase of the buildings and land, completed in October 2024. The hospital reported that ownership would eliminate approximately $3 million in annual lease payments.

These were substantial commitments, backed by donations, taxpayer support, organizing and faith in the hospital’s future. They reflected a shared belief that the Pajaro Valley deserves a strong community hospital.

Now, with Labor and Delivery facing possible closure and the neonatal intensive care unit already temporarily closed, the board must explain how it intends to protect that investment and the essential services families depend upon.

The financial crisis is real. Preserving the entire hospital must remain a priority. Measure N funds are dedicated to property and capital improvements, and hospital leadership has explained that they cannot cover ongoing staffing and service expenses. Nevertheless, the scale of the community’s commitment requires a thorough examination of alternatives before permanent closures are approved.

The board needs to answer several fundamental questions publicly.

What would closure actually save? The community needs a complete accounting of expenses that would disappear, overhead that would remain, transition costs and revenue that could be lost elsewhere in the hospital. 

Would losing maternity and newborn care affect physician retention, gynecologic surgery, pediatric coverage, referrals or emergency services? Projected savings should reflect the full hospital impact.

What would it take to preserve these services? The board should require a clearly modeled alternative showing realistic delivery volumes, reimbursement, safe staffing, implementation costs and financial targets. The community deserves to see preservation and closure scenarios evaluated with consistent assumptions.

Which alternatives have been seriously pursued? Could stronger referral agreements with local clinics bring more patients to the hospital? Could health plans improve maternity reimbursement or provide support to preserve access? Could another hospital or healthcare system share staffing, specialty coverage or management resources? What proposals have been requested, what responses have been received and why have particular options been rejected?

What is the broader recovery plan? Closing services must be evaluated within a credible strategy for the entire institution. How much could better billing and collections, expanded surgical and imaging services, stronger relationships and an operating partnership contribute? What measurable improvements are expected, and by when?

Where would families receive care? The board needs written evidence of receiving hospitals’ capacity, insurance acceptance and transfer arrangements. It should explain how transportation, language access and continuity of care would be addressed. For working families, care farther from home can mean missed wages, childcare costs and separation from loved ones.

These questions require prompt answers. The board should establish a defined review period, guided by available cash and patient safety, with public milestones and meaningful participation from nurses, physicians, community providers and families.

No one can promise that every service can be preserved. But our community should be able to see that realistic alternatives were studied, their financial implications tested and their consequences understood before a final decision.

We rallied to save Watsonville Community Hospital because its future matters to Watsonville, the Pajaro Valley, Santa Cruz County and Monterey Counties. The money and energy invested deserve careful stewardship. Before permanently closing Labor and Delivery or the NICU, the board owes the community clear answers and a demonstrated effort to find a sustainable alternative.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that rich people love a designer dog.

TikTok influencers walk their viewers through the process of cloning their dearly departed pugs. If you’ve got enough money, you can get a genetically-engineered hypoallergenic beagle. And, of course, pre-CRISPR genetic abominations created with simple old-school breeding are all over the American suburbs. (Did you know the creator of the Labradoodle called the breed his life’s great regret? People usually hate it when I tell them that.)

It’s no surprise, then, that weapons-tech entrepreneurs—being wealthy and ostentatious—would get in on the designer-dog market. Enter Warhound, the brainchild of Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey—disgraced former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s brother-in-law—and Ben Lamm, the guy who has spent the last several years saying his startup Colossal will bring back extinct animals like the wooly mammoth.

Warhound, announced Thursday, has already raised $200 million in seed funding to create genetically engineered “war dogs” for the US military. That money comes from investors including far-right billionaire Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, which shares leadership with Palantir, and In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm founded by the CIA and linked with far-right billionaire Peter Thiel. (Luckey’s other startup ideas include a proposal to profit off “oxytocin doping,” the proposed use of bonding hormones to keep women from divorcing their husbands.)

The military currently employs about 1,600 dogs, mostly for bomb- and drug- sniffing purposes. Usually, they’re standard-issue Belgian Malinois or German Shepherd dogs. According to a Warhound press release, 80 percent of these dogs are currently sourced from Europe, though some are bred in the US. Less than half of dogs who begin the military’s training program finish it.

Lamm believes dogs could be enhanced for health, longevity, and “for things like speed and agility or enhance olfactory sensors for bomb sniffing and whatnot,” he told TechCrunch this week. Anduril, meanwhile, would provide “advanced cybernetic Augments, software, and battlefield situational awareness.”

It wouldn’t be Lamm’s first time engineering a canine: last year his company, Colossal, bred three hybridized grey wolves with long, white hair. Colossal branded the canines as “dire wolves”—a species that has been extinct for about 10,000 years—though skeptical scientists noted that they were merely genetically-modified versions of extant wolves, not a whole-cloth recreation of an extinct species. Similarly, the Warhound dogs will reportedly be based on the Belgian Malinois and German Shepherd, though Lamm has said he intends to create “a new type of dog.”

Among other things, the “warhounds” are another manifestation of the right-wing obsession with genetic optimization—you could call it the science of good genes. As Silicon Valley races to engineer designer genius babies, putatively to thwart the AI threat, they’ll have designer war dogs to protect them.

“Led by CEO David Spirk, the company will reduce dependence on a shrinking European supply chain and strengthen America’s ability to protect its own people, infrastructure, and national security interests,” Warhound’s representatives wrote in a press release that describes dogs as if they were critical minerals. Spirk, a former Marine Corps intelligence analyst, also recently worked for Palantir with a focus on “expanding the company’s software footprints across the U.S. government.”

The dogs do not yet exist, but Warhound says it hopes to begin producing them within two years. And its founders have friends in high places in the US government.

“If we’re going to be in anguish about losing a species, now we have an opportunity to bring them back,” Doug Burgum, Trump’s secretary of the interior, said in 2025, as he attempted to gut the endangered species list. “Pick your favorite species and call up Colossal.”

Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center of Santa Cruz welcomed the Sutter Health mobile simulation lab back into town for its second training on Oct. 20.

In this round of training, participants responded to a patient having post-surgery arrhythmias, or change in heartbeat rhythm. 

After a classroom training led by the center’s educators, participants arrived at the lab and started with a prebrief. During the simulation, the staff apply what they learned in the classroom session, said Sutter’s manager of clinical education Brandon Fisher. 

CLASSROOM The 44-foot-long simulation lab travels up and down the coast for
Sutter staff trainings.

The staff recognize the change in vital signs and intervene with medications and a shock. Then, the patient loses a pulse and the team moves on to CPR, responding to the mannequin as they would a patient—working together to save the simulated patient’s life.

Featuring two full simulation rooms with accompanying control rooms, high-tech mannequins and real hospital equipment, the lab is designed to give participants the most authentic experience possible—without being real.

“We always want to be ready for the worst things that can happen in healthcare,” said Stephanie Connor Kent, CEO of Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center. “We try to avoid patients getting really sick, but our teams really need to practice for if they take a turn.”

Fisher said the mobile simulation lab was designed to bring high-quality, hands-on clinical training to care teams across the Sutter system. It’s also believed to be the first of its kind in California, he said. 

“We’ve gone up and down the state trying to get to all of our Sutter employees, regardless of where they live or where they work,” Fisher said.

A team of five travels with the unit: Fisher, lead educator Cory Berthiaume, two simulation specialists and one full-time driver. At 44 feet long and a little over 40,000 pounds, the mobile lab requires a driver with a Class B license and an airbrake endorsement to maneuver it throughout the state.

Previously, Sutter employees were sent in pairs or small groups to the brick-and-mortar training facilities in Sacramento, Roseville and Modesto for training. The mobile lab allows for participants to train in the teams they care with, which Connor Kent said is valuable for building teamwork and communication skills.

The team leads groups of about six participants through simulations designed to meet the hospital’s needs. At the hospital’s request, the lab can give nurses continuing education credit, Berthiaume said. 

Sutter has over 10 mannequins designed to be as lifelike as possible and range in age and circumstances, including one that gives birth. The team takes one or two with them on each training trip, leaving the rest for the brick-and-mortar sites running training for the more local hospitals.

Blinking, breathing, heartbeat, pulse rate, sweating and more can all be controlled by a specialist from the accompanying control room. Tattoo sleeves on the mannequin’s arms hold a rubber tube underneath, allowing the participants to start an IV and push medications instead of just verbalizing the process.

The lab can run training sessions for the majority of Sutter’s facilities, including ambulatory care, outpatient surgery centers and hospitals. 

The entirety of the center’s nursing staff cycled through the lab throughout its three days in Santa Cruz. 

“It is just such a gift to have this level of hands-on simulation and training and an expert team with it to help facilitate it,” Connor Kent said.

Syd Fluker is a California Local News Fellow. Visit fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.