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    Trump’s mass federal cuts disrupt LA wildfire recovery: ‘It’s coming tumbling down’

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    On 13 April, Tess McGinley was working in her Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) cubicle in Los Angeles, calling people who had lost their homes in the January wildfires, when her team was told to stop what they were doing and leave the office immediately.McGinley, a 23-year-old team leader for AmeriCorps, the US agency for national service and volunteerism, was helping Fema by reviewing wildfire survivors’ cases to ensure they received housing assistance. Over the past six weeks, she and her seven teammates had reviewed more than 4,000 cases and made hundreds of calls to survivors. Now, even as the team drove home after their jobs were cut, their government phones kept ringing. “Survivors just kept calling us … And we weren’t able to help,” McGinley said.“I think of one survivor calling over and over, getting my voicemail, and thinking that Fema has abandoned them,” she added.View image in fullscreenMore than 400 AmeriCorps staff and volunteers were deployed in the aftermath of the January megafires that destroyed thousands of homes and businesses and killed 30 people. They helped 26,000 households affected by the fires and packed 21,000 food boxes. But in April, the agency placed about 90% of its staff on immediate leave.The cuts were among the harshest doled out by Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge). But AmeriCorps is just one of several agencies involved in the response to emergencies like the LA fires that has seen drastic reductions as Trump has sought to slash costs across the federal government and shift disaster preparedness on to state and local governments. Fema, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the army corps of engineers and the Small Business Administration (SBA) have all been affected as well.A flurry of lawsuits are challenging the Trump administration’s cuts to various federal departments, including two lawsuits led by the state of California and Democracy Forward over the gutting of AmeriCorps.But the cuts are already being acutely felt in LA’s burn zones. Disaster relief is composed of many different agencies at the local, state and federal levels, and the federal support is now being pulled out. “Jenga is one of the best ways to describe it,” said Kelly Daly, AmeriCorps employees union AFSCME Local 2027 president. “It’s going to come tumbling down.”The impact of AmeriCorps volunteersAnthony Garcia-Perez, 25, spent more than three months helping wildfire survivors, working six days a week and 10 hours a day. AmeriCorps made it possible for him to volunteer by covering his hotel and meals. He worked at a YMCA in Pasadena, handing out food and clothing donations to survivors, and at a disaster recovery center, assisting Fema workers and translating for wildfire survivors who only spoke Spanish.He recalls meeting a family of five who lost their home in the Eaton fire and became regulars at the YMCA. The mother, father and three young children were living in their car. The children had no toys. Garcia-Perez found dolls for the two girls, and a rattle toy for the family’s newborn son. “Seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces, getting something as simple as a doll, definitely made my day,” Garcia-Perez said. “The mom was overwhelmed. She started crying and thanking us for everything. We said we were more than happy to help. We’re here for them.”View image in fullscreenGarcia-Perez heard on 28 April that the funding supporting him was cut. “We were told to go back to our hotels, pack and then be ready to go home the next day,” he said.Nearly a month after leaving Los Angeles, his mind still turns to the families he helped. “I wonder if they’re OK, I wonder if they’re getting the help they need.”Crucial Small Business Administration loansAfter the fires, the Small Business Administration contributed $2bn in disaster loans – the largest source of federal disaster recovery for homeowners, renters, businesses and non-profits. In March, the Trump administration announced cuts to 43% of the agency’s workforce.Judy Chu, the US congresswoman who represents wildfire survivors in Altadena, said she feared the federal cuts would make it harder for survivors to navigate recovery. “So many of them need help, especially the elderly and disabled,” she said. “I worry about them being able to make their way through the morass of bureaucracy.”Chu said she had already heard from Altadena residents who felt frustrated by the federal cuts.View image in fullscreenA woman who lost her home in the Eaton fire had told Chu she had secured a loan from the SBA, support she said was crucial because she was underinsured and couldn’t afford to rebuild without a loan. Since the Doge cuts, she said her caseworker was not responsive and she experienced long wait times to get questions answered.“Our community was devastated,” the woman wrote to Chu. “We want to rebuild and move forward, but how can we when the very support we rely on is being stripped away?”Canceling Fema’s disaster aidTo help the city recover, Fema approved more than $200m in relief funds for eligible wildfire survivors, and helped fund transitional hotels and shelters. The agency also deployed 70 staff to help survivors apply for aid. The White House said in a statement that Fema deployed hundreds of staff to Los Angeles and provided shelter for more than 2,800 households.The agency delivered crucial aid in LA, but now it is facing possible extinction. Trump has threatened to get rid of Fema, and on 9 May, he fired its leader, Cameron Hamilton, one day after Hamilton publicly disagreed with dismantling the agency. The administration has fired hundreds of Fema employees and offered deferred resignations. Fema is ending door-to-door canvassing in disaster areas, and cancelling the $750m set to be allocated this year through the building resilient infrastructure and communities grant program, which funds local projects to protect against disasters including wildfires.Brad Sherman, the US congressman who represents the fire-stricken neighborhood of the Palisades, said Trump had demoralized federal workers when the president suggested getting rid of Fema while visiting Los Angeles in January. “I talked to Fema people, and they were, of course, upset. They’re professionals. They did their job. But it’s hard under those circumstances,” Sherman said.Sherman called it “absurd” that Trump wants to abolish Fema by pushing its responsibilities on to states. “The idea of shifting it to the states is absolutely crazy,” he said.Slashing army corps and EPA cleanup staffTwo federal agencies, the EPA and the army corps, are responsible for the majority of wildfire debris cleanup in Los Angeles. But both agencies are bleeding staff.“We’re relying on the army corps to do the debris removal, which is the single thing that has to happen before rebuilding can start,” Sherman said.As the climate crisis fuels more destructive wildfires, army corps workers are deploying to more burn zones. They had barely finished cleaning up after the fires in Lahaina, Hawaii, when they were deployed to Los Angeles, said Colin Smalley, president of IFPTE Local 777 representing army corps workers.The Doge deferred resignation program pushed a large number of army corps employees out the door, meaning there are fewer workers available to respond to wildfires, Smalley said. Supervisors can only approve staff to deploy to disaster missions to the extent that it doesn’t compromise the agency’s core functions, he explained. “It creates a concern about our ability to absorb these kinds of disasters. [Our disaster response] is jeopardized by these personnel actions that Elon Musk and Doge have forced upon us,” Smalley said.View image in fullscreenThe EPA, the agency responsible for the hazardous materials cleanup in Altadena and the Palisades, has faced brutal cuts, with Trump moving to reduce staff to 1980s levels.When Doge began slashing EPA staff in early March, it prompted an urgent letter from members of Congress, including Chu and Sherman, asking the agency to reconsider. “In the wake of the recent California wildfires, it is more critical than ever that EPA is fully staffed and supported to ensure EPA’s efforts to identify hazardous materials on properties impacted by the Eaton and Palisades fires is completed promptly,” they wrote.EPA staff completed the hazardous debris removal in Los Angeles in record time, but the cuts will harm future wildfire recovery, said Mark Sims, who recently retired from his role representing EPA workers at Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20, IFPTE. He explained that the EPA was suffering brain drain as both senior and new staff leave in droves. “Their responses will be a lot less robust, and take a lot longer to do,” he said.White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in an email that “President Trump led a historic, record-breaking effort to clean up the damage from the LA wildfires, including turning on the water to prevent further tragedy,” referring to a widely debunked claim that Trump’s order for the Army Corps to release billions of gallons of irrigation water could have helped Los Angeles fight the fires. Fire hydrants ran dry in the Palisades due to an infrastructure issue, not a water supply problem.She argued LA’s mayor, Karen Bass, and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, slowed down recovery efforts “by dragging their feet and bogging down the process with unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape” and the president had pushed them to speed up. “The Trump administration remains committed to empowering and working with state and local governments to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes,” she wrote.A White House official said AmeriCorps had failed eight consecutive audits and, in the fiscal year 2024, the agency had found and publicly reported $45m in improper payments, which are outside the control of the agency and were made by grantee partners.Trump has argued his federal cuts are necessary to root out fraud and waste. But McGinley, the AmeriCorps team leader, said part of her team’s job was to review cases and ensure people were not receiving double benefits. “It made a difference that it helped people receive housing assistance, and it helped identify that waste in the government system, too,” she said.“My team worked really hard,” McGinley said. She recalled a woman who lost her home in the Eaton fire. She was blind, making it harder for her to upload the necessary documents to receive assistance. But McGinley’s team sent people to the woman’s hotel to help her upload the files to prove she was eligible. “She was able to stay in housing, which is huge after you’ve lost everything in your life,” McGinley said. More

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      Casualties in Trump’s war on the arts: the small museums keeping local history alive

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      For the past two years, a small arts non-profit has been telling stories about the communities living alongside the Los Angeles river, one voice at a time.The organization, called Clockshop, has collected the oral histories of nearly 70 local residents, activists and elected officials. Their knowledge is compiled in a vast cultural atlas – which contains videos, an interactive map and a self-guided tour exploring the waterway and its transformation from a home for the Indigenous Tongva people to a popular, rapidly gentrifying urban space.But in April, the future of the ever-growing atlas was thrown in uncertainty, when a three-year federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the agency that supports libraries, archives and museums, was terminated 17 months early. The grant, originally for $150,000, still had $20,000 left to pay out. “There is no recourse to recover the funds still in the grant project activities,” the organization said in a post on Instagram.Now, executive director Sue Bell Yank says their mission to preserve the stories of residents ousted by gentrification could lead to “erasure of the past, of cultural self-determination, and a lack of understanding about how communities can successfully advocate for the kinds of neighborhoods we deserve”.Clockshop’s post foreshadowed an alarming message that would eventually be delivered to hundreds of other arts and cultural institutions across the US. As the Trump administration directed federal agencies to cancel grants that did not support the president’s new priorities, which focused on funding “projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity” and targeted anything broadly deemed “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion), millions of dollars dedicated to preserving local history and culture suddenly disappeared.Shortly after IMLS grants were terminated, so too were those awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). By Friday 2 May, a spreadsheet created by writer and theater director Annie Doren was being passed around the internet, aiming to catalog every organization that had lost their NEA funding. With more than 500 organizations on the list, the question shifted from who lost their funding to who didn’t.View image in fullscreenWhile organizations of all kinds were impacted, it is the small and midsized institutions that lack endowments, prominent donors, and broad outreach whose futures are particularly in jeopardy. The cuts have affected a broad swath of projects – from a documentary film-maker in Fresno making a film about a woman who has played Harriet Tubman in civil war reenactments for 30 years; to a dance performance about south-east Asian mothers in New York City, to an organization that brings films, book clubs and other cultural events to rural Montana.Rick Noguchi who runs a non-profit called California Humanities, said he has seen the 112 NEH grants it awarded across the state suspended indefinitely by the Trump administration. “There are many newer immigrant communities that don’t have deep donors and struggle with being able to find individual donors that step in to tell their stories.”‘The country is abandoning its citizens’Back in Los Angeles, the cuts have blanketed cultural institutions with feelings of anxiety and urgency. But their leaders are also fighting back, vowing to continue the work of preserving local history in spite of the administration’s threats to revoke non-profit status if they continue to champion DEI programs.The Japanese American National Museum (JANM), an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in LA’s Little Tokyo neighborhood that focuses on the history, culture and legacy of Japanese immigrants, initially lost grants that amounted to roughly $1.45m – though some have since been temporarily restored after a court order. Among those cut was a NEH landmarks of American history and culture grant, which funded a workshop helping teachers build a curriculum about the history of Japanese incarceration during the second world war. JANM CEO Ann Burroughs said that the program benefits approximately 20,000 students a year.“It was very much to ensure that the history was never forgotten,” Burroughs said about the museum’s mission and outreach. “It was also to ensure that what happened to Japanese Americans never happened to anybody else.”View image in fullscreenLos Angeles’s One Institute, which houses the largest queer archive in the world, also uses their collection to help educate others on queer history and marginalization. They lost a $15,000 NEA grant to support their upcoming annual festival in October, and now they are scrambling to hold fundraisers to keep the festival on track.Tony Valenzuela, the organization’s executive director, said that their event is important because it covers a gap in education. “Even in liberal states like California, only a fraction of students learn about the contributions of queer people to society,” Valenzuela said. “If the government abandons funding non-profits and other individuals and organizations providing a social good, this country will also be abandoning whole swaths of its citizens who greatly benefit from this work.”Another organization that was hit hard was the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), which operates the Skid Row History Museum & Archive, located just a few blocks north of the neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles. They lost four grants administered by IMLS, NEH, and California Humanities, and are unlikely to receive an NEA grant that normally keeps the organization running – a total value of nearly $144,000 dollars, or 22% of the organization’s annual budget.Like Clockshop, the LAPD’s exhibitions, public programs and archives chart the ways Skid Row has been transformed – and nearly erased – due to development and gentrification. “Not everyone sees Skid Row as a community, let alone a thriving arts community,” said Henry Apodaca, LAPD’s media archivist. “This is a critical counter narrative to popular narratives that we’ve all been inundated with when talking about Skid Row.”View image in fullscreenOne of the terminated grants was an IMLS grant for small museums, which was being used to support a project called Welcome to the Covid Hotel. The project, named for the temporary medical treatment centers that popped up in vacant hotels during the pandemic to care for unhoused people, culminated in an exhibition and a series of theatrical performances based on interviews with patients, nurses and social workers.“There’s stories of people coming in blind and getting cataract surgeries,” explains LAPD’s co-founder and artistic director, John Malpede. “Someone with gangrene needed to have his legs amputated, and it saved his life. And most people got and accepted some form of next-step housing.”Malpede’s performance is a creative way for policymakers to notice the Covid Hotels’ impact and potentially make the sites into permanent fixtures. When the grants were canceled, LAPD was still waiting on more than $38,000 to come through: money that was supposed to pay venues, crew and performers for events that took place in April, as well as upcoming performances in May and June, and a forthcoming publication. While LAPD aims to move forward with their plans, they are uncertain on how to fund it.After going public on social media, private donors have since stepped up to help the JANM and Clockshop recoup their losses. LAPD and the One Institute, however, are still looking for support. Without this funding, not only could the non-profits disband, but also the communities that have flourished as a result of their work.As Malpede warns: “It’s only because of the neighborhood standing up and using its own history that it continues to be present.” More

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      Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: ‘It’s terrifying’

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      Federal authorities have arrested people at US immigration courts from New York to Arizona to Washington state in what appears to be a coordinated operation, as the Trump administration ramps up the president’s mass deportation campaign.On Tuesday, agents who identified themselves only as federal officers arrested multiple people at an immigration court in Phoenix, taking people into custody outside the facility, according to immigrant advocates.In Miami on Wednesday, Juan Serrano, a 28-year-old who immigrated from Colombia, went to court for a quick check-in where a judge soon told him he was free to go. When he left the courtroom, federal agents waiting outside cuffed him and placed him in a van with several other immigrants detained that day.Journalists, advocates and attorneys reported seeing Ice agents poised to make arrests this week at immigration courthouses in Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York, Seattle, Chicago and Texas.Arrests near or in the immigration courts, which are part of the US Department of Justice, are typically rare – in part due to concerns that the fear of being detained by Ice officers could discourage people from appearing. “It’s bad policy,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). “By putting immigration officers in the courtrooms, they’re discouraging people from following the processes, punishing people for following the rules.”Toczylowski noted several Ice officers both inside and outside an immigration courtroom in Los Angles this week, but said she did not see any arrests made there. She said that immigrants without lawyers are especially vulnerable, as they may not understand the exact information and context they need to provide in order to advance their case for asylum or other pathways to permanent residency in the US.ImmDef and other legal groups are sending attorneys to courtrooms they believe may be targeted by Ice officials, to try to provide basic legal education and aid to people appearing at required appointments. The presence of agents is stirring panic, she said.“People are being detained and handcuffed in the hallway,” she said. “Can you imagine what you would be thinking, if you’re waiting there with your family and children, about to see a judge? It’s terrifying.”The agents’ targeting of immigrants at court comes as the Trump administration faces multiple lawsuits and the president attempts to enact the large-scale deportations he promised during his campaign.“All this is to accelerate detentions and expedite removals,” said Wilfredo Allen, an immigration attorney with decades of experience representing immigrants at the Miami immigration court.The Trump administration has revived a 2019 policy that allows for “expedited removals” – fast-tracked deportation proceedings for people who have been in the US for less than two years.Immigrants who cannot prove that they have been in the US for longer than two years are subject to having their cases dismissed and being immediately expelled from the country.Under the Biden administration, expedited removals were limited to people apprehended within 100 miles (160km) of the US border, and who had been in the US for less than two weeks.In Phoenix, immigrant advocates gathered outside immigration court to protest the presence of Ice agents. “We witnessed parents and children being detained and abducted into unmarked vans immediately after attending their scheduled immigration proceedings,” said Monica Sandschafer, the Arizona state director for the advocacy group Mi Familia Vota. “We demand an immediate stop to these hateful tactics.”Three US immigration officials told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that government attorneys were given the order to start dismissing cases when they showed up for work Monday, and were aware that federal agents would then be able to arrest those individuals when they left the courtroom.In the case of Serrano in Miami, the request for dismissal was delivered by a government attorney who spoke without identifying herself on the record, the Associated Press reported. She refused to provide her name to the AP and quickly exited the courtroom.US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement this week that it was detaining people who are subject to fast-track deportation authority.Advocates and lawyers are advising immigrants with upcoming hearings or court appearances to bring a trusted family member or friend who is a US citizen and ideally, a lawyer, to their appointments.The Associated Press contributed More

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      Fury as Republicans go ‘nuclear’ in fight over California car emissions

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      California has long been one of the nation’s preeminent eco-warriors, enacting landmark environmental standards for cars and trucks that go much further than those mandated by the federal government. Vehicles across the country are cleaner, more efficient and electric in greater numbers because of it.But that could all change if Donald Trump and his Republican allies manage to revoke the state’s ability to set its own, stricter emissions standards amid a White House crusade to combat climate-friendly policies.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets and updates its own federal standards for all states on smog and emissions from cars and trucks, which the Biden administration made even stricter last year, saying they will save American drivers thousands in fuel costs and maintenance over the life of a vehicle.But for decades, California has been granted the ability to make those rules even stricter to help address some of the worst smog and air quality issues in the nation, which are linked to a host of health effects that disproportionately affect people of color.On Wednesday, the Senate voted to reverse the waivers, in move that prompted fury from Democrats who call it a “nuclear” option, calling it an unprecedented, and illegal, use of the statute. The Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian have agreed, saying EPA waivers are not subject to the review law.The House approved similar resolutions earlier this month. The resolutions now go to the White House, where Trump is expected to sign them.“This move will harm public health and deteriorate air quality for millions of children and people across the country,” said senators Alex Padilla, Sheldon Whitehouse and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, in a statement.“This Senate vote is illegal. Republicans went around their own parliamentarian to defy decades of precedent. We won’t stand by as Trump Republicans make America smoggy again,” California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said in a statement on Thursday. “We’re going to fight this unconstitutional attack on California in court.”Kathy Harris, the director of clean vehicles at the Natural Resources Defense Council, emphasized California’s ability to mandate strict emissions standards for cars, trucks and buses had existed for nearly 60 years, noting the state had been granted more than 75 waivers under Republican and Democratic presidents.Among the waivers include rules to increase the share of electric vehicles each year among all new car and truck sales, as well as mandates that auto companies introduce progressively cleaner vehicles.She described the waivers as a “quadruple win”, benefiting public health, air quality, drivers’ pockets and the economy as a whole.“These waivers are not new or novel,” Harris said in an interview. “California has historically been innovators in systems to help produce cleaner air and stymying California’s ability is a direct attack on our ability to limit pollution and health harming pollutants in the air.”View image in fullscreenShe added revoking the waivers would immediately lead to an increase in pollution on the nation’s roadways.More than a dozen states follow California’s lead on emissions standards, according to the California air resources board. The standards now cover nearly 40% of new light-duty vehicle registrations and more than a quarter of heavy-duty vehicles like trucks across the entire US.Automakers have largely followed California’s emissions standards as well so they can continue to sell cars there, as the state equates to the fourth-largest economy on the planet.Newsom upped the ante in the nation’s environmental future in 2020, declaring his state would ban the sale of all new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. Eleven states have also joined California’s plan to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by the 2035 deadline, a reality that has spooked major car companies.Joe Biden’s administration approved the plan at the end of his term. Trump, however – a vehement opponent to many of the nation’s climate efforts – has vowed to see them reversed.“California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” Trump said during his campaign last year. “I will terminate that.”Newsom on Wednesday cast the battle as a nail in the coffin for the American car industry and decades of public health advancements.“The United States Senate has a choice: cede American car-industry dominance to China and clog the lungs of our children, or follow decades of precedent and uphold the clean-air policies that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon fought so hard for,” he challenged Republicans in a statement. “Will you side with China or America?”The Senate’s decision may have sweeping effects far beyond the state’s borders.Harris said she recently pulled up pictures of what air quality looked like in cities around the country in the 1960s before the Clean Air Act, the seminal environmental law that regulates the nation’s air quality, was in effect. She described normal levels of smog in California as blanketing the state similar to the apocalyptic clouds of wildfire smoke that have descended during recent fire seasons.The American Lung Association also found last month that Los Angeles remained the country’s smoggiest city for the 25th time in 26 years of tracking, despite decades of improvements in air quality.“I think we have forgotten about what our air used to look like,” Harris said. “We take it for granted because it’s a policy that’s been around for so long we don’t really recognize those direct benefits.“There is still a long way to go, we have not succeeded in fully cleaning up our air yet,” she added. “These types of policies help ensure we are moving in a positive direction.” More

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      California school district must halt ban on critical race theory, court rules

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      A small southern California school district must immediately pause its ban on critical race theory (CRT), a California appeals court ruled on Thursday morning .The 4th district court of appeals ruling put a halt to the Temecula Valley unified school district ban until its litigation is settled in the California legal system. The decision is the latest in a long-running legal battle over the CRT ban, which was first adopted as a resolution by the Temecula Valley Board of Education in December 2022 as they attempted to purge elementary school textbooks that reference gay rights icon Harvey Milk.The recent decision, authored by Judge Kathleen O’Leary, and concurred by the panel’s other two judges, said that the vague nature and lack of legal or academic terminology in the resolution jeopardized its constitutionality.“The Resolution defined CRT as ‘a divisive ideology that assigns moral fault to individuals solely on the basis of an individual’s race’ and, therefore, is itself a racist ideology,” O’Leary’s ruling said. “The Resolution operates as if this definition is universally accepted, but the text does not indicate where this definition is derived, or whether it is shared with anyone else besides the Board.”The ruling pointed to the resolution’s lack of examples of CRT, and lack of guidance for teachers looking to modify their curriculum.O’Leary’s other primary concern revolved around “confusion and fear” from educators due to the policy, and negative impacts on education provided. One fourth grade teacher submitted a letter of evidence stating that under the doctrine, “she did not know what a permissible response was when her students asked her how and why slavery happened.”“Teachers are left to self-censor and potentially overcorrect, depriving the students of a fully informed education and further exacerbating the teachers’ discomfort in the classroom,” O’Leary wrote. “Rather than lead the classroom and moderate healthy discussion, the teachers are forced to leave children’s questions unanswered.”The conflict over CRT in education has been divisive in Temecula, a historically conservative southern California city of just more than 100,000 people. The battle has followed familiar lines, with three conservative school board members elected in 2022 after running in opposition to mask and vaccine mandates, as well as “sexualized” material in school curriculums. The school board president also famously labeled Milk as a “pedophile” and originally rejected a state-issued social studies textbook including the assassinated gay rights activist. Gavin Newsom, the California governor, threatened a $1.5m fine in response.While the school district may have run into opposition in their community and at the appeals court, headwinds at the federal level are in their favor. In late January, Donald Trump signed executive orders to promote school choice, or the use of public dollars for private education, and to remove funding from schools accused of “radical indoctrination”. Trump also revived a “1776 commission” to “promote patriotic education”. More

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      Could a British Fox News personality fix Republicans’ losing streak in California?

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      California is usually regarded as a political graveyard for ambitious Republicans, but Steve Hilton, the smiling, bald-headed former British political consultant turned Fox News personality, has a few theories of how to turn that around.Theory number one is that the Democrats, who have not lost a statewide election in almost 20 years and enjoy a supermajority in the California legislature, make the argument for change more or less by themselves, because the state has become too expensive for many of its residents and is mired in a steep budgetary crisis.Even the current governor, Gavin Newsom, argues that his party’s brand has become toxic, that Democrats across the country have lost their way, and “people don’t think we make any damn sense”. The leading Democratic candidates to succeed him have been similarly blunt.“Everything costs too much!” the former congresswoman Katie Porter says on her campaign website. “Homes and rent are too expensive,” the former state attorney general Xavier Becerra concurs on his. “Folks can barely cover their grocery bills. Healthcare costs are incredibly high.”To which Hilton responds gleefully: “We know! You did it to us!”Given the depth of the malaise – “Califailure”, the title of his campaign book calls it – Hilton believes that next year’s governor’s race offers Republicans a unique opportunity. If even Democrats think it’s time for change, he argues, wouldn’t it make sense for voters to look elsewhere for a solution?And that leads him to theory number two: that an engaging, energetic, unorthodox-sounding candidate like himself might just be the man for a job.In the four weeks since he announced his run for governor, Hilton and a skeleton staff have crisscrossed the state in a distinctive white pickup truck emblazoned with the Trump-like slogan “Make California Golden Again”. He has spoken at universities and presidential libraries, made common cause with hardcore Trump Republicans, and struck up conversations with voters in some of the most liberal corners of the state.His style has been casual – he dresses most commonly in a T-shirt and sneakers as he sits down in coffee shops or addresses so-called “policy forums” for supporters – and he keeps a video crew close to post updates on social media and underline how little he looks or talks like a regular Republican candidate.Back in Britain, where he was an adviser to the Conservative prime minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2012 and, later, a champion of Brexit, Hilton worked largely behind the scenes. He has been much more visible since as a Fox News host and contributor, and has honed a public persona that remains unabashedly rightwing but is also adept at presenting complex political viewpoints in easily relatable terms.So far, at least, Hilton’s British origins have proven more of an asset than a liability. (“He just sounds smarter because of his accent,” the moderator at a Republican gathering in Santa Barbara said. “It’s almost not fair.”) Even his bare scalp has contrasted favorably in some quarters with Newsom’s famously coiffed full head of hair.Hilton’s core message is simple: that Californians want good jobs, good homes and good schools for their kids. And the reason too many feel these goals are eluding them, he says, is because of “one-party rule and really bad ideas” from the Democrats.That diagnosis certainly has the potential to resonate widely, particularly among working-class voters who, according to Hilton, are ‘being completely screwed” by high living costs, high taxes and a public school system whose test scores in English and math consistently lag behind the national average.“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Hilton told the Santa Barbara crowd. “We don’t have to put up with this.”The question, though, is whether Hilton is the alternative voters are craving– and that’s where observers believe he may be on shakier ground, particularly since his strongest political connections are with the Trump end of the Republican party.View image in fullscreenEven Hilton’s more moderate ideas reflect a standard Republican playbook of cuts to taxes, public spending and business regulations – a platform Californians have rejected time and again. Dan Schnur, a former Republican campaign consultant who teaches political communications at Berkeley and the University of Southern California, thinks that behind the moderate facade Hilton is in fact “running pretty hard as a Maga candidate” on a range of issues from immigration to homelessness.Hilton has a slightly different theory of the case. He sees parallels between California in 2025 and Britain in the late 1970s, when it was known as the “sick man of Europe”, and envisions himself as a version of Margaret Thatcher providing a much-needed rightward course correction. He drew laughter and applause in Santa Barbara when he complained about California’s “nanny state bossy bureaucracy” – a Thatcher-inspired turn of phrase – and when he borrowed from a celebrated 1979 Conservative campaign slogan to say “California isn’t working”.Whether that message can work with independents and Democrats – constituencies he has to sway in large numbers to win – is far from clear. However much Hilton talks about “commonsense” solutions, his early champions include Charlie Kirk, who runs the Trump-supporting youth group Turning Point, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech entrepreneur turned politician who is old friends with Vice-President JD Vance and is now running for governor of Ohio – both of whom would suggest he has hitched his wagon to a more radical agenda.Even when forging connections in working-class, heavily Latino East Los Angeles, Hilton has relied on a local Trump activist, now in charge of the White House faith office, who in turn introduced him to Maga-friendly grassroots groups with names like the Conservative Comadres and Lexit (for Latinos Exiting the Democratic Party).The problem is not that Hilton’s new friends in East LA – many of them small business owners – do not reflect broader frustrations when they talk about working hard and having far too little to show for it. They almost certainly do.The problem is that Trump’s brand of working-class populism is toxic in California – vastly more so than the Democrats – and growing only more so as Trump’s chaotic second term in the White House unfolds.An LA Times opinion poll earlier this month showed 68% of Californians disapproved of the president’s job performance and thought the country was on the wrong track – numbers that many political analysts expect to worsen as the effects of Trump’s trade war kick in.Hilton himself makes light of this problem, arguing that if he runs an energetic, attractive enough campaign it will cut across the political spectrum and create its own momentum. “We’ve just learned that California is the fourth biggest economy in the world, and that’s great,” he said in an interview, “but it isn’t an economy that works for the people who live here … We are building a movement and a coalition for change.”Soon, though, he is likely to be pulled in different directions, because the logic of California’s primary system requires him to beat every other Republican before he can even think about the Democrats. And, in the age of Trump, there’s no competition between Republicans that does not require showing obeisance to the president. “The association’s going to be there, whether it results in a formal endorsement or not,” Schnur said. “Trump’s coat-tails are much longer in a primary than in a general election, which is good news for Hilton in the spring but a bigger obstacle in the fall.”Hilton’s stiffest Republican competitor so far, the Riverside county sheriff, Todd Bianco, has already run into trouble with the Trump faithful because he took a knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters in the wake of the George Floyd killing in 2020. (Bianco, who generally talks and acts like a Trump-aligned Republican, insists he was tricked into kneeling when he thought he was being asked to pray – a version at variance with video footage from the time.)At the Santa Barbara event, Hilton looked almost bashful when asked what Trump thought of his decision to run and gave only the vaguest of answers. It is unlikely to be the last time he will field such a question, though, or risk alienating some part of his target electorate with his response.Hilton describes the task ahead as “possible, but difficult”. His chances most likely rest on another theory of his – that the rightward swing the country experienced last November was not a one-off, but a trend still gathering momentum. Hilton points to all the ways California was part of that national trend in 2024 – the 10 counties that flipped from blue to red, the rejection of liberal district attorneys and mayors up and down the state, the call for a stiffer approach to law and order in a key statewide ballot initiative – and concludes that “Californians voted Republican without realising it.”The last time Trump was president, though, the midterm elections produced a major swing in the other direction, in California and across the country, and most political analysts expect the same thing next year. If office-holders can justifiably point the finger at Washington – for shortages on the shelves, or higher prices incurred by tariffs, or immigrant laborers vanishing from key industries – voters are likely to be more forgiving of their leaders’ own shortcomings.“It would be much easier to make the case against the Democratic establishment if there weren’t a Republican president,” Schnur said. “An entire generation of Californians has come of voting age automatically dismissing the possibility of supporting a Republican candidate … That doesn’t mean a Republican can’t get elected governor, but it’s a very steep uphill fight.” More

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      In California’s deep-red north, voters startled by pace of cuts – but they’re still backing Trump

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      Donald Trump’s administration has sought to remake the federal government at a breakneck pace. In far northern California – where he has strong support – people have backed those efforts. But even here, the speed and scale of the president’s agenda has been cause for concern.Officials in Shasta county, a region of 180,000 perhaps best known in recent years for its turbulent far-right politics, recently voted unanimously to send a letter to the federal government expressing concern about how layoffs could affect the nearby Whiskeytown national recreation area, which brings as much as $80m to the local economy each year.“The board urges the administration to reconsider layoffs impacting the National Park Service,” the letter states. “National parks, recreation areas, lakes, and mountainous regions throughout this great nation may be adversely impacted if not adequately protected and maintained for all to enjoy, both in the immediate future, and for years to come.”In March, about 150 people took to the streets in Redding, the Shasta county seat, to protest aggainst proposed cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs. A month later more than 1,000 people in the area gathered to demonstrate against the administration’s policies.Amid reports about possible reductions to Medicaid, the head of the area’s largest healthcare provider warned such action could have “crippling” impacts in a county where the local Medicaid provider serves nearly a third of the population. A bipartisan group of state lawmakers, including the region’s Republican representatives, signed a letter in late April urging Congress to protect Head Start, the federally funded education program.While California remains a Democratic stronghold, its less densely populated interior swings decidedly more conservative, with deep red enclaves in the state’s far north that have been particularly supportive of Trump.In Shasta county, where the president visited during his 2016 campaign, 67% of voters voted for Trump in November. Nearby counties, including Tehama, Lassen and Modoc, backed Trump at even greater levels.Support for Trump’s agenda has remained strong among Republicans in California. While 68% of California voters reported they disapprove of Trump’s performance and just 30% approve, 75% of Republicans say they approve, according to a new Berkeley IGS poll. The poll also found that 69% of California Republicans think the country is now headed in the right direction, a major shift from last year when 93% believed it was headed in the wrong direction.That’s the case, too, in rural California, where many voters said they backed the Trump administration’s policies, including tariffs against other countries, a smaller federal government, and, they hoped, reduced prices and a stronger economy.But the unease in an area where the president is still deeply popular highlights the potential effects the cuts pose to the region – particularly its rural communities – that is more reliant on federal support on everything from infrastructure to emergency preparedness to healthcare and childcare.“These cuts may, in fact, hurt rural communities harder because they just don’t have their tax bases,” said Lisa Pruitt, a rural law expert at the University of California, Davis. “Their bandwidth for providing all sorts of services is just much weaker to begin with, and that makes them more reliant on federal monies.”For some in this part of California the outcomes, and rapid pace at which the administration has moved, have been startling.View image in fullscreenIt was what Morgan Akin, a Shasta county resident and US marine veteran who joined the March protest against the VA cuts, expected would happen when Trump took office.“They’re predicting 80,000 cuts on the VA. That’s going to have an effect on the veterans throughout the country,” said Akin. “All these federal employees have just been dumped.”He added: “It’s been a shock, and I think that’s what’s disrupting for most people.”Bruce Ross, a Shasta county Republican, acknowledged the difficulties of seeing layoffs, but said he had been pleased with the direction of the administration.“Everybody who lives up in north-eastern California knows folks who work for the Forest Service, or for federal agencies, and it’s tough for them. I think on a human level, that’s real,” Ross said. But, he added, he had seen a willingness on the part of the administration to listen when local officials have pushed back against proposed cuts, and the practical changes had ultimately, so far, been less severe than they initially seemed.“There’s been a lot of drama about it. But I think the actual results have shown that the administration is listening to people and saying, OK, this is important. We’re gonna take it back.”Congressman Doug LaMalfa, a Republican and staunch Trump supporter who represents a large swath of northern California’s interior, has acknowledged that some of his constituents, and Republicans broadly, are concerned, but echoed Ross’s sentiments. “But they’re listening to us. I got in a room with Elon [Musk] and his right-hand man. They’re understanding us now, and they’re going to look at it more through that lens, and they’ll certainly listen to us,’ he told the Chico Enterprise-Record in March.In that interview, he pushed back against talk of broad layoffs and cuts to key programs.“There is no social security cuts. There is no cuts to the VA system; the employee stuff, we’ve still got more work to do with that.”Ross, who is also the secretary for the Shasta county Republican central committee, admitted there would probaly be pain as Trump enacts his agenda, but argued that was necessary to tackle the federal deficit.“There’s a $2tn annual deficit with the federal government in Washington in a time of peace and a fairly strong economy,” he said. “How do you ever go about trying to balance that without being somewhat aggressive about actually cutting spending? It’s never going to be easy to do.”Steve Barkley, a 74-year-old who lives in northern California’s Sierra foothills, said he felt confident in the president’s agenda, and wasn’t worried about any cuts to Medicare or social security.“He’s the first candidate that was really saying the things that I wanted to hear, and promised to do the things that I want done, and he’s keeping his promises,” Barkley said, adding that he believed Trump’s recent actions ensure the longevity of those programs and boost the economy.“I’m happy. I don’t expect anything to get done right away. It’s going to take time.”Ross is hopeful that even with some short-term pain, Trump’s policies will ultimately improve the region. He pointed to the area’s recent history of massive destructive and deadly wildfires and the lack of land management in federal forests that he believes has contributed to such blazes. He would like to see the return of the timber industry, which was historically a major employer in the area, and believes that could be possible under the new administration.“I think that’s going to be good for northern California. It’s not just about money – it’s about what is their direction, and what are their goals? And just bluntly, they’re on our side,” he said.“And again, look at the federal deficits and explain how that’s sustainable, and explain how that’s going to change in a way that doesn’t cause some dissension. It’s hard on any level. But I think long-term, it’s what the country needs.” More

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      Newsom calls on California cities to ban homeless encampments ‘without delay’

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      Gavin Newsom has called on California cities and counties to clear and effectively ban encampments “without delay” as the governor intensifies a crackdown on homelessness in the state.Newsom on Monday announced a new model ordinance to address “persistent” camps, in hopes of reducing the most visible signs of a worsening crisis, as well as $3.3bn in voter-approved funding to increase housing and drug treatment programs.“There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets. Local leaders asked for resources – we delivered the largest state investment in history. They asked for legal clarity – the courts delivered,” Newsom said in a statement.“Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”California has the largest population of unsheltered people in the US with more than 180,000 people in the state experiencing homelessness, including 123,000 people living outside, according to a 2023 count. The state – and local governments across California – have begun enacting harsher anti-camping policies following a US supreme court’s ruling last year that cities can criminalize unhoused people for sleeping outside – even if there are no available shelter spaces.Newsom has escalated efforts to force local governments into action since the 2024 supreme court decision, warning counties that he could withhold state support if they did not do more sweeps. In February, he told cities and counties they could lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding if they do not make progress in eradicating encampments and reducing homelessness.In a statement this week the governor’s office pointed to its own approach that it said had cleared more than 16,000 encampments and was “effective and scalable”. The model ordinance introduced by the office includes provisions it said can be modified to suit local needs, including a ban on persistent camping in one location, a ban on encampments blocking sidewalks and a requirement for local officials to provide notice and offer shelter before clearing an encampment.The governor is seeking to help municipalities set “rules around encampments and establish effective enforcement procedures that prioritize notice, shelter and services”, according to the statement.“Encampments pose a serious public safety risk, and expose the people in encampments to increased risk of sexual violence, criminal activity, property damage and break-ins, and unsanitary conditions,” the news release said. More

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      The desperate search for a father disappeared by Trump to El Salvador: ‘We don’t know anything’

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      The last time Joregelis Barrios heard from her brother Jerce, the call had lasted just one minute.Immigration officials had moved Jerce from the detention center in southern California where he had been for six months to another one in Texas. He sounded worried, as if he had been crying. He told his sister he might be transferred somewhere else soon.No one has heard from him since.Within hours of that call, Jerce was forced on a plane to El Salvador and booked into the country’s most notorious prison: the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (Cecot). He was one of more than 260 men that Donald Trump’s administration had accused of terrorism and gang membership. His sister thought she recognized him in the videos shared by the Salvadorian government, among the crowd of deportees with shaved heads and white prison uniforms, being frogmarched to their cells by guards in ski masks. Then CBS News published a leaked list of the deportees’ names, confirming her worst worries.“It was a shock,” said Joregelis. “Jerce has always avoided trouble.”Jerce, a 36-year-old professional soccer player and father of two, had come to the US last year to seek asylum, after fleeing political violence and repression in Venezuela.An immigration hearing to review his case was scheduled for 17 April, just weeks after he was abruptly exiled to El Salvador.“He was so optimistic, up till the last day we spoke,” said Mariyin Araujo, Jerce’s ex-partner and the co-parent of his two daughters, Isabella and six-year-old Carla.“He believed the laws there in the US were the best, that it would all work out soon,” she said. “How far did that get him?”Barrios was flown to Cecot on 15 March. For the past two months, his family has been obsessively scanning news updates and social media posts for any sign that he is still alive and healthy. They have been closely monitoring the court cases challenging Trump’s invocation of the wartime powers of the Alien Enemies Act against the Venezuela-based gang known as Tren de Aragua, to exile immigrants – most of whom have no criminal history – to one of the most notorious prisons in the world. And they have been wondering what, if anything, they can do for Jerce.In Machiques, a small town near Venezuela’s border with Colombia, locals have painted a mural in Jerce’s honor. His old soccer club, Perijaneros FC, started a campaign demanding his release – and children from the local soccer school held a prayer circle for him. “We have created TikToks about him, we have organized protests, we held vigils,” said Araujo.“We have looked for so many ways to be his voice at this moment, when he is unable to speak,” she said.But as the weeks pass, she said, she is increasingly unsure what more she can do. The Trump administration has doubled down on its right to send immigrants to Cecot, despite a federal judge’s order barring it from doing so.To justify these extraordinary deportations, both Trump and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, have publicly insisted that the men sent to Cecot are the worst of the worst gang members. To mark Trump’s first 100 days in office, his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a list of “Noteworthy individuals deported or prevented from entering the US” – and characterized Jerce as “a member of the vicious Tren de Aragua gang” who “has tattoos that are consistent with those indicating membership” in the gang.Jerce’s family and lawyer say the only evidence DHS has shared so far is that he has a tattoo on his arm of a soccer ball with a crown on top – a tribute to his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid. His other tattoos include the names of his parents, siblings and daughters.“My brother is not a criminal,” Joregelis said. “They took him away without any proof. They took him because he’s Venezuelan, because he had tattoos, and because he is Black.”She’s still haunted by the strange sense of finality in his last call. He had asked after his daughters, and whether his Isabella had been eating well. “I told him she had just had some plátano,” Jorgelis said. “And then he said to me: ‘I love you.’ He said to tell our mom to take care.”Araujo has struggled to explain to her daughters why their father hasn’t been calling them regularly. She lives in Mexico City with Carla, her six-year-old. Isabella, three, is in Venezuela with Jorgelis.Carla, especially, has started asking a lot of questions. “Recently, she said to me: ‘Mom, Dad hasn’t called me, Mom. Could it be that he no longer loves me?’” Araujo said. “So I had to tell her a little bit about what had happened.”Now Carla cries constantly, Araujo said. She misses her father, she misses his scrambled eggs, she misses watching him play soccer. She keeps asking if he is being treated well in detention, if he is eating well. “It’s too difficult,” Araujo said. “From a young age, kids learn that if you do something bad, you go to jail. And now she keeps asking how come her dad is in jail, he’s not a bad person. And I don’t know how to explain. I don’t know how to tell her there is no logical explanation.”Jerce had been in detention of some sort ever since he set foot inside the US.Last year, he had used the now defunct CBP One app to request an appointment with immigration officials at the border. After more than four months of waiting in Mexico, agents determined that he had a credible case for asylum – but decided to detain him in a maximum-security detention center in San Ysidro, California, while he awaited his hearing.“Jerce didn’t tell us much about what it was like there, because he didn’t want us to worry,” said Jorgelis. “The only thing he did say was, why did he have to be Black? I believe he faced a lot of racism there.”When he first arrived at the border, immigration officials had alleged he might be a gang member based on his tattoos and on social media posts in which he was making the hand gesture commonly used to signify “I love you” in sign language, or “rock and roll”.His lawyer, Linette Tobin, submitted evidence proving that he had no criminal record in Venezuela, and that his hand gesture was benign. She also obtained a declaration from his tattoo artists affirming that his ink was a tribute to the Spanish soccer team and not to a gang. Officials agreed to move him out of maximum security shortly thereafter, in the fall of last year. “I thought that was a tacit admission, an acknowledgement that he’s not a gang member,” Tobin said.When officials moved him to a detention center in Texas, Tobin worried that transfer would complicate his asylum proceedings. Since she is based in California, she wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to continue to represent him in Texas.Jerce had been worried when Tobin last spoke to him on the phone, in March, but she had reassured him that he still had a strong case for asylum. Now, the US government has petitioned to dismiss Jerce’s asylum case, she said, “on the basis that – would you believe it – he’s not here in the US”.“I mean, he’d love to be here if he could!” she said.Other than ensuring that his case remains open, Tobin said she’s not sure what more she can do for her client. After the ACLU sued Donald Trump over his unilateral use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove alleged members from the US without legal process, the supreme court ruled that detainees subject to deportation must be given an opportunity to challenge their removals.But the highest court’s ruling leaves uncertain what people like Jerce, who are already stuck in Salvadorian prison, are supposed to do now. As that case moves forward, Tobin hopes the ACLU will be able to successfully challenge all the deportations.But in a separate case over the expulsion of Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the administration admitted was sent to Cecot in error, the supreme court asked the administration to facilitate Ábrego García’s return to the US – and the administration said it couldn’t, and wouldn’t.In his last calls with his family, Jerce told them he’d be out of detention soon – that it would all be better soon. Once he was granted asylum, he said, he would try to join a soccer league in the US and start earning some money. He had promised Carla he’d buy her a TV soon.Now, Araujo said: “I don’t even know if he is alive. We don’t know anything. The last thing we saw was a video of them, and after that video many speculations, but nothing is certain.” More