Latest news with #CaliforniaAssembly
Epoch Times
a day ago
- Business
- Epoch Times
$10 Billion Affordable-Housing Bond Measure Passes California Assembly
The California Assembly passed the Affordable Housing Bond Act on June 3, putting the $10 billion bond measure one step closer to reaching the voters. Assembly Bill 736, proposed by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat, would authorize the general obligation bond measure to be placed on the June 2, 2026, statewide primary election ballot.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Refining Industry Profiteering and Misinformation Revealed At Oversight Hearing, Says Consumer Watchdog
SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- At a California Assembly oversight hearing, state regulators revealed new data showing that oil refiners feeding branded stations have made a killing from California consumers and that refiner-reported data about operating costs were overblown. The data provided by the California Energy Commission (CEC) and Division of Petroleum Market Oversight (DPMO) showed the excessive refiner profits during 2022 and 2023 moderated during 2024, after state reforms enacted in legislative special sessions were implemented. "The new data shows that the mystery gasoline surcharge is being driven by branded refiners that are taking excessive profits from their integrated networks because they have the market power to demand those higher prices from station owners," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "The reason Californians pay the highest price in the nation at the pump is this mafia-style shakedown scheme driven by branded refiners and the vig is 70 cents extra per gallon." Among the key findings revealed: California have faced elevated prices: Retail gasoline prices in California averaged $0.41 per gallon higher than prices in other states after accounting for taxes, fees, and environmental program costs since 2015. California refiners saw elevated refining margins: Gross gasoline industry margins in California increased by $0.36 per gallon relative to the rest of the U.S. since 2015; margins peaked at $2.36 during the fall 2022 price spike. Market power plays a big role: About 90% of in-state refining capacity is controlled by four companies, and about 50% of refiner sales are through vertically integrated sales channels. The control of the top four will increase to 98% after refineries slated to close do so. Price spikes in the spot market and increasing branded markups are driving higher prices: In addition to spot market price spikes, branded prices are increasing. Retail gasoline sold at major brands has the highest mystery gasoline surcharge of $0.72 per gallon since 2015. There are "haves" and "have nots" in the refining sector: Outside of price spikes, large integrated refiners benefit from marketing/retail networks, while smaller non-integrated refiners are marginal. Refiners with branded networks made excessive profits and those without the networks are more prone to closure. "Unbranded focused" refiners had lower gross refining margins than "branded focused" refiners, according to a new analysis by refiner type. Refiners inflated their "operating costs" in state reporting to manipulate "net margins" data. While the average operational costs of running a refinery reported to investors was about 20 cents per gallon, refiners reported inflated operating expenses of 60 to 80 cents per gallon to the state. These inflated numbers likely including all costs of running a refinery for jet fuel and diesel production, not just those attributable to making gasoline. The CEC raised concerns about stabilizing existing refiners, particularly the "unbranded focused" refiners, following two refinery closures. It also noted that refineries are closing in other states due to the growth of super-refineries with high capacity in Mexico, Kuwait, Nigeria and Oman. Vice Chairman Siva Gunda also claimed that a crude oil pipeline that fed Northern California refiners was in danger of shutting down and that could complicate the woes in the refining market. Gunda expressed support for increasing crude extraction out of Kern County. He said that a state analysis found that could be done without impacting an existing law creating a setback of a half mile between oil wells and communities. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Consumer Watchdog Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Los Angeles Times
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Federal judge reduces charge against L.A. deputy convicted of excessive force to misdemeanor
A federal judge said Tuesday he will allow prosecutors to downgrade charges against an L.A. County sheriff's deputy — who was already convicted of a felony in an excessive force case earlier this year — but the embattled law enforcement officer could still get prison time. In issuing his decision Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson stymied a highly unusual legal maneuver pushed last month by Bill Essayli, the newly appointed U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. The Trump-appointed prosecutor moved to offer Deputy Trevor Kirk a misdemeanor plea deal just two months after he was convicted of a felony for pepper spraying and assaulting an unarmed woman while responding to a purported robbery at a Lancaster supermarket in 2023. Essayli's decision to offer Kirk the rare post-conviction plea deal played a role in several federal prosecutors resigning their posts earlier this month. While Wilson rejected the controversial maneuver from Essayli — in which Kirk would be sentenced to probation — he did grant the prosecution's motion to lessen the charges against the deputy to a misdemeanor, despite the jury conviction. Kirk could still face some jail or prison time when he is sentenced next week. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment. 'We're grateful for the motion to be granted and we're going to prepare to make a compelling argument for probation, no jail time, probation,' said Kirk's defense attorney, Tom Yu. Kirk would have been unable to continue a career in law enforcement or own a gun if convicted of a felony. ) Kirk was convicted in February of one count of deprivation of rights under color of law after he was caught on camera rushing at the victim, Jacey Houseton, hurling her to the ground and then pepper-spraying her in the face while planting a knee on her neck during the 2023 incident. Kirk originally faced up to 10 years in prison, but that was upended after the Trump administration appointed Essayli, a former California Assembly member, as U.S. attorney for Los Angeles. Essayli authorized the rare post-trial plea agreement with Kirk. Essayli is a staunch Trump ally and hard-line conservative appointed at a time when the president has sought to weaken the independence of the U.S. Department of Justice. The post-trial plea agreement landed the same week Trump issued an executive order vowing to 'unleash' American law enforcement. Under the agreement authorized by Essayli, Kirk would have served a maximum of one year in prison. The government agreed to recommend a year of probation and moved to strike the jury's finding that Kirk had injured the victim, which made the crime a felony. Wilson found the plea deal to be unnecessary because of the jury verdict, and noted a sentence of probation 'did not match the facts of this case.' 'Defendant committed the offense—the willful use of unreasonable force—while acting under color of law as a police officer,' Wilson wrote. 'Police officers are entrusted with protecting the public, not harming them.' The agreement caused turmoil in the U.S. attorney's office, with assistant U.S. attorneys Eli A. Alcaraz, Brian R. Faerstein, Michael J. Morse and Cassie Palmer, chief of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section, all withdrawing from the case. Rob Keenan, the only assistant U.S. attorney who signed off on the plea agreement, was not previously involved in the case. Alcaraz, Faerstein and Palmer submitted their resignations after the plea agreement offer, sources previously confirmed to The Times. A filing submitted in the case earlier this month also confirmed that Palmer is departing the federal prosecutor's office. The ruling followed a tense hearing last week during which Wilson grilled Keenan, appearing increasingly perplexed at the government's logic in offering Kirk a deal. He questioned whether prosecutors had a 'serious and significant doubt' as to the deputy's guilt and continually pushed Keenan to justify the deal. Keenan claimed the deal was 'a pure exercise of prosecutorial discretion.' In June 2023, Kirk was responding to a reported robbery when he threw Houseton to the ground and pepper-sprayed her in the face while she filmed him outside a Lancaster WinCo. Houseton matched a dispatcher's description of a female suspect, but she was not armed or committing a crime at the time Kirk first confronted her, court records show. 'He kept telling me to stop resisting even though I could not move, and I could not breathe. I thought he was trying to kill me,' Houseton told the court last week. She compared Kirk placing a knee on her neck to the maneuver a white Minneapolis police officer used in 2020 that killed George Floyd, a Black man being arrested on suspicion of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. In court, Keenan described Kirk's use of force as excessive, but just 'barely so,' at one point attacking the credibility of the victim in the case, suggesting she exaggerated her injuries in a victim impact statement she made before the court. Wilson did not accept that analysis. 'The jury was completely justified in finding he used excessive force in taking her to the ground and pepper-spraying her,' the judge said. 'Had he ordered her to be handcuffed … that would be a different case.' In a sentencing recommendation obtained by The Times, Sheriff Robert Luna asked Wilson to sentence Kirk to probation, blaming his actions that day on poor training, stemming from the fact that the sheriff's department had not properly followed reforms ordered by the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division.
Miami Herald
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Deepfake laws bring prosecution and penalties, but also pushback
Pennsylvania's attorney general recently accused a police officer of taking photos in a women's locker room, secretly filming people while on duty and possessing a stolen handgun. But he was unable to bring charges related to a cache of photos found on the officer's work computer featuring lurid images of minors created by artificial intelligence. When the computer was seized, in November, creating digital fakes was not yet considered a crime. Since then, a statewide ban on such content has taken effect. While it came too late to apply to the police officer's case, the state's attorney general, Dave Sunday, has already used the law to charge another man who was accused of having 29 files of AI-generated child sexual abuse material in his home. Over the past two years, American legislators have grown increasingly alarmed by the threat of malicious deepfakes. Sexual images of middle school students have been digitally faked without their permission. Vice President JD Vance disavowed an almost certainly inauthentic clip that mimicked his voice to criticize Elon Musk. An ad featuring an AI-generated version of actress Jamie Lee Curtis was removed from Instagram only after she posted a public complaint. Legislators are responding. Already this year, 26 laws governing various kinds of deepfakes have been enacted, following 80 in 2024 and 15 in 2023, according to the political database Ballotpedia. This month in Tennessee, sharing deepfake sexual images without permission became a felony that carries up to 15 years of prison time and as much as $10,000 in fines. Iowa enacted two bills related to sexually explicit deepfakes last year, one of which established sexual images of children generated by AI as a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,245 fine for the first offense. In New Jersey, a recently approved ban on malicious deepfakes could result in a fine of up to $30,000 and prison time. California has been especially aggressive in reacting to deepfakes, passing eight related bills in September alone, including five on a single day. 'We're in a very dangerous time, and we're playing defense on everything that we do,' said Josh Lowenthal, a Democrat in the California Assembly, while introducing a session last week in Sacramento on the dangers of deepfakes. Lowenthal, who co-sponsored a recently introduced bill targeting sexually explicit deepfake material, later watched a demonstration of the technology spit out a realistic image of him in a prison cell and produce a fake news story about comments he never made. 'I would've thought that was me,' he said after hearing deepfake audio of his voice, generated on the spot. Reining in deepfakes has also become a federal priority, and a markedly bipartisan one. Congress overwhelmingly passed the Take It Down Act, which criminalizes the nonconsensual sharing of sexually explicit photos and videos, including AI content, and requires tech platforms to quickly remove the content once they are notified. President Donald Trump signed the bill in the White House Rose Garden on Monday, accompanied by his wife, Melania, who backed the legislation. But lawmakers' enthusiasm for deepfake legislation has also set off a surge of pushback. Critics complain that many of the laws stifle free speech, constrain America's competitiveness and are so complicated to enforce that they are, in effect, toothless. Because of those concerns, some Republicans in Congress are trying to curb the state actions. They are now considering a 10-year moratorium that would stop states from enforcing and passing legislation related to artificial intelligence, giving the federal government sole regulatory authority and lessening the pressure on AI companies. Soon after reentering office, Trump revoked an executive order from his predecessor that sought to ensure the technology's safety and transparency, issuing his own executive order that decried 'barriers to American AI innovation' and pushed the United States 'to retain global leadership' in the field. Regulating artificial intelligence requires balance, said Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., who has helped write multiple deepfake bills. For all its potential dangers, he said, the technology could also become a powerful engine for job creation and creative expression. 'It's an ever-evolving space,' said Gottheimer, a candidate for governor who last month posted a video that featured, with a disclosure, a digitally generated version of himself boxing with Trump. 'The key is making sure that people are protected as we harness the opportunities here.' Some state laws have also been challenged in court. In California, a conservative YouTube creator who posted an edited campaign video spoofing former Vice President Kamala Harris' voice sued the attorney general last fall over two laws focused on election-related deepfakes. His argument: The regulations force social media companies to censor protected political speech, including parodies, and allow anybody to sue over content that he or she dislikes. The lawsuit now includes plaintiffs such as The Babylon Bee, a right-wing satirical site; Rumble, the right-wing streaming platform; and X, the social media company owned by Musk (which last month also sued Minnesota over a similar law). A federal judge ordered that enforcement of one of the California laws be temporarily paused, saying it 'acts as a hammer instead of a scalpel.' Litigation isn't the only challenge to regulating deepfakes. In Dubuque County, Iowa, Sheriff Joseph L. Kennedy is assisting a local police department with a case involving male high schoolers who shared images of female students' faces attached to artificially generated nude bodies. Such cases are time-consuming to work through, requiring careful documentation, data preservation efforts, subpoenas and search warrants for devices, Kennedy said. Occasionally, the companies behind the websites or apps that people use to make AI images are uncooperative, especially if they are based in a country where an Iowa law has no power, he said. 'That's where you can hit snags and are short on options for what you can do,' he said. 'Sometimes, it just seems like we're chasing our tails.' While most deepfake bans are focused on sexual, political or artistic content, the technology also has banks and other businesses on high alert. Michael S. Barr, a member of the Federal Reserve's board of governors, said in a speech last month that the technology 'has the potential to supercharge identity fraud.' One deepfake scam bilked Arup, a British design and engineering company that worked on the Sydney Opera House and Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium, out of $25 million last year. Fraudsters also tried to target Ferrari last summer, using WhatsApp messages that mimicked the southern Italian accent of the automaker's CEO. 'If this technology becomes cheaper and more broadly available to criminals -- and fraud detection technology does not keep pace -- we are all vulnerable to a deepfake attack,' Barr said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
Toronto Star
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Toronto Star
California Assembly advances bill to toughen penalties for soliciting sex from older teens
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The California Assembly on Thursday approved harsher penalties for soliciting sex from 16- and 17-year-olds, with an exception for cases where there is an age difference of three years or less between both parties. It's an updated version of legislation that recently threw Democrats into political turmoil, causing Gov. Gavin Newsom to break with legislative leaders and Republicans to accuse Democrats of protecting people who prey on teens.
