Or just California?

At Brazilian climate summit, Newsom positions California as a stand-in for the U.S.

With the Trump administration absent from the U.N. climate summit, Gov. Gavin Newsom is positioning California as America’s climate leader on the world stage.

Melody Gutierrez, Los Angeles Times

The expansive halls of the Amazon’s newly built climate summit hub echoed with the hum of air conditioners and the footsteps of delegates from around the world — scientists, diplomats, Indigenous leaders and energy executives, all converging for two frenetic weeks of negotiations.

Then Gov. Gavin Newsom rounded the corner, flanked by staff and security. They moved in tandem through the corridors on Tuesday as media swarmed and cellphone cameras rose into the air.

California’s carbon market and zero-emission mandates have given the state outsize influence at summits such as COP30, where its policies are seen as both durable and exportable. The state has invested billions in renewables, battery storage and electrifying buildings and vehicles and has cut greenhouse gas emissions by 21% since 2000 — even as its economy grew 81%.

If Trump’s EPA abandons climate policy, could California take over on greenhouse gases?

Legal experts, including a former federal official and UCLA professor, say California could go it alone if the federal government stops regulating greenhouse gases. One reason to try is to protect the state’s clean-car economy.

Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters

California has long cast itself as the nation’s climate conscience — and its policy lab.

Now, as the Environmental Protection Agency moves to revoke the backbone of federal climate rules — the scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human health — one of the state’s top climate officials is weighing a provocative idea put forward by environmental law experts: If Washington retreats, California could lead on carbon-controlling regulation.

Absent what’s known as the endangerment finding, the EPA may soon consider abandoning the legal authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and other sources, furthering the Trump Administration’s stated aim to dismantle U.S. climate policy.

While decrying the prospect of such a move, climate advocates say a repeal would yield a silver lining: California and other states could in theory set their own greenhouse gas rules for cars and trucks, regulations previously superseded by federal authority.

Trump Is Said to Propose Opening California Coast to Oil Drilling

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a chief critic of the president and an opponent of oil exploration in the Pacific, called the proposal “dead on arrival.”

Maxine Joselow and Lisa Friedman, The New York Times

The Trump administration plans to allow new oil and gas drilling off the California coast for the first time in roughly four decades, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The move would set up a confrontation with Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has fought offshore drilling and who has emerged as one of President Trump’s chief political antagonists.

The Interior Department could announce the proposal as soon as this week, according to the three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

When asked about the proposal on Tuesday, Mr. Newsom rolled his eyes and said it would be “dead on arrival in California.” He said that the state would “absolutely” challenge the plan in court once it was finalized.

Business groups ask Supreme Court to pause California climate reporting laws in emergency appeal

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause new California laws expected to require thousands of companies to report emissions and climate-risk information.

Lindsay Whitehurst and Sophie Austin, A.P.

The laws are the most sweeping of their kind in the nation, and a collection of business groups argued in an emergency appeal that they violate free-speech rights.

The measures were signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023, and reporting requirements are expected to start early next year.

One requires businesses that make more than $1 billion a year and operate in California to annually report their direct and indirect carbon emissions, beginning in 2026 and 2027, respectively. The other law requires companies that make more than $500,000 a year to biennially disclose how climate change could hurt them financially. The state Air Resources Board estimates more than 4,100 companies will have to comply.

Lower courts have so far refused to block the laws, which the state says will increase transparency and encourage companies to assess how they can cut their emissions.

GLOBAL CALIFORNIA

Make California a G7 Member

The Golden State is poised to join vital international organizations as the Trump administration retreats from them.

Markos Kounalakis, Washington Monthly

Donald Trump may have personally run exclusive clubs, but America, under his presidency, is dropping its membership in global clubs left and right.

His administration recently severed our ties to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as well as other organizations. In this moment, as America retrenches from global leadership, cities and states need to step up and join as many multinational organizations as will have them. California’s Governor Gavin Newsom is actively and assertively testing the case by seeking to expand strategic international trade relationships in light of the Trump tariffs. As Newsom puts it, “California is not Washington, D.C.”

In this light, the global economic powerhouse of California should be admitted into the G7, given that the state’s $4.1 trillion GDP and throw-weight are greater than those of five of the current members. California’s participation would be good for the state, the G7, and America. It would allow America’s foremost economic entity to represent the nation’s interests and explain economic trends, from AI and biotechnology to fintech and quantum computing. All from a state that is on the bleeding edge of technological and cultural development. California would be able to help shape policy and bring back to Washington early warnings about G7 plans in the offing

There is some good news for California—a state that makes up around 20 percent of America’s GDP and would now be the world’s fourth-largest economy if it were a sovereign nation-state. The G7, made up of democracies that are economic powerhouses, already allows for “non-enumerated members”.

Subnationals, whether sovereign or not, have a voice and enough independence to make a difference in the new, revised, and revisionist world order.

ICE IN CALIFORNIA

California police intervene as ICE agent in plain clothes points gun at woman

Agent said woman was following and filming him, but officer said he couldn’t assist if no crime was committed

Dani Anguiano, The Guardian

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent briefly held at gunpoint a woman whom he claimed was following him, prompting a southern California police officer to intervene, authorities said.

The police department in Fullerton, a city in Orange county almost 30 miles (48km) from Los Angeles, said that on Sunday one of its officers had just finished taking an incarcerated person to a county jail when he saw two vehicles stopped in an intersection in Santa Ana.

The officer stopped when he saw a man exit one of the vehicles and point a firearm at the other driver, the agency said in a statement. He did not initially know the identity of the armed man, who was dressed in plain clothes and soon provided credentials showing he was an ICE agent.

People held in ‘decrepit’ California ICE facility sue over ‘inhumane’ conditions

Lawsuit against US government alleges ‘life-threatening’ medical neglect and says residents frequently go hungry

Sam Levin, The Guardian

Seven people detained at California’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center have sued the US government, alleging they have been denied essential medications, frequently go hungry and are housed in a “decrepit” facility.

The federal class-action complaint filed against ICE on Wednesday challenges the “inhumane conditions” at the California City detention center, which opened in late August inside a shuttered state prison. The suit alleges “life-threatening” medical neglect, with the plaintiffs saying they have been denied cancer treatment, basic disability accommodations and regular insulin for diabetes.

The facility is run by CoreCivic, a private prison corporation, which is not a named defendant. Residents have raised alarms about the facility for two months, with some describing it as a “torture chamber” and “hell on earth” in interviews.

Unreported World: Inside California’s fight against ICE crackdowns

Families in the US are living in fear of immigration raids and President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Ria Chatterjee, Channel 4 News

Los Angeles is a self-declared sanctuary city – a supposed haven for migrants. Nearly half of its residents are Latino, and the city’s economy depends on migration.

But, it’s become a target in one of the largest deportation drives in US history.

Officers from US Immigration and Customs – also known as ICE – say they’re targeting eleven million undocumented immigrants. The administration’s plan is to deport three thousand people a day.

CALIFORNIA EDUCATION

‘Unlawful coercion’: Trump can’t withhold funds or demand payment from UC, federal judge rules

The judge has previously sided with UC scholars several times since June in halting Trump’s termination of science and health research funding. The latest ruling is arguably the most sweeping yet.

Mikhail Zinshteyn, CalMatters

A California federal judge ruled today that Donald Trump cannot demand that UCLA pay a $1.2 billion settlement that would have imposed severe limits on the campus’s academic freedoms and efforts to enroll an economically and culturally diverse student body or risk continued funding freezes on grants the system relies on for research

The decision by Judge Rita Lin is a preliminary injunction and represents a significant victory for University of California scientists, professors, graduate students and other researchers. They and a national professors association sued Trump in September, claiming that his settlement demand — the most sweeping to date in his war on exclusive universities — represents an “unlawful threat” of funding cuts to coerce the university system into “suppressing free speech and academic freedom rights.”

Lin agreed with that assessment, calling Trump’s actions toward the university “coercive and retaliatory.” Her ruling doesn’t just apply to UCLA. It largely ties the hands of the Trump administration to target the rest of the UC system for current and future research grants.

California schools now offer free preschool for 4-year-olds. Here’s what kids really learn in it

Every 4-year-old in California can now go to school for free in their local districts. The new grade is called transitional kindergarten — or TK — and it’s part of the state’s effort to expand universal preschool.

Julia Barajas, Mariana Dale and Elly Yu, LAist

Every 4-year-old in California can now go to school for free in their local districts. The new grade is called transitional kindergarten — or TK — and it’s part of the state’s effort to expand universal preschool. While it’s not mandatory for students to attend, districts must offer them as an alternative to private preschool. One big question we’ve heard: What do kids actually do and learn in a TK classroom? Educators say it’s intended to emphasize play, but what does that mean?

IN OTHER NEWS

‘A flood on steroids’: What to know as storm, debris flows threaten LA

An unusually strong storm system has reached Southern California, raising fears that the rain could unleash a threat that has been lingering in the burn scars of wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles communities in recent years.

Rachel Becker, CalMatters

Called debris flows, fast-moving slurries of floodwater and sediment can hurtle down slopes carrying cars, trees and even boulders with them.

Burn scars — slicked by fire and stripped of plants — are especially vulnerable. A storm after the Thomas Fire in 2018 spurred debris flows in Montecito that killed 23 people. And in February, a debris flow in the Palisades Fire burn zone swept a Los Angeles Fire Department member and his SUV into the Pacific Ocean.

We spoke with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Kean, an expert on debris flows after wildfires, about what to expect. This conversation has been edited and condensed

They’re like “a flood on steroids,” said Jason Kean, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s landslide hazards program. “It’s really hard to stop these things.The best thing to do is get out of the way.”

US justice department joins lawsuit to block California’s new electoral map

Move escalates legal battle over a redistricting effort designed to help Democrats flip House seats in 2026

Lauren Gambino, The Guardian

The justice department on Thursday joined a lawsuit brought by California Republicans to block the state’s new congressional map, escalating a legal battle over a redistricting effort designed to give Democrats a better chance of retaking the House of Representatives next year.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, challenges the congressional map championed by Gavin Newsom, the state’s Democratic governor, in response to a Republican gerrymander in Texas, sought by Donald Trump. The justice department’s intervention in the case sets up a high-profile showdown between the Trump administration and Newsom, one of the president’s chief antagonists and a possible 2028 contender.

“California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process,” said Pam Bondi, the US attorney general. “Governor Newsom’s attempt to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not stand.”

Key Takeaways from the Proposition 50 Election

The results point to relatively high voter engagement and may signal the revival of Democratic fortunes, but they do not necessarily indicate a change in voter attitudes toward the redistricting reform they set aside.

Eric McGhee and Mark Baldassare, Public Policy Institute of California

Voter engagement with Prop 50 was quite high. In the early-October PPIC Statewide Survey, 68% of likely voters said they considered the outcome of the measure to be very important, and 56% were planning to vote yes.

The Prop 50 outcome suggests that the coalition Democrats rode to victory in the 2020 presidential election might be reemerging. Between 2020 and 2024, Democrats lost significant amounts of support among 18-to-29-year-old (75% to 58%) and Latino (75% to 59%) voters. If a yes vote on Prop 50 is treated as a vote for Democrats, Democratic support among each of these groups returned to something much closer to 2020.

Strong support for Prop 50 did not necessarily reflect negative views of the redistricting commission. In our October survey, 72% of California voters and a higher share of yes (77%) than no (67%) voters said that the redistricting commission had mostly been a good thing.

Likewise, 92% of voters in the exit polls felt districts should be drawn by an independent commission, even though most of them (63%) voted to suspend the map California’s independent commission had drawn. If Prop 50 had involved a permanent end to the commission—instead of a temporary pause in response to the partisan redistricting in Texas—it might have had a much harder road to victory.

California Supreme Court rejects free-speech challenge to LGBT protections in nursing homes

The California Supreme Court rejected a 1st Amendment challenge to a state law that protects the rights of gay and transgender people in nursing homes and forbids employees of those sites from using the wrong pronouns to address a resident or co-worker.

Nigel Duara, Los Angeles Times

The California Supreme Court rejected a 1st Amendment challenge to a state law that protects the rights of gay and transgender people in nursing homes and forbids employees of those sites from using the wrong pronouns to address a resident or co-worker.

The ruling, handed down Friday, holds that violations of the LGBT Long-Term Care Residents’ Bill of Rights are not protected by the 1st Amendment because they relate to codes of conduct in what is in effect a workplace and a home.

“The pronouns provision constitutes a regulation of discriminatory conduct that incidentally affects speech,” the court ruled.

The opinion reversed an appeals court ruling that held provisions in the 2017 law relating to patient pronouns and names could impede an employee’s freedom of speech. Five justices signed on to the main opinion; two signed on to a concurrence. There were no dissents.

Trump admin to ban book from Yosemite National Park, says author

A prominent Bay Area author said one of his books has been quietly flagged at Yosemite National Park as part of a March 2025 federal directive aiming to remove and revise “negative” information relating to American history.

Olivia Hebert, SF Gate

Naturalist and illustrator Obi Kaufmann wrote in a Facebook post this week that his 2019 book, “The State of Water: Understanding California’s Most Precious Resource,” was identified by park officials as restricted under President Donald Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Kaufmann said the flagging means that while Yosemite bookstores will not pull copies from the shelves, they will no longer purchase new copies of his book.

“The State of Water” explores what has led to California’s current water crisis, “exposing a history of unlimited growth in spite of finite natural resources,” according to its publisher, Heyday Books. In the book, Kaufmann cautions against further developing California’s waterways, highlighting that conserving and restoring the ecosystem is not only a moral issue but a matter of survival.

Kaufmann’s focus on ecological decline and water exploitation may explain why the book’s been targeted,Jonathan Rosenfield, science director at San Francisco Baykeeper, told SFGATE.

ICYMI: ON OUR WEBSITE

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