West
Newsom urged to halt progressives' 'scheming' to derail popular anti-crime initiative
California Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley and the rest of the state’s Republican delegation are calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Democrats to drop what they say is “cynical political scheming” to legislatively undermine a popular bipartisan anti-crime effort.
On Tuesday, the Secretary of State’s Office announced voters will have their chance to repeal key portions of the controversial Prop. 47 law – which significantly lowered the penalties for certain categories of drug and theft crimes – in the November general election after the petition garnered more than 600,000 valid petition signatures to secure a spot on the ballot. The initiative only needed 546,651 to qualify, according to the state secretary’s office.
But Newsom and Golden State Democrats oppose the initiative and are working to fast-track their own public safety bills pertaining to curbing criminal retail theft without reforming Prop. 47. Some Democrats plan to introduce inoperability clauses into the set of proposed public safety bills to prevent them from going into effect if voters approve the Prop 47 reforms. They contend that it’s a way to ensure there aren’t any inconsistencies in the law.
“This measure will repeal the most problematic provisions of Proposition 47 from 2014. It is a vitally needed policy correction to address the growing problems of retail theft, open-air drug markets, and homelessness in our state,” Kiley wrote in a letter to Newsom on Tuesday.
NEWSOM PROPOSES DEFUNDING LAW ENFORCEMENT, PRISONS, PUBLIC SAFETY AS CALIFORNIA FACES MASSIVE DEFICIT
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, left, U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley (Getty Images)
The California Republican added that not only have hundreds of thousands of Californians signed the petition, but it has also received bipartisan support from lawmakers such as San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.
Tuesday’s letter was signed by every Republican member of the California U.S. House delegation.
“It is clear that the only purpose of this novel legislative maneuver is to equip opponents of the ballot initiative with a talking point – to be used on the campaign trail, and likely even on the ballot itself – to confuse voters and undermine the will of the people of California,” the letter reads.
“While there is a long and troubling tradition of ballot initiative language being skewed, the current scheme represents an unprecedented threat to the entire initiative process. This tactic could be used by legislators to defeat any unwanted ballot initiative going forward, simply by picking a popular piece of existing legislation and stipulating that if the initiative passes, that legislation will be repealed. This will defeat the entire purpose of the initiative process, which is designed to give voters a direct say on issues affecting our state.”
SACRAMENTO MASS SHOOTING SUSPECT FOUND DEAD IN JAIL CELL WHILE AWAITING TRIAL
California Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes efforts to reform Prop. 47. (California Governor Gavin Newsom YouTube channel)
Leaders of the initiative to roll back Prop. 47 measures, called the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, argue that the law led to the uptick in theft and robberies after the threshold for shoplifting was dropped to $950. It also lowered grand theft and receiving stolen property to a misdemeanor instead of a felony.
According to Kiley’s office, Newsom and the Democrats’ bill package would “take effect immediately and make it so they will be automatically reversed if the ballot initiative passes.”
“Cynical political scheming designed to turn the initiative upside-down is an affront to every California voter,” Kiley wrote.
A spokesperson for Newsom’s office told Fox News Digital via email that “California law provides existing robust tools for law enforcement and prosecutors to arrest and charge suspects involved in organized retail crime – including up to three years of jail time for organized retail theft.”
“The state has among the lowest (i.e. toughest) thresholds nationally for prosecutors to charge suspects with a felony, $950. The majority of states – including red states like Texas ($2,500), South Carolina ($2000), and Mississippi ($1,000) – have weaker laws that require higher dollar amounts for suspects to be charged with a felony,” the spokesperson added.
The letter comes as progressives in the state in recent months have appeared to backtrack on their soft-on-crime policies. According to a Public Policy Institute report in February, researchers tracked a rise in shoplifting, especially in the Bay Area, and a larger rise in commercial burglary among urban counties in California between 2020 and 2022. Shoplifting rose 29% statewide from 2021 to 2022.
Nationwide, a 2023 report from the National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail association, found that organized retail crime was a primary driver of the massive amount of “shrink” retailers saw in 2022, with nonemployee stealing making up 36%.
The term “shrink” typically means theft and other forms of inventory losses, and retailers nationwide experienced $112 billion in losses in 2022.
19 STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL CHALLENGE BLUE STATES’ RADICAL CLIMATE POLICIES IMPACTING OTHERS
The owners of Meza’s Jewelry in El Monte fought back against a would-be smash-and-grab thief. (Meza’s Jewelry)
The NRF found that Los Angeles was one of the hardest-hit cities in California for ORC, leading the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department to create the Organized Retail Theft Crime Task Force. Many law enforcement officials have blamed the measure for the uptick in theft and smash-and-grabs that have plagued California in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic. Around the same time, California became synonymous with smash-and-grab crimes as videos of groups of thieves brazenly ransacking stores gained traction online.
Meanwhile, opponents of tough-on-crime laws argue the harsher penalties are too extreme for the crimes and could prevent a person from being rehabilitated, especially minorities.
People inhabit encampments on the streets of San Francisco on April 15, 2023. (Flight Risk for Fox News Digital)
“There’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of negotiations concurrently happening,” Newsom told reporters on Friday. “Prop 47 is included.”
Last year, the Democrat governor announced more than $267 million to increase arrests and prosecutions for organized retail crime across the state. Earlier this year, Newsom recalled how he witnessed a shoplifter stealing from Target in Sacramento. He confronted a store employee moments later.
“I said, ‘Why didn’t you stop him,’” Newsom said during a Zoom meeting on mental health in January. “She goes, ‘Oh, the governor.’ Swear to God, true story on my mom’s grave. ‘The governor lowered the threshold, there’s no accountability.’ I said, ‘That’s just not true.’”
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
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GEARHART, Ore. (KATU) — Another gray whale washed up on the Oregon coast last week, this time in Gearhart, according to Seaside Aquarium.
The 41-foot-long male had been dead for months before washing up on the beach, Seaside Aquarium general manager Keith Chandler said.
He noted that there have been 19 total whale strandings or carcasses washing up on beaches just this year on the Oregon coast region.
The Cascadia Research Collective is reporting at least 30 on Washington coastline alone. | TIMELINE
Of those deaths, more than half were at least partially attributed to malnutrition. That could have been the cause in more strandings, however, necropsies were not performed in roughly a dozen of the 30 strandings.
Chandler said strong wind from the west this year has been contributing to why coastal towns are seeing a lot of whales and other things washing up on shore. However he also noted that many of the Grey whales washed ashore were emaciated with necropsies showing signs of malnourishment.
“The food sources have been compromised. The warmer water means the nutrients that they’re getting aren’t as good, so the whole food chain is kind of not as healthy,” Chandler said.
He pointed to the warming waters with climate change as the main reason noting that warm water plankton–Grey Whale’s main food source–is thinner and has fewer nutrients than plankton in cooler waters.
Chandler says this whale will not have a necropsy done because of its level of decomposition.
“The fresher ones, the team from Portland State [University] will come down and they’ll go in and do measurements, take samples and stuff, measurements of the internal organs. But on one this decayed, you won’t gain anything from it scientifically. And it’s just kind of a mess to do when they’re this rotten,” he said.
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You can report a whale stranding to the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network Hotline by calling 1-866-767-6114.
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Utah law enforcement agencies are increasingly using facial recognition technology to identify criminal suspects, but state law limits its use to specific circumstances and imposes some of the strictest safeguards in the nation.
Under Utah law, facial recognition technology may only be used for certain law enforcement purposes, including felony investigations, violent crimes, threats to human life, and efforts to identify deceased, incapacitated or at-risk individuals.
The technology recently came under scrutiny in the case of Brad Johnston, who faced a felony charge related to the vandalism of an Uber driver’s vehicle after a facial recognition match linked him to the case. Johnston maintained he was not involved.
“The only way I can describe it was just terrifying,” Johnston said.
MORE: Facial recognition AI misidentifies Utah man in felony vandalism case
The match was generated from surveillance video taken from inside the Uber ride, but Johnston insisted investigators had identified the wrong person. After months of court proceedings, the case was ultimately dismissed.
According to the most recently available data, Utah law enforcement agencies submitted 1,191 facial recognition requests between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025. Of those, 706 resulted in probable matches, a rate of about 59%.
State law requires all facial recognition requests to be processed through the Utah Department of Public Safety.
Tanner Jensen, chief of investigations for the department, said requests from law enforcement have increased over the past five years.
Jensen said the system will analyze biometric data and measurements and two people manually review each image submitted for comparison. The process results in one of two outcomes: a possible match or no result. Once findings are returned to the requesting agency, the department’s involvement ends.
“If they do both feel like the match is viable, they’ll send that to the officer for further investigation with a disclaimer that this is an investigative lead and not necessarily something that’s part of the evidence,” Jensen said.
Most identifications are generated through comparisons with a driver’s license photographs. Jensen said biometric characteristics remain consistent over time, but human review is still critical.
“You may get a percentage below 90%, but that’s not to indicate that that’s not the individual,” Jensen said. “Or you may get a percentage that’s above 90% and we still don’t feel confident that that would be the individual. It really comes down to the human-in-the-loop aspect.”
Retired Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said law enforcement agencies have adapted quickly to emerging technologies, much as they did when body-worn cameras were introduced.
“The technology is just moving so fast and furious,” Burbank said. “One of the things is the availability of AI to analyze a large database.”
Burbank said strong policies must guide the use of technology in policing.
“We need to ensure, again, is this policy sound for the public or is it just good for policing?” he said.
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The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Washington’s National Mall is set to be drained again for repairs after algae and peeling paint appeared just weeks after a US$14.7 million renovation, while President Donald Trump threatened prison time for anyone caught damaging the pool.
The DC Water authority issued a permit to drain the 609-metre rectangular pool, it said on Monday, while the repair company said it would fix the pool as part of its warranty.
Peeling paint and algae growth have been visible in the pool since soon after Trump declared the renovation project complete on June 6. Critics have raised concerns about the no-bid contract to recoat the pool before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations next month, as well as for the ducks that use its water. Workers from the National Park Service earlier this week poured hydrogen peroxide into the pool to combat the algae.
Trump, without evidence, has blamed vandals for the state of the landmark. On Monday, he echoed a weekend threat by US Attorney Jeanine Pirro to prosecute people accused of attempting to destroy the pool.
“Please remember that there is a 10-year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced!” Trump earlier wrote in a social media post. Destruction of federal property can carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
It was not immediately apparent what criminal or civil violation someone might commit reaching into the pool.
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