Politics
A lifeline for Hollywood jobs or a corporate giveaway? The film tax credit debate returns
It’s showtime for Hollywood at the California Capitol.
The state’s entertainment industry has spent months begging for help from Sacramento to stem the decline of film and TV production and save thousands of jobs.
This week, after months of speeches and promises from public officials, two bills meant to boost the beleaguered business cleared their first legislative hurdles.
The bills are intended to make California’s film and TV production incentive more competitive with other states and countries by increasing the tax credit up to 35% of qualified expenditures and expanding the types of productions that would be eligible.
It’s a potential lifeline for the entertainment industry, which has been battered in recent years by production slowdowns wrought by the pandemic, the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, a pullback in spending by the studios, the recent Southern California wildfires and productions fleeing the Golden State.
“We don’t want to become the car industry in Detroit or aerospace in California,” said Rebecca Rhine, president of the Entertainment Union Coalition and Western executive director of the Directors Guild of America. “When our industry thrives, we think California thrives.”
The bills won unanimous votes out of the state Senate revenue and taxation committee and the Assembly arts and entertainment committee.
But despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s initial call last year to more than double the money allocated to the state’s film and TV tax credit program, passage of the two bills is far from a done deal.
Critics have been skeptical of the film and TV tax credit program since it was introduced in 2009 under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some say the tax credits are corporate giveaways and don’t deliver as much economic value as proponents claim.
“The economy does best when government doesn’t pick winners and losers,” said Wayne Winegarden, senior fellow of business and economics at Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank that advocates for free markets. “This is not the right way to get a pro-growth fiscal business environment that accelerates job growth.”
Additionally, California now faces a difficult economic outlook, as officials brace for potential cuts in federal funding, as well as tariff-related pressures on state revenues and stock market volatility that could reduce tax collections that fund state programs.
That all forces difficult questions for legislators about which priorities to fund.
In a recent post on X, Assemblymember Corey Jackson said Democratic voters in California “should be outraged that we aren’t spending more on housing, allowing seniors to fall into homelessness, and allowing so many children to live in poverty. For corporate and movie studio tax breaks.”
Reached by phone, Jackson said that while expanding film and TV tax credits is a worthy policy, state lawmakers must consider what they’d have to sacrifice for them, particularly as the state budget is under stress.
“If we were back in the period where we have more money than we can spend, this would be a no-brainer,” Jackson said. “But it’s time to bring people back to reality. This should not just be a slam-dunk to people.”
Hollywood workers argue that an expanded film and TV tax credit would generate economic returns beyond the industry, with ripple effects touching tourism as well as small businesses such as dry cleaners, florists and caterers that rely on entertainment spending. And after years of struggles, workers say the industry is at an inflection point.
That has led to a major lobbying effort on Hollywood’s part.
More than 100,000 letters have been sent to individual state lawmakers in support of the bills, with an additional 22,000 letters sent to the Senate revenue and taxation committee.
Dozens of representatives from all of the major entertainment industry unions trekked to Sacramento to support the legislation, as did studio executives, their lobbyists and the Motion Picture Assn. trade group.
It’s the kind of show of force State Sen. Ben Allen and Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, two of the bills’ co-sponsors, had called for when they spoke to a crowd last week at Burbank’s Evergreen Studios recording facility and urged entertainment workers to contact their representatives.
“It’s going to be a fight to get this done because of the headwinds,” Allen told the crowd, noting that there are many competing priorities at the state level. Just the mention of the legislation was enough to elicit applause and cheers from the audience.
Industry insiders and lawmakers, including at the Burbank town hall, have tried to fend off criticism that this is a gift to corporations.
They described them as jobs bills that will reward the productions that generate the most employment and will not allow companies to use the tax credits until after production has wrapped.
California currently provides a 20% to 25% tax credit to offset qualified production expenses, such as money spent on film crews and building sets. Production companies can apply the credit toward any tax liabilities they have in California. Raising the credit to 35% is significant, supporters say. Projects that shoot elsewhere in the state could get a credit of 40%.
The legislation also would expand the types of productions that would qualify, including animated films, shorts and series, along with large-scale competition shows. Independent productions will be allocated 10% of the total amount in the program, up from the current 8%.
“In some respects, the headwinds have actually strengthened the bill,” Allen told The Times. “They’ve forced really careful, intense, thoughtful, targeted conversations and negotiations.”
Outside of Hollywood, the bills have the backing of the California Labor Federation, whose executive council unanimously voted to support the legislation in February, said President Lorena Gonzalez.
Though the organization is not always supportive of tax credits, the federation has always supported the film and TV program, she said.
“The fact is the unique situation with Hollywood being so unionized,” said Gonzalez. “In order to preserve those good union jobs and the middle-class lives that are developed as a result, we’d like to keep those jobs here.”
The lobbying effort has led to unusual alliances, particularly in the wake of the strikes, with both studios and Hollywood unions rallying on the same side. Both groups, however, have worked together on previous film and TV tax credit proposals.
In a letter to the leaders of the Assembly committee on revenue and taxation, Motion Picture Assn. Chief Executive Charles H. Rivkin wrote that the changes to the film and TV tax credit program would “help attract more productions and jobs in California.”
If the bill were enacted, he wrote, the studios will submit more applications to the California Film Commission, “leading to locating more of their productions in California, which will create and retain good jobs for Californians.”
But even within Hollywood’s overall push, there are differing priorities among stakeholders. During the Burbank town hall meeting, postproduction workers and music scoring professionals called for carve-outs, noting that other states and countries now offer specific rebates for this work.
That has led to a steep decline in production for these workers. The average number of booked recording days for a sampling of L.A.’s scoring stages is now 11 days for 2025 so far, a far cry from the average of 127 days for all of 2022 during the peak of the streaming boom, said Peter Rotter, founder of Encompass Music Partners, who helped organize the town hall.
Much scoring work has moved to Europe or even Nashville, while some postproduction work has been diverted to places like Canada and London.
”It’s going to take a village,” Rotter told The Times. “We have one shot at this right now.”
new video loaded: Federal Agent Fatally Shoots Woman in Minneapolis
transcript
transcript
Federal Agent Fatally Shoots Woman in Minneapolis
Federal officials claimed that the 37-year-old woman was trying to kill agents with a car in Minneapolis, while city and state officials disputed their account.
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“No! No! Shame — shame! What did you do?” “It was an act of domestic terrorism, what happened. It was — our ICE officers were out in an enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicle, and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them, and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him.” “We’ve been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to our public safety.” “They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video of myself, I want to tell everybody directly: That is bullshit. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying — getting killed.” “Get out of the fucking car.” “No! No! Shame! [gunshots] Shame! Oh, my fucking God. What the fuck? What the fuck? You just fucking — what the fuck did you do?” “There is nothing to indicate that this woman was the target of any law enforcement investigation or activity. This woman was in her car, and it appears, then blocking the street because of the presence of federal law enforcement, which is obviously something that has been happening not just in Minneapolis, but around the country.”
By Jamie Leventhal and Devon Lum
January 7, 2026
Politics
Trump greenlights Russian sanctions bill, paving way for 500% tariff on countries supporting Moscow: Graham
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Sen. Lindsey Graham announced Wednesday that President Donald Trump has approved a Russian sanctions bill designed to pressure Moscow to end its war with Ukraine.
Graham revealed the development in a post on X, describing it as a pivotal shift in the U.S. approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“After a very productive meeting today with President Trump on a variety of issues, he greenlit the bipartisan Russia sanctions bill that I have been working on for months with Senator Blumenthal and many others,” Graham said.
“This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent.”
TRUMP TOUTS ‘TREMENDOUS PROGRESS’ BUT SAYS HE’LL MEET PUTIN AND ZELENSKYY ‘ONLY WHEN’ PEACE DEAL IS FINAL
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol July 31, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
According to the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, the bipartisan legislation is designed to grant Trump sweeping, almost unprecedented, authority to economically isolate Russia and penalize major global economies that continue to trade with Moscow and finance its war against Ukraine.
Most notably, the bill would require the United States to impose a 500% tariff on all goods imported from any country that continues to purchase Russian oil, petroleum products or uranium. The measure would effectively squeeze Russia financially while deterring foreign governments from undermining U.S. sanctions.
TRUMP CASTS MADURO’S OUSTER AS ‘SMART’ MOVE AS RUSSIA, CHINA ENTER THE FRAY
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting at the White House Oct. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“This bill will allow President Trump to punish those countries who buy cheap Russian oil fueling Putin’s war machine,” Graham said.
“This bill would give President Trump tremendous leverage against countries like China, India and Brazil to incentivize them to stop buying the cheap Russian oil that provides the financing for Putin’s bloodbath against Ukraine.”
Graham said voting could take place as early as next week and that he is looking forward to a strong bipartisan vote.
US MILITARY SEIZES TWO SANCTIONED TANKERS IN ATLANTIC OCEAN
The vessel tanker Bella 1 was spotted in Singapore Strait after U.S. officials say the U.S. Coast Guard pursued an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela. (Hakon Rimmereid/via Reuters)
The move on the Russian sanctions bill follows another sharp escalation in America’s clampdown on Moscow. Earlier Wednesday, U.S. forces reportedly seized an oil tanker attempting to transport sanctioned Venezuelan oil to Russia.
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Graham publicly celebrated the seizure in another post on X, describing it as part of a broader winning streak of U.S. intervention aimed at Venezuela and Cuba.
In the post, he also took aim at critics such as Sen. Rand Paul, who has opposed the bill, arguing that it would damage America’s trade relations with much of the world.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
Politics
ICE officer kills a Minneapolis driver in a deadly start to Trump’s latest immigration operation
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a Minneapolis driver on Wednesday during the Trump administration’s latest crackdown on a major American city — a shooting that federal officials said was an act of self-defense but that the mayor described as reckless and unnecessary.
The 37-year-old woman was shot in front of a family member during a traffic stop in a snowy residential neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, just a few blocks from some of the oldest immigrant markets and about a mile from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020. Her killing quickly drew a crowd of hundreds of angry protesters.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, while visiting Texas, described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism” carried out against ICE officers by a woman who “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him.”
Emergency medical technicians carry a person on a stretcher at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
(Ellen Schmidt / Associated Press)
But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey blasted that characterization as “garbage” and criticized the federal deployment of more than 2,000 officers to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul as part of the immigration crackdown.
“What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust,” Frey said, calling on the immigration agents to leave. “They’re ripping families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, quite literally killing people.
“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bullshit,” the mayor said.
Frey said he had a message for ICE: “Get the f— out of Minneapolis.”
Police tape surrounds a vehicle believed to be involved in a shooting by an ICE agent on Wednesday.
(Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
A shooting caught on video
Videos taken by bystanders with different vantage points and posted to social media show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward, and a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It was not clear from the videos whether the vehicle made contact with the officer. The SUV then sped into two cars parked on a curb nearby before crashing to a stop. Witnesses screamed obscenities, expressing shock at what they’d seen.
After the shooting, emergency medical technicians tried to administer aid to the woman.
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“She was driving away and they killed her,” said resident Lynette Reini-Grandell, who was outdoors recording video on her phone.
The shooting marked a dramatic escalation of the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major cities under the Trump administration. The death of the Minneapolis driver, whose name wasn’t immediately released, was at least the fifth linked to immigration crackdowns.
The Twin Cities have been on edge since DHS announced Tuesday that it had launched the operation, which is at least partly tied to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. Noem confirmed Wednesday that DHS had deployed more than 2,000 officers to the area and said they had already made “hundreds and hundreds” of arrests.
Protesters react after being hit with chemical spray at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis.
(Alex Kormann / Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)
A large throng of protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting, where they vented their anger at the local and federal officers who were there, including Gregory Bovino, a senior U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official who has been the face of crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere.
In a scene that hearkened back to the Los Angeles and Chicago crackdowns, bystanders heckled the officers, chanting “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “ICE out of Minnesota,” and blew whistles that have become ubiquitous during the operations.
Shootings involving drivers during immigration actions have been an issue since the raids began in Southern California.
In August, masked U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in San Bernardino opened fire on a truck they had stopped on a street. A video showed an agent demanding the driver roll down his window. When he refused, an agent shattered the window, the truck drove off and gunfire rang out.
When the driver got home, the family reported the incident to police. Federal authorities alleged an agent had been injured when the driver tried to “run them down.” But witnesses and video disputed some aspects of the official account.
In October, a well-known TikTok figure was shot by an agent during a standoff in Los Angeles. The U.S. attorney said the man rammed his vehicle into the law enforcement vehicles in front of and behind him, “spun the tires, spewing smoke and debris into the air, causing the car to fishtail and causing agents to worry for their safety.” But videos showed a much more complicated view of the situation. A federal judge recently dismissed the case against the driver, finding that he had been denied access to counsel while in immigration detention.
Governor calls for calm
In Minnesota on Wednesday, Gov. Tim Walz said he was prepared to deploy the National Guard if necessary. He said a family member of the driver was there to witness the killing, which he described as “predictable” and “avoidable.” He also said that, like many, he was outraged by the shooting but called on people to keep protests peaceful.
“They want a show. We can’t give it to them. We cannot,” the governor said during a news conference. “If you protest and express your 1st Amendment rights, please do so peacefully, as you always do. We can’t give them what they want.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara briefly described the shooting to reporters but, unlike federal officials, gave no indication that the driver was trying to harm anyone. He said she had been shot in the head.
“This woman was in her vehicle and was blocking the roadway on Portland Avenue. … At some point a federal law enforcement officer approached her on foot and the vehicle began to drive off,” the chief said. “At least two shots were fired. The vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway.”
There were calls on social media to prosecute the officer who shot the driver. Commissioner Bob Jacobson of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said state authorities would investigate the shooting with federal authorities.
“Keep in mind that this is an investigation that is also in its infancy. So any speculation about what has happened would be just that,” Jacobson told reporters.
The shooting happened in the district of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who called it “state violence,” not law enforcement.
For nearly a year, migrant rights advocates and neighborhood activists across the Twin Cities have been preparing to mobilize in the event of an immigration enforcement surge. From houses of worship to mobile home parks, they have set up active online networks, scanned license plates for possible federal vehicles and bought whistles and other noise-making devices to alert neighborhoods of any enforcement presence.
Sullivan and Dell’Orto write for the Associated Press. Dell’Orto reported from St. Paul, Minn. AP writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Ed White in Detroit, Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas, and Mark Vancleave in Las Vegas and Times staff contributed to this report.
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