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State Senate leader Toni Atkins joins 2026 race for California governor

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State Senate leader Toni Atkins joins 2026 race for California governor

State Sen. Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) announced a 2026 run for California governor Friday morning, making the legislative leader the latest entrant in an increasingly crowded race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom after he is forced out of office by term limits.

Atkins serves as Senate president pro tem and is a former Assembly speaker. She is the first female and first out LGBTQ+ president pro tem in state history and also the first legislator since 1871 to hold both leadership posts.

She is terming out in the Legislature and had been widely expected to make a bid for governor.

Atkins’ experience running the Assembly and the Senate makes her “uniquely prepared” to lead the state, as does a personal narrative that’s taken her from a childhood in poverty in rural Appalachia to the corridors of California power, she said.

“I don’t really fit the mold of past governors or even some of the fellow candidates,” she explained. “Clearly I’m not a man. I wasn’t born into wealth or privilege. And I wasn’t appointed to my first big political office. My story is much more like the Californians that I meet every day.”

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Atkins’ time as the Senate leader ends in February when Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) takes over the post.

Atkins began her political career on the San Diego City Council after serving as a women’s clinic administrator. As Assembly leader, she championed a $7.5-billion water bond that was approved by voters in 2014, fought back against planned tuition hikes at the University of California and battled for a new state tax credit for the working poor.

She touted the fact that she has “negotiated eight on-time budgets with two different governors,” saying she’d been able “to go toe-to-toe and support the programs and policies that matter most in people’s everyday lives.”

Atkins has been a champion of affordable housing while serving in Sacramento. Her spouse, Jennifer LeSar, also has worked for two successful housing and economic firms while Atkins has been in office.

Announcing her candidacy in a bright pink suit before a crowd gathered at the San Diego Air and Space Museum, Atkins emphasized her blue-collar roots and her feminist identity. She described growing up as a miner’s child in Virginia in a house that lacked indoor plumbing, and said she first heard of California as a “magical place” her father had visited while serving in World War II. She eventually followed her sister to San Diego and began working at a feminist women’s health clinic.

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Numerous union leaders gave speeches backing Atkins’ candidacy, a powerful signal in a heavily Democratic state where labor’s largesse is influential in statewide contests.

“Her toughness and her intelligence and her blue collar upbringing — she gets us,” said Frank Hawk, chief executive officer of the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters. “And the reason she gets us, is she’s one of us.”

Atkins has nearly $2.3 million in a campaign committee for lieutenant governor that she opened several years ago, according to filing records with the California secretary of state’s office, and will be able to use those funds for her gubernatorial campaign. Major donors to the committee include building trades unions, nurses and firefighters associations, and the California Real Estate PAC.

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis jump-started the gubernatorial race when she announced her candidacy last spring. Newsom, who is advised by the same political consultants as Kounalakis, followed a similar timeline before his 2018 bid for governor, announcing three years early.

California Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond launched his bid in September. Former state Controller Betty Yee has also said she plans to run, but she will not formally launch her candidacy until after the March primary, she said Wednesday. Yee opened a campaign committee this week, she said, and sent a fundraising email this week saying she was “officially laying the groundwork” ahead of her campaign.

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Kounalakis has raised $3.7 million in her campaign committee, and Thurmond has raised more than $665,000 since he launched his campaign committee.

State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has said he is “seriously considering” but has yet to officially throw his hat in the ring.

Several women, including former Hewlett-Packard chief Meg Whitman and the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, have run in the past, but California has never had a female chief executive before — putting Atkins, Yee or Kounalakis in position to break the governor’s mansion’s glass ceiling, should any of the three prevail.

“You’re talking about five candidates, each of them having notable strengths, each of them on the face of it very different from one another,” veteran Democratic strategist Darry Sragow said of the group. “But if you step back for a minute, this is an incredible tribute to what the political system — or at least the Democratic Party in California — has become.”

The fact that the makeup of the field of contenders — or, in Bonta’s case, potential contenders — includes three women, three people of color and a member of the LGBTQ+ community shows a leadership pool that is far more representative of the state’s population, Sragow said.

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Staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.

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Trump greenlights Russian sanctions bill, paving way for 500% tariff on countries supporting Moscow: Graham

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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.”

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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

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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

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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.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

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ICE officer kills a Minneapolis driver in a deadly start to Trump’s latest immigration operation

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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)

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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.”

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Police tape surrounds a vehicle

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.

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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.

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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.

Protestors react after being hit with chemical spray

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.

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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.

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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.”

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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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San Diego sues to stop border barrier construction

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San Diego sues to stop border barrier construction

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The city of San Diego sued the federal government to stop the construction of razor wire fencing on city-owned land near the U.S.-Mexico border, accusing federal agencies of trespassing and causing environmental damage.

The city filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for Southern California on Monday. The complaint named Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth among the defendants.

The city accused the federal government of acting without legal authority when they entered city property in Marron Valley and began installing razor wire fencing.

“The City of San Diego will not allow federal agencies to disregard the law and damage City property,” said City Attorney Heather Ferbert in a news release. She said the lawsuit aims to protect sensitive habitats and ensure environmental commitments are upheld.

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NEWSOM SUES TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OVER CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD DEPLOYMENT ORDER TO OREGON

San Diego is suing the federal government to stop the construction of razor wire fencing on city property in Marron Valley. (Justin Hamel/Bloomberg via Getty Images, File)

According to the lawsuit, federal personnel including U.S. Marines accessed the land without the city’s consent, and damaged environmentally sensitive areas protected under long-standing conservation agreements.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth were among the federal officials named in San Diego’s lawsuit. (Reuters/Brian Snyder; AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

San Diego argues the fencing has blocked the city’s ability to manage and assess its own property and could jeopardize compliance with environmental obligations.

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An American flag can be seen through the barbed wire surrounding the CoreCivic Otay Mesa Detention Center on October 4, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

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The lawsuit also accuses the federal government of trespassing and beginning construction without proper authority or environmental review, and unconstitutionally taking the land in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

Fox News Digital reached out to DHS and the Pentagon for comment.

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