California
After party rift on shutdown, California Democrats try to refocus budget fight on Medicaid
After a bruising Washington battle that averted a government shutdown but broke their party in two last week, leading California Democrats are trying to project a unified front on a central issue in the next big budget fight: Medicaid.
Republicans have already signaled their intention to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the healthcare program for low-income residents, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich, the Democrats said — and must be stopped.
“Our budget should be a statement of our national values. What is important to us should be reflected in that budget. But what we see now is an assault on our values as they make this assault on our budget,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday at a UC San Francisco medical facility in her district, flanked by several other members of Congress, local doctors, community advocates and Medicaid recipients.
The event was part of a broader nationwide effort among Democrats to align on a clear message about Republican budget priorities that they say are threatening the well-being of average Americans — and before the frantic final days of negotiations or any vote in Washington.
They do not want to repeat the mistakes of last week, when Democrats split over the GOP’s stopgap measure to avoid a federal government shutdown.
Party leaders were accused of putting out muddled messaging about what was at stake, capitulating to Republicans in a rare moment when they had leverage, and handing President Trump and his party an important win at a time when they are running roughshod over the federal government and normal, bipartisan processes for funding it.
The episode exposed deep fissures in Democratic Party strategy, with former House Speaker Pelosi even making a rare and unsuccessful plea to Democratic senators to break with their leader, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, and oppose the stopgap measure.
But on Tuesday, Pelosi and Schumer appeared aligned once more, if not on last week than at least on how to move forward. Pelosi’s event was part of a “Medicaid Day of Action” that Schumer had touted hours earlier on ABC’s “The View.”
“We have senators and congressmen going to all different parts of their states and districts talking about how bad the Medicaid cut would be,” Schumer said.
“We don’t agonize, we organize, and this day, today, we have scores of events across the country, starting in New York,” Pelosi echoed hours later. “And we’ll have them tomorrow and the next day and the next day.”
A host of Democrats held smaller events and roundtable discussions with healthcare providers in their own districts, including Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove in Los Angeles and Rep. Ted Lieu in Redondo Beach. Protesters also decried Medicaid cuts outside the Anaheim Hills office of Republican Rep. Young Kim.
The Democrats say their hyper-focus on Medicaid is not just bluster — though Republicans have framed it as such.
Trump has repeatedly said that his party is not going after people’s Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits, and the White House has acted exasperated by claims otherwise, saying the administration supports only the elimination of fraud and abuse in such programs.
“What kind of a person doesn’t support eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in government spending that ultimately costs taxpayers more?” it said.
Republican members of Congress have made similar arguments, accusing Democrats of lying about Medicaid cuts just to rile up their base and win political points.
A protester holds a sign outside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office last week after he said he would vote to advance a GOP-written funding patch to avert a government shutdown, saying it was the better of two bad options.
(Michel Nigro / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images)
However, Republicans brought on the concern themselves by passing a budget resolution last month aimed at extending 2017 tax cuts, including by finding trillions of dollars in spending cuts to pay for them.
That resolution does not explicitly require Medicaid cuts, but it instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, to cut spending by $880 billion over the next decade.
Democrats say simple math makes clear that the only way the committee will be able to find that level of cuts is by cutting Medicaid, unless they want to cut Medicare, the health program for seniors, which Republicans have also said is off the table. The committee could cut everything else in its budget — completely — and still wouldn’t reach the savings Republicans have called for, an independent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office concluded.
At Pelosi’s event, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena), the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means subcommittee on tax policy, said Republicans who are denying that their budget resolution calls for cuts to Medicaid aren’t telling the truth.
“We’re here because this president and the Republicans in Congress want to decimate Medicaid. They say no, they’re not going to touch Medicaid. That is a bald-faced lie,” Thompson said.
Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid, covers nearly 15 million Californians, or more than a third of the state’s population, according to recent estimates from state health officials. Many of those patients are children.
But, as Thompson and others at the event noted, many others in the state would be affected by Medicaid cuts as well, because they would kneecap health systems and hospitals — particularly in rural and other poor communities where Medicaid patients make up a larger percentage of patients.
“We need to make sure our colleagues in red districts across the state understand this and they speak out,” Thompson said.
Sen. Adam Schiff agreed, calling such cuts “absolutely devastating to healthcare around the country, and most particularly to states like California that have so many of our residents who utilize Medicaid.”
Schiff said that healthcare systems throughout the state, especially in rural areas, are already in a “precarious position” financially, and that cutting Medicaid funding would set into motion a “cascading set of closures of hospitals and clinics.”
Dr. Josh Adler, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at UCSF Health, said more than 70% of the system’s in-patient care is roughly split between Medicare and Medicaid patients. Last year, he said, 58% of emergency department patients and 35% of the system’s in-patient population relied on Medicaid.
The cuts envisioned in Congress would “severely weaken the healthcare system that millions of Californians rely on for high-quality primary care and secondary care, while increasing the uncompensated care costs for hospitals that are already financially stressed,” he said.
Dr. Amy Herold, an OB-GYN and chief administrative and chief medical officer for Providence Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, said her region is known for its tourism but is really a rural farming and service community — which is reflected in her system’s users.
Herold said 75% of the hospital’s patients are on Medicare or Medicaid, with more than 30% on Medicaid, and “that goes up to over 50% when you look at our pregnant ladies having their babies, including the one I delivered two days ago.”
The proposed cuts would make it difficult for her hospital to stay open, she said, despite the fact that it is the only one in her county with a trauma center and a labor and delivery center.
“There will be a healthcare desert, so not only do the people that are on Medi-Cal/Medicaid not have access to care, anyone — regardless of your insurance status — will not have access to care,” she said. “This is what keeps me up at night.”
Sascha Bittner, who serves on San Francisco’s Disability and Aging Services Commission and who is quadriplegic and has a speech disability and a vision disability from cerebral palsy, credited Medicaid with saving her life by providing her with home and community-based support and an array of healthcare services. In 2013, she said, she spent five months in the hospital with lymphoma, which would have cost her life or bankrupted her family without Medicaid.
“There are disabled children, elderly and other vulnerable people like me who depend on Medicaid,” Bittner said, “and the Republican plan to gut this crucial support is an attack on our very lives.”
A massive fog bank that has been blanketing much of California’s Central Valley with low-lying clouds since Thanksgiving time has prompted fears online of a mysterious and harmful “radiation fog,” but scientists say this is a misunderstanding of basic scientific terms and common weather patterns in the region.
“There’s something in the fog that I can’t explain,” a California man said in a recent video as he wiped soot from his truck bumper, in a post by Wall Street Apes, a popular X account.
There is indeed a “radiation fog” over the region, but that term refers to the general radiation of energy, not nuclear radiation. During radiation fog events, or “tule fog” as it’s known in California, named for a native marsh plant, fog forms when the moist ground cools rapidly at night, causing water vapor in the air to condense into thick fog.
A rainy autumn and winter in California, as well as a late November high-pressure system over the state, has further exacerbated this effect, helping create a fog bank that often stretched 400 miles up the center of the state.
Residents described the fog, which may actually be getting less common in the region compared to historical trends, as cold and eerie.
“It’s like going into a dream stage where you can’t see anything around you,” David Mas Masumoto, a peach farmer in the San Joaquin Valley, told The New York Times. “You feel like you’re in this twilight zone.”
Masumoto added that he can’t remember another time with such thick fog in the last 50 years.
As for the particles that some residents were seeing in the fog, there’s a standard explanation for those too.
“Fog is highly susceptible to pollutants,” Peter Weiss-Penzias, a fog researcher at UC Santa Cruz, told The Los Angeles Times.
The Central Valley, home to the state’s key north-south highway and miles of agricultural land, is known for its poor air quality.
“It could be a whole alphabet soup of different things,” Weiss-Penzias added.
The fog, which continued through late this week, is expected to thin out as heavy rains disrupt weather patterns in the state.
One lucky Southern Californian has won over $2.3 million after numbers were drawn for the Powerball jackpot on Saturday night.
Although no winner hit all six numbers for the $1.5 billion jackpot, one ticket matched five numbers and will take home $2,323,527.
The winning numbers were 4, 5, 28, 52, 69 and a Powerball of 20. The Power Play multiplier was 3x.
The SoCal ticket that hit five numbers was sold at Wright’s Market at 2691 Ventura Blvd. in Oxnard.
The Powerball jackpot will rise to an estimated $1.6 billion for the next drawing on Monday, Dec. 22 – the game’s fourth-largest prize ever and the fifth-largest among all U.S. lottery jackpots.
If a player wins Monday’s jackpot, they will have the choice between an annuitized prize estimated at $1.60 billion or a lump sum payment estimated at $735.3 million. Both prize options are before taxes.
If the winner selects the annuity option, they will receive one immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments that increase by 5 percent each year.
The new prize marks only the second time in Powerball history that the game has produced back-to-back jackpots exceeding $1 billion. The only other time was in 2023, when a $1.08 billion jackpot was won on July 19, followed by a $1.765 billion jackpot on Oct. 11. Both jackpots were won in California.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million and the overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 24.9.
Top 10 largest U.S. lottery jackpots across Powerball and Mega Millions:
- $2.04 Billion – Powerball – Nov. 7, 2022 – CA
- $1.787 Billion – Powerball – Sept. 6, 2025 – MO, TX
- $1.765 Billion – Powerball – Oct. 11, 2023 – CA
- $1.602 Billion – Mega Millions – Aug. 8, 2023 – FL
- $1.60 Billion est. – Powerball – Dec. 22, 2025
- $1.586 Billion – Powerball – Jan. 13, 2016 – CA, FL, TN
- $1.537 Billion – Mega Millions – Oct. 23, 2018 – SC
- $1.348 Billion – Mega Millions – Jan. 13, 2023 – ME
- $1.337 Billion – Mega Millions – July 29, 2022 – IL
- $1.326 Billion – Powerball – April 6, 2024 – OR
Lottery officials noted that so far, the 45 consecutive Powerball drawings without a jackpot winner have raised over $100 million for public schools in California.
“Every California Lottery game sold contributes to the Lottery’s mission of raising extra money for California’s public schools,” lottery officials said. “These funds support a variety of programs across the state.”
Powerball tickets are $2 per play and drawings take place every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday night at 7:59 p.m.
California
Southern California’s Christmas weather forecast keeps getting worse. What you need to know
The Pineapple Express storm bearing down on Southern California could bring heavy rain and strong winds throughout Christmas week, potentially triggering mudslides, downing trees and flooding not only freeways but also homes and businesses.
If the forecasts are right, this could be one of the stormiest Christmases in recent memory for Southern California. There’s an 80% chance downtown Los Angeles will get 2 or more inches of rain from Tuesday through Christmas Day. The last time downtown got 2 or more inches of rain over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was in 1971.
Here’s what you need to know.
Timing
The peak of the system is expected Tuesday through Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
There’s an 80% to 100% chance of rain in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties starting Tuesday night and lasting into Wednesday and Thursday.
Precipitation timing for Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
(National Weather Service)
In Orange County, the Inland Empire and San Diego County, light showers are possible Tuesday, but the heaviest rainfall is expected Wednesday, with officials warning of heavy rainfall, increased flooding risks and possible mudslides. Flood and mudslide risks will continue Thursday.
Expected effects of the storm for Orange County, the Inland Empire and San Diego County.
(National Weather Service)
Worst-case scenario
Forecasters are warning that there’s a 40% chance of “very high” amounts of rain for Los Angeles, Ventura and southern Santa Barbara counties, and a 30% chance of the same for northern Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo County.
That scenario would see 4 or more inches of rain fall on the coast and in the valleys, with 8 or more inches in the mountains and foothills, Tuesday through Thursday. Peak rainfall rates would be half an inch to 1 inch per hour.
According to the National Weather Service, that could cause:
• Significant mudslides
• Flooded freeways
• Streams and rivers flooding over their banks
• Localized flooding that could rise above curbs and into homes and businesses
• Moderate coastal flooding in south-facing areas
• Downed trees and power lines
• Dangerous sea conditions
• Swiftwater rescues
Rainfall probabilities for Los Angeles, Ventura and southern Santa Barbara counties.
(National Weather Service)
Between Tuesday and Thursday, numerous areas have a high chance of seeing 3 or more inches of rain. There’s a 77% chance of that occurring in Anaheim and Yorba Linda, a 74% chance in Santa Ana, a 73% chance in Ontario, a 71% chance in Mission Viejo, a 69% chance in Irvine, a 68% chance in Chino, a 65% chance in Laguna Niguel and a 60% chance in San Clemente.
Rainfall probabilities for northern Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo County.
(National Weather Service)
‘High amounts’ of rain scenario
There’s also a 40% chance of “high amounts” of rain in L.A., Ventura and southern Santa Barbara counties, and a 50% chance of the same in northern Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. That scenario would entail 2 to 4 inches of rain falling along the coast and in the valleys, with 4 to 8 inches in the mountains and foothills.
Rain to that extent would risk flooding freeway lanes; causing minor coastal flooding, mudslides and debris flows; and potentially force swiftwater rescues in fast-moving rivers and streams.
Wind
There’s a potential for gusty winds from the south, said Robbie Munroe, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Oxnard office, which issues forecasts for L.A., Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
That risks toppling trees and power lines. On Tuesday night, Los Angeles could see peak gusts of 31 mph; Woodland Hills, 38 mph; Paso Robles, 52 mph; and San Luis Obispo, 53 mph.
“Avoid parking under trees,” the weather service said. “Secure loose outdoor objects.”
There’s a 65% chance of gusts exceeding 35 mph in Huntington Beach, a 60% chance in San Diego, a 45% chance in Big Bear Lake and Ramona, a 40% chance in Escondido and a 35% chance in Riverside, according to the weather service office in San Diego.
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