LIVE OAK — A six-year-old and her parents are being called heroes by a Northern California community for jumping into a canal to save a 75-year-old woman who drove off the road. 

It happened on Larkin Road near Paseo Avenue in the Sutter County community of Live Oak on Monday. 

“I just about lost her, but I didn’t,” said Terry Carpenter, husband of the woman who was rescued. “We got more chances.” 

Terry said his wife of 33 years, Robin Carpenter, is the love of his life and soulmate. He is grateful he has been granted more time to spend with her after she survived her car crashing off a two-lane road and overturning into a canal. 

“She’s doing really well,” Terry said. “No broken bones, praise the Lord.” 

It is what some call a miracle that could have had a much different outcome without a family of good Samaritans. 

“Her lips were purple,” said Ashley Martin, who helped rescue the woman. “There wasn’t a breath at all. I was scared.” 

Martin and her husband, Cyle Johnson, are being hailed heroes by the Live Oak community for jumping into the canal, cutting Robin out of her seat belt and pulling her head above water until first responders arrived. 

“She was literally submerged underwater,” Martin said. “She had a back brace on. Apparently, she just had back surgery. So, I grabbed her brace from down below and I flipped her upward just in a quick motion to get her out of that water.” 

The couple said the real hero was their six-year-old daughter, Cayleigh Johnson. 

“It was scary,” Cayleigh said. “So the car was going like this, and it just went boom, right into the ditch.” 

Cayleigh was playing outside and screamed for her parents who were inside the house near the canal.

I spoke with Robin from her hospital bed over the phone who told us she is in a lot of pain but grateful.

“The thing I can remember is I started falling asleep and then I was going over the bump and I went into the ditch and that’s all I remember,” Robin said. 

It was a split-second decision for a family who firefighters said helped save a stranger’s life. 

“It’s pretty unique that someone would jump in and help somebody that they don’t even know,” said Battalion Chief for Sutter County Fire Richard Epperson. 

Robin is hopeful that she will be released from the hospital on Wednesday in time to be home for Thanksgiving. 

“She gets Thanksgiving and Christmas now with her family and grandkids,” Martin said. 

Terry and Robin are looking forward to eventually meeting the family who helped save Robin’s life. The family expressed the same feelings about meeting the woman they helped when she is out of the hospital. 

“I can’t wait for my baby to get home,” Terry said. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom may exclude Tesla and other automakers from an electric vehicle (EV) rebate program if the incoming Trump administration scraps a federal tax credit for electric car purchases.

Newsom proposed creating a new version of the state’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program, which was phased out in 2023 after funding more than 594,000 vehicles and saving more than 456 million gallons of fuel, the governor’s office said in a news release on Monday.

“Consumers continue to prove the skeptics wrong – zero-emission vehicles are here to stay,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future – we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute.”

The proposed rebates would be funded with money from the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which is funded by polluters under the state’s cap-and-trade program, the governor’s office said. Officials did not say how much the program would cost or save consumers.

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They would also include changes to promote innovation and competition in the zero-emission vehicles market – changes that could prevent automakers like Tesla from qualifying for the rebates.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who relocated Tesla’s corporate headquarters from California to Texas in 2021, responded to the possibility of having Tesla EVs left out of the program.

Tesla and other automakers may not qualify for the proposed tax credits, according to the governor’s office. (Getty Images, File / Getty Images)

“Even though Tesla is the only company who manufactures their EVs in California! This is insane,” Musk wrote on X, which he also owns.

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Those buying or leasing Tesla vehicles accounted for about 42% of the state’s rebates, The Associated Press reported, citing data from the California Air Resources Board.

Newsom’s office told Fox Business Digital that the proposal is intended to foster market competition, and any potential market cap is subject to negotiation with the state Legislature. 

“Under a potential market cap, and depending on what the cap is, there’s a possibility that Tesla and other automakers could be excluded,” the governor’s office said. “But that’s again subject to negotiations with the legislature.”

Newsom’s office noted that such market caps have been part of rebate programs since George W. Bush’s administration in 2005.

Newsom has pushed Californians to replace gas-powered vehicles with zero-emission vehicles. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images / Getty Images)

Federal tax credits for EVs are currently worth up to $7,500 for new zero-emission vehicles. President-elect Trump has previously vowed to end the credit.

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California has surpassed 2 million zero-emission vehicles sold, according to the governor’s office. The state, however, could face a $2 billion budget deficit next year, Reuters reported, citing a non-partisan legislative estimate released last week.

Along with most other Democratic politicians in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom still doesn’t seem to understand what happened in the 2024 election.

For years, Newsom, along with California cronies like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and, of course, Vice President Kamala Harris, bragged about their state being a “model for the nation.”

In one sense–not the one they intended, of course–that’s true. California became a model of what not to do.

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The terrible combination of elitism and extremism that has defined Democratic policymaking in my home state for at least the last decade has delivered failure on every front.

Despite having the highest taxes in the nation, despite the state’s budget nearly doubling in the last ten years (even as our population has been falling, in the exodus from blue state misrule), California has the highest rate of poverty in America. We have the highest housing costs, the lowest homeownership, highest gas and utility bills, and the worst business climate–ten years in a row.

This record of failure is exactly why Democrats lost so badly on November 5th. Voters had a clear choice: between more of the same Democrat policies that raised the cost of living and lowered their quality of life, or a return to the peace and prosperity of the Trump years.

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In many ways, the contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris represented a battle between the ‘blue state model’ championed by Gavin Newsom in California, and the ‘red state model’ that has driven people and businesses out of California and into the arms of more welcoming states like Texas, Tennessee and Florida.

Of course, the red state model won and the blue state model was roundly rejected. 

You would think that would make blue state leaders like Newsom pause and reflect. But the exact opposite has happened. Gavin Newsom immediately called a “special session” of the California legislature to “Trump-proof” his state.

What California really needs is “Newsom-proofing.” 

Instead, California Democrats are doubling down on the exact same agenda that was defeated across the country – including in California, which saw the biggest shift from Democrats to the GOP in decades.

Here are the five things California Democrats still don’t get:

1. People want results, not lectures

Democrats and their media sycophants can do all the self-righteous, sanctimonious bloviating they like about “our democracy” and “equity”, but in the end people want the basics of the American Dream: a good job that pays enough to raise your family in a home of your own in a safe neighborhood with a good school so your kids can have a better life than you. No amount of moral superiority from the people in charge will make up for that if they fail to provide it.

2. Enough with the ‘climate’ extremism

“Climate” has become a religion for Democrats, and you see that especially clearly in California. But when you look at the main reason life is so unaffordable for working people, whether that’s gas prices, utility bills or housing costs, extreme climate policies are to blame. Working-class Americans can’t afford these ‘luxury beliefs.’

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3. Who cares about Hollywood? 

This election destroyed forever the myth that fancy celebrities can sway votes. Oprah, Beyonce, George Clooney, Taylor Swift…nobody cares! The new cultural powerhouses are the podcast hosts, comedians…the raw power of UFC is where it’s at, not the decadent Hollywood elite who won’t even turn up to support “their” candidate without a multimillion dollar paycheck.

4. ‘Little tech’ beats Big Tech

Democrats may console themselves with the knowledge that California’s Big Tech monopolies are on their side. But in this election we saw the rise of what famed Silicon Valley investor Marc Andressen calls “little tech”, the upstarts and rebels who reject leftist groupthink. They got engaged in this election in a way we’ve never seen before. It’s a massive shift and will be a huge force for the future.

5. Working class beats the elite 

Back in 2016, after the Brexit vote, and then Donald Trump’s victory here, shocked the world, I predicted that the Republican Party had the opportunity to become a “multiracial working class coalition.” Trump’s 2024 victory has delivered that — a revolutionary shift in our political landscape. The other part of my prediction? Democrats will be left as the party of the “rich, white and woke.”

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Unless Democrats come to terms with these realities and change course, they can expect to lose elections for years to come. The reaction in California – epicenter of today’s Democrat elite — shows that there is zero sign of this happening. 

They just don’t get it.

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