Connect with us

California

California has a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. Here's what you need to know

Published

on

California has a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. Here's what you need to know


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California has a huge budget problem that could force thorny decisions from Democratic leaders who enjoyed a more than $100 billion surplus just three years ago.

This is the second year in a row the nation’s most populous state is facing a multibillion-dollar shortfall. State revenues have continued to fall amid increasing inflation and a slowdown in the state’s usually robust technology industry.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced his plan to address the deficit in the state’s budget. The release of his plan kicks off a budget negotiation marathon with Democratic lawmakers, who hold supermajorities in both chambers.

Newsom and lawmakers have until June 15 to pass a budget, or lawmakers don’t get paid.

Advertisement

HOW BIG IS THE BUDGET?

Newsom proposed a $288 billion spending plan on Friday for the fiscal year that starts July 1. That is well below the nearly $311 billion budget he signed into law last year. But it is still by far the largest of any state in the country. New York recently passed a $237 billion budget, and Texas and Florida spend far less annually.

WHAT ABOUT THE DEFICIT?

It’s complicated. Newsom announced on Friday a $26.7 billion deficit, but it’s really closer to $45 billion. That’s because Newsom didn’t include roughly $17.3 billion worth of actions he and lawmakers already agreed on. Those included a cut of $3.6 billion in primarily one-time funding to some school, welfare and climate programs. The plan also delays and defers about $5.2 billion in spending for various programs, including $1 billion to fund rail and public transit systems.

WHY DOES THE DEFICIT MATTER?

California’s constitution requires lawmakers and the governor to balance the budget — meaning the state can’t spend more money than it has. That means they have to either find more money by raising taxes, which Newsom doesn’t want to do, or find ways to cut, shift or delay spending. Newsom’s proposal focuses mostly on cuts, but it will also dip into reserve funding.

WHAT ARE THOSE CUTS?

Newsom proposed cuts across 260 state programs. Here are some of the highlights:

    1. Eliminating 10,000 vacant state worker jobs for a saving of $762 million. Newsom didn’t immediately provide a list of all the jobs.

    2. Clawing back $6.7 billion previously set aside to pay doctors more to see poor patients and immigrants.

    Advertisement

    3. Shaving off nearly 8% in operating costs to almost all state agencies through actions like getting rid of landlines in state offices and evaluating printing needs.

    4. Cutting $2 billion from broadband initiatives to pursue cheaper options

    5. Closing housing units with 4,600 beds across 13 state prisons to save $81 million.

    6. Reducing funding for homelessness and housing initiatives by nearly $1.2 billion, including $474 million from an anti-foreclosure program to preserve existing affordable housing.

    7. Reducing $500 million in water storage funding. He didn’t offer specifics on how that would be applied.

    Advertisement

    8. Shutting down an in-home service care program that serves 14,000 low-income, undocumented immigrants with disabilities for a savings of $94.7 million

    9. Cutting roughly $2 billion from six education programs, including $550 million from an initiative to upgrade preschool and kindergarten facilities and $510 million in scholarships for middle class college students pursuing a teaching credential.

    10. Eliminating $352.5 million in funding for state and local public health and $189.4 million from mental health services fund.

HOW ABOUT TAX INCREASES?

Newsom has repeatedly said he could balance the budget without raising taxes. But his proposal calls for the suspension of the widely used net operating loss tax deduction for businesses the following fiscal year, which some are seeing as a tax increase.

He is also increasing the tax on managed care organizations, the private companies that contract with the state to provide Medicaid benefits.

Advertisement





Source link

California

Man charged with murder, kidnapping their 5-year-old child before fleeing to Mexico

Published

on

Man charged with murder, kidnapping their 5-year-old child before fleeing to Mexico


A 40-year-old Los Angeles man was charged with murder after allegedly killing his girlfriend and kidnapping their young child before fleeing to Mexico, according to authorities.

Ruben Fregosojuarez has been charged one count of murder and one misdemeanor count of child abuse under circumstance or conditions other than great bodily injury or death, according to a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office news release. Authorities first identified him as Ruben Fregoso but Los Angeles County prosecutors listed him as Ruben Fregosojuarez.

On Monday around 12:39 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department conducted a welfare check in the 2600 block of South Alsace Avenue in West Adams, police said in a news release.

Officers found a woman dead inside the home “as a result of violence” and the woman’s daughter missing, police said. On Monday night, the California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert for the child, Daleza.

Advertisement

Photos obtained by NBC4 appear to show Fregosojuarez in a parking garage in San Ysidro with the girl on Sunday. The California Highway Patrol has listed her age as 4 years old but Los Angeles police say the girl is 5. She is also described as the suspect’s daughter.

The alert said that the girl was last seen with Fregosojuarez, who allegedly abducted her in a 2019 Land Rover Discovery, on Sunday at about 4 a.m.

The CHP posted in an update that the vehicle was found but that the child and man were still missing. The girl is described as 3 feet tall, 45 pounds, and having black hair and brown eyes.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

California

23andMe Sued by California Over Massive 2023 Data Breach

Published

on

23andMe Sued by California Over Massive 2023 Data Breach


California’s attorney general is suing the consumer genetics testing company formerly known as 23andMe, alleging the company failed to protect customers’ sensitive personal information in a massive 2023 data breach that exposed the ancestry and genetic data of nearly 7 million people.

Attorney General Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court against Chrome Holding Co., formerly known as 23andMe, accusing the company of failing to properly investigate or respond to numerous warnings that its systems had been compromised. The company’s mail-in self-testing kits became synonymous with DNA testing before it filed for bankruptcy in 2025.

In 2023, cybercriminals breached 23andMe’s systems by using a “credential-stuffing attack,” which involves bombarding online accounts with huge sets of user names and passwords stolen in previous unrelated attacks. Over a period of months, the intruders were able to make off with the personal data of more than 6.9 million people.

Advertisement

“23andMe’s security measures were so lax that the threat actor was able to operate undetected within 23andMe’s systems for over five months, and remarkably, 23andMe only began investigating after the threat actor offered the stolen user data for sale on the dark web and reached out to 23andMe to demand a ransom,” Bonta’s office said in the complaint. 

The San Francisco-based company, which allowed people to submit genetic materials and get a snapshot of their ancestry, revealed in October 2023 that hackers had accessed customer information in the prolonged data breach that targeted customers with Chinese or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. The stolen data of more than 1 million Asian-Pacific Islander and Ashkenazi Jewish users was later posted for sale on the dark web. 

“The sale of this data on the dark web took place amidst a period of mounting anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander and antisemitic hate and violence,” Bonta said in a press release. “This is disturbing and incredibly dangerous.”

 A January 2024 lawsuit accused the company of not doing enough to protect its customers and not notifying certain customers that their data had been targeted specifically. It later settled the lawsuit for $30 million.

23andMe representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Advertisement

At its peak, 23andMe became the best-known name in the emerging area of DNA self-testing, with users paying upwards of $99 for kits that gave them insights into their genetic makeup, potential relatives and ancestry. But the company’s momentum slowed down in recent years after its $3.5 billion public offering in 2021.

Last July, TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit led by Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s cofounder and former CEO, acquired 23andMe’s assets for $305 million.    





Source link

Continue Reading

California

Newsom signs law to shield California elections from federal interference

Published

on

Newsom signs law to shield California elections from federal interference


Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, signed legislation Wednesday that aims to shield California elections from federal interference, saying he expected Donald Trump’s administration to try to meddle in the midterms this year.

The law, which took effect immediately and came days before next Tuesday’s primary, prohibits any person – including federal agents – from accessing voter rolls or election technology without a court order. Law enforcement officers are restricted from disrupting election workers, except in public safety emergencies.

Trump administration officials so far have said they have no plans to send immigration agents to polling locations across the US, a concern raised this year by several Democratic secretaries of state. But Newsom warned “we have to be prepared for everything” because “there’s no rules any more with the Trump administration”.

Voting is already under way in California’s closely watched primary for governor, where a crowded field of Democrats and two viable Republicans are vying for just two spots on the November ballot. Under the state’s open primary system, only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.

Advertisement

Newsom, who cannot seek a third term, said the election law is a response to “legitimate anxiety” about Trump’s tactics, primarily in Democratic-led states, where the president has deployed federal agents over the objections of local leaders. The Democratic governor warned against underestimating someone who “doesn’t believe in free and fair elections”.

“I expect the worst with Trump because he’s done the worst,” he said at a news conference.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Associated Press later Wednesday that Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections.

“Instead of levying false attacks at the President, Newscum should look in the mirror,” she said in a statement, using Trump’s derogatory nickname for Newsom.

In an interview last year with Vanity Fair, Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, knocked down the idea that Trump would deploy the military to suppress voting, saying it was “categorically false”.

Advertisement

The California law also makes it a crime to knowingly take voted ballots out of the custody of election officials.

Earlier this year, the FBI under Trump seized the 2020 general election ballots from Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and has long been at the center of the president’s false claims that fraud cost him the race. The FBI and justice department also have sought records from previous elections in the largest counties in Arizona and Michigan.

Trump triggered a national redistricting frenzy ahead of the midterms when he urged Republicans in Texas and elsewhere to redraw their US House districts to help the party retain control of the closely divided chamber. Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee also have enacted new maps that could benefit Republicans, and Louisiana is expected to be next.

Republicans so far think they could gain as many as 14 seats from redistricting in November, while Democrats think they could gain six in California and Utah.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending