California (1-0) at Auburn (1-0)

2:30 p.m. CDT Saturday (ESPN2)

Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn

1 Previous game between Auburn and California. The Tigers beat the Golden Bears 14-10 on Sept. 9, 2023.

3 Interceptions for California in its season-opening 31-13 victory over UC Davis last week. Cal was the only team in the nation with three interceptions in Week 1.

3 True freshmen caught TD passes in Auburn’s season-opening 73-3 victory over Alabama A&M last week. Malcolm Simmons had three receptions for 91 yards, including a 57-yard TD; Perry Thompson had two receptions for 82 yards, including a 70-yard TD; and Cam Coleman had two receptions for 66 yards, including a 44-yard TD. Five Auburn players had at least one TD reception in the opener. Last season, seven Tigers had TD receptions.

5 Victories without a loss for Auburn on Sept. 7. All the games were played in Auburn, and the Tigers outscored their opponents – Southwestern Louisiana, Fresno State, Western Carolina, Arkansas State and Tulane – by a combined score of 229-22.

5 Games for California in the Eastern or Central time zones this season after the Golden Bears played in five such games in the previous five seasons combined. California is playing its first season as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2024.

6 300-yard passing games for Auburn QB Payton Thorne, although only one has come with the Tigers. In last week’s 73-3 victory over Alabama A&M, Thorne completed 13-of-21 passes for 322 yards with four TDs and no interceptions. Thorne’s other five 300-yard passing games came while he played for Michigan State.

6 Victories and 11 losses for California against SEC opponents. Saturday’s game will be the Golden Bears’ 10th on an SEC member’s home field. Cal has played at Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Ole Miss and Tennessee and has a 2-7 record in those games.

7 Years since Auburn’s previous game against an opponent from the Atlantic Coast Conference, which California joined for the 2024 season. The Tigers lost at Clemson 14-6 on Sept. 9, 2017, in its most recent game against an ACC member. Auburn’s most recent victory against an ACC member came on Sept. 5, 2015, when the Tigers downed Louisville 31-24 in Atlanta. Auburn has a 34-12 record against ACC opponents, with a 19-5 home mark.

22 Consecutive games with at least one reception for Auburn WR Robert Lewis. All but the most recent of those games came with Lewis playing for Georgia State. He had 70 receptions for 877 yards and seven touchdowns for the Panthers in 2023. Lewis had an 8-yard reception in Auburn’s season-opening 73-3 victory over Alabama A&M on Saturday.

77 Rushing yards are needed by Auburn RB Jarquez Hunter to become the 15th Auburn player with 2,300. Hunter ran for 53 yards on 11 carries in Auburn’s 14-10 victory over California last season. He also ran for 53 yards and a touchdown in the Tigers’ season-opening game last week against Alabama A&M, although he needed only four carries to reach that total in Auburn’s 73-3 victory.

143 Games have been played by Auburn since it was most recently shut out, the second-longest streak in school history. Auburn’s most recent shutout loss came 49-0 to Alabama on Nov. 17, 2012. Auburn’s record scoring streak lasted 149 games, starting with a 55-16 victory over Richmond on Oct. 4, 1980, and ending with a 17-0 loss to Alabama on Nov. 26, 1992. Auburn’s current scoring streak is the 10th-longest in SEC history, and its record streak is the ninth-longest.

450 Auburn games at Jordan-Hare Stadium when the Tigers take the field on Saturday. Auburn and Florida tied 7-7 in Game 1 on Nov. 30, 1939, and the Tigers have a 347-95-7 record in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

1,325 Rushing yards for California RB Jaydn Ott in 2023, the most in the Pac-12. In the Golden Bears’ 14-10 loss to Auburn last season, Ott had 78 yards and one touchdown on 20 carries before leaving the game with an injury in the third quarter.

FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE SEC, GO TO OUR SEC PAGE

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.

California lawmakers have passed a second plastic bag ban after admitting the state’s first ban failed its goal of reducing plastic waste.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, and Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, told The Los Angeles Times more sweeping legislation was needed to address a “loophole” in the initial legislation, which actually led consumers to use more plastic over the past decade.

The Democrats’ new proposal, offered in bills Senate Bill 1053 and Assembly Bill 2236, revises the state’s single-use bag ban to stop grocery stores from selling thicker plastic grocery bags and requires grocery stores to only offer recycled paper bags at checkout. 

The legislation was passed in late August and now sits on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk awaiting his signature. If signed into law, the ban would become effective in 2026.

CALIFORNIA PLASTIC BAG BAN LED TO MORE PLASTIC WASTE, CONSUMER ADVOCACY GROUP CLAIMS

“Instead of being asked do you want paper or plastic at checkout, consumers will simply be asked if they want a paper bag,” Blakespear told the Times. “This easy change eliminates plastic bags from the point of sale and helps California significantly reduce the plastic waste that is contaminating our environment and waters.”

In 2014, the Golden State passed SB 270, a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery, drug and convenience stores, in efforts to reduce the amount of plastic waste and encourage the public to use reusable bags. However, Democrats admitted the plastic bag ban failed to reduce waste, because consumers would opt to pay a small fee for the heavier “reusable” plastic bags offered by grocery stores instead. However, consumers typically threw these bags away.

As a result, consumer advocacy group CALPIRG claimed there’s been a 47% jump in plastic bag waste tonnage over the past decade.

“157,385 tons of plastic bag waste was discarded in California the year the law was passed. By 2022, however, the tonnage of discarded plastic bags had skyrocketed to 231,072 — a 47% jump. Even accounting for an increase in population, the number rose from 4.08 tons per 1,000 people in 2014 to 5.89 tons per 1,000 people in 2022,” the Times said of the report’s findings in February.

The new legislation received support from both environmental groups and the California Grocers Association, the Times report said.

The paper pleaded for lawmakers to pass the “do-over” plastic ban in an editorial last month.

California grocery stores would only be allowed to sell paper bags at checkout under the new bill. (iStock)

LA TIMES ADMITS CALIFORNIA PLASTIC BAG BANS ACTUALLY MADE WASTE PROBLEM WORSE: ‘UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES’

“Retailers handed them out like candy, and consumers couldn’t have recycled them even if they wanted to. No recycling facility in the state accepts these bags,” the editorial read.

“This can’t go on,” it continued. “We need a do-over — a second plastic bag ban that fulfills the promise that lawmakers made in 2014 by passing Senate Bill 270, and that voters embraced two years later when they rejected an industry-led ballot measure to overturn it.”

An alliance of California recyclers and manufacturers announced they were disappointed by the bills.

“This ill-advised approval will create a cascade of problems for every Californian. These lawmakers chose to enact legislation that they know is flawed despite specific examples, studies, and polls that show banning plastic film grocery bags hurts consumers, businesses, is not what Californians want, and does not help the environment or limit plastic waste,” Roxanne Spiekerman, spokesperson for the RRA and Vice President of Public Affairs for PreZero US, said in a statement.

Fox News’ Kendall Tietz contributed to this report.

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By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill on Friday that would have allowed undocumented immigrants access to state funds in helping buy a home, citing “finite funding.”

“Given the finite funding available for (California Housing Finance Agency) programs, expanding program eligibility must be carefully considered within the broader context of the annual state budget to ensure we manage our resources effectively,” Newsom said in a statement. “For this reason, I am unable to sign this bill.”

The state legislature approved the bill and sent it to the governor’s desk last week.

The bill was authored by California lawmaker Joaquin Arambula, a Democrat representing Fresno.

“AB 1840 is about providing an opportunity to hard-working, responsible people who dream of owning a home and passing that legacy to their children,” Arambula has said about the bill. “And, that includes undocumented immigrants who have lived here for decades and pay their taxes.”

Republicans who opposed the legislation said housing assistance for families who came legally to the U.S. should be prioritized and not for undocumented immigrants.

Immigration has emerged as an important issue for the upcoming Nov. 5 U.S. elections in which Democratic Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris faces Republican former President Donald Trump.

Trump has labeled Democrats as soft on immigration and has advocated for deporting immigrants who have come to the U.S. illegally. He said on Thursday he would ban mortgages for migrants living illegally in California, after claiming without evidence they were driving up housing costs.

He did not provide specifics on how he would enact such a ban and did not say whether the ban would apply beyond California.

Banks can legally provide mortgages to undocumented migrants, but do so infrequently.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio)