Connect with us

California

‘Getting rid of FEMA’: Takeaways from Trump’s trip to two disaster zones

Published

on

‘Getting rid of FEMA’: Takeaways from Trump’s trip to two disaster zones


play

Inaugurated on Monday, President Donald Trump spent Friday on a coast-to-coast tour of disaster zones, musing about abolishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and conditioning California fire recovery aid on voting law changes.

Trump traveled from Washington D.C. to Asheville, N.C., and visited communities in the western part of the state impacted by severe flooding from Hurricane Helene last year. He then flew to Los Angeles and toured damage from devastating wildfires in the region, which are ongoing.

Advertisement

Trump met with governors in both states, local officials, emergency responders and property owners in his first official trip as president.

Here are some takeaways.

Trump makes nice with Newsom

The relationship between the GOP president and California’s Democratic governor has often been contentious.

Trump likes to refer to Newsom as “Newscum.”

They set those animosities aside Friday as both men grapple with one of the nation’s worst natural disasters in memory.

Advertisement

Newsom waited for Trump at the bottom of the stairs as he departed from Air Force One in Los Angeles. They embraced and spoke to the media together.

“We’re gonna need your support, we’re gonna need your help,” Newsom said. “You were there for us during COVID, I don’t forget that, and I have all the expectations that we’ll be able to work together.”

“We’re gonna get it done,” Trump responded, adding: “We’ll get it worked out, ok?”

Trump noted that California will need a lot of federal help. Newsom agreed.

Advertisement

“We’re gonna take care of things,” Trump responded.

Trump suggest abolishing FEMA

Trump ratcheted up his criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency with a suggestion to possibly abolish the agency because of its response to Hurricane Helene in September.

“I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe even getting rid of FEMA,” Trump said after a briefing in Fletcher, North Carolina. “Frankly, FEMA’s not good.”

Trump accused FEMA crews of being unfamiliar with areas when responding to disasters. FEMA also imposes rules and requirements on crews that aren’t as good as what local officials provide, Trump said. The federal government should instead send funding to governors to manage their own response to disasters, he said.

Advertisement

“FEMA has turned out to be a disaster,” Trump said. “I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away and we pay directly – we pay a percentage to the state.”

After speaking with flood victims in Swannanoa, North Carolina, Trump later added, “If it was up to me right now, I’d end it right now.”

‘Horrific’ tales escaping North Carolina floods from Hurricane Helene

Survivors of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina described their harrowing escapes from rising floodwaters to Trump on Friday and pleaded for help four months after the disaster.

Thomas Bright spent four hours of the roof of his home in east Asheville that had been in his family for 80 years and four generations. He wrote farewell notes on his cellphone to his two children and his two grandchildren as his garage and other debris floated past.

Advertisement

“We didn’t think we were going to make it at all,” Bright said. “We were watching houses, trailers, bodies coming by us.”

Mona Nix-Roper, who lives in the Fairview area, said her home became like an island as floodwaters rose around it. As she hiked out with her son, they saw a neighbor’s body that had turned blue in the water.

“Horrific is just all I can say,” Nix-Roper said. “There were people out everywhere looking for their loved ones. And there were dead bodies. My son’s like, ‘Mom, you’re going to see things you don’t want to see.’”

Trump gave her a hug when she finished speaking.

“I’ve seen a lot of bad things, but I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump said.

Advertisement

Politics shadowed Trump’s visits to disaster areas

Politics shadowed Trump’s visits to disaster zones in North Carolina and California.

Trump recalled a whistleblower reported that Federal Emergency Management Agency crews refused to help people with Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign signs in their yards. Trump noted that North Carolina and adjoining Tennessee each supported him in the last election – the Volunteer State slightly more.

“It doesn’t matter at this point: Biden did a bad job,” Trump said.

The president also called for California to adopt voter ID, to ensure the citizenship of voters, to receive disaster aid for its wildfires around Los Angeles. He also repeated his complaint that the state should divert funding from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to fight fires.

Advertisement

“I want two things,” Trump told reporters upon his arrival in Asheville, North Carolina. “After that, I will be the greatest president California has ever seen.”

Trump didn’t invite Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a frequent critic of Trump, to join his trip. Schiff said changes to the Environmental Protection Agency and FEMA could result from bipartisan cooperation. But he urged Trump not to attach strings to disaster aid.

“We’ve never done that when it comes to our fellow citizens who are hurting,” Schiff told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Trump wants fast track permitting to rebuild after fires

Trump met with local officials in California after touring fire damage in Pacific Palisades Friday and asked them to speed up permitting for people who want to rebuild.

The meeting lasted for more than an hour, with the real estate developer turned president often returning to the permitting issue.

Advertisement

Trump said he plans to waive or drastically speed up federal permitting in the wake of the fires that have devastated areas around Los Angeles, adding “the local, I hope, is going to do the same exact thing.”

Members of the California congressional delegation, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other local leaders joined Trump at the meeting, sharing their thoughts on fire recovery efforts. Trump listened and sometimes raised concerns.

The president said he heard from homeowners worried about how long it could take to rebuild.

“We are 100% committed to getting this neighborhood rebuilt again,” Bass said.

Trump said permitting should take days, not months or years.

Advertisement

“A federal permit can take 10 years, we’re not going to do that,” Trump said. “We don’t want to take 10 days.”

Officials need to be mindful of “hazardous waste,” Bass said, but added that if people are rebuilding “essentially the same… they really shouldn’t have to go through much of a process.”

“What’s hazardous waste? You’re gonna have to define that,” Trump responded, adding: “I just think you have to allow the people to go on their site and start the process tonight.”

“And we will,” Bass responded.

Other people brought up insurance issues that homeowners are facing. Trump also repeatedly raised questions about water management policies in California.

Advertisement

Trump told the group that “the federal government’s standing behind you 100%” but has talked about putting conditions on federal fire recovery aid.



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