The Pacifica Evening News Weekdays – August 14, 2026

which, as I've conveyed to Mr. Thompson's family, is what we intend to seek. Thompson's family called the plea, quote, an important step towards justice. Mangione told the court he acted after years of enduring back pain and frustration with the health insurance system, though he was never a United Healthcare customer. New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch pushed back on those who have celebrated Mangione, saying, quote, violence is not a cause, murder is not a message, and a killer is certainly not a hero. President Donald Trump is downplaying concerns over the USS Abraham Lincoln's nearly nine-month-long deployment. He dismissed a question by a reporter about a family member of service members expressing concerns over supply shortages and mental health struggles among sailors.

Well, no, that ship is moving. No, they're not. That ship is moving right now, or very shortly, and it's being replaced with another very similar ship. No, no, no, not nearly long enough. Trump made the comments today before an event in Garden City, New York, saying the carrier is expected to be replaced soon by the USS George Washington. He acknowledged, using the military, quote, a little bit more than I wanted to, but defended the ongoing Iran war now in its six months. The Lincoln has supported U.S. operations against Iran throughout the deployment. Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Ruben Gallego of Arizona are pressing the Pentagon for accountability over conditions aboard the ship, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week called, quote, completely misrepresented. Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado and Army veteran criticized Trump's comments on social media. saying he, quote, does not care about our service members or their families. The Navy says a sailor went overboard aboard the Lincoln in early August and was recovered, but has not confirmed whether it's being treated as a suicide attempt. Officials say they haven't observed an increase in suicidal ideation aboard the ship. While talks to end the Iran war have stalled, the Trump administration appears to be reaching out to a broader swath of countries that might be able to help pressure Tehran or ease its hardline position where traditional mediators have not succeeded so far. While discussions between Iran and Oman, as well as Iran and Pakistan, Turkey, and Qatar continue, the administration has been quietly expanding its outreach to include perhaps unlikely interlocutors in Europe. Within days of talks this week with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the foreign ministers of Austria and Greece both held calls with Iran's foreign minister. The State Department said Marco Rubio made no direct asks on Iran in either call. Firefighters across Europe are battling multiple wildfires as a record-breaking heat grips the continent. Charles Dela Desma reports. Firefighters in central England, France, Italy, Spain and further east are struggling against multiple fires as a new wave of record-breaking heat bakes areas over Europe, a task further complicated by exceptionally parched landscapes. All 1,800 residents of the village of Geir in Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia State have been evacuated after a while far in a nearby forest threatened to reach their homes. And in Croatia, 14 people have been hospitalized, of whom seven remain in life threatened.

in condition early Friday from a fire that raged overnight by the coastal town of Omis, forcing more than 1,000 people to evacuate their homes. And in Spain, historical artifacts have been swiftly removed from the monastery of San Juan de la Pena and taken for safekeeping as a wafer advances on the site. I'm Charles Telethema. A New York Times investigation reveals Russia ran an extensive campaign to destabilize Moldova's pro-Western government, including training camps, a massive vote-buying scheme, and payments to Orthodox priests. Western intelligence officials say Russian operatives, some tied to military intelligence. ran training camps in Siberia, Bosnia, and near Moscow, teaching young Moldovans tactics like breaking police cordons and handling explosives. Separately, leaked documents show a vote-buying operation tied to exiled oligarch Ilans Shore, which recruited more than 150,000 Moldovans. paying tens of thousands nearly $20 million to spread anti-government messaging ahead of a 2024 EU membership referendum. Hundreds of priests reportedly took payments after trips to Russia in exchange for preaching against the country's westward path. Despite the effort, Moldovan president Maya Sundu's party narrowly won last September's elections. According to officials briefed on a secret meeting, Vladimir Putin told military commanders, His 2026 goal is, quote, the collapse of NATO and the European Union from within. The Kremlin denies interfering in Moldova's affairs. The Department of Defense is introducing a course centered on Western civilization and Christianity this fall in the schools it operates for military families. It's part of an effort by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to redirect the education system towards patriotic values and classical learning. The Western Civilization course planned for this fall will use a textbook published by Encounter Books, a conservative publishing house. Historians and educators who reviewed excerpts of the text said it depicts points throughout history in misleading ways. The text represents Western civilization and Christianity as one and the same and cast Islam as a threat to both, the scholars said.

President Trump was in New York today to tout his anti-crime policies ahead of this year's midterm elections. He took his message to the Police Academy in Uniondale in Nassau County just outside New York City. Max Pringle reports. Standing in front of a group of officers and police cadets, Trump said his support for police has been unwavering. And that's why crime statistics are lower under his watch. Last year, we achieved the largest drop in murder rate ever recorded, the lowest level in 125 years since the year 1900. The critics say crime was trending down before Trump was re-elected. and that crime in big democratically run cities had been steadily falling without federal help Trump took aim at some of his favorite targets like the border under former President Biden and sanctuary city policies during his remarks. We allowed, through the stupid open borders policy, 25 million people to come into our country. Many of them are now gone. But 25 million people, that's the number, that's the real number, to come into our country. Many of them, the people I just said, drug dealers. But experts say both legal and undocumented immigrants commit crime at a far lower rate than native-born Americans and have lower incarceration rates. According to the American Immigration Council, as the foreign-born share of the U.S. population has grown over recent decades, overall national, violent, and property crime rates have dropped substantially. Trump brought up his deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., and other big cities as well. He said it's had a big effect on the crime rate in those cities. I also deployed the National Guard and Federal Law Enforcement to restore public safety in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. And in D.C., Memphis and New Orleans, we've removed over 30,000 criminals from the streets in a single year. In Memphis, crime is down 71%. In New Orleans, crime is down 75%. And in D.C., crime is down 81%. However, according to the Council on Criminal Justice and other groups, the crime rate in D.C. was falling rapidly before the National Guard showed up on the city streets. Although it did coincide with about a 25% drop in petty crimes like car break-ins and theft in the city center. For KPFA News, I'm Max Pringle.

The BBC is asking a court for permission to subpoena Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner as part of its defense against President Trump's defamation lawsuit over a January 6th documentary. Troop sued the BBC in December, alleging the network edited his speech from that day to make it appear he directly urged supporters to attack the Capitol. Ruling today, BBC lawyers said Trump's children and son-in-law have, quote, without question, knowledge relevant to the case, including Trump's efforts that day to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence and Jared Kushner's alleged role drafting a statement condemning the violence. The network says it previously couldn't serve the subpoenas because the family members are protected by Secret Service security. Last week, Trump's legal team narrowed the lawsuit to reputational rather than business damages after a federal judge had said Trump would have to hand over certain financial records in the case to support his claims of damaged income. The BBC has apologized for how the speech was edited, but maintains Trump doesn't have grounds for a defamation claim. It's among several news organizations Trump is targeted with lawsuits, including the Wall Street Journal. in the New York Times. A court order that struck down regulations on firearm suppressors and certain guns took effect yesterday after the U.S. Justice Department did not file an appeal before a seven-day deadline set by a federal judge in Texas. The ruling allows people to purchase silencers, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and certain other firearms without registration, while also removing an extra layer of background checks. The order benefits parties that brought the lawsuit, including some dealers based out of northern Texas, but it is not a national injunction. But advocates say there are similar challenges in federal courts and other states that a ruling in Texas could set precedent for. Separately, some states have their own prohibitions on silencers. U.S. District Judge James Hendricks in Lubbock, Texas, said regulations in a prohibition-era law are unconstitutional. He said the rules must fall after the Republican-controlled Congress and President Trump eliminated a permit tax on the devices. To understand the change, we spoke with Adam Skaggs, Chief Counsel and Vice President of the Giffords Law Center to prevent gun violence. So the National Firearms Act was passed in the 1930s, almost a century ago, by Congress in response to the incredible levels of violence in the prohibition era. So, you know, organized crime, creating, you know, huge levels of violence during the prohibition era. So Congress passed the National Firearms Act and basically singled out the most dangerous weapons in the country.

and said, you know, because these are so involved in organized crime and because these are so dangerous, we need to sort of add additional layers of regulation to access to these weapons. So we're talking about things like machine guns, easily concealable, deadly weapons like short-barreled shotguns, short-barreled rifles, and silencers, among other things. And they created this regulatory regime for them, which imposed a tax, a $200 tax, which was much more significant sum in the 1930s than it would be today, and then also a registration regime for these particularly dangerous weapons and effectively sort of a heightened background check system by which... when you applied to buy one of these weapons, law enforcement would be notified that law enforcement would have an opportunity to object to you buying these weapons if they had reason to think you were going to be a danger. And this law has been on the books, as I said, for nearly a century. And as a result of it, we see much less crime involving these kinds of weapons than we do with other handguns and other firearms that are subject to less regulation. What recently happened is as part of the big beautiful bill that Congress passed, they zeroed out the tax. So they didn't repeal the National Firearms Act, but they did reduce the $200 tax associated with these transactions. So effectively, the registration, the notification of law enforcement, those are still on the books. but the $200 tax was effectively reduced to zero. Why is that significant? Well, The plaintiffs in this litigation argued that Congress only had the power to pass the National Firearms Act through the taxing clause, through the taxing authority that Congress has. Congress has the power to tax, and when it imposed this tax, it has the power to put in place other requirements related to this. Those are the things I talked about, registration, notification of law enforcement, etc. So the plaintiffs filed this lawsuit and they said, wait, the tax is zero now, so there's no revenue from this. And if Congress was only able to put these regulations in place because of the tax authority it has, and it's not collecting any money, it's no longer a tax, so all these other things can't be enforced either. And the trial judge was persuaded. So the court in this case agreed with plaintiffs that there was no revenue coming in through the tax. The other requirements associated with the tax could not be enforced.

So that was a week ago. And after it issued this injunction, the court said, if I'm not going to have this injunction going to place straight away, I'm going to stay my decision for a week. I'm going to give the government seven days to appeal if it wants to. And if not, you know, after the seven days go by, the injunction will take effect. Now, I should be clear, the government has more than seven days to appeal. So while they have not yet appealed, they could do so in the days to come. It really was more a question of the stay and whether the government would seek to extend the stay. It could have appealed. It could have immediately filed a notice of appeal. It could have asked the trial judge to extend the stay for more than seven days. could have gone to the Fifth Circuit and asked the Fifth Circuit to issue a stay. But the government didn't do any of those things. It just didn't take any action. And so the effect of all of that was after the seven days were over, the injunction went into place. As I said, it's possible the government will appeal to the Fifth Circuit, so it still has some time to do that. In other cases that are similar and present similar questions, the government continues to defend the law, so it's possible that it will attempt to appeal this. At some point, it's just unclear exactly what the government is going to do. And that was Adam Skaggs, Chief Counsel and Vice President of the Giffords Law Center to prevent gun violence. President Donald Trump's administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the White House to continue construction on its $400 million ballroom project while it appeals a lower court's order to halt the work. Chief Justice John Roberts has set a deadline of Tuesday for a response by plaintiffs challenging the ballroom project. Trump's Solicitor General today petitioned the High Court to suspend last week's decision. by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The divided panel ruled last week. The Republican president must stop the White House ballroom's construction because Congress has not approved the project. New research finds companies that kept their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies despite political pressure performed just as well financially as those that rolled them back. Jacob Grumbach is an associate professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a co-author on the study. In this paper, I and a co-author, Hannah Foles.

looked at the financial help of firms that resisted the Trump administration's anti-DEI executive order that was issued in January 2025. So we found that large U.S. corporations that maintain DEI and were out of compliance with the Trump administration's orders performed just as well in financial markets and in revenue as firms that folded on DEI. The study is in response to an executive order President Trump signed at the beginning of his second administration, ending DEI within the federal government and threatening companies that maintained similar policies. Firms, including Google, McDonald's, and Walmart scaled back their programs in response, while others like Costco, Apple, and Delta Air, airlines held firm. Go back to January 2025, you know. universities, law firms, labor unions, and large U.S. corporations were all really wondering, wanted to stay out of the sites of the Trump administration and were worried about the executive branch, sort of punishing them through hostile regulatory action, tax auditing, and other processes. The Trump administration has expressed sort of a desire to get retribution against what it sees as its political enemies. Grumbach said the report was aimed at addressing questions about how society responds to overt government overreach. Can civil society organizations like corporations, universities, law firms, unions, can they resist executive branch pressure during a time when authoritarianism is on the march? And we saw under Viktor Orban in Hungary, a lot of the consolidation of power happened by threatening and pressuring civil society organizations into acquiescence to the regime. That's been happening in the U.S. over 2025 and 2026. And what this paper shows is that at least for large corporations, they can resist executive branch pressure and do just as well. He said their research found companies that kept DEI policies actually outperformed peers that abandoned them, at least in the days immediately following the executive order. And those companies saw no long-term financial disadvantage. They worried that Trump would also help to mobilize conservative consumers to stop buying things and patronizing companies that are at a step with the administration's goals and priorities. But what ended up happening was you saw with comparing Target, which ended DEI to Costco, which kept DEI, you actually saw that, you know, many liberal consumers started going to Costco more and to target less, precisely the opposite of what the Trump administration wanted. Grombach said the findings suggest large corporations have more room to resist political pressure than commonly assumed. A federal judge has ruled Idaho cannot prosecute doctors who perform abortions to protect a pregnant patient's health or prevent self-harm. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Windmill found Idaho's near-total abortion ban violates the 14th Amendment, writing that a pregnant woman's health, quote, is not a state resource to be allocated at the legislature's whim. Doctors who violate the state's abortion laws.

currently risk losing their license and up to five years in prison. Dr. Stacey Seb, a Boise Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist who sued over the law, said the ruling will let him treat patients with serious medical conditions without sending them out of state. He'd previously had to refer some patients, including those with grave pregnancy complications, to states like Utah for care. Judge Windmill also found the state can't treat mental illness differently from other health conditions, calling any ban on care for suicide risk, quote, an affront to human dignity. Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador said he'll appeal dismissing the ruling as the decision of, quote, a single federal judge. Idaho residents are voting this fall on a ballot initiative to decide whether or not to loosen the state's near total abortion ban. A hurricane warning is in effect for Hawaii's Big Island as tropical storm Lala approaches, with forecasters expecting it to strengthen into a hurricane by the weekend. The National Hurricane Center said Lala could bring rain, high winds, and dangerous surf starting late tonight, with rainfall totals up to a foot across Maui and the Big Island, and as much as 25 inches possible in some areas. raising the risk of life-threatening flooding and mudslides. The tropical storm watch is also in place for Maui County, including Maui, Lanai, Molokai, and Cujulaway. As of yesterday, Lala had a maximum sustained wind of 60 miles per hour and was located more than 450 miles southeast of Hilo, moving west-northwest. It's expected to near the Big Island tomorrow. Elsewhere in the Pacific, tropical storm Hernan formed southwest of the southern tip of Baja, California Peninsula, but is not threatening land. Flock Safety, the company behind a nationwide network of license plate reading cameras is announcing new mandatory safeguards after mounting bipartisan criticism over misuse of its technology by law enforcement, including reports of the technology being used for personal unauthorized searches like stalking and of data being shared with federal agencies like ICE despite local prohibitions against such cooperation. Flock CEO Garrett Langley said by January 1st, all law enforcement customers will be required to use an audit tool flagging abnormal searches, tie every search to a case number, and follow a shortened seven-day data retention window, down from 30 days. Agencies will also be able to restrict which offense types outside departments can search for, including blocking immigration-related searches. Critics of the company say the changes don't go far enough. The ACLU called some changes retreads of inadequate safeguards. Robert Fromer of the Institute for Justice called the proposals, quote, window dressing, arguing searches should require judicial warrants, not just officer discretion. More than 50 agencies have canceled or suspended flock contracts this year, according to the tracking group DeFlock.

The Washington Post recently found nearly 50 cases of officers misusing the cameras, often to track romantic partners or family members, including six Savannah, Georgia police employees fired this week for similar misuse. The Trump administration is defending itself against allegations it plans to give ICE officers electric shock gloves, though it is not denying the claims. Jennifer King reports. White House border czar Tom Homan is defending plans to spend up to $20 million to give ICE officers electric gloves that can deliver a painful shock. In an interview on Fox News channel, Tom Homan says the gloves are a tool to help officers end confrontations without using lethal force. In Bardstown, Kentucky, Nelson County jailer Justin Hall says his agency began using the gloves sparingly four years ago. They strap on and basically you got a power button that you hit. Hall says that unlike tasers, the gloves do not leave burn marks or cause people to fall down. It lets you get to control of the person to where you can get them in a safer location and actually try to gain compliance. Civil rights groups say the gloves are cruel and there are concerns about their safety. I'm Jennifer King. You're listening in the Pacific Evening News. It's an hour-long broadcast every weeknight. I'm Scott Baba. We'll be back with more news after this.

Dude, you've been glued to that phone for like a half an hour. What's going on? Just keeping up with the news. Doing my research. Okay. And what's the word out there, Mr. Research? Uh, man, I don't even know. It's like wars, hurricanes, billionaires tweeting at each other, or is it Xing now? Robots stealing jobs. Robots with machine gunheads. AI girlfriends. Wait, is TikTok banned again or not? Wow. A masterclass in knowing everything and understanding nothing. Um, yeah, pretty much. Let's skip the chaos buffet and let KPFA feed you with actual news and context. Oh, wow. So I don't have to decode memes to know what's real? Exactly. KPFA. News and current events without the nonsense. 94-1. A California lawmaker is pushing legislation that would impose a 50% tax on gross receipts for companies operating for-profit immigration detention centers in the state. Democratic Assembly member Matt Haney of San Francisco, the author of State Assembly Bill 1633, held a press conference today outside the Adelanto Ice Processing Center in San Bernardino County, where four detainees died between last September and March. He noted that a May review from State Attorney General Rob Bonta's office found poor and inhumane conditions at the facility run by the Florida-based Geo Group, including unsafe food, unclean water, and inadequate health care. The facility's population surged from just seven detainees in 2023 to more than 1,500 by mid-20205. Haney said revenue from the tax could fund legal services for immigrant communities. He said corporations are, quote, driven by mandates of ICE, which mandates cruelty, which provides for no actual oversight. The bill has passed the assembly and now awaits a Senate vote. Haney is urging senators and Governor Gavin Newsom to support it. Gavin Newsom has signed legislation, authored by California's first Native American state lawmaker, Assembly member James Ramos, to update and expand California's missing persons DNA program. Assembly Bill 2018, sponsored by the California Department of Justice, is intended to strengthen the state's ability to identify human remains, solve, resolve missing persons cases, and provide answers to families. Ramos said modernizing the state's DNA technology is especially urgent, giving the disproportionate impact of the missing and murdered indigenous peoples crisis on Native American communities in California. KPA's Lauren Schmidt spoke with Ramos, chair of the California Native American Legislative Caucus, about the new law and his broader efforts to address the MMIP crisis. I authored the bill because of the technology that needs to be updated in the state of California. Because not only with the DNA testing, but other things also moving forward with technology and where we're at, we've seen that this actual DNA program hasn't been updated for over two decades. And so there was a lot of technology, a lot of data, a lot of science that has evolved over that time.

Yet families are going without knowing about loved ones and they're missing, whether they're identified or not. And so this bill brings that testing and those different strategies to comply with modern times of science, technology, DNA testing, those types of things. The legislation makes three primary changes to the Department of Justice procedures, adding unidentified living people to the state's missing persons program, removing the quote high risk designation previously required to trigger DNA collection, and allows family reference samples to be retained in cases involving partial human remains. I know you've stated that you hope these new tools will bring closure to the families of missing. But can you speak to the broader MMI crisis in California and why law enforcement agencies need these new tools to address it? Definitely. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's Crisis has played California. And as a California Indian person, we would argue that it's been a crisis for our people from early colonizational times with stereotypes and treatment towards our women. Currently, California... is number five of all states in the nation, of not even investigating crimes of missing persons and murders against this nation's first people. So we went to work and started to have a hearing. And during those hearings, we also were told of how families have been missing somebody for over 20, 30 years. And yet there has been no identification, any tools that were there. We identified that... DNA testing was something that was missing because of the data scientific research for Native Americans in the state of California. And so by this tool, we could actually start to identify some remains that are out there, bringing closures to families, families, tribal families, through the missing American indigenous person's crisis that fill... that no one is listening, that no one is there for them, that because they were a California Indian person that went missing, that the state just forgot about them. So this is not just about bringing things up to par with DNA testing, data, and technology. This is about recognizing California's first people, those that went missing, to be able to bring closure to families that have been grieving over these issues for decades, and some would argue since time immemorial. California has roughly 20,000 active missing person cases at any given time, but there isn't a clear statewide public database showing how many of those people are indigenous or Native American, which the lack of data itself is part of the MMIP crisis.

I previously lived in Uruk, Kuruke, Hoopa, Wiyat, and Wailaki territories in what is now known as Humboldt County. And while I was there, I interviewed the Sovereign Bodies Institute, a native-led organization that has been at the forefront of documenting the MMIP crisis and developing indigenous-led solutions nationwide. When I first began covering... the MMIP crisis in California, one of the things that struck me was that we know the scale of this crisis in large part because tribes and native-led organizations have done the work collecting the data, not the state or federal systems. I used to describe that as evidence as a broken system. But indigenous leaders have challenged me on that framing, saying this system isn't broken. In fact, it is functioning as it was historically designed within a government structure rooted in colonization and violence against native people. So as California's first Native American state legislator. and having an inside view of a government that historically sanctioned violence and oppression against indigenous communities, how do you view that argument? And is this a system that can be fixed through reforms like legislation you've championed? Or does addressing the MMIP crisis require something more fundamental? It definitely is. It goes to the root, the root of the premise of the state of California when it was created and even further back, the United States and a Mexican rule in Spain. The treatment towards California Indian people, it wasn't kind. I mean, when the Spaniards came, right, the mission systems were built, forced labor. slavery was conducted, and it was our people that they used. And then when Mexican rule came, same thing, that there was an echelon looking down on the original people from this area. Then the United States, same thing, found gold in 49 and 1849 and shot and killed Indian people for their land, seeing people as less than human. Then the state of California, the first governor, put out bounties, killing machines that were paid for by taxpayers' dollars to shoot and kill Indian people, seeing us as less than human. So you look at the... What's the body of the state of California? You deal with shooting and killing, and resources were taken from California's first people. It was taken. And now there's a strong ownership that those are.

the states and no longer the tribal people. So assimilation, the colonization, that mind frame continue to take place. The treatment towards California Indian people. I ran a bill that got word of the offensive S word towards Native American women. Those place names would not be acceptable in the state of California. That passed the legislature. Governor signed it. Fresno County, two supervisors challenged that and put a local initiative up at the county level. to keep that S word and said it honored the women. We fought against that and defeated that measure. And so that mentality of not seeing California Indian people in general as equal to others that allowed them to shoot and kill, not just males and females, but babies. is what we're still dealing with with some of these regulations that are there. School districts, school districts were there to assimilate Indian, boarding schools, strip the culture, kill the Indian, save the man. So they're doing what they were supposed to do through assimilation. By denying regalia at graduation, I had to run three pieces of legislation for that. And then you deal with Public Law 280. Public Law 280 stripped California tribal governments of their true policing authority. And Public Law 280 is enrooted not to protect Indian people, but to protect the community from the Indian people themselves. So public safety was never a number one top priority for the state of California in history. So when someone says that the policies are doing exactly what they're supposed to do through exclusion, not collecting data, what they overlook is the resiliency of our people, to overcome that slavery, to overcome those killing machines, and to be able to have one of ours sitting in the state legislature pushing pieces of legislation. They don't understand the resiliency of India people because what's happening is the data that's being collected is being collected by our own people to show the world. Show the world. This is happening. This is happening. In the state of California in 2026, we have to talk about updating DNA to bring closure to families that have been missing someone. We have to talk about creating an alert system. When a Native American goes missing in the state of California, and we have to talk, and it's been acknowledged that California is number five of all states and the nation of not even investigating murders against California Indian people, Indian people in general. But where is that outcry? Where is the marches in the street? Where is the funding stream coming in? Yet because it's happening to Indian people, the mentality, the mentality, I believe, is still enrooted in the state. And finally, Assembly Member Ramos, are you feeling hopeful? And beyond legislation itself, are you seeing a broader change in understanding among your non-native colleagues and state government? And on the other side of that, what work remains to be done?

Certainly. I mean, there is the educational process of legislators that sit side by side with me. When they start to hear about these issues, there was a bill that talked about sterilization of women, Hispanic women, others, but no one even knew that that happened to California Indian women as late as the late 1970s. There were still sterilization policies, and they didn't even understand that part of it. So the education within the legislature and the members is something that still needs to be done. Now, do I think we're making some headway? We were able to get a monument on the state grounds of a Miwok Indian leader that now there's a place for Indian people to come to. What I've seen, and we're pushing a bill now, AB 1881, that would give the right of California Indian people in the state of California the right to assemble, practice customs and traditions without interference on state public land, giving them the same equal treatment as any other religion in the state of California. And I'd like to say that that's flying through with no opposition, but there's opposition to it. And so we're pushing, but I do feel that we're educating, educating the state, and giving a voice to California's first people. When I first did the parade in November, this year will be our third year, there was over a thousand people, Native American people from all parts of the state coming to participate in that parade. And I would think about that. But then it's, now their voices are being heard. When you grow up on an Indian reservation and you feel that resources aren't there for you and your voice doesn't matter, someone goes missing and 20 years later, there's still no answers to it, you get kind of disheartened. But because of the pieces of legislation and the support we've gotten in this current diversity of legislators, the speaker, and pro tem, and the governor, were able to bring a voice that has been silent in the state of California for many years. So what I do see is younger members and even older members from tribal communities starting to be able to know that their voices matter. And I think that's the change that's taking place. Assembly member Ramos, thank you for joining us on KPFA News. Anything else you'd like to leave our listeners with? I think not forgetting that the land that all the listeners are walking on is traditional land of Indian people. And just because you can't see underneath the ground, don't think that there's no remains of Indian people there. Blood was shed throughout the state of California, and as those voices that are still crying out in the year 2026, tell them truly what happened to us in the state of California, but also tell them about our resiliency that we're changing policy today.

That was Assembly member James Ramos, California's first Native American elected to the state legislature, speaking with KPFA's Lauren Schmidt. Supporters of AB 2018 say the bill will improve DNA analysis and identification, strengthen the California Department of Justice's ability to resolve missing person cases, and help provide answers to families who have been waiting for their loved ones to come home. Legislation is part of Ramos's broader work on the missing and murdered indigenous peoples crisis. Earlier this year, he introduced a resolution recognizing May as California's Missing and Murdered Indigenous People's Awareness Month. Ramos also authored legislation establishing California's feather alert system, which took effect in 2023, and provides a statewide notification system when an indigenous person. He is reported missing under specified circumstances. A new bill in California would promote wildlife crossings to make it easier for wild animals to migrate safely. Suzanne Potter reports. Senate Bill 1250 would require state transportation agencies to integrate wildlife crossings into their planning process. Data from UC Davis finds there are more than 7,000 vehicle wildlife collisions on Golden State roads each year. Cara Lacey with the Nature Conservancy says wildlife crossings save lives. SB 1250 is really to help California plan for and program wildlife connectivity the same way that we plan for, bridges, culverts, and pavements so that we can reduce crashes and protect wildlife. The bill, which has no registered opposition, is now before the Assembly Appropriations Committee. A wildlife crossing project can be as simple as a ledge in an existing culvert, removal of debris, a fence to guide animals to safe crossing routes, or a larger structure over the road. The crossings allow animals to migrate in search of food, habitat, or mates, which reduces inbreeding and promotes biodiversity. Ryan McCauley with the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District in Los Gatos says a new wildlife crossing on Highway 17 is now in the final design stage. Within the last nine years, 19 mountain lines have been killed on Highway 17, and about half of those were actually within two miles of that future wildlife crossing. So we know that wildlife are trying to cross here. Biologists from the UC Santa Cruz Puma Project fitted animals with tracking collars to determine the best location for fencing and wildlife crossings. Other animals, often hit by cars, include rabbits, lizards, deer, and bobcats. For California News Service, I'm Suzanne Potter.

This week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration held in-person and virtual hearings as part of an unprecedented review of California's coastal management program. What the federal agency got was a public outcry of opposition from state officials and citizens alike. The review is seen by state officials as an attempt by the Trump administration to take control over the coast and proceed with projects like offshore oil drilling, deep sea mining, and spaceport development. Vic Bodoyan reports from Fresno. Hundreds of Californians came to the defense of California's coastal management history during three days of public comment sessions held by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For nearly 50 years, the California Coastal Commission has worked successfully with NOAA to protect the environment, managed development, and improve public access. It's now the target of the Trump administration that is threatening to override the state's management of its coastal resources. Public comments came from people living all along the state's 1,100-mile coastline. I'm here today to support the stable, predictable, and balanced development and natural resource protection that we've come to expect from California's outstanding coastal management programs. My name is Anne Stenton. I'm speaking to you as a mom, teacher, and lifelong California voter and resident. Some of the most meaningful moments in my life have been spent sailing, surfing, diving, swimming, all of it in the coastal waters of California. I can remember snorkeling at Santa Cruz Island as a child in the 80s and 90s when some areas were little more than urchin barrens, basically deserted. Returning in recent years to snorkel in the recently created MPAs, I've seen thick kelp forests, abundant fish, lobster sharks, you name it. MPAs are marine protected areas that the state created in 1999 to protect vast areas of ocean habitat offshore, regions that could be threatened by oil drilling or seabed mining. Commerce Secretary Howard Howard Lutnick signaled the Trump administration's intent to ramp up coastal exploitation. When he announced Noah's review of the Coastal Commission saying in a statement, quote, obstructionist policies that delay critical national infrastructure in the name of environmental extremism are unacceptable, unquote. David Salk of Mendocino County questioned that sentiment. So after five decades of partnership with the federal government and setting the gold standard for coastal public trust stewardship, What has changed since 2025 to warrant Secretary Howard Lutnick's claims of repeated and unfounded obstruction and bad faith? How does a 4% variance from federally proposed actions to protect the lives, well-being, and jobs of Californians, and the environment which sustains them, translate into obstructionist policies in the name of environmental extremism?

Joshua Quiglia Berkeley works for Save the Bay. He applauded the development of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the BCDC, in 1965. It's a state agency that has helped restore the Bay ecosystem and help the region develop its nation-leading economic success. Prior to the establishment of BCDC and the coastal management program, the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay was largely inaccessible. It was ringed by garbage and waste dumps, and it was dominated by polluting industries. Through the coastal management program and the work of state and federal agencies, we have reestablished tens of thousands of acres of healthy habitat, increased public access with shoreline parks connected by the Bay Trail, and reduced pollution, which has improved water quality and health of communities near the shoreline. Mary Jane Schram reminded Noah that the agency's mission is to protect coastal and ocean ecosystems. For over 40 years, I've worked with state and federal agencies and science and conservation groups on oil spill response, ecosystem monitoring, shipwreck lightering, wildlife rescue, and communications. I've seen many impacts to this globally significant marine ecosystem, and I'm proud to have worked with NOAA to help prevent and mitigate them. This is part of a fishing expedition, a clear attempt to lower standards and move the goalposts to promote oil drilling and seafloor mining, deregulate coastal development, and favor special interests. While public comments in favor of the Coastal Commission and the state's management were nearly universal, they weren't unanimous. Stephanie Peters works for the Sable Offshore Corporation that operates oil pipeline connections to three offshore platforms. That company was held responsible for the massive refugee oil spill in 2015. The Coastal Commission has held up on restarting operations. Recently, the Trump administration tried to claim reasons of national defense as a way to sidestep the state's objections to restarting the pipeline. But that effort is now in litigation. The Coastal Commission has earned a reputation as the most oppressive land use authority in the United States. Many say that the Coastal Commission has exceeded its mission through overreach. The California Coastal Commission's push to stop Sable's oil pipeline and prevent oil and gas production is short-sided and dangerous to our energy infrastructure. Ironically, that viewpoint provided a revealing counterpoint to the fears expressed by so many others who spoke, and it stood in stark contrast to the perspective of longtime Oceanside resident Barbara Susan Collins. Our coasts are a national treasure.

They provide a wealth of benefits for everyone when they're managed well. And California has an excellent record of coastal management for five decades. This review of California's coastal management bears all the hallmarks of a politically motivated pretext to give the fossil fuel industry and other cronies of this administration another obscene handout from our national treasury. If NOAA finds California out of compliance, this lawless dictatorial administration will try to impose offshore drilling and the industrialization of the coast down our throats. According to the Commerce Department, NOAA will conduct its reviews consistent with the plain text of the Coastal Zone Management Act. So far, that law says the federal government is not allowed to do something on a coastline that is inconsistent with a state's policies for the coast. It remains to be seen if that balance of power will remain. Vic Bedoyen reporting for Pacific Evening News and KFCF Radio. Federal prosecutors are pursuing fewer charges as they prepare to retry the man accused of sparking the deadly 2025 Palisades Fire. A jury deadlocked in June overweathered Jonathan Rindernecht intentionally started the fire that killed 12 people and became the most destructive in Los Angeles' history, with 10 of the 12 jurors favoring acquittal. A mistrial was declared and a new trial is set for October. In a new indictment filed yesterday, prosecutors dropped from three charges to two. Only one now ties Rindernecht to both the initial January 1st fire and the larger Palisades fire that erupted days later. The other addresses only the first smaller blaze. Prosecutors allege Rindernecht used a barbecue lighter to start a fire that smoldered underground before flaring up on January 7th. ultimately destroy more than 6,800 buildings. In the first trial, prosecutors pointed to digital evidence and inconsistent statements from Rindernecht as proof of his involvement. His attorneys argued there was no direct evidence tying him to the fire and that investigators failed to consider fireworks as a possible cause. The timber fire near Big Sur has grown to more than 4,500 acres and is now 7% contained, according to Cal Fire this morning. The blaze has crossed Longwood Creek and reached Olmsted Mountain with the eastern side remaining active overnight. Crews said a hever marine layer has helped slow the fire spread, though fog has limited aircraft support. Firefighters are working to build containment lines behind homes east of Highway 1, where fire activity has stayed low for several days. More than 500 structures remain threatened, though none have been damaged or destroyed, and no injuries have been reported. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Bay Area weather this evening, increasing clouds with lows around 60, mostly cloudy tomorrow morning, then becoming partly cloudy, highs in the upper 60s to mid-70s. In the Central Valley, very slight chances of showers and thunderstorms tonight before 8 p.m., otherwise partly cloudy with lows in the high 60s. Tomorrow, sunny with highs in the low 90s. In Los Angeles tonight, patchy fog, otherwise cloudy with lows in the mid-60s. Patchy fog tomorrow before 11 a.m. Otherwise, mostly cloudy with a high near 80. That's it for the news tonight. I'm Scott Baba. Good evening. Missed today's. Missed today's news? No problem. The Pacifica Evening News airs every night at 6 p.m. But if you can't catch it live, you can always listen later. Anytime at KPFA.org. Our daily news archives are updated and ready when you are, so you never have to miss a beat. Stay informed. Stay connected. With original reporting, you can trust. Head to KPFA.org. Find the latest Pacifica evening news and catch up on the stories that matter most.

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