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diapers

California Becomes First US State To Provide Free Diapers For Newborns 

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Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a first-in-the-nation program in which families welcoming newborn babies will be able to receive hundreds of free diapers before they even leave the hospital. 

Once enacted, during the program’s first year the free diaper packages will be offered at between 65 to 75 hospitals that handle around 25% of births in the state and are aimed to largely help low-income patients, according to Newsom’s office. 

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The initiative will eventually expand to more hospitals throughout California, but it’s unclear how many at this time. The state has partnered with nonprofit Baby2Baby to manufacture the diapers under the label “Golden State Start,” according to AP. 

Newsom explained that this initiative is a part of the much larger goal of making living in California, one of the most expensive states, easier for families. Other initiatives within this goal included providing students with free meals at school and making preschool free for all kids.

“Every baby born in California deserves a healthy start in life — and that means making sure parents have the basics they need from day one,” Newsom said in a statement. 

California set aside $7.4 million in last year’s budget to roll out the initiative, and another $12.5 million is included in this year’s budget proposal to implement the program for the upcoming fiscal year ending in June 2027. 

The program will allow each family to receive 400 diapers in sizes for newborns and babies up to 14 pounds when they are discharged from the hospital after birth. Newborns, on average, go through about eight to 10 diapers a day, so the amount should last a little more than a month. 

Baby2Baby is a nonprofit that provides families in need with essential items. The organization built a manufacturing system that allows them to produce diapers for 80% less than the retail price, according to co-CEO Kelly Sawyer Patricof. 

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“California is once again setting the standard of what it means to show up for mothers and babies,” added co-CEO Norah Weinstein.

Tennessee and Delaware are two other states that have similar programs to help low-income families. The two became the first US states to offer free diapers to families enrolled in their Medicaid programs. 

Tennessee families specifically can go to pharmacies to pick up 100 diapers per month for children under two. The Delaware program provides individuals with up to 80 diapers and up to one pack of baby wipes per week in the first 12 weeks of their life. 

California’s Medicaid system doesn’t cover diapers for newborns but it does cover the items for enrollees ages 5 and older if they have a medical need. 

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, families spend around $100 a month on diapers per child. California officials are looking forward to easing a lot of that burden for new families. 

“The first days at home with a newborn should be focused on the love, connection, and joy of an expanded family, not stress about affording diapers,” said Kim Johnson, the state’s health secretary.

“This program helps ensure families can begin that journey with greater stability and peace of mind.”

Arcadia Mayor

Arcadia Mayor Resigns After Agreeing to Plead Guilty to Acting As Illegal Agent for China

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The mayor of a Southern California city has stepped down after federal prosecutors announced she agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government.

Eileen Wang, 58, who had served as mayor of Arcadia since February, agreed to plead guilty to one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government in the United States after admitting that she worked with another man to advance messaging favorable to the People’s Republic of China, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a May 11 news release.

Arcadia is located about 15 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. The city has roughly 54,000 residents, and about 59% of its population is Asian American, according to the U.S. Census.

Arcadia City Council stated that Wang resigned from her post on Monday. She is expected to formally enter the plea in the coming weeks, prosecutors said. The charge carries a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

Wang’s attorneys, Jason Liang and Brian Sun, said in a statement that Wang accepts responsibility for “past personal mistakes.”

“Her love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed and did not waver,” they added.

“This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said.

“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy.”

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Wang’s alleged conduct occurred before she took office in Arcadia, according to city officials. She was sworn in to the City Council in December 2022 and became mayor earlier this year. Arcadia’s mayor is chosen from the five-member City Council on a rotating basis, allowing each council member to serve about 9.5 months during their 4-year term.

Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a statement that the City Council will choose a new mayor at its next meeting.

“The allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling. We take them seriously,” Lazzaretto said.

“We want to be clear: this investigation concerns individual conduct, and the charges are for conduct that ceased after Ms. Wang was sworn into office in December 2022. Following an internal review, we can confirm that no City finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved.”

City Council actions are taken by the body as a whole, and “no single member holds unilateral authority,” Lazzaretto added. “We have found no actions that require reconsideration or that are invalidated as a result of these developments.”

Federal prosecutors said Wang worked with Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, to promote Chinese government propaganda in the U.S. Sun is currently serving a four-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in October 2025 to the same foreign-agent charge.

Between late 2020 and 2022, Wang and Sun operated U.S. News Center, a website that appeared to be aimed at the region’s Chinese American community. The two posted pro-China content on the website at the direction of Chinese government operatives.

One example cited by prosecutors involved a June 2021 message from a Chinese government official to Wang and others in a group chat. The official allegedly sent pre-written articles, including one that had been published in the Los Angeles Times as a letter to the editor rejecting allegations of forced labor and genocide in China’s Xinjiang region.

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Wang later posted the same article to her website.

Two months later, in August 2021, Wang allegedly revised the article after the Chinese official requested changes. Prosecutors stated she then sent the official a link to the post and a screenshot showing it had received more than 15,000 views.

The official responded, “Great!” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Wang replied, “Thank you, leader.”

“Individuals elected to public office in the United States should act only for the people of the United States that they represent,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said.

“It is deeply concerning that someone who previously received and executed directives from PRC government officials is now in a position of public trust at all, but particularly so because that relationship with that foreign government had never been disclosed.”

Prosecutors also described Wang’s connection to another man, John Chen, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison for acting as an unregistered agent and bribing an Internal Revenue Service agent.

Sun, meanwhile, had previously coordinated with Chinese officials on several efforts, including organizing support for a political candidate he described to Beijing as a “new political star.” The Los Angeles Times identified that candidate as Wang.

Sun served as Wang’s city council campaign adviser and was described by prosecutors as a “close personal confidante.” After Wang won election to the council, she and Sun attended a meeting with people Sun described as a team “dedicated” to Chinese interests, according to Sun’s plea agreement.

Alysa Liu Celebrated In Hometown Of Oakland After Olympics Triumph

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This Thursday, nearly 5,000 people gathered in Oakland, California to celebrate new local hero Alysa Liu, the figure skating superstar who just took over our screens and the world at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympic Winter Games.

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Pacific Palisades

One Year After LA Wildfires, Home Sales Are Up And Prices Are Down 

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According to new data from Realtor.com, the share of home sales in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena have increased by 50% or more, with prices falling as well. 

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One year ago, two major wildfires spread and became the second and third most destructive blazes in California’s history. The Palisades and Eaton fires ravaged Los Angeles County’s Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods. 

The fires burned through more than 37,000 acres and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. More than 11,000 of those structures were homes. 

According to analysis from Redfin, individuals in LA who decided to rebuild within the past year have dealt with multiple permitting and construction delays, with many others opting to move out of the destroyed neighborhoods. 

This has led to a major increase in home sales, which has been partially driven by investor activity. 

Between January and September 2025, the share of homes that sold in the Pacific Palisades increased 50% year-over-year and 58.4% in Altadena, the Realtor.com data showed. 

Buyer activity is also on the rise with sale prices being around half of where they were one year ago. In the Pacific Palisades, the average sale price decreased from $3.7 million to $1.9 million. The average sale price in Altadena decreased from $1.35 million to $650,000.

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These trends are actually due to the fact that there’s been an overall increase in sales of now-vacant lots due to the fires, according to Hanna Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com. 

Investors are seeing major opportunities in these areas and made their intentions known a few months after the fires. They’ve been rebuilding the area and acquiring lots in Malibu and Altadena. 

Both Redfin and Realtor.com economists estimated that investors are buying about 30-40% of vacant lots throughout the areas. 

“We’re definitely seeing money flowing in to buy developable lots because lots are available now,” Douglas Elliman agent Victor Currie said.

“Investors will likely need to be prepared for the carrying costs while they go through the massively backed-up permitting process.”

troops

Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Attempt to Send Out-of-State Troops to Oregon

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A federal judge in Oregon accused the Trump administration of directly defying her court order Sunday night after the White House continued mobilizing National Guard troops from multiple states for deployment in Democratic-led cities.

Judge Karin Immergut of the U.S. District Court in Oregon, who is herself a Trump appointee, had issued a restraining order just a day earlier, blocking the federal government from deploying out-of-state Guard members to Oregon. Yet within 24 hours, the administration began rerouting hundreds of troops from California and Texas, prompting an emergency hearing and an expansion of the judge’s order.

Immergut’s revised ruling now bars “the relocation, federalization, or deployment of members of the National Guard of any state or the District of Columbia in the state of Oregon.” During the hearing, she told Justice Department lawyers that the president’s actions were “in direct contravention” of her directive.

The president’s efforts to tap Guard units from Texas, California, and elsewhere have triggered chaos among governors and the courts alike. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed Sunday that up to 400 Texas National Guard members were being prepared for “federal protection missions” in Portland, Chicago, and other cities.

In Illinois, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker condemned the move outright. “We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s invasion,” he said.

“It started with federal agents. It will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops.”

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, voiced full support on social media, saying his state’s Guard could out-train any in the nation.

“You can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let the Texas Guard do it. No Guard can match the training, skill, and expertise of the Texas National Guard.”

The president justified the deployments as a response to protests at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in Portland and suburban Chicago. But Judge Immergut’s Saturday order noted that Portland’s demonstrations were “not significantly violent or disruptive,” adding that the president appeared to have exceeded his constitutional authority.

The weekend’s legal scramble followed a separate decision to redirect 200 California National Guard members, previously federalized for duty in Los Angeles, to Oregon.

“I am certainly troubled by now hearing that both California and Texas are being sent to Oregon, which does appear to be in direct contradiction of my order,” Immergut said.

That move, criticized as an end-run around the court’s ban, drew sharp objections from both Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon.

“The rule of law has prevailed — and California’s National Guard will be heading home,” Newsom said after the court reaffirmed its injunction Sunday night.

“President Trump’s actions are an effort to occupy and incite cities and states that don’t share his politics,” Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement, “and I believe that we should expect him to continue to push the limits of his authority.”

“This is a continuation and escalation of the President’s dangerous, un-American misuse of states’ National Guard members and hard-earned taxpayer dollars.”

Oregon’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, warned that the situation still fell far short of any condition justifying federal military intervention.

“What was unlawful yesterday is unlawful today,” he said.

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The controversy spotlights a murky legal question: can the president federalize one state’s National Guard and send those troops into another state that objects?

Elizabeth Goitein, a national security law expert at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, said the California troops were technically part of the federal armed forces once “federalized.” Still, she added that Judge Immergut’s reasoning likely rendered such a deployment unlawful.

The relevant statute, Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, allows the president to take control of state Guards only under specific conditions, which Immergut found were “not present in Portland.”

Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said he could not recall another instance where one state’s National Guard had been sent into another state over both governors’ objections.

Despite the administration’s insistence that Portland was “under siege,” Immergut’s order cited local police reports describing protests as small and largely peaceful. On Sunday morning, the city’s streets were calm — marathon runners, brunch lines, and dog walkers replaced the chaotic imagery depicted by the White House.

Outside the ICE facility that prompted the federal response, roughly 70 protesters gathered peacefully, barbecuing and handing out bottled water. “There are more people filming each other than rabble-rousers,” said Alex Knots, 58, who joined the demonstration.

Still, local officials fear that continued federal intervention could inflame tensions. Portland Mayor Keith Wilson warned that “this is an aggressive approach trying to inflame a situation that has otherwise been peaceful.”

In recent days, federal agents at the ICE facility escalated crowd control tactics, using tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and pepper balls to disperse demonstrators several blocks from the building.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta accused the president of abusing his powers for political theater:

“It’s our National Guard — not Trump’s Royal Guard, as he seems to think.”

Both Oregon and California have secured temporary relief in court, but Guard deployments to Illinois and other states remained pending. With multiple lawsuits and appeals underway, the clash over presidential authority and the boundaries of federal power appears to be far from over.

la

Los Angeles Planning To Host The Most Sustainable Olympics Yet For 2028 Summer Games

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Los Angeles, California will be hosting the 2028 Summer Olympic Games. In the most recent Summer Games, hosted in Paris, there were major strides made in sustainability and protecting the environment while holding the world’s most anticipated athletic competition. 

Throughout the Paris Olympics, the total CO2 emissions equated to 1.59 million tons, which is less than half of the average emissions at both the London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 Games, according to reports from Forbes Magazine. 

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Becky Dale, the Vice President of Sustainability for Los Angeles 2028 said that they’re ready and willing to try to become even more green than the Paris Games, which have become the new standard for sustainability. 

“It’s the great thing about the sports industry: everyone wants to win, including sustainability. Every time you host, you want to up the ante.”

Dale cited the 2028 Game’s Impact and Sustainability Plan, which outlines how the city is committed to reducing waste, utilizing materials that can be put back into the community. 

Nurit Katz, UCLA’s Chief Sustainability Officer, collaborated with Dale to give a presentation on how they plan on making the Games greener than ever. The two presented the plan at the Energy Innovation Conference at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. 

LA 2028 also released an Impact and Sustainability Plan, “a structured document laying out how organizers plan to maximize the Olympic’s sustainability potential,” Blythe Lawrence for Forbes wrote.

One of the biggest aspects of this plan is that LA is not planning to build any new venues for hosting the event. This is major because the last time the Olympics took place without any new construction being built beforehand was London in 1948. 

The sustainability plan wrote: “[LA was] built for large, live-scale events, from the Grammys and the Academy Awards to the FIFA World Cup and the Super Bowl. With the region’s abundance of existing world-class stadiums and arenas ready to host the Games today, athletes at the 2028 Games will have access to exceptional fields of play and fans will enjoy unbeatable spectating.” 

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This automatically sets LA up for being much greener than previous Olympic Games. Not only will there be a reduction of carbon emissions from the lack of construction, but it entails that every competition venue will take place within a 35-mile radius of downtown LA, so transport around from the Olympic village to each venue won’t take as much energy/emissions. 

Dale went on to explain that almost all of the materials used for the Games will be reused in some way after the Olympics are over. 

“The target is to have 90% of materials used for temporary infrastructure reused or recycled. LA will rely on a combination of rentals, buybacks, and donations to ensure reuse of as much material as possible,” she stated. 

The plan also noted that the electricity used to power venues will be fully renewable by using the grid to reduce the Games’s carbon emissions. 

Dale stated that the organizers will be enhancing public transit to motivate fans to to take it from one venue to another. 

“Our big challenge is how do we make public transportation the most attractive option for people coming to the Games? Ultimately people are creatures of free will, but there are ways to create incentives and smooth the path so we can make it a more desirable option,” she said. 

Katz also discussed at the conference that the Olympics going green doesn’t necessarily mean that the planning and implementation of the new sustainable measures will be more expensive than the average cost of putting on the Games. 

“There’s very much a myth that going green or being sustainable always has to cost more. Some of our initiatives, especially around energy efficiency or around reducing waste, really have operational savings.”

vaccine

West Coast States Issuing Joint Vaccine Guidelines As CDC And HHS Make Massive Changes And Cuts 

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California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii are releasing their own joining recommendations for who should receive Covid, flu, and RSV vaccines this fall. This decision was made to counteract the new vaccine guidance that will be coming from the Trump administration, which has also removed prominent scientists and health experts from the federal health department. 

The administration has also put individuals who are vaccine skeptics and critics in key roles throughout the department, leading to the four states wanting to take control. The recently terminated director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Susan Monarez, testified to Congress about her fear of health in the US under Robert F Kennedy Jr as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. 

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“There’s a real risk that recommendations could be made restricting access to vaccines for children and others in need, without rigorous scientific review.”

The four states have formed what they are calling the West Coast Health Alliance. The Alliance is urging Americans to get this year’s Covid-19 vaccine if they are pregnant, aged 65 or older, are immunocompromised/have a range of risk factors, or are just choosing to keep themselves protected. 

They also stated that children from age 23 months to six should receive the vaccine as should older children and teenagers who have not been vaccinated or have risk factors. 

“These recommendations represent a collaborative effort, done with humility and based on science, to meet our responsibilities to our communities and the public at large,” Dr Kenneth Fink, the director of Hawai’i’s department of health, said in a statement.

The states’ recommendations go against the Trump administrations current vaccine guidelines for Covid-19. Kennedy is one of the most prominent vaccine skeptics in the US, and he announced back in May that the federal government no longer recommends pregnant people and children receive the Covid-19 vaccine. 

They announced the West Coast Health Alliance in early September after the White House forced Monarez out. Monarez often went up against Kennedy over the ways he was trying to reshape federal vaccine policies and contradicting long-standing scientific research. 

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The acting head of the CDC under Trump is a former speechwriter and investment executive with no actual medical or scientific background. California governor Gavin Newsom said that the state health officials who developed the new recommendations within the Alliance are “all medical doctors.”

According to reports, the recommendations are also based on official guidance from major health associations like the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

Kennedy got rid of existing members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in June. Even one Republican senator who’s also a medical doctor called this move concerning. Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy discussed the risk of rescinding the recommendation for an infant hepatitis B vaccine. 

Cassidy issued a statement calling for a “postponement of the ACIP meeting. If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”

In her congressional testimony, Monarez warned that Kennedy had told her that “the childhood vaccine schedule would be changing starting in September, and I needed to be on board with it.” She also discussed how she was fired after not pledging to “commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation, regardless of the scientific evidence.” She added that she also was terminated for resisting the removal of career public health officials that were responsible for vaccine policy without a legitimate cause. 

“If vaccine protections are weakened, preventable diseases will return,” Monarez testified.

wildfire

Thousands Under Evacuation Notice In California And Oregon Amid Intense Wildfires

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Thousands of homes and their residents in northern California and central Oregon entered evacuation orders as firefighting crews continue to battle wildfires in dry, hot weather. The Pickett fire has burned through more than 6,800 acres of Napa county, and was only 13% contained by Monday morning, according to the California department of forestry and fire protection (Cal Fire). 

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Around 150 people were ordered to leave their homes with another 360 under evacuation warnings. Reports show that the wildfires are threatening around 500 structures near Aetna Springs and Pope Valley, which is 80 miles north of San Francisco, according to Cal Fire spokesperson Jason Clay. 

In Oregon, the Flat fire in Deschutes and Jefferson counties has around 4,000 homes under various levels of evacuation notice, including 1,000 homes ordered to leave immediately, according to the state fire marshal’s office. 

Officials stated that firefighters were able to cut containment lines and suppress fires in some residential areas, however, they’re finding it difficult to combat the fires on more vulnerable terrains with low humidity and triple-digit temperatures. 

More than 1,230 firefighters with 10 helicopters are working to battle the California fire which initially began on Thursday last week after seven days of extremely hot temperatures. There is no known cause of the fire at the moment or where it began. 

Western US residents have been combating major heatwaves and an intense wildfire season. Residents have been hospitalized throughout California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona. 

When the heatwaves subside, officials say that the risks will continue as these areas have minimal moisture, increasing the danger for more fires in the coming month and into October. 

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In parts of Nevada, California, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming, risks are also increased by vegetation that are dangerously dry and overgrown. 

The heat alone bakes moisture out of already dehydrated landscapes, increasing the potential for ignitions, rapid fire spread, and threats to public health. Extreme heat is often referred to as the “silent killer” and is the most lethal weather-related disaster in the US. 

Heatwaves throughout the US are getting longer, larger, and more intense due to climate change which is intensified by concrete city landscapes. 

The Pickett fire began in the same area as the Glass fire in 2020, which entered into Sonoma county and burned around 105 square miles and more than 1,500 structures. 

The Oregon fire is in a high desert climate where dried vegetation, grasses, and juniper trees are burning rapidly, causing the fire to spread throughout canyon areas “where it is challenging to create containment lines,” said Jason Carr, Deschuted county sheriff’s spokesman. 

The fire has been growing due to hot and gusty wind conditions. Fire officials are also looking out for isolated thunderstorms, specifically in southern Oregon which could travel north, according to state fire marshals spokesman Chris Schimmer.

“If we get thunderstorms that roll through, it can … cause the fire to jump [containment] lines,” said Carr.

Firefighters are keeping a close eye on the fires and working hard to combat them to prevent spreading.

housing

New California Law Is Aiming To Make Home Buying More Affordable And Accessible

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California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed legislation reforming the California Environmental Quality Act to combat homelessness, housing shortages, and high housing costs. “One of the biggest obstacles to building new California housing has now vanished.”

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la

The White House Announces Taskforce For 2028 Los Angeles Olympics 

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The White House will be creating a task force led by president Donald Trump to oversee the 2028 Olympics taking place in Los Angeles, California. The president signed an executive order to establish the task force to include JD Vance, cabinet members, and other government officials.

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According to the White House, Trump will be the chair of the task force with Vance as the vice-chair. An executive director will also oversee “daily operations.” 

“The LA Olympics is shaping up to be a wonderful moment for America. It’s going to be incredible,” the president stated. 

Los Angeles is heavily preparing for the Summer Games in three years, as the event is expected to bring in millions of people over the course of 16 days. 

The United States has hosted the Olympics eight times throughout the entire Games’ history; four times for the Summer Games and four times for the Winter Games. The last time the nation hosted the Games, however, was in 2002 for the Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the last time the US hosted the Summer Games was in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Los Angeles has been planning for the 2028 Games for years. The Los Angeles Times reported that the city has been involved in “high stakes” negotiations with the committee managing the event, LA28, over the use of city staff and police officers. 

A proposed ballot measure is also setting out to require some Olympic venues to receive approval from voters to be used. 

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LA is also working hard to combat the devastating wildfires that massively impacted the area in the beginning of the year. Recovery efforts are still ongoing and using a lot of finances for the city, creating new challenges when it comes to planning the Games. 

Additionally, LA has also been clashing with Trump and his administration over the intense immigration raids throughout the city, as well as the deployment of US troops in the city, despite multiple objections from city and state leaders. 

LA mayor Karen Bass has said that despite these troubles, the city will be ready to host the Olympics by the time 2028 rolls around, and former International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, said that LA is a “strong city” with support from the US. 

“With regard to LA, we have the full support of the president of the United States and the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles for the success of these Olympic Games,” Bach told the Associated Press earlier this summer. 

The White House task force will be responsible for streamlining “visa processing and credentialing” for participants and media, according to a statement. The order will also direct various government departments like the FBI and the Secret Service to “use every tool at their disposal” for a safe Olympics.