Biden Illegal Alien Stalked and Executed Sacramento Woman at Panera Bread

September 13, 2026 By Katy Grimes 1 Comment

Another criminal illegal alien murders woman In California because of Newsom/Democrat Sanctuary laws

The illegal alien who stalked and executed a Sacramento woman at Panera Bread this week was in the country illegally, courtesy of the Biden administration’s open border.

According to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and a Department of Homeland Security statement issued Friday, 22-year-old Rohit Rohit, an Indian national, illegally crossed the border into Arizona in August 2023, was arrested by Border Patrol, and was later released. He then lived in the Sacramento area, KCRA reported.

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On September 8, 2026, after months of stalking 38-year-old Shalini Thakur, including hiding an AirTag on her car, entering her apartment, deflating a tire, leaving items at her door, and violating a restraining order she obtained in May, he confronted her in a Panera Bread parking lot on Howe Avenue, chased her, shot her multiple times, and fired a close-range shot to the head as she lay on the ground. He then fled and died by suicide during a Highway 50 standoff with deputies a short time later, according to KCRA and the Sheriff’s department.

DHS described him as an “illegal alien from India” whose case remained pending in immigration court with no hearings scheduled.

But it was California sanctuary policies that limited coordination between local law enforcement and ICE after the restraining-order violation. The victim’s mother has publicly said authorities failed to protect her daughter despite the documented pattern of stalking and threats.

How sanctuary policies impacted this case

Senate Bill 54, authored in 2017 by Democrat Sen. Kevin de León and signed by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown in October 2017, prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies from using resources to assist federal ICE immigration enforcement, with few exceptions for serious crimes.

This law didn’t set well with all sheriffs. Amador County Sheriff Gary Redman was the first sheriff in California to publicly state that he was cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement when dealing with criminal illegal aliens. Redman told the Globe in 2025 that because of Senate Bill 54, law enforcement’s hands are tied on how they address illegal aliens who commit crimes, but there are legal ways to make sure that the public is protected.

Sheriff Redman said he took this public safety stance because it is his duty is to protect the people. He said for any criminal arrested for any violent offenses or serious public safety violations with clear evidence, and is about to be released, “that’s when I will cooperate with ICE.”

Sanctuary state status and SB 54 muddies the water, Redman said. “Before SB 54 we could ask a criminal illegal alien in jail where they were from.” SB 54 prohibits this.

SB 54 restricts state and local law-enforcement agencies from using their resources to assist federal civil immigration enforcement, which includes limits on notifying ICE about a person’s presence or immigration status, honoring detainers in most non-serious cases, and sharing certain personal information. Sacramento has additional city and department policies that reinforce the same approach.

Shalini Thakur obtained a civil harassment restraining order against Rohit Rohit in May 2026 after months of stalking.

On July 29 he violated the order by leaving groceries at her door. Deputies documented the violation.

Under SB 54 and local policy, that civil-order violation did not meet the narrow exceptions that would have allowed (or required) notification to ICE or a transfer of custody. U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli and DHS have stated that local officers therefore did not alert federal immigration authorities, according to the CA Post. 

According to federal officials, a known illegal-alien who already had an active immigration case and a documented pattern of harassment, remained in the community instead of being taken into ICE custody after the July violation. Shalini Thakur’s murder occurred six weeks later.

SB 54 defies federal immigration law by permitting, abetting and harboring illegal aliens. Is this what Democrats and Governors Brown and Newsom wanted?

SB 54 does contain exceptions for certain serious or violent felonies and for people already in criminal custody on qualifying charges. A civil restraining-order violation for stalking typically does not trigger those exceptions on its own.

DHS and US Attorney Essayli argue this gap left a high-risk individual on the street. Supporters of the law note that the initial 2023 border release was a federal decision, that local agencies still investigated the stalking as a criminal matter, and that the statute was designed to keep local police focused on state crimes rather than federal civil immigration work.

All of this talk about federal immigration laws versus state enforcement and cooperation allowed a 38-year old woman to be repeatedly stalked and then brutally murdered.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

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How Did This Nigerian Chief Make Millions From Medicaid?

September 12, 2026 By Christopher F. Rufo, Madeleine Rowley Leave a Comment

His company, California Home Health Agency, has billed the program for more than $30 million.

Last December, Chief Nathan Ogbatue arrived in a motorcade outside the grand entrance of a newly built palace in Abatete, Nigeria. A videographer shouted praises in Igbo, calling him “half man, half god” and commending him for building the palace “free of charge” for the Abatete community.

Ogbatue is hailed on social media as a philanthropist who has built roads and housing, sponsors annual medical clinics, and provides food for the needy in Abatete. He is also, it turns out, CEO of California Home Health Agency (CHHA), a lucrative taxpayer-funded company that provides in-home medical care and a range of specialty treatments.

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How did Ogbatue make his money? Between 2018 and 2021, CHHA made less than $2 million from Medicaid. Then, over the next three years, the company raked in more than $34 million—a massive increase, which coincided with a series of high-dollar real estate transactions. Experts we spoke with said that CHHA’s billing numbers raised major red flags.

Ogbatue and his wife, Agnes, have built a small fortune. Between 2023 and 2024, Nathan and Agnes amassed at least $7 million worth of property, including a Riverside mansion with a sports court, putting green, archery range, and a pool. Nathan’s taxpayer-funded business appears to have played a significant role.

That business, CHHA, dates back at least to 2013, when Agnes submitted its first publicly listed utilization report. She appears to have filed that mandatory form for every year through 2019. California’s Health Care Access and Information department told City Journal that since then, it has not received a report from CHHA “despite continued requests.”

In the years that followed, CHHA’s Medicaid revenues exploded. In 2018, the agency received just $89,570. In 2022, CHHA pulled in nearly $4 million. Across the following two years, the company garnered over $17 million and $13 million, respectively.

The real-estate records seem to reveal a similar trajectory. In 2000, Ogbatue bought a Riverside home for $330,000. Then, between 2023 and 2024, he and his wife purchased the $2.7 million Riverside mansion, a $1.9 million beach house, and $1.4 million in other Riverside properties. In all, the Ogbatues acquired more than $7 million worth of property between 2023 and 2024.

The home that Ogbatue bought in Redondo Beach was tied to another Nigerian family. Before Ogbatue took possession of the home, it served as collateral for the bail bond of Tamara Motley, who was sentenced to prison in December 2023 for submitting $24 million worth of fraudulent claims to Medicare. As of 2023, Motley was married to former Nigerian Senator Ahmed Ogembe, whom the Obgatues named as a defendant in a lawsuit related to the sale of the Redondo Beach property.

California Home Health Agency’s website makes no mention of Nathan or Agnes Ogbatue. When we called the number on the site, a woman picked up, but declined to answer our questions, saying it was a customer service line only.

We drove to California Home Health Agency’s location in a strip mall in Riverside. The blinds were shut tight as we knocked on the door. After a while, a woman answered, and directed us to call Nathan.

We showed her a photo of Chief Nathan Ogbatue in Abatete standing in front of golden statues of himself and Agnes. She confirmed that Nathan Ogbatue was the man in the photo.

Next, we drove to the Ogbatues’ six-bedroom, six-bathroom mansion, but the gates were closed. We called and asked to talk, but Nathan himself brushed us off, saying he didn’t have the time. In a previous conversation over the phone, he denied that he was the “Owelle” (roughly translating to “chief”) of Abatete and said our investigation wouldn’t get anywhere.

“We worked really hard, to be honest with you. If we were doing anything funny we wouldn’t talk to you,” he said. “I’m talking to you because I have nothing to fear. What I’m telling you is that we worked hard.”

We spoke to Ogbatue over the phone three times. During two of those calls, we asked how many people he employed, but he would not give us an estimate.

Nathan Ogbatue was crowned chief of Abatete, a southern Nigerian farming town, in a boisterous ceremony in 2012. A YouTube video shows his acceptance speech, during which he pledged “to place the interests of Abatete first in all my private and official transactions . . . so help me God.”

Click here to read the full article in the City Journal

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California sanctions insurer after it cut assisted living coverage to thousands

September 11, 2026 By Kristen Hwang 2 Comments

California regulators ordered Health Net to fix how it’s handling the termination of assisted living services for low-income residents after the insurer’s abrupt decision left patients and providers scrambling. The state’s corrective action plan requires Health Net to extend services for all members until the end of the year, rather than stopping some as soon as October.

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Health Net, one of the largest Medicaid insurers in the country, notified providers several months ago that it was ending its assisted living and home care services contracts. The services are optional under Medi-Cal — California’s version of Medicaid — meaning an insurer can decide annually whether it will continue coverage. Providers and family members said they got little or no warning, leaving them confused and panicked about finding other arrangements.

In an August letter to Health Net, the Department of Health Care Services cited eight deficiencies in the insurer’s handling of the change, including failure to submit transition plans for members, failure to move members to other medically appropriate care, and denying services to members. Regulators wrote that violations “jeopardize member safety, disrupt continuity of care, and endanger medically vulnerable members.”

If Health Net does not extend benefits and create individualized transition plans for each affected member, the state may fine them $25,000 per member per day of violation, the letter states.

Advocates and providers estimate about 3,500 Medi-Cal patients rely on Health Net to pay for assisted living costs. Most are elderly, and many have cognitive issues like dementia. Health Net operates Medi-Cal plans in 10 counties: Amador, Calaveras, Fresno, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tulare.

In a statement to CalMatters, Health Net spokesperson Beatriz Lopez said the company still plans to end the services next year, but will now cover all members through the end of the year.

“Health Net and DHCS share a commitment to advancing the health and well-being of Medi-Cal members,” Lopez said.

Health Net has previously told CalMatters the assisted living benefit “has not led to better care” in terms of fewer emergency room visits or days hospitalized. The benefit is part of CalAIM, a broad state initiative to improve Medi-Cal services and save money by stabilizing high-cost users who frequently end up in emergency rooms. Lopez said Health Net would continue analyzing data and supporting services that result in better health outcomes.

Providers confirmed to CalMatters that their contracts would run through the end of the year.

Thousands still face January deadline

Hagar Dickman, director of long-term services and supports at Justice In Aging, said the state’s corrective action plan resolves the immediate crisis but fails to address the long-term problem:  “Thousands of older Californians are still set to lose their housing on January 1st.”

Allowing health insurers to cancel housing-related benefits creates problems, Dickman said, because most assisted living residents have no other home to return to. Additionally, the Department of Health Care Services has stated that if a member moves to another insurer that still covers assisted living, continuity of care protections would no longer apply, meaning the new insurer might not approve the member’s assisted living costs.

“It’s disingenuous to say there are protections and then say the protections don’t apply,” Dickman said. “So the option is skilled nursing or homelessness.”

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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California’s later school start times boost grades and mental health, study shows

September 10, 2026 By Vani Sanganeria Leave a Comment

California’s mandate requiring later start times for middle and high schools is yielding results, with students sleeping more, reporting better mental health and scoring higher math and English scores, according to a new study.

The new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research said Senate Bill 328, which went into effect in 2022, requires most middle schools to start no earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools no earlier than 8:30 a.m.

The study found that the new law increased the share of students sleeping at least eight hours per night by 13%, meeting the minimum recommended for adolescents by health experts. The largest jump was among boys.

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The study shows that “rest and sleep are incredibly important in the function of schools,” said Osea Giuntella, an author of the report. Although the short-term increase in sleep is moderate, it has led to significant improvements in mental health and academic outcomes, he said.

Giuntella, a University of Pittsburgh researcher who studies sleep and economics, said the study’s first-year results are consistent with previous research linking better sleep to improved student well-being and academic performance. The study used changes in teachers’ commute arrival times from the American Community Survey as a proxy for later school start times, comparing sleep and mental health data before and after the law took effect in the 2022-23 school year and tracking academic gains from 2022 through 2025.

Gains in sleep, mental health, English and math

Students reported experiencing better mental health since schools shifted to later start times, with boys reporting the largest reductions in sadness, hopelessness and suicidal ideation, and Latino students reporting the biggest drop in difficulties concentrating.

Terra Ziporyn, executive director at nonprofit Start Schools Later and longtime advocate of later school start times, said the measure was a key part of California’s response to what schools have described as a student mental health crisis.

“The first step in addressing student mental health problems is to not create them in the first place,” Ziporyn said. “You can get a lot of counselors, but systematically depriving an entire adolescent population of adequate sleep is a surefire way to hurt their mental health.”

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

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California made Gavin Newsom famous. Will it drag down his 2028 presidential ambitions?

September 9, 2026 By STEVE PEOPLES 3 Comments

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Gavin Newsom’s secret is no secret here in South Carolina.

They were selling “Gavin 2028” buttons outside his events this past week as he trekked across the state that will hold Democrats’ first presidential primary. His allies, the state party chair, college presidents and pro-Newsom activists all openly hinted at his national aspirations. And people close to him privately referred to a White House campaign as “the next thing.”

Still, California’s Democratic governor has barely begun to address what may be his biggest political liability as he stakes a claim as an early front-runner in the Democratic Party’s 2028 shadow primary. That liability, South Carolina voters acknowledged this past week, is something he cannot change — his home state, California, is a symbol of modern-day liberalism that people across the political spectrum love to hate.

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Vera DeVito, a 78-year-old Democrat who packed into one of Newsom’s eight public events across South Carolina, said she didn’t know much about him or his policies — except that he’s from the Golden State. On that basis alone, she suggested that supporting Newsom could be “risky.”

“It’s going to be hard for him to appeal to the whole country,” she said in the town of Summerville. “Everybody thinks California is different — especially in the South. They’re not crazy about California.”

Newsom’s home state stands in stark contrast with likely primary competitors who hail from battlegrounds like Michigan’s Pete Buttigieg and Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro. Should they run, which is likely, all could make credible claims that they are in a better position to win over the moderate and independent voters ultimately needed to win the presidency.

Newsom’s team acknowledges that “California derangement syndrome” is real. In the almost half-century since former California Gov. Ronald Reagan first won the presidency, the state has produced a long list of failed White House contenders, including Gov. Pete Wilson, Gov. Jerry Brown, businessman Tom Steyer, and most recently Vice President Kamala Harris.

Despite such daunting history, Newsom is not hiding his interest in the presidency. In an interview, he left open the possibility of announcing his decision before the end of the year.

“It’s the right question. Honestly, I don’t know,” Newsom told The Associated Press. “I think this thing’s happening. I mean, you already feel it, right? There are folks out here — they’re saying they’re already starting to interview state directors. So this thing is going to happen very, very quickly.”

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Why a signature Newsom power move flopped in the last days of the Legislative session

September 8, 2026 By Maya C. Miller 3 Comments

Despite his signature last-minute maneuvering, Gov. Gavin Newsom couldn’t secure his final major deal with the California Legislature.

The Democratic governor, who terms out in January, wanted to reduce how much utilities must pay after their equipment sparks wildfires by eliminating the ability of insurance companies to sue utilities to recoup costs.

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But on Tuesday, after weeks of pushback from lawmakers and survivors of the Los Angeles-area wildfires, the Assembly killed a compromise Newsom had previously agreed to, throwing into question whether the governor would call a special session to hammer out a deal before he leaves office.

The bill before the Assembly, Senate Bill 492, amounted to a collection of “half measures,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas told reporters after the chamber adjourned. “I think Californians expect a lot more than half measures,” he said. (Senate Pro Tem Monique Limón said her chamber was prepared to pass the deal.)

The unsuccessful last-minute scramble, and ultimately the deal’s death, illustrates the limits of a lame-duck governor’s power in his last legislative session — even for one as high-profile and ambitious as Newsom.

The governor himself acknowledged the fumble.

“Simply put, this measure did not meet the gravity of this moment,” Newsom said in a statement. “California cannot settle for half measures.”

‘Jamming’ the Legislature

Newsom has become accustomed to pushing priorities through the Legislature in the days before a deadline, a practice known as a “jam” in Sacramento. The move has previously helped Newsom score carveouts to the state’s landmark environmental law and a measure to fast-track infrastructure construction

“Jamming the Legislature” involves closed-door negotiations with interest groups and legislative leadership, from which compromise legislation emerges often just days or hours shy of the deadline.

Lawmakers are then left with little time to make amendments or hold public hearings, and opponents have little opportunity to object.

Late last week, a Newsom aide conceded in a memo to legislative leaders that the governor’s measures “do not appear to have a path” and instead presented a narrower set of reforms that the administration and legislative leaders agreed upon. Still, Newsom’s office balked at the suggestion that the governor capitulated to lawmakers’ and wildfire victims’ demands.

“All other outstanding issues are off the table,” his office wrote in the memo obtained by CalMatters. Last Friday, share prices of the state’s three major investor-owned utilities tumbled. On Monday, the companies’ stock continued to plunge; Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric saw more than 20% declines.

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Backlash over data centers hits California, and the midterms

September 7, 2026 By Justine McDaniel Leave a Comment
  • Data centers are becoming the political flash point of the midterms as candidates race to respond to tanking public opinion.
  • A company’s pitch for small-scale data centers on fairgrounds has prompted outcry from some in Kings, Tulare and Ventura counties.
  • Democrats opposing data centers say it’s an affordability issue, while Republicans juggle public backlash with Trump’s pro-AI support.

HANFORD, Calif. — Darian Orduno bounced her baby boy on her chest, looking down at his thick black hair and bright eyes. What might pollution from a data center do, she wondered, to his growing lungs?

That question had brought Orduno, 25, to a community meeting opposing a possible data center here, and her fears, she said, likely would influence her vote in the midterm election too.

“I just had him, and now it’s concerning if he’s going to be able to grow up here,” Orduno said, or “if I’m going to have to relocate.”

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As about 100 residents filed into a church for the meeting in late August, under a Central Valley sky hazy with air pollution, many shared the same worries — that a facility pitched for the local fairgrounds could further worsen the area’s air quality and strain its water supply.

Nationwide, such concerns are fueling a backlash to data centers from both the left and the right as tech companies flood the country with thousands of proposals for the facilities in nearly every state from California to Maine.

Data centers have become an unusually bipartisan flash point in the midterm elections, as candidates race to delineate policy platforms and respond to public opinion. The issue stands to influence swing voters and motivate turnout at the polls.

Here in the 22nd District, home to the state’s most competitive congressional race, how significantly the issue will affect voters’ decisions remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: Anxiety about data centers is mounting.

“It’s a national concern, it’s now a state concern, and now it’s bled into the local concern,” Hanford Mayor Mark Kairis said. “It’s a very emotionally charged issue right now.”

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

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Community colleges suddenly oppose plan to let them offer more bachelor’s degrees

September 6, 2026 By Mikhail Zinshteyn 1 Comment

California’s community colleges have been trying for several years to offer more bachelor’s degrees. This year, they put their hopes in two sweeping bills designed to help them do that. But lawmakers made massive, last-minute changes that prompted the state’s community colleges to now oppose the legislation.

The abrupt change of heart, spurred by new limits on how much the colleges could grow their bachelor’s programs, didn’t influence the outcomes of the bills, Senate Bill 960 by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from Napa, and Assembly Bill 2694 by David Alvarez, also a Democrat from Chula Vista. Both passed this week by wide margins in the Legislature and now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

In recent years, Newsom vetoed bills that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees. Still, Newsom’s office was involved in the revision of the latest bills, Cabaldon said in a Senate floor speech Monday.

“This is the first time that we’ve been able to engage in productive conversation between the houses and the executive branch,” he said.

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Combined, the bills introduce new mechanisms for determining when colleges can create bachelor’s degrees and how many they can offer. The new approach has accountability metrics — colleges would be able to offer an additional two to 12 bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028 depending on their students’ certificate, degree and transfer completion rates. No college district could propose more than three new degrees per year and districts would need to prove that there’s a workforce need in their region to justify the creation of a bachelor’s degree. That’s a claim the state’s labor secretary would step in to validate if the California State University system objects, as has regularly occurred in the pitched policy disputes between the community colleges and the university.

The rules would apply to new degrees offered after 2028; existing community college bachelor’s degrees are grandfathered in. Today, 49 colleges either offer or will soon offer 66 bachelor’s degrees.

Cabaldon called the bills a breakthrough that would bring long-sought clarity.

“This will give us peace,” he said in a phone interview. “That doesn’t mean everybody’s going to agree all of the time, but it does mean the endless war and bickering and fighting and more and more legislation will come to an end.”

Community college leaders said the amendments are too last-minute, too unclear and too complicated, even if they appreciate the effort by the Legislature to wrangle the thorny issues.

“We’re being asked to … support a process that is not completely understood or vetted at the last minute, and so that’s just not great policymaking,” said Larry Galizio, president and CEO of the Community College League of California, an association representing community college presidents and board leaders.

Why bachelor’s degrees have been so contentious

The community colleges’ sudden shift is another turn in an effort that has produced near-constant turmoil.

Historically, the community colleges and Cal State have clashed over which bachelor’s degrees the colleges can teach. A 2021 state law was supposed to establish peace in the realm, but the colleges and Cal State regularly disagreed on a key concept — degree duplication. That law said the colleges couldn’t create bachelor’s degrees that are already offered by any Cal State or University of California campus, even if a community college is hundreds of miles from the nearest public university.

Colleges and several lawmakers called that an unfair arrangement, since many community college students can’t relocate to a distant university. In some instances, community colleges created those degrees anyway, over the objections of the Cal State system, EdSource reported.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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Defense tech has unleashed a new weapons boom in Southern California

September 5, 2026 By Colin Lecher Leave a Comment

The business of military contracting is booming in Southern California.

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The total value of defense contracts won by companies in Los Angeles County more than doubled in the last 10 years after adjusting for inflation, according to an analysis by CalMatters and The Markup. In the same period, the defense budget rose by about 19% in adjusted dollars.

The $15 billion in contracts won in LA County last year went largely to old-school defense contractors with headquarters elsewhere, like Boeing. But startups claimed a growing share of the pie, selling defense systems like low-cost missiles, drones, surveillance satellites, AI tools and much more. In 2025, 10 startups in the LA area were crowned “unicorns,” becoming companies valued by investments at more than $1 billion, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. Most of those 10 companies were aerospace or defense businesses.

In 2015, 14 of the top 100 defense contracts won in California went to businesses focused on drones or space, according to the CalMatters and Markup analysis. By 2025, that share was up to 21. The shift is similar if measured by dollars, from 13%to 18%.

Details like whether you count obligations for where businesses are based or where the projects are launched all affect those numbers. By some counts the increases in contract dollars could be larger.

The contracts have been kindled by a surge of venture capital. Private investment in aerospace and defense since 2008 has fueled massive gains, according to a report from The Aerospace Corporation, a federally-funded nonprofit.

But all the new money is now causing awkward political tensions.

The war in Iran, which has depleted American munitions, is poised to drive demand even higher. The Trump administration’s latest budget proposal includes a record-setting $1.5 trillion for the military. Meanwhile, the Defense Department has signed off on the earliest contracts for the “Golden Dome,” a proposal to build a missile-defense system above the United States that may eventually cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Most of the Golden Dome winners are based in or have ties to the Southern California area.

“You saw this huge rise in capital and now you’re seeing just much, much bigger government budgets for space,” said Sam Wilson, a researcher at the Aerospace Corporation.

The collision of venture capital and military spending has alarmed some advocates, who see a frightening trend toward privatization and the risk of a space arms race. Even Congressional Democrats are pushing back against the spending.

That’s noteworthy because it has tended “to be a bipartisan, equal effort to increase the budget” of the military, said Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project, which tracks defense spending. “I think we are maybe seeing the limits of that now.”

Despite the pushback, some of the congressional districts that saw the largest defense contract increases in recent years are beneficiaries of signature Trump-era projects. Many are in solidly blue Los Angeles County, and among the most Democrat-leaning districts in the country.

California’s 36th Congressional District includes El Segundo, a high-tech defense hub outside Los Angeles. In the district’s 2024 House race, incumbent Democrat Ted Lieu took nearly 70 percent of the vote over a Republican challenger. The increase in defense contracts between 2015 and 2025 in that district alone was more than $3.3 billion.

Another district, California’s 43rd, is represented by Maxine Waters, who in 2021 signed on to the proposed No Militarization of Space Act, which described the Space Force as an unnecessary waste of resources and sought to abolish it.

Trump recently proposed to double the budget of the Space Force, another potential boon to the area. Meanwhile, Waters’ district has seen its share of obligated defense department spending grow over the last decade by more than $1.6 billion, or more than 500%, adjusted for inflation. Waters’ office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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‘An imperfect solution’ gains traction in data center fight

September 3, 2026 By Kinnia Cheuk Leave a Comment

Governors are turning to community benefit agreements as they scramble to address data center blowback without alienating tech giants.

Democratic governors have a new message for data center developers amid community backlash: Cut a deal.

Community benefit agreements are increasingly appearing in state strategies for handling the data center boom. In recent months, three Rust Belt governors — Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Illinois’ JB Pritzker and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer — have called on project developers to enter into legal agreements with communities that can cement pollution limits, hiring commitments and local investment promises.

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“My message to data center developers is clear: if you can’t agree to our strict requirements and get the community where you want to build to say ‘yes,’ you’re not going to have the Commonwealth’s support either,” Shapiro said in a statement when he signed an executive order last month that features CBAs. “These are some of the biggest companies in the world — they can afford to be good neighbors, follow the rules, and do this right.”

Policymakers are now mulling mandates for such agreements. Shapiro signed an executive order last month ordering his state’s Department of Environmental Protection to only review permit applications for data center developers that have agreed to sign a CBA with their local community, among other requirements. Otherwise, DEP will not begin review until after all local approvals, including for zoning and land use, are secured.

The move was the latest sign that Shapiro, a likely 2028 presidential contender, has gone from a data center cheerleader to a vocal skeptic. He’s not alone. Both Democrats and Republicans are grappling with how to address a growing public backlash to the energy- and water-guzzling facilities, which are cropping up faster than political leaders and regulators can keep up.

CBAs appeal to moderate Democratic governors who are scrambling to address data center blowback without alienating the tech giants they hope can provide a much-needed boost to their local economies. But even progressives who support moratoriums on data centers, like Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, have referenced CBAs as a way to protect communities from data centers’ possible impacts.

Click here to read the full article in Politico

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