Arduinna

Posted by Grant Stringer

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/02/ro-khanna-will-try-again-to-force-a-vote-on-epstein-files-now-with-support-of-survivors/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12183610

When Silicon Valley Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and a Kentucky Republican wrangled enough lawmakers in July to force the release of government files on the late financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, House Speaker Mike Johnson halted work and sent lawmakers home early for the summer recess.

With members of the U.S. House of Representatives back in Washington, D.C., Khanna and his unlikely Republican ally are quickly resuming their crusade for Epstein-related documentation. They’re thwarting Republican President Donald Trump, who fomented and then dismissed the renewed attention on Epstein, and Trump ally House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Khanna plans to hold a news conference on Wednesday morning outside the U.S. Capitol with 10 alleged victims of Epstein, the financier and accused child sex trafficker who died in 2019. Some of the survivors have never spoken publicly before, said a spokesperson for Khanna’s office who declined to identify them before they appear in public. The news conference is a show of support for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Massie authored and Khanna co-sponsored.

“It’s about restoring trust in government,” Khanna said in an interview with Bay Area News Group. “It’s about bringing this country together — progressives, Independents, Republicans and MAGA supporters — to seek truth and justice for victims and survivors.”

And, he said, “not allow rich and powerful men to abuse underage girls with impunity.”

Trump is among many rich, powerful men, including former President Bill Clinton and England’s Prince Andrew, who socialized with Epstein. The president has said he had a falling out with Epstein before Epstein’s 2008 conviction in Florida on child prostitution charges. In 2019, during Trump’s first term in office, the federal government charged Epstein with child sex trafficking, and he died in custody a month later in what was ruled a suicide by hanging.

During his last year’s presidential campaign, Trump said he’d have “no problem” releasing the government’s Epstein files if elected. But Trump’s Justice Department inflamed skeptics across the political spectrum this year when it said a list of Epstein’s clients didn’t exist. Then, news reports claimed that Trump’s own name appeared in the files.

On Tuesday, Massie filed a petition that would force House leadership to allow a vote on the bill. They’re confident they have the support to do so. Khanna claims that all 212 Democrats in the House plan to sign the petition, and 11 Republicans have co-sponsored the bill so far — more than enough support to push it across the finish line. The bill would compel the U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies to release within 30 days “all unclassified records, documents, communications and investigative materials” related to Epstein and his close associate, convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. That would include “individuals, including government officials,” named in connection with Epstein’s crimes or investigations.

Earlier this summer, Johnson opposed the bill because he said it would compromise the privacy of Epstein’s survivors. Trump administration officials have also said the files contain child pornography. The bill would allow government officials to withhold child sex abuse materials or information that could identify victims.

Democrats have gleefully fanned the flames of the growing controversy over Epstein, his many connections to the wealthy and influential and the federal government’s investigations. Khanna has worked hard to keep the issue top of mind for voters this summer as Trump urged his supporters to instead applaud his successes and pivoted to focus on crime in cities.

“I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history,” Trump posted on Truth Social in July, “and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.”

It’s a rare issue that has split Trump’s Make America Great Again base. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an avid conspiracy theorist, is slated to appear at the press conference on Wednesday, Khanna said. She has co-sponsored the bill with Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and other far-right lawmakers. On the other hand, so has Democratic former House Speaker and San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

“It’s not partisanship,” Khanna said, “it’s patriotism.”

Khanna is also playing a role in another push to release Epstein-related files by House lawmakers. The House Oversight Committee, which is led by Republicans, is trying to guide an investigation into who among Epstein’s high-powered social circle may have been aware of his sexual abuse of teenage girls. They’re also examining how the federal government handled the cases against Epstein.

Khanna is a member of the committee and said he helped craft a letter to Epstein’s estate. Last week, the committee subpoenaed the estate for documents including a book that was compiled with notes from friends for his 50th birthday, his last will and testament, agreements he signed with prosecutors, his contact books, and his financial transactions and holdings.

According the Wall Street Journal, Trump was one of many Epstein associates who wrote Epstein a friendly letter for his 50th birthday in 2003, which were compiled in a book. Trump sued the news outlet for libel over the report.

As pressure mounted, the Trump administration released to the committee a trove of documents that Democrats said were mostly public already. The committee published them on Tuesday. Officials also asked judges to unseal transcripts of grand jury proceedings in Epstein’s criminal cases, but they declined, citing longstanding secrecy rules. Judge Richard Berman of the Southern District of New York said the request to release grand jury records “appears to be a ‘diversion’ from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Government’s possession. The grand jury testimony is merely a hearsay snippet of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged conduct.”

Khanna is also unsatisfied with the Trump administration’s responses.

“They’ve been stonewalling,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/02/ro-khanna-will-try-again-to-force-a-vote-on-epstein-files-now-with-support-of-survivors/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12183610

Posted by Letters To The Editor

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/02/letters-prop-50-check-texas-redistricting/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12179946

Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

Prop. 50 will check
Texas redistricting

Re: “Temporary gerrymander will preserve democracy” (Page A16, Aug. 31).

I deplore political party gerrymandering and am delighted that California has an independent committee to determine our congressional districts.

However, since President Trump is demanding gerrymandering to ensure the GOP retains control of the House, it’s time for Democrats to even the playing field; in this case, tit for tat. Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high” is no longer viable; that ship has sailed. The GOP is determined to remain in power by any means, including illegal ones.

A temporary California redistricting to provide more Democratic districts to counter Texas’ subjugation to Trump’s demands is appropriate. In fact, more states should do the same. Allowing the voters to have a say in this temporary redistricting is the right thing to do. Please vote for Proposition 50 this November to help America begin to restore our democracy.

Marcia Fariss
Saratoga

Prop. 50 threatens
equal representation

Proponents of Proposition 50 claim it will save democracy. It’s a fraud. It will actually destroy what little remains of representative democracy in California.

A true republic holds to the principle of majority rule while maintaining minority rights. There are 5,776,356 registered Republicans in California or 25.22% of the electorate. Yet, Republicans represent a mere 9 out of 52 Congressional districts — 17.3%. What once occurred behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms is now out in the open. Proponents of the proposition intend to eliminate five of those Republican seats, leaving two, or 3.8% of 5,776,356 registered Republicans. That leaves 5,556,855 registered voters with virtually no national representation at all.

That’s not democracy. That’s tyranny.

Phillip Griego
San Jose

Short-sighted Trump
sets back US energy

Re: “$679M for wind projects canceled” (Page A1, Aug. 30).

Once again, Donald Trump’s administration justifies executive actions with lies. As daily news reports of weather events show, climate change is not a hoax, and wind turbines kill about 20 times fewer birds (0.269 per GWh per an MIT report) than fossil fuel generation plants (5.18/GWh).

The cancellation of planned and funded projects, plus one almost complete off Rhode Island, is short-sighted and a waste of taxpayer money. Not only does it kill jobs and contribute to future climate-related damage, it will raise energy prices, and it plays into the hands of Chinese competitors who are providing clean energy technologies (wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, electrolyzers, EVs and charging stations) to Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, others in the Middle East and around the globe.

Meanwhile, Trump is paying back fossil-fuel contributors to his election campaign by extorting, through threatened tariffs, customers for U.S. liquefied natural gas.

U.S. workers and energy consumers deserve better.

Campbell Scott
Los Gatos

Where are the US
leaders who will resist?

The weekly barrage of executive orders is a relentless eroding of our democracy.

National Guard and federal troops in the Capitol; threats to do the same in other major cities; detaining of immigrants who have no criminal history, even immigrants as they are putting their lives on the line fighting wildfires; urging states to enact redistricting to negate the vote of the people; clawing back funds that Congress has already approved because they support programs the president doesn’t like; going after public officials who dare to dissent; creating fear. We are becoming an authoritarian state.

As columnist David Brooks recently said, we need leaders of America to be bold and form a coalition of people who resist. Where are you?

Gary Bertuccelli
Santa Clara

Trump’s priorities
are not our America

While ICE is out grabbing the Mexican immigrants who harvest our food, clean our homes and hotels, work in slaughter houses, sew in our garment factories, cook and clean in our restaurants, build our homes and keep our yards beautiful and send them to prisons all over the world, breaking up families, we are left to ask for what?

Meanwhile, armed White people continue to massacre our children and teachers in our schools and churches, shooting up our markets and parking lots, and firing indiscriminately into workplaces with legally purchased guns. And before Donald Trump, Pam Bondi and the MAGA group can say, “guns don’t kill — people do,” let’s just point out that if we didn’t have all these automatic military style assault weapons available, “people” wouldn’t be able to murder indiscriminately.

At 81 years of age, I don’t recognize my country anymore. This administration’s priorities are not what we used to stand for. Lady Liberty is in tears.

Sandy Foehr
San Jose

When will world unite
to stop Gaza violence?

Re: “Activists call for end to funding for Israel” (Page B1, Aug. 22).

I am a mom. I cannot imagine the agony of birthing a child and not being able to feed it. With no one to help me find food, I would be forced to watch that child slowly die of starvation at age two or six or sixteen? What kind of community or world would allow that to happen to any mom or any child?

For shame. It is the world I live in now. It is happening on my watch. I am sounding the alarm.

What more can I do to stop the massacre in Gaza after contacting my representatives? Why are we and the countries that care not uniting together to stop the killing? We could, and we are not. Why?

Karen Wickham
Sunnyvale

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/02/letters-prop-50-check-texas-redistricting/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12179946

Posted by Paul Rogers

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/02/trump-administration-cancels-nearly-half-a-billion-dollars-for-northern-california-offshore-wind-project/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12183808

In a significant setback for California’s effort to boost renewable energy, the Trump administration has cancelled nearly half a billion dollars in federal funding for one of the state’s most high-profile ocean wind turbine projects.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced on Friday that $426.7 million approved last year by the Biden administration would be revoked. The money was to help build a new marine terminal in Humboldt Bay near Eureka where huge cranes, warehouses and wharfs were to assemble and deploy the giant floating turbines along the California and Oregon coasts.

On Tuesday, California leaders blasted the decision as a short-sighted move. Besides costing the state construction jobs, they said the move would help other countries — such as China, the United Kingdom and Denmark — which have already deployed thousands of offshore wind turbines expand a competitive edge over the United States in a fast-growing technology.

“If it’s a day ending in ‘y,’ it’s another day the Trump administration is assaulting clean energy and infrastructure projects – hurting business and killing jobs in rural areas, and ceding our economic future to China,” said Daniel Villaseñor, a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The proposed Humboldt Bay project, the largest of its kind on the West Coast, is the latest target in Trump’s ongoing efforts to block construction of offshore wind projects around the United States.

“Wasteful wind projects are using resources that could otherwise go towards revitalizing America’s maritime industry,” Duffy said in a statement.

Duffy also revoked federal funding that had been awarded by the Biden administration to 11 other offshore wind projects, totaling $252 million, in Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Rhode Island, and Michigan.

Trump has opposed wind energy ever since the government in Scotland allowed turbines near a golf course he owned in 2011.

Some of the floating turbines planned for California could be up to 1,100 feet tall — taller than the tallest skyscrapers in San Francisco and Los Angeles — with huge triangular floating bases bigger than the baseball fields at Oracle Park or Dodger Stadium. They would be deployed more than 20 miles offshore so they couldn’t be seen from beaches.

The structures are so large they can’t fit under the Golden Gate Bridge, which is one reason the more rural Humboldt Bay was selected as a place to assemble and tow them out to sea.

Newsom has made offshore wind an important part of California’s future clean energy plans. He set a goal of 5,000 megawatts of ocean wind power installed by 2030 — the equivalent of 10 natural-gas fired power plants — to help California reach 100% clean electricity by 2045 to reduce smog and greenhouse gas emissions.

Biden also made offshore wind a centerpiece of his renewable energy plans, setting a national goal of 30,000 megawatts by 2030.

In 2022, the Biden administration awarded wind power leases to five companies that bid $757 million for two large areas off Humboldt County and off of Morro Bay in San Luis Obispo County. Those leases remain in place, even though Trump put a moratorium on new offshore wind leases nationwide in January. California and 15 other states have sued in an attempt to overturn that decision.

Trump also raised the ire of construction unions and officials in New England last month when he ordered work halted on a wind project off the coast of Rhode Island that was 80% complete.

Work on that $4 billion project, called Revolution Wind, began in 2023, and was expected to provide enough electricity for 350,000 homes starting next year.

“To stop a project that’s 80% complete, lay off hundreds and hundreds of tradesmen and women and other people that are supplying that industry for no apparent reason… makes no sense,” Michael Sabitoni, president of the Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council told The Associated Press. “It’s one of the most asinine moves I’ve ever seen in my career. And I’ve been doing this for 38 years.”

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said he and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont “will pursue every avenue to reverse the decision.”

The California project in Humboldt Bay is planned for a 180-acre site formerly occupied by a timber pulp mill. In recent decades, the logging industry in the area has declined steadily.

Supporters of the $853 million project said Tuesday that they will continue to move forward with planning, hoping to secure state funding, although the loss of half their project’s price tag is likely to delay the project by several years.

“News like this is not fun,” said Chris Mikkelsen, executive director of the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, which is planning the project. “But with it comes opportunity. The state hasn’t changed its goals. Why would we? We are going to double down. Our resolve is stronger than before.”

The district had hoped to break ground by the end of next year and open by 2029. That could be delayed for several years now, Mikkelsen said, as the project looks for alternative funding sources. One could be Proposition 4, a climate bond passed by California voters in November. It contains $475 million for offshore wind port projects, with another leading candidate being the Port of Long Beach.

Dan Kammen, a longtime energy professor at UC Berkeley, said large utilities could also provide a source of funding. He said that offshore wind is key to California’s energy future because it blows at night and early in the morning, the opposite of when solar power is strongest.

“Losing this money is a big, bad deal,” he said. “There’s no sugar-coating it. But California is a big, powerful economy and it is worth it for us to get it built. Finding the funding will be no small task. I am hopeful we will.”

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/02/trump-administration-cancels-nearly-half-a-billion-dollars-for-northern-california-offshore-wind-project/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12183808

Posted by Ethan Baron

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/02/google-court-ruling-monopoly-exclusives-chrome-data-rivals/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12183711

Under a blockbuster anti-monopoly court ruling on Tuesday over internet search, Google will not be forced to break itself up.

A federal court judge declined to force the Mountain View search and digital-advertising giant to sell its wildly popular Chrome browser or globally pervasive Android cell-phone operating system.

But Google must not cut exclusive deals with other companies to make its search engine and other products the only available choices on consumer devices, under the decision by Judge Amit Mehta in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

However, Google can pay companies to place its Search, Chrome and AI products on devices, including by pre-loading Google products as defaults when devices are first sold.

“Google’s monopoly has endured for more than a decade,” Mehta said in his 226-page decision, adding that there has been “little meaningful market entry” to challenge the technology behemoth’s lock on search.

Antitrust expert Christopher Hockett, a UC Berkeley law school adjunct professor and professional mediator, said the ruling’s remedies to Google’s monopoly appeared more “surgical” than many expected.

“Although it imposes significant changes in Google’s business, the company remains intact and can continue to pay for favorable distribution arrangements,” Hockett said Tuesday. “Of course we will have to see what happens on appeal.”

The U.S. Department of Justice, California and nearly every other U.S. state sued Google in 2020 over alleged “long-running harm to competition.”

Mehta’s ruling capped a high-stakes waiting game that followed his finding in April 2024 that Google held an illegal monopoly on search. The Justice Department and states had proposed remedies that would have struck deep into Google’s vastly lucrative business selling digital ads in connection with its search engine, a primary driver of profits for its parent company Alphabet that surpassed $100 billion last year.

The plaintiffs asked Mehta to compel Google to sell Chrome, and, if the judge’s remedies failed to eliminate Google’s monopoly, unload Android later.

Mehta shot down both proposals.

The judge did approve the plaintiffs’ request to prohibit Google from exclusive contracts for distribution of Google Search, Chrome, its Google Assistant help-bot, and its Gemini artificial intelligence bot. And Google will also have to provide certain search and user data to competitors at minimal cost.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to questions about Mehta’s ruling, and whether it planned to appeal.

The California Attorney General’s office said it was reviewing the ruling and was committed to working with the Justice Department and its state counterparts to protect competition in internet search.

“Google’s deals limited the choices of consumers, dampened innovation and competition in the tech industry, and worked to illegally entrench Google’s monopoly power,” the Attorney General’s office said.

Critics said Google’s monopoly allowed the company to degrade search results.

The provision in Mehta’s ruling permitting Google to pay to have its products as default offerings on devices made the judge’s decision a “monster win” for Google and Apple, which have a multi-billion-dollar deal to make Google Search the default option on iPhones, said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.

“While in theory Google is barred from ‘exclusive deals’ for search,” Ives said in a note to investors, “this now lays the groundwork for Apple to continue its deal.”

Ives predicted the two iconic Silicon Valley companies would forge a significant partnership over use of Google’s Gemini on Apple products.

Apple and Google did not immediately respond to questions about how, if at all, the order might affect their deal, and how they might respond.

The American Economic Liberties Project, a non-profit dedicated to fighting monopolies, slammed Mehta’s ruling, saying the judge let Google “protect its monopoly,” and that his ruling should be appealed.

“The Court found Google liable for maintaining one of the most consequential and damaging monopolies of the internet era,” said the group’s executive director Nidhi Hegde. “This ruling leaves the public unprotected, crucial and evolving markets concentrated, and worse, sends a signal that will embolden monopolists everywhere.”

The remedies are to last six years, and Mehta said he would add some adjustments after hearing from Google and the plaintiffs on certain elements.

Google said in a statement Tuesday that it had concerns about how the remedies limiting distribution of services and forcing it to share certain data with rivals would affect users and their privacy.

“We’re reviewing the decision closely,” Google said. “The Court did recognize that divesting Chrome and Android would have gone beyond the case’s focus on search distribution, and would have harmed consumers and our partners.”

The U.S. Justice Department in a statement Tuesday celebrated the remedies ordered by Mehta.

“For years, Google accounted for approximately 90 percent of all search queries in the United States, and Google used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising,” the department said. “Using its monopoly profits, Google bought preferential treatment for its search engine and created a self-reinforcing cycle of monopolization — shutting out potential competitors, reducing innovation, and taking choice away from American consumers.”

The department’s antitrust chief, assistant attorney general Abigail Slater, said the department would “continue to review the opinion” and consider possible “next steps regarding seeking additional relief.”

Mehta’s order appeared to quash an unsolicited offer made by San Francisco AI startup Perplexity, which proposed, before the ruling, to buy Chrome from Google for $34.5 billion.

Meanwhile, San Francisco AI titan OpenAI is preparing to release an AI-powered web browser to rival Chrome, Reuters reported in July.

Underlying the legal saga over Google’s search monopoly was another huge anti-monopoly case, against Microsoft, when the federal government accused the company in 1998 of breaking antitrust laws by packaging its Internet Explorer browser with its Windows operating system. A federal judge’s order in 2000 to break up Microsoft was overturned on appeal the following year.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/02/google-court-ruling-monopoly-exclusives-chrome-data-rivals/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12183711

Posted by Rick Hurd

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/02/east-bay-hercules-scooter-rider-hospitalized-colliding-vehicle-boy-minor-injuries/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12183737

HERCULES — A boy under 18 was hospitalized last week after colliding with a car’s rear-view mirror as he rode a scooter, police said.

The collision between the car and the boy happened Aug. 29 about 4:05 p.m. in the 1600 block of Refugio Valley Road, Hercules police said in a statement. The boy had injuries to his right arm and right leg that police said were minor.

According to police, the scooter rider and a 53-year-old El Sobrante resident driving a 2018 Mazda were both going east. The boy was near the south curb line, and collided with the Mazda’s passenger side window as the vehicle went approximately 25-30 mph, police said.

The boy fell off his scooter after the collision. Police said that at the direction of the boy’s mother, he went by ambulance to a hospital for treatment.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/02/east-bay-hercules-scooter-rider-hospitalized-colliding-vehicle-boy-minor-injuries/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12183737