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How Trump Hijacked America’s 250th Birthday

Paul Rosenberg
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How Trump Hijacked America’s 250th Birthday

House Democrats’ Report Reveals ‘Blueprint for Corruption’ From Vanity to Insanity

In 2016, Congress created America 250 to plan a non-partisan celebration. When Trump’s attempt to take it over failed, he created Freedom 250 to put on a MAGA celebration instead, with false history, dark money and foreign influence.

On July 4, Donald Trump attempted the biggest heist of his career: the theft of America’s 250th birthday. But the gods were not pleased. Capping a day of extreme heat and canceled events, they sent lightning, thunder and rain to scatter those assembled to hear his speech, forcing many to seek shelter in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, which tells stories Trump is desperate to erase from history.

Eventually, the gods relented, and Trump gave his forgettable speech, followed by fireworks. But the speech itself was only a small part of the heist, as laid out days before in a report from Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee, “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday.”

As the report explains, in 2016 Congress created a bipartisan commission, America 250, to stage a nationwide non-partisan celebration, similar to the bicentennial in 1976, which emphatically did not center around then-President Gerald Ford. Trump first tried to take over America 250 in early 2025, and when that failed, he created a new, utterly non-transparent entity, Freedom 250 LLC and lodged it inside the National Park Foundation, to exploit NPF’s credibility and donor relationships. Everything else followed from that.

“Donald Trump’s hijacking of America’s 250th birthday will go down as one of the most corrupt, brazen abuses of public trust in presidential history, even by the dubious standards of this administration,” said Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif), in announcing the report. Worse still, the report calls how he did it “a replicable blueprint for corruption.

“As our country prepared to celebrate a milestone that belongs to every American, Trump and his operatives launched a hostile takeover of the bipartisan commission established by Congress [in 2016] to lead the celebration. When that failed, they sidelined the commission, siphoned its resources, and infiltrated a beloved national charity under cover of a shadow corporation that shielded them from public scrutiny,” Huffman said.

All this echoed Trump’s hijacking of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, but there was more.

“Then they proceeded to deceive donors, solicit foreign money, sell access to the president, award no-bid contracts to Trump loyalists, harvest Americans’ personal data, and push a white-washed, Christian nationalist version of history,” Huffman added.

That’s a heady list of charges — including wire fraud and other possible crimes — so it’s important to note there’s solid evidence for each and every one, as supported by the report’s 266 footnotes.

“We’ve uncovered extensive evidence of corruption, self-enrichment and potential crimes,” Huffman summed up. “The American people deserve to know the truth about how the official national celebration of our country’s 250th anniversary was stolen, along with a large – and so far unaccounted for – sum of their taxpayer dollars.”

Here’s a summary of the report’s key findings:

  • The president put himself at the center of the nation’s birthday, chairing a White House task force, and twice staging his own birthday as a national event, with the Army’s 250th military parade in 2025, and the UFC fight on the White House South Lawn in 2026 Freedom 250 banner.
  • The White House built Freedom 250 — its replacement for the bipartisan America250 — on deceit. While misled musical performers dropped out upon discovering the deceit, donors may have been victims of wire fraud, believing they were donating to America250, but given routing information to send their money to Freedom 250 instead.
  • Freedom 250 sold access to the president and courted foreign money in America’s name. While facially corrupt, it could also be a violation of the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause.
  • Trump and his operatives cashed in, including Event Strategies, Inc. (the firm that helped plan the Jan. 6 rally), which collected tens of millions in federal contracts, Trump himself who traded in the stock of companies that made donations and staged a White House UFC fight promoting his own investments and business ventures, and Trump campaign associates who gathered personal information and sold merchandise, some of which was purchased by government agencies which then required employees to wear it.
  • The White House imposed a false, Christian nationalist history, most blatantly via federally funded “Freedom Trucks” that conveyed false history to schoolchildren.
  • Freedom 250 created a blueprint for corruption. The report concludes Freedom 250 is “a blueprint, not a one-time abuse,” already test-driven at the Department of Agriculture, and with the White House ballroom. It also “sets a precedent other officials may follow to turn trusted public institutions into vehicles for private and political power.”

Because they’re in the minority and lack subpoena power, and because Republicans had no interest in doing oversight, the report notes:

“These findings are interim, and they are alarming precisely because they remain incomplete. In a democracy, the people’s business is meant to be conducted in the open, yet many of the most basic facts here remain concealed behind the White House, Freedom 250, and unfortunately NPF.”

After the report came out, MS NOW reporter Kevin Frey sought out Republican responses. The White House was silent, and Freedom 250 spokesperson Danielle Alvarez predictably dismissed it as “a partisan smear,” but a small handful of Republican representatives “hinted at some discomfort with how politicized events have become,” as Frey put it, though none said anything critical.

Trump supporters were far more vocal, but characteristically said nothing about the report.

 

“This guy is Mr. America,” Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, told MSNOW. “I love the idea of leading from the top, leading from the front.”

“I don’t have a problem with it. He’s our president,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., added. And Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., added her own dose of revisionist history to the mix, saying that “every president played a role whenever it was an important anniversary, right? It’s no different now,” adding the lie that Trump is “trying to bring together the country by hosting events like this that should make us all proud.”

Back in the real world, the 16-day “Great American State Fair” in the National Mall was drawing “crowds” so small there were fewer folks on hand than would normally visit when nothing was going on. The vast expanse was virtually empty, even before July 4, when extreme heat forced the fair to shut down completely.

In contrast, as part of America250’s plan, the Smithsonian Institution had spent years planning a month-long Folklife Festival on the mall, which “would have brought together traditions like Burning Man and Farm Aid alongside local and regional festivals from across the U.S. and its territories,” according to Politico. Pushed aside for Freedom250’s miserable flop, the Smithsonian took its festival nationwide, partnering with more than 40 existing festivals across the country.

It’s a perfect metaphor for what Trump has done to America — hogged the limelight, and forced people to adapt on their own. But after the mid-terms, things could start to change dramatically, and this report on Trump’s hijacking of America’s 250th birthday is a blueprint for how long overdue investigations may unfold.

“The deepest harm is not the sum of what has already been taken, but what the country is being asked to accept,” the report concludes. “The semiquincentennial was meant to remind Americans of what they hold in common. Let the record of how it was abused remind them of what they must never consent to lose.”

“Macbeth” by the sea a tale of two halves

Greggory Moore
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“Macbeth” by the sea a tale of two halves

Macbeth was never one of my faves. Despite spurts of spectacular (“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” — yeah), a lot of the writing leaves me cold (“Double, double, toil and trouble” — bleah); and the “no man of woman born” thing may be the lamest idea the Bard ever had.

So I was surprised in 2017 when Shakespeare by the Sea managed to deliver a production I more or less enjoyed, with astute abridgement of the script and spot-on interpretations of the central passages making for about as engaging a traditionalist, low-budget take as could be for a contemporary audience.

I was equally surprised to find SbtS revisiting Macbeth so soon. But with Stephanie Coltrin once again directing, I was hopeful they might repeat their earlier success. And for half the show, they did. But after intermission came an abrupt change of course that forsook most everything that had been working so well.

When the Three Witches (Hadiyyah Noelle Smith, Megan Rule, and Samantha Moffat) came onstage and delivered their first lines with a happy-go-lucky lilt, I was concerned about what was to come. Soon, though, I was down with the program. Whereas most Macbeths go out of their way to emphasize the script’s heaviness, it seemed Coltrin had intently focused her cast on the rhythm of the language, letting the substance speak for itself rather than forcing the issue. This Macbeth’s first half is a masterclass on Shakespeare’s genius for constructing dialog the speaks to the ear even if you’re not fully following the meaning, all galloping iambs and alliteration that strategically downshift into foot-dragging shuffles. Although placing the linguistic contrivances above the emotion might seem to undercut the audience’s understanding of what is happening inside the characters, this approach works wonders for anyone who (like me) thinks Macbeth’s heaviness is overwrought on the page.

With this approach, Coltrin could never have cast a better Macbeth than SbtS mainstay Cylan Brown, who seems born to this sort of diction. No less well cast is Phoebe Alva, who leaned into Lady Macbeth’s wicked ambition at just the right moments to just the right degree. And Dylan J. Sampson gives us a Duncan who earns Macbeth’s description of him as a king “So clear in his great office, that his virtues / Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against / The deep damnation of his taking-off.”

Mike Thal’s sound design is extremely effective in the play’s first half, keeping a tight leash on mood music and employing sound effects so advisedly that when we do hear something (bells, horses), it unfailingly contributes to the overall aesthetic spell. Thus, when Lady Macbeth meditates on the letter from her husband that reveals the Witches’ prophecy, Alva’s patient, halting delivery played perfectly against Thal’s spare work, which itself melded with the aural ambiance of the Recreation Park, with children in the distance and the steady whoosh of cars along PCH and 7th Street.

But after intermission it was a different play, or the same play now directed by someone who didn’t dig her first-half counterpart’s approach. Suddenly actors were over-emoting left and right, while the lovely spareness of Thal’s sound design gave way to melodramatic bombast. Completely gone was the ethos of letting the text carry its own weight. I’d love to tell you how good Cylan Brown was with the “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” monolog, but no actor would be a match for the incongruous sonics beneath (or maybe “on top of”) his lines. It’s as if Coltrin had a crisis of confidence, not fully trusting that the instinct for focused restraint that carried her halfway home would serve to get her the rest of the way.

One element that didn’t suffer after intermission was Christopher Beyries’s set. SbtS’s sets are always solid, but with a couple of tasteful flourishes Beyries has created a thing of minor beauty, which blended so well with the Recreation Park bandshell and environs that one might imagine that parts of it were permanent. An upstage downward stairway makes for some notably effective comings and goings (particularly when Lady Macbeth leaves her husband to plant the daggers), and sunset revealed some very interesting shadowplay.

At worst, you can count on Shakespeare by the Sea to deliver competent, minimalist, loving work — for free, no less (though donations are greatly encouraged, as institutional funding constitutes little more than half their costs). And doing so in an open public space is a tradition well worth both enjoying and keeping alive. But here we have a performance that’s more. Okay, so maybe things take a wrong turn about halfway through, but that’s not a reason to write off the whole experience. You’ll never find a better opportunity to get your ears — or your kids’ ears — around the sound of Shakespeare than the first half of this show.

Shakespeare by the Sea makes a return to Point Fermin Park (807 Paseo de Mar, San Pedro) on July 10–11 at 7pm. For other dates and locations, check out shakespearebythesea.org or call (310) 217-7596.

For Trump’s Attorney General Nominee

Paul Rosenberg
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For Trump’s Attorney General Nominee

 

The more that Trump and his allies try to make Epstein’s victims go away, the more they keep coming back, one way or another. Of course Trump and his allies are not alone in this, but they’ve clearly taken the lead.

Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, Todd Blanche—whose nomination hearings are scheduled for July 15 and 16—was a key player in trying to suppress the Epstein Files, and conducted an interview with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, followed by her illegal transfer to a minimum security prison and rumors that Maxwell might receive a pardon in exchange for her favorable testimony about Trump.

All this was immediately condemned by Epstein survivors and their families—most notably the family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Epstein’s first accuser, Maria Farmer, and her sister, Annie Farmer.

“It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received,” they wrote in a joint statement. “Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency. Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government overnight has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas,” they wrote.

“This is the justice system failing victims right before our eyes. The American public should be enraged by the preferential treatment being given to a pedophile and a criminally charged child sex offender. The Trump administration should not credit a word Maxwell says, as the government itself sought charges against Maxwell for being a serial liar. This move smacks of a cover up. The victims deserve better.”

While Epstein’s crimes are staggeringly vast, including the rape of more than a thousand teenage girls, Blanche’s involvement in covering them up and his hearing to be considered as Attorney General, provide a uniquely sharp focal point for demanding accountability.

As Maria Farmer testified in a hearing held by House Democrats in May, she first reported Epstein and his co-conspirators in 1996, and when the FBI questioned her, they “said they were familiar with some of the perpetrators I identified, and gave me every reason to believe they would respond,” but then did not. “That failure, that single moment when law enforcement refused to take action, set off a cascade of injustice and grave repercussions to my sisters, my family, and so many others, and to me personally…. The FBI’s decades of failure and inaction led to countless more girls and young women suffering abuse and trauma that could have been prevented.”

That failure continues to this day. Confirming Blanche as Attorney General would not only continue that failure, it would reward it with one of the highest offices in the land.

photos from the edge 35 – Sit -In at the National Labor Relations Board

David Bacon
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photos from the edge 35 – Sit -In at the National Labor Relations Board

 

The classic unionbusting strategy for breaking unions – the permanent replacement of strikers by scabs – received its blessing from the Reagan administration in the PATCO strike of 1981. The odious practice was baptized in fire in 1984 in the bitter copper miners strike in Arizona, at Phelps-Dodge. And by the beginning of the 1990s that strategy had produced an era of labor wars – Continental Airlines, Eastern Airlines, International Paper, Caterpillar, Hormel, Watsonville Canning and Frozen Foods, Diamond Walnut, Pittston, Wheeling-Pittsburg, USX, and others.

Eventually that war was fought in the streets of Detroit, in front of the offices of the Detroit News and Free Press, The Detroit papers brought in 580 scabs to replace strikers, guarded by Vance International’s gangsters-in-uniform, 20 of whom beat striker Vito Sciuto, breaking his skull. When the UAW struck Caterpillar in Peoria, Vance’s Asset Protection Team provoked confrontations it videoed as evidence to refuse to rehire strikers. Another strikebreaker recruiter, BE&K, brought replacements into the mills of International Paper. President Bush later rewarded the company by giving it the power to govern all of southern Iraq after the U.S. invasion of 2003.

Complicit in these attacks was the hands-off attitude of the government agency responsible for protecting workers’ right to a union – the National Labor Relations Board. I knew its attitude from personal experience, when union-supporting workers, myself included, were fired from Silicon Valley semiconductor plants in the 1980s. The board simply couldn’t see any laws being broken, and we were abandoned to company blacklists and the unemployment line. Later, working as an organizer, I helped many workers survive similar experiences, while the board stood by as companies freely blocked their efforts to organize.

Joe Uehlein, past secretary of the AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Department, and director of its department of strategic campaigns, told me during those years, “That’s why the companies want to make us deal with the NLRB. They control that process, and they know how to win using it.” Despite often heroic efforts by workers, unions only won about half of the union elections supervised by the board, and couldn’t get contracts in half of the workplaces where they did win. The process was so broken that most organizers searched for ways to help workers form unions that didn’t depend on the board and its legal process.

That was the origin of Jobs with Justice. In the late 1980s, Larry Cohen, then president of the Communication Workers of America, convinced labor and community activists to begin building local coalitions that could provide a counterweight to the board’s inaction. Community pressure and direct action, they thought, could help save individual campaigns, win back workers’ jobs, and change the government’s pro-company bias.

Finally in 1993 JwJ decided to take direct action. All over the country, wherever there were JwJ chapters, organizers and workers confronted the board. Here in San Francisco our nascent chapter organized a big picketline outside the NLRB Region 20 office. Then people went inside the building. Board officials came out to the lobby to hear our complaints, and after that the people sitting in were arrested.

Among those arrested was Virginia Rodriguez. Virginia, who passed away in 2018, and her former husband, Nick Jones, who died this April, were organizers who built the original UFW grape boycott during the Delano strike in the late 1960s. Virginia went on to become an organizer for my union, CWA Region 9. I had the chance to work with her when 235 workers organized a union at a Sprint boiler-room selling Spanish language phone service, La Conexion Familiar. Sprint closed the facility rather than negotiate a union contract, and we fought the closure for a year.

These pictures tell the story of our sit-in. La Conexion Familiar became a symbol in San Francisco of the failure to protect workers’ rights. But civil disobedience in the board office included people from SEIU campaigns to organize janitors and Teamster taxi drivers who found no help from the board when deregulation destroyed their union.

The sit-in didn’t produce a definitive victory. The struggle around labor law reform and the NLRB is still with us. Bill Gould was its rare pro-labor chairman in the late 90s. When President Biden appointed Julie Su Secretary of Labor and Jennifer Abruzzo the NLRB’s general counsel, the board began to ban company psy-war tactics, like the captive audience meeting, and to include more protections for contingent workers. Trump, of course, is reversing these gains and more. But the positive actions taken by the board in the following years would never have been possible had it not been for the pressure produced by actions like this. Today, when our labor rights are again so endangered, it’s good to remember how we defended them in the past.

[Note: My union, The Newspaper Guild, now the NewsGuild, joined CWA in 1995, a little more than a year after the sit-ins. The CWA’s militant attitude, helping to organize this and other actions, must have been one reason why becoming part of this bigger union seemed like a good idea.]



Virginia gets arrested

 

La Conexion workers at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

California Launches Effort to Build Family Wealth

Reporters Desk
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California Launches Effort to Build Family Wealth

 

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Gavin Newsom and State Treasurer Fiona Ma, CPA July 1 announced that Early Wealth Partnership — a nonprofit ensuring California’s children access to the state’s $2.4 billion early wealth-building system — is building a new tool to support the success of CalKIDS and other local, state, and federal early wealth-building opportunities. As billions in allocated resources go unclaimed, the new Early Investment Accounts Navigator connects the fragmented landscape of children’s savings and wealth-building accounts enabling families to more easily find and claim what their children are already eligible for.

For example, a Medi-Cal-eligible family with a newborn in Oakland would discover that their child already has $500 in an Oakland Promise Brilliant Baby account, $100 from CalKIDS, and $1,000 in a 530A Trump Account.

Early Wealth Partnership will launch this pilot navigation tool first in California, with plans to expand to other cities and states by the end of 2026. With pro bono technical support from Google engineers and funding from Google.org, this mobile-first, bilingual tool will make it easier for all California families to connect to CalKIDS, HOPE Trust Accounts, 530A Trump Accounts, and locally operated child savings programs for their children. Another feature of the tool will help parents learn about philanthropic contributions their children may be eligible for, such as a $250 gift made by Michael and Susan Dell through their philanthropies, including the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, into eligible children’s 530A Trump Accounts.

About Early Wealth Partnership, CalKIDS, and Section 530A Accounts

Early Wealth Partnership is a public-private partnership working to ensure that low- and moderate-income children in California fully benefit from every early wealth-building account for which they are eligible. It coordinates implementation of the California Early Wealth Accounts System Plan, and leverages philanthropic and corporate resources to create an accessible ecosystem of financial resources for children’s futures. Early Wealth Partnership is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives, supported by grants from The BlackRock Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Walter & Elise Haas Fund, and the Hellman Foundation.

CalKIDS, administered by the ScholarShare investment board and chaired by State Treasurer Fiona Ma, CPA, is a statewide automatic scholarship program created to expand access to college and career training. Eligible California public school students automatically receive up to $1,500 in CalKIDS Scholarships and must claim their account in order to use the funds for qualified educational expenses until age 26. Students can visit CalKIDS.org to confirm eligibility and claim their scholarship.

Section 530A Trump Accounts are tax-advantaged children’s investment accounts established under federal law and backed by the United States Treasury. Every American child under the age of 18 with a Social Security number is eligible for an account. Family, friends, employers, governments, and philanthropists can all make additional contributions to a child’s account. Eligible newborns can receive a $1,000 contribution from the U.S. Treasury; billions have been committed to provide contributions for older children. To learn more, visit InvestAmerica.org or claim your account at TrumpAccounts.gov.

Hahn Reestablishes $20,000 Reward in 2022 Death of Child and her Father in North Long Beach Apartment

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Hahn Reestablishes $20,000 Reward in 2022 Death of Child and her Father in North Long Beach Apartment

 

LOS ANGELES – Today the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors July 7 approved a motion by Supervisor Janice Hahn to reestablish the county’s $20,000 reward in exchange for information leading to the apprehension and conviction of Octavio Montano Islas, who was identified as the drunk driver responsible for the deaths of 42-year-old Jose Palacios-Gonzalez and his three-year-old daughter Samantha Palacios as they slept in their apartment in the area of Artesia Boulevard and Rose Avenue in North Long Beach.

Around 10 p.m. on March 1, 2022, Long Beach Police Department officers responded to a collision of a vehicle into an apartment building. Jose Palacios-Gonzalez was declared deceased at the scene, while Samantha was rushed to a local hospital but later succumbed to her injuries. LBPD detectives identified the driver, who fled the scene, as Montano Islas, who was 24 years old at the time.

“Jose and Samantha’s loved ones have lived with the pain of this unimaginable loss for more than four years now, and still have not gotten justice. We are asking anyone who may have any information on where Octavio is or where he may have gone to please share it with detectives,” said Hahn. “We need your help.”

The vehicle that Montano Islas was driving was a 2014 Dodge Ram. Detectives believe Montano Islas was drunk at the time of the crash. An arrest warrant was issued for him on two counts of felony manslaughter, one count of felony driving under the influence, and one count of felony hit and run. The reward had previously been established at $10,000 until the Board approved a motion by Hahn to increase the amount to the current $20,000 in 2025.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Commander Paul Baum of the Long Beach Police Department special investigations division at 562-0570-7449.

Centennial Festival Celebrates 100 Years at Los Angeles Central Library

Reporters Desk
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Centennial Festival Celebrates 100 Years at Los Angeles Central Library

 

Enjoy Free Live Performances, Crafts, Authors, Tours, Time Capsules & More

LOS ANGELES —The Los Angeles Public Library or LAPL invites

Angelenos to a once-in-a-lifetime centennial festival at Central Library on July 11, beginning with a ribbon cutting at 10 a.m. and followed by a variety of activities throughout the historic building in downtown Los Angeles.

The Centennial Festival will offer an array of activities for all ages, throughout Central Library’s multiple meeting spaces and courtyards, as well as in Maguire Gardens, where visitors will find an outdoor stage, more than 20 community booths, and food trucks.

Among the day’s highlights: The Linda Lindas—an L.A. based punk band whose performance at a closed library branch during COVID went viral five years ago—will play in the Mark Taper Auditorium; Susan Orlean, author of The Library Book, will join the city librarian in conversation; and children’s author Dan Santat will discuss his writing and illustrating career. Additional live performances and presentations will include the Bob Baker Marionette Theater; the Grammy Award-winning band Lucy Kalantari & the Jazz Cats; and venerable artist Therman Statum, who designed the Atrium chandeliers.

Other featured activities include Pop-up Poetry with Los Angeles Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace, an artist meet-and-sign with Gajin Fujita, puppet shows, zine making, workshops, children’s crafts, behind-the-scenes tours, author talks, and more.

The Library Foundation of Los Angeles will premiere “Luceros y Penumbras: The World’s Largest Pop-Up Book” in Central Library’s Rotunda. At the heart of the exhibition is a newly commissioned, towering work by Los Angeles–based artist and printmaker Daniel González. An ambitious feat of scale and storytelling, it is designed to surpass the current world record for the largest pop-up book.

On July 7, Angel City Press at Los Angeles Public Library released two new books in conjunction with the centennial—Los Angeles Central Library POPS: Celebrating a Century of the Light of Learning, a 3-D adventure through Central Library’s history, written by Christina Rice and Illustrated by Mirelle Ortega with paper engineering by Matthew Reinhart; and a children’s picture book, L is for Librarian: The ABCs of Los Angeles, written by Susan Lendroth and illustrated by Alexander Vidal.

The Angel City Press booth will feature book sales and author signings. Central Library opened its doors in July 1926 to great public acclaim. Over the span of a century, this architectural treasure has grown and changed to meet the evolving needs of the city of Los Angeles and the communities it serves. Multiple exhibitions on display throughout the building this year, including a pair of time capsules, tell that transformational story.

“Central Library’s Centennial Festival not only celebrates 100 years of serving the city of Los Angeles, but also celebrates the community that has supported the Library for more than a century,” said Mayra Valadez, President of the Board of Library Commissioners.

The Library has put together a year-long slate of programs and activities for Central 100, including online podcasts, traveling displays at branch libraries, a color-by- numbers challenge, commemorative stamps on vintage catalog cards, an oral history project, a limited-edition library card, and even an old-fashioned melodrama to close out the year.

Time: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., July 11

Cost: Free

Details: https://www.lapl.org

Venue: Central Library, 630 W. Fifth St., downtown Los Angeles

San Pedro Bay Ports to Give Clean Air Action Plan Update July 28

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San Pedro Bay Ports to Give Clean Air Action Plan Update July 28

The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles will give a progress update on the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan or CAAP July 28. The meeting will include updates on the ports’ clean truck program, clean marine fuels feasibility assessment and workforce assessment.

Participation is in-person only. Minutes and presentations of prior meetings can be found at: https://tinyurl.com/Clean-air-plan-update

Limited free parking is available at the Wilmington Waterfront Promenade parking lot next to Banning’s Landing Community Center.

The document calls for the ports to reduce GHGs 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. View the latest emissions inventories for the Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles. The CAAP was originally approved in 2006.

The ports will take public comments in-person at the advisory meeting to receive input on CAAP implementation. The agenda will be posted on the CAAP website prior to the meeting. For more information, visit cleanairactionplan.org.

Time: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., July 28

Cost: Free

Detail: https://tinyurl.com/lean-Air-Action-Plan-update

Venue: Banning’s Landing Community Center, 100 E. Water St., Wilmington

Anti-Labor Trafficking and Wage Theft Legislation Sponsored by DA’s Office Signed Into Law

Reporters Desk
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Anti-Labor Trafficking and Wage Theft Legislation Sponsored by DA’s Office Signed Into Law

SACRAMENTO — Anti-labor trafficking legislation co-sponsored by the Los Angeles County and Sonoma County District Attorneys’ offices has been signed into law by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and will take effect Jan. 1, 2027. AB 1583 was authored by Assemblymember Chris Rogers (D-Santa Rosa) and unanimously passed the state legislature with bipartisan support.

Labor trafficking and wage theft are insidious problems nationwide, especially in California, and are vastly underreported due to the precarious employment and immigration status of the victims. The new law strengthens California’s response to labor trafficking and wage theft by establishing clear jurisdictional authority for prosecutors to bring cases in the county where the victim resided at the time of the crime, the employment agreement was entered into, any portion of the work was performed or the offending business operated. The law also closes a critical loophole by authorizing coordinated prosecutions for multi-jurisdiction labor trafficking and wage theft cases.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office’s economic and labor justice unit or LJU was established to protect anyone who works, lives or does business in Los Angeles County from wage theft and labor trafficking. The LJU investigates and prosecutes cases involving unpaid wages, exploitative labor practices and human trafficking, ensuring that workers are treated fairly under the law.

 

Court Upholds AQMD Zero-Emission NOx Rule

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Court Upholds AQMD Zero-Emission NOx Rule

 

On July 2, a federal appeals court upheld a rule by the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s setting a zero-emission Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) standard for water heaters and industrial boilers used in large facilities and manufacturing facilities. The rule will eventually get more than 1 million pieces of equipment to zero-emissions and reduce NOx pollution approximately 5.6 tons per day—roughly equal to eliminating half of all LA area auto emissions. When fully implemented, the boiler rule will avoid over 2,800 early deaths, 11,800 cases of asthma, and 300,000 lost work and school days, yielding over $95 billion in health benefits.

The rule was adopted on June 7, 2024 to achieve compliance with federal ozone standards under the Clean Air Act, was challenged by industry in a lawsuit filed that December, and upheld by a trial court on July 18, 2025, after which it was appealed.

“We secured a huge victory for clean air in the nation’s smog capital,” said Candice Youngblood, Senior Attorney at Earthjustice, which represented People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, Industrious Labs, and Sierra Club as intervenors. “The courts have rejected a cynical effort to stop one of the Los Angeles region’s most significant air pollution reduction rules in decades.”

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