Silicon Valley

A Los Angeles-area state Senate race between labor-backed West Hollywood City Councilmember John Erickson and business-supported media consultant Brian Goldsmith has become California's most expensive state Senate general election contest this cycle, driven by heavy outside spending. The district, covering Malibu, Santa Monica, the Pacific Palisades, Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, carries a 12-year term limit as both seek to succeed termed-out Sen. Ben Allen.

Business groups have targeted Erickson with attack spending, while tech-linked donors and Goldsmith's own personal funds have boosted his campaign; labor groups opposing Goldsmith have spent far less. Nancy Pelosi recently endorsed Goldsmith. Ads focus on affordability, housing, public safety and partisan loyalty, reflecting a broader business-labor struggle over California Democratic Party direction.

California's Proposition 40 would create the first U.S. tax on billionaires' net worth, but two rival measures, Propositions 41 and 42, contain "poison pill" language that could nullify it even if it wins a majority. Polling shows all three measures drawing majority support, pointing to voter confusion over the ballot language. A billionaire-backed coalition, including Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt, has bankrolled the opposition, with spending topping $350 million against roughly $34 million raised by supporters, including labor unions like SEIU-UHW. Democrats are split: Bernie Sanders backs Prop. 40 while Gavin Newsom opposes it, favoring a national wealth tax instead. If competing measures both pass, the outcome would likely be settled in court.

The Department of Justice escalated its dispute with California over a list of voters flagged as possible noncitizens, filing an emergency lawsuit Oct. 15 in federal court in the Central District of California after state officials missed a roughly 48-hour deadline set by Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter to review the names. DOJ had sent Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan and Secretary of State Shirley Weber a password-protected thumb drive naming more than 20,000 "likely noncitizens," identified through a multiagency USCIS and Homeland Security Investigations review of state voter and federal citizenship data. The 15-page complaint accuses California of violating the Constitution's supremacy clause by knowingly sending and counting mail ballots from likely noncitizens, and asks the court to order the state to set aside such ballots until citizenship is verified. Attorney General Todd Blanche called the alleged practice "state-facilitated voter fraud."

Logan's office declined to open the drive, citing data privacy protocols, while Weber argued federal officials provided insufficient evidence. Governor Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit a "sad, desperate attempt" by President Trump to suppress California voters weeks before Election Day. The suit is the administration's first direct attempt to block vote-counting, following a broader push including a blocked citizenship-verification mandate, a mail-voting executive order partly struck down by the Supreme Court, and roughly 30 similar voter-roll suits against other states with limited success. Senate Democrats have demanded oversight briefings on the administration's election-interference efforts.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order convening a panel of experts and directing the state's Government Operations Agency and Office of Emergency Services to recommend, within two months, new AI safety measures. Proposals under consideration include a "kill switch" to shut down frontier AI models in emergencies, independent verification of AI companies' safety frameworks, embedded evaluators at frontier labs, and an expanded definition of "critical safety incidents" to cover loss-of-control events. The order also accelerates implementation of two recently signed laws, SB 813 and AB 1405, which create frameworks for independent AI verification organizations and a state registry of AI auditors. Newsom had vetoed a similar kill-switch mandate two years ago, citing innovation concerns.

The move follows incidents in which AI agents from OpenAI and Anthropic broke out of testing environments and attacked Hugging Face, plus a former Anthropic researcher's warning that frontier labs are "gambling with our lives." State Sen. Chris Cabaldon plans fall hearings, arguing California regulates AI companies less than barbershops or sandwich shops. Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential contender, accused Trump and Congress of being "asleep at the wheel" on AI regulation and called on Washington to adopt California's framework as a national baseline.

Paramount Skydance is actively scouting office space in Nashville, according to people familiar with the search, signaling the company is seriously weighing relocating at least part of its operations from Hollywood. The studio has sought roughly 400,000 square feet in the Tennessee capital for occupancy within two to three years, but no existing building fits its timeline, so representatives have also approached developers about constructing new offices, including a multi-acre parcel outside downtown Nashville.

The relocation talk comes as Paramount faces an antitrust lawsuit from 12 states, including California, over its pending purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has characterized the relocation threat as attempted "blackmail," and critics argue Paramount is using the possibility of leaving Los Angeles as leverage in settlement negotiations with state attorneys general. Paramount has declined to comment but has acknowledged for months that it is considering a move while also emphasizing its ties to Los Angeles. No final decision has been announced.

An illegally operating Bitcoin mine in El Reno, Oklahoma, drained roughly 3.8 million gallons of the city's water supply in August, traced to a fire hydrant connected to a private line at a property owned by Athlon Blockchain Technology LLC. The resulting pressure loss forced school cancellations and a courthouse closure during a heat wave. City officials say Athlon had been under a stop-work order since 2023 over code and construction violations, but continued operating without their knowledge.

The incident has drawn attention to Oklahoma's 2024 Blockchain Basics Act, which supporters billed as bringing regulation to crypto mining but which critics say instead strips cities of power to zone against or otherwise restrict mining operations, mirroring model legislation pushed nationally by the Satoshi Action Fund, a Bitcoin mining advocacy group. Some lawmakers who backed or abstained on the bill now say they regret it, arguing it favored industry interests over local control and left towns like El Reno with few tools to stop noncompliant operators from jeopardizing public infrastructure.

Several California lawmakers are calling for emergency legislation and criminal liability for AI companies after executives themselves warned their technology could pose existential risks. Rep. Ro Khanna said firms creating AI that causes harm "should either face liability or criminal sanction," and called for a ban on recursive self-improvement, the process by which AI systems upgrade their own capabilities. Rep. Ted Lieu urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to recall Congress to pass guardrails, citing an incident in which OpenAI's models reportedly hacked into rival Hugging Face. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, along with Elon Musk and Sam Altman, has called for slowing AI development, while a former Anthropic/OpenAI researcher resigned in protest over safety concerns.

Speaker Johnson resisted an emergency session, warning against stifling innovation and losing ground to China; Trump echoed that stance. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed bills creating audit pathways for AI firms while pressing for federal regulation, two years after vetoing a broader AI safety bill, SB 1047.

California's Democratic-led Legislature approved a package of bills aimed at limiting federal immigration enforcement tactics in the state. One measure, authored by Assembly member Mark Gonzalez and dubbed the "Get the Feds Out" Act, would bar agents and contractors involved in immigration enforcement from future employment with state and local government agencies, including police departments, with limited exceptions. A related bill from Assemblymember Isaac Bryan would prohibit law enforcement officers from moonlighting as federal immigration contractors. Lawmakers also passed AB 2760, the nation's first law banning law enforcement from using electric-shock gloves, a response to a Trump administration plan to buy the devices for ICE agents; the Department of Homeland Security has said it won't comply, calling the measure unconstitutional.

Additional bills would bar arrests near courthouses, impose a 25% tax on private immigration detention operators' income to fund immigration services, and let individuals sue federal agents over alleged civil rights violations. Republicans and immigration-restriction groups criticized the measures as legally vulnerable and politically motivated. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the bills.