Alex Padilla

California Sen. Alex Padilla made an unannounced visit to an ICE holding center in Sacramento, his at least fourth such inspection, amid a surge in immigration enforcement across the state. He found four people held in a facility with a 12-person capacity, describing the building as not designed for detention. The visit followed a Tuesday collision in Woodland between an ICE vehicle and an observer, which federal officials and local police dispute. Padilla, previously removed from a 2025 news conference with Kristi Noem, says he is tracking ICE activity ahead of elections, raising concerns about access to counsel and potential voter intimidation.

Inglewood officials broke ground on the Inglewood Transit Connector, a $287.5 million shuttle bus system linking the Downtown Inglewood K Line Metro station to the city's stadium district. Originally envisioned a decade ago as a $2 billion automated rail line, the project was scaled back to shuttles after federal funding fell through. Construction begins in November, with service targeted to start ahead of the 2028 Olympics; shuttles will run only on event days, moving an estimated 10,000 people through the hub.

The project requires demolishing a Market Street shopping center seized through eminent domain, displacing about two dozen businesses. The city says it has relocated half of them nearby, though some owners describe the process as poorly handled. Officials and transit advocates say the hub fills a long-standing need, though some displaced merchants doubt stadium visitors will patronize local shops.

Election offices in more than two dozen states, plus numerous members of Congress, have received suspicious letters containing a white powdery substance in the days before the midterms. Tennessee, Ohio, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Oregon officials reported intercepted or opened packages, some prompting evacuations and hazmat responses; preliminary tests have found no hazardous material. Affected lawmakers include Sens. Alex Padilla, Ted Cruz, Amy Klobuchar and Chris Murphy, and several California representatives. The FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and U.S. Capitol Police are investigating. Election official associations condemned the threats. Similar mailings targeted officials ahead of the 2024 election and in 2023, when some contained traces of fentanyl.

President Donald Trump, speaking at a rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, said higher gas prices from the Iran conflict were "a small price to pay for keeping the world safe," adding that Iran could "take out" Los Angeles or San Diego and calling it "a very small price to pay" that would be "over with very soon." The crowd cheered. The remark came roughly a month before the midterm elections.

California officials responded swiftly. Governor Gavin Newsom called the comment "dangerous -- if not treasonous," directed the State Threat Assessment Center to monitor for threats against California, and later escalated by calling Trump "mentally ill" and demanding invocation of the 25th Amendment. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told Trump to "keep LA out of your damn mouth," and gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra accused him of treating Californians' lives as "a punchline." San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and other mayors, along with Rep. Derek Tran, condemned the remarks. The White House and allies countered that Trump's full remarks were being taken out of context, arguing he meant Iran could strike those cities only if it obtained nuclear weapons, not that the U.S. should allow such an attack.

Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both California Democrats, have asked California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate a whistleblower's allegations that a DHS unit improperly accessed the state's voter registration data. The disclosure claims USCIS's Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate was assigned an "unlawful voter initiative" using questionable data and methods to flag purported unlawful voters, potentially including U.S. citizens who could face law enforcement records based on rushed reviews. Personnel were reportedly held to quotas of 40 subjects a day and told to misrepresent themselves to access the data, with the effort aimed at completion by September 12.

Padilla and Schiff argue the initiative appears designed to find or manufacture evidence for voter fraud claims ahead of the 2026 midterms, warning of serious consequences for naturalized citizens wrongly flagged. They previously urged DHS and USCIS leadership to halt the effort. A DHS spokesperson defended the practice, saying the department cross-referenced publicly available voter rolls with known aliens in its systems. The Trump administration has separately pursued voter data from other states, with a federal judge earlier dismissing a related DOJ suit against California as "unprecedented and illegal."

It has been nearly 600 days since the January 2025 Los Angeles fires, among the most destructive in U.S. history, and Congress has still not appropriated more than $15 billion in long-term recovery aid. That surpasses the previous record 500-day wait faced by Maui fire survivors, according to the nonprofit After the Fire USA. Officials point to partisan gridlock and repeated federal government shutdowns as key causes. Sen. Alex Padilla accused the Trump administration of treating disaster relief as a "political bargaining chip," a claim echoed by other senators who say a June White House request for $85 billion in supplemental funds, largely tied to the conflict with Iran, excluded disaster aid entirely.

California has also been slow to act, only recently releasing $2.5 billion in state recovery funds. Gov. Gavin Newsom has requested over $10 billion in federal block grants to help survivors and local governments rebuild. Meanwhile, families face rebuilding costs of $200,000 to $500,000 above insurance payouts, prompting grassroots recovery efforts as temporary housing support runs out.

Florida's 19th Congressional District, a reliably Republican Southwest Florida seat being vacated by Byron Donalds as he runs for governor, holds its primary Tuesday with an unusually crowded field of ten Republicans. Several contenders arrived after political careers elsewhere: Madison Cawthorn (North Carolina), Chris Collins (New York, pardoned by Trump after an insider-trading conviction), Catalina Lauf and Jim Oberweis (both from Illinois), and Ola Hawatmeh (New York). Local media figure Jim Schwartzel and Jan. 6 defendant John Strand, also pardoned by Trump, are among the other candidates. Much of the race has centered on questions of "Florida authenticity," with candidates accusing rivals of being carpetbaggers despite many having shallow ties to the district themselves.

Trump endorsed Lauf in the campaign's final days, citing her prior role as a Commerce Department adviser during his first term. She has framed herself as an outsider best positioned to represent Trump-aligned voters, while rivals like Oberweis point to decades of Florida residency as their claim to legitimacy. The winner will be heavily favored in the general election given the district's strong Republican lean.