The Brief

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Tools that power artificial intelligence devour energy. But attempts to shield regular Californians from footing the bill in 2025 ended with a law requiring regulators to write a report about the issue by 2027.

If that sounds pretty watered down, it is. Efforts to regulate the energy usage of data centers — the beating heart of AI — ran headlong into Big Tech, business groups and the governor.

That’s not surprising given that California is increasingly dependent on big tech for state revenue: A handful of companies pay upwards of $5 billion just on income tax withholding.

The law mandating the report is the lone survivor of last year’s push to rein in the data-center industry. Its deadline means the findings won’t likely be ready in time for lawmakers to use in 2026. The measure began as a plan to give data centers their own electricity rate, shielding households and small businesses from higher bills.

It amounts to a “toothless” measure, directing the utility regulator to study an issue it already has the authority to investigate, said Matthew Freedman, a staff attorney with the Utility Reform Network, a ratepayer advocate.

Data centers’ enormous electricity demand has pushed them to the center of California’s energy debate, and that’s why lawmakers and consumer advocates say new regulations matter.

For instance, the sheer amount of energy requested by data centers in California is prompting questions about costly grid upgrades even as speculative projects and fast-shifting AI loads make long-term planning uncertain. Developers have requested 18.7 gigawatts of service capacity for data centers, more than enough to serve every household in the state, according to the California Energy Commission.

But the report could help shape future debates as lawmakers revisit tougher rules and the CPUC considers new policies on what data centers pay for power — a discussion gaining urgency as scrutiny of their rising electricity costs grows, he said.

“It could be that the report helps the Legislature to understand the magnitude of the problem and potential solutions,” Freedman said. “It could also inform the CPUC’s own review of the reasonableness of rates for data center customers, which they are likely to investigate.”

State Sen. Steve Padilla, a Democrat from Chula Vista, says that the final version of his law “was not the one we would have preferred,” agreeing that it may seem “obvious” the CPUC can study data center cost impacts. The measure could help frame future debates and at least “says unequivocally that the CPUC has the authority to study these impacts” as demand from data centers accelerates, Padilla added.

Data centers "consume huge amounts of energy, huge amounts of resources, and at least in the near future, we're not going to see that change,” he said.

Earlier drafts of Padilla’s measure went further, requiring data centers to install large batteries to support the grid during peak demand and pushing utilities to supply them with 100% carbon-free electricity by 2030 — years ahead of the state’s own mandate. Those provisions were ultimately stripped out.

How California’s first push to regulate data centers slipped away

California’s bid to bring more oversight to data centers unraveled earlier this year under industry pressure, ending with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto of a bill requiring operators to report their water use. Concerns over the bills reflected fears that data-center developers could shift projects to other states and take valuable jobs with them.

A September Stanford report on powering California data centers said the state risks losing property-tax revenue, union construction jobs and “valuable AI talent” if data-center construction moves out of state.

The idea that increased regulation could lead to businesses or dollars in some form leaving California is an argument that has been brought up across industries for decades. It often does not hold up to more careful or long-term scrutiny.

In the face of this opposition, two key proposals stalled in the Legislature’s procedural churn. Early in the session, Padilla put a separate clean-power incentives proposal for data centers on hold until 2026. Later in the year, an Assembly bill requiring data centers to disclose their electricity use was placed in the Senate’s suspense file — where appropriations committees often quietly halt measures.

Newsom, who has often spoken of California’s AI dominance, echoed the industry’s competitiveness worries in his veto message of the water-use reporting requirement. The governor said he was reluctant to impose requirements on data centers, “without understanding the full impact on businesses and the consumers of their technology.”

Despite last year’s defeats, some lawmakers say they will attempt to tackle the issue again.

Padilla plans to try again with a bill that would add new rules on who pays for data centers’ long-term grid costs in California, while Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan — a Democrat from San Ramon — will revisit her electricity-disclosure bill.

Big Tech warns of job losses but one advocate sees an opening

After blocking most measures — and watering down the lone energy-costs bill — Big Tech groups say they’ll revive arguments that new efforts to regulate data centers could cost California jobs.

At a CalMatters event in November, Silicon Valley Leadership Group CEO Ahmad Thomas argued that California must compete to attract investments like the $40 billion data-center project Texas secured with  Google. Any policy making deals like that tougher would provoke conflict, he added.

“When we get to the details of what our regulatory regime looks like versus other states, or how we can make California more competitive ... that's where sometimes we struggle to find that happy medium,” he said.

Despite having more regulations than some states, California continues to toggle between the 4th and 5th largest economy in the world and has for some time, suggesting that the Golden State is very competitive.

Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, another industry lobbying group, said new requirements on data centers should apply to all other large electricity users.

“To single out one industry is not something that we think would set a helpful precedent, ” Diorio said. “We've been very consistent with that throughout the country.”

Critics say job loss fears are overblown, noting California built its AI sector without the massive hyperscale facilities that typically gravitate to states with ample, cheaper land and streamlined permitting.

Data-center locations — driven by energy prices, land and local rules — have little to do with where AI researchers live, said Shaolei Ren, an AI researcher at UC Riverside.

“These two things are sort of separate, they’re decoupled,” he said.

Freedman, of TURN, said lawmakers may have a bargaining chip: If developers cared about cheaper power, they wouldn’t be proposing facilities in a state with high electric rates. That means speed and certainty may be the priority, giving lawmakers the space to potentially offer quicker approvals in exchange for developers covering more grid costs.

“There's so much money in this business that the energy bills — even though large — are kind of like rounding errors for these guys,” Freedman said. “If that's true, then maybe they shouldn't care about having to pay a little bit more to ensure that costs aren't being shifted to other customers.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

One of the most unusual of the creative treasures to enter the public domain this month is King of Jazz. The plotless, experimental 1930 musical film shot in early Technicolor centers on influential bandleader Paul Whiteman, nicknamed "The King of Jazz."

In one memorable scene, the portly, mustachioed Whiteman opens a small bag and winks at the camera as miniature musicians file out one after another like a colony of ants and take their places on an ornate, table-top bandstand.

A new video based on clips from King of Jazz has won this year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest — an annual competition that invites filmmakers from around the world to reimagine often long-forgotten literary classics, films, cartoons, music, and visual art that are now in the public domain. This means creators can use these materials freely, without copyright restrictions. In 2026, works created in 1930 entered the public domain.

Titled Rhapsody, Reimagined, the roughly two-minute video captures the King of Jazz's surreal quality: Cookie-cutter rows of musicians, showgirls, office workers and random furniture cascade across the screen as Whiteman's winking face looks on.

"I wanted to transform the figures and bodies into more dream-like shapes through collage and looping and repetition," said Seattle-based filmmaker Andrea Hale, who created the piece in collaboration with composer Greg Hardgrave. For video artists, Hale said discovering what's new in the public domain each January is a thrill. "We're always looking for things to draw from," Hale said. "Opening that up to a bigger spread of materials is amazing. That's the dream."

A massive repository of content

The Internet Archive, the San Francisco-based nonprofit library behind the contest, digitizes and provides public access to a massive repository of content, including many materials used by contest participants. "These materials have often just been in film canisters for decades," said digital librarian Brewster Kahle, who founded the Internet Archive in 1996.

This year's submissions range from a reworking of the 1930 film The Blue Angel starring Betty Boop — another public domain entrant this year — instead of Marlene Dietrich, to an AI-generated take on the 1930 Nancy Drew book The Mystery at Lilac Inn.

Kahle said the Internet Archive received nearly 280 entries this time around, the highest number since the competition launched six years ago. "Things are not just musty, old archival documentation of the past," Kahle said. "People are bringing them to life in new and different ways, without fear of being sued."

The public domain in the era of AI

Lawsuits have become a growing concern for artists and copyright holders, especially with the rise of generative AI. Recent years have seen a surge in online video takedowns and copyright infringement disputes.

Media companies are trying to address the problem through deals with tech firms, such as Disney and OpenAI's plan, announced late last year, to introduce a service allowing users to create short videos based on copyrighted characters, including Cinderella and Darth Vader.

"On the one hand, these licensing agreements seem quite a clean solution to thorny legal questions," said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School. "But what's exciting about the public domain is that material, after a long, robust 95-year copyright term, is just simply free for anyone — without a team of lawyers, without a licensing agreement, without having to work for Disney or OpenAI — to just put online," Jenkins said.

Jenkins also pointed out an interesting twist for people who create new works using materials from the public domain. "You actually get a copyright in your remix," she said. "Just like Disney has copyrights in all of its remakes of wonderful public domain works like Snow White or Cinderella." (The Brothers Grimm popularized these two characters in their 19th century collection Grimm's Fairy Tales. But their roots are much deeper, going back to European folklore collections of the 1600s and beyond.)

However, this only applies to works created by humans — U.S. copyright law currently doesn't recognize works authored by AI. And Jenkins further cautioned that creators only get a copyright in their new creative contributions to the remix, and not the underlying material.

This year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest winner Andrea Hale said she's using a Creative Commons license for Rhapsody, Reimagined. This means the filmmaker retains the copyright to her work but grants permissions that allow other people to freely use, share, and build upon it. "I'm keeping with the spirit of the public domain," Hale said.

Copyright 2026 NPR

The name of Robert Burns might not be familiar, but every New Year’s Eve — or Hogmanay, as it is called in his native home Scotland — millions of people sing Auld Lang Syne, a poem that he wrote in 1788.

Every Jan. 25 — on Sunday this year — is Burns Night, a global celebration of the life and legacy of the Scottish poet and lyricist.

Several events are happening in Los Angeles, too, which I can attest are rather zany affairs — if only because of the sheer number of tartan kilts in sight, the haunting, piercing but tuneful drone of bagpipes, which can only bring to mind a windswept mountain top, and a generous dash of whiskys (plural). More on that later.

People enjoy a Burns supper in the red room at Burns Cottage Pavilion on Jan. 23, 2014, in Alloway, Scotland.

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Scotland

Some 30,000 square miles in size and home to around 5.5 million people today, Scotland was officially united with England in 1707 when their two parliaments became one and created Great Britain.

However, as you may have seen in movies like Braveheart, Rob Roy, and even Trainspotting, a streak of fierce independence has run through Scotland for centuries, so don’t make the mistake of assuming that, just because the countries are joined geographically, that English and Scottish people are more or less the same.

Besides historical rebels, beautiful countryside and world-class golf courses, Scotland has always punched well above its weight: penicillin, television, the telephone, artificial refrigeration, and the raincoat — “the mac” — were all invented by Scots. Naturalist John Muir, the Father of the National Parks,” was born in Dunbar, and Nessie is perhaps the most legendary of all cryptids.

The Bard of Scotland

But it’s Robert Burns — often known as Rabbie — whose name and work has lasted centuries as Scotland’s National Poet.

A statue of Scottish poet Robert Burns in London.

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In 1796, Burns died at just 37 — on the same day his son Maxwell was born — and he had worked almost exclusively on traditional Scottish songs during the latter stages of his life, which ensured that several hundred folk songs, like Auld Lang Syne, were not lost to history.

A (inter)national affair

Burns Night is a tradition that was begun by some of his friends in 1801. Scottish people and any other admirers and friends of Scotland will gather together for poetry readings, music, dancing, and of course a meal of haggis. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s rather an odd-looking meal, and rather an acquired taste.

A bagpiper will lead the haggis, the traditional centerpiece, into the dining room, where a poem written by Burns called Address to a Haggis is read aloud before the haggis is dramatically cut into pieces for everyone to share.

The poem in question describes the delicacy as having “buttocks like a distant hill,” among other writerly flourishes. Read for yourself here.

Members of the public gather at the Robert Burns statue, as part of events taking place to celebrate the birth of poet Robert Burn on Jan. 25, 2012, in Dumfries, Scotland.

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When I was a child, I was told that haggises were small, furry creatures that lived in the Scottish Highlands and were too clever to be caught, hence you rarely saw them on the dinner plate. Buttock size was not mentioned.

That’s not true of course, and this might be why: haggis is made from minced sheep’s heart, liver and lungs mixed with oatmeal, suet, onions and spices then traditionally boiled inside the sheep’s stomach. It’s savory and earthy, somewhat rich and a little gamey. Maybe not something you eat slice after slice, perhaps.

Haggis for sale at Crombies butchers ahead of Burns night on January 22, 2016, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Over dinner and helpings of haggis, raucous toasts are celebrated with “drams” or small glasses of whisky — surely Scotland’s most famous export — and there are recitations of some of Burns’s other poems, like A Red, Red Rose, Ae Fond Kiss, or Tam o’Shanter.

The latter was the name of a drunken farmer who taunts the devil and is chased by witches in a poem written by Burns in 1791. He wears a tam o’shanter, a flat woolen cap with a pom-pom in the center.

Haggis, with bread and butter served at Tam O’Shanter in Los Feliz.

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Angelenos might recognize that as the name of the restaurant and pub in Los Feliz.

I went to my first Burns Night in L.A. last year, and I must say, that despite being an Englishman I was heartily welcomed, and I did enjoy my taste of the famous dish — though the bagpipes, also an acquired taste for this “sassenach” are yet to be something on my regular playlist.

L.A. does Burns Night... with Brian Cox and more

Festooned with Scottish flags, souvenirs and regalia, “the Tam” is one of the venues that will be hosting its 41st Burns Nights on Jan. 27 and 28, with two seatings each night.

Also, the St. Andrew’s Society — named in honor of the Scottish patron saint - will host their sold-out Burns Night on January 24 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. It’s their 96th event, and singing for his supper as the winner of their annual Robert Burns Award is Dundee-born actor Brian Cox, who played the ruthless Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession (and was in Braveheart).

Alternatively, the St. Andrews University Alumni network here in L.A. is also celebrating a day early, on Jan. 24, 6 - 9 p.m. at MacLeod’s Brewery in Van Nuys.

It’s the very first Burns Night celebration organized by Sammy Ginsberg, a self-described, home-grown “Valley Girl” who left L.A. in 2012 to study at St. Andrews, a venerable institution founded in 1413. It’s where Prince William met his wife-to-be, Kate Middleton.

Ginsberg fell hard and fast in love with Scotland, describing her first visit as “magical.”

As an aspiring writer and poet, Ginsberg was especially inspired by the reverence for literature that she found.

“Scotland is a rich place filled with imagination that truly loves writers and I think we can learn a lot from them,” Ginsberg said, adding that was one reason why she co-started the Los Feliz Writers Festival.

Alongside the neeps, tatties and haggis there will be haggis pizza — surely a new culinary innovation — as well as Scottish beer and music from bagpiper John McLelan Allan, who has appeared in many movies, TV shows and has worked with performers such as Korn, The Chieftains, and Michael Flatley.

Though Ginsberg developed a taste for fish and chips when she was in Scotland. “That was my stress food when I was in the library on a deadline crunch,” she said.

She admits that it took a few more attempts before she became a fan of haggis.

Nearly 680,000 people with a Scottish or Ulster-Scots background call Southern California home, according to the 2020 census, so “slàinte” to all of you, and try to get hold of a bottle of Irn-Bru — an electric orange-colored soda from Scotland — as it’s said to be the best cure for a hangover.

“It really gets you going again!” Ginsberg said.

Punk rose up in L.A.'s Hollywood in the 1970s with groups like X, the Germs and The Go-Go's. Just a handful of years later, disaffected kids from the ‘burbs picked up guitars and an attitude and took punk hardcore with bands such as Adolescents, Black Flag and Social Distortion.

Steven McDonald, then 12, had a front row seat to all that noise, angst and swagger as one of the core members, along with his slightly older brother Jeff, of the Hawthorne-based punk group, Redd Kross.

The younger McDonald had just picked up the bass — the instrument he plays in Redd Kross — and the guitar a year or so before. In no time, the brothers found themselves in the thick of a thriving scene.

Steven McDonald of Red Kross recently dropped by the LAist studio to perform live, ahead of a benefit concert for Eaton Fire musicians he's headlining on Sunday.

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“ It's a unique thing that I got to experience,” McDonald told LAist. “We got to play the punk clubs like in Chinatown at the Hong Kong Cafe, and then later on the Whisky a Go Go. It was a really magical moment around 1979, 1980 — when I was 12 or 11.”

Redd Kross, known briefly as the Tourists before, opened for an early incarnation of Black Flag. New York art punk gods, Sonic Youth, frequently performed with the group. Social Distortion, McDonald said, opened for them when he was around 13.

“It was just this super creative, supportive environment. Most of these people were older than me in their early 20s,” McDonald said, adding that many of them were art school kids open to groovy new things. “I'd get a lot of CalArts people and people that had kind of been around for the glitter scene in Los Angeles and it kind of was morphing into this new punk rock thing and had a very independent spirit.”

And no one thought the McDonald brothers were out of place.

“People thought like, ‘Oh, if you've got something to say, then don't get weighed down with, like, refining anything. Just go say it.’”

Bass player Steven McDonald of Off! and Redd Kross performs onstage during the Its Not Dead 2 Festival at Glen Helen Amphitheatre on Aug. 26, 2017 in San Bernardino.

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The brothers soaked in L.A. punk lore watching legends from The Runaways to The Go-Go’s perform on stage. And knocked on doors on their own until local clubs and venues let them play.

They were persistent, but McDonald said they couldn’t have done it without the support of their parents.

“ They're not musicians, they're not hippies on a commune,” he said.

In fact, their father is a welder who's still running the same small business with their mom.

“They just could recognize that their kids had some kind of intense interest and even if they didn't share it or understand it, they could recognize that,” he said.

Jeff McDonald and Steve McDonald of Redd Kross attend Reel To Reel: Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story at GRAMMY Museum L.A. Live on Feb. 18, 2025 in Los Angeles.

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That meant pick-ups and drop-offs — the usual stuff, in a way, for parents. “They would actually drive us to the Whisky a Go Go and they would sit in the parking lot at the gas station across the street,” he said.

As Redd Kross gained success with their pop punk sound, the band became elder statesmen looking over the next generation of bands that were coming up.

Last year, McDonald attended the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where grunge group Soundgarden was inducted.

“Those guys opened for my band in 1986,” McDonald said lovingly.

Singers Jeff McDonald and Steve McDonald of the band Redd Kross perform onstage during the Autism Think Tank benefit at The Alex Theatre on Feb. 23, 2019 in Glendale, Calif.

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It was a moment that brought into relief the many decades that Redd Kross has been making music. And they’re still at it — working on a new album this year and going on tour abroad and locally.

Benefit show in Pasadena

Steven McDonald of Redd Kross is headlining a benefit show to help Eaton Fire musicians replace lost gear.

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On Sunday, McDonald will headline a benefit show (LAist is a media sponsor) at the record shop, Healing Force of the Universe, in Pasadena to help musicians replace equipment and gear they lost in the Eaton Fire.

He’ll play an acoustic set of Redd Kross songs, including “Annie’s Gone,” which he previewed in a performance at the LAist studios.

The song is a reference to the character Annie in the 1980 film, Foxes. The role was played by Cherie Currie, the lead singer of one of McDonald’s favorite bands, The Runaways. He first saw them played at the Whisky in 1979.

“ I just really worshiped them and they inspired me because they were teenagers and they were bridging that gap between punk and hard rock. They were just out there doing it,” he said.

Performing solo is something of a first for him. At Sunday's show (tickets are still available), McDonald will include "Annie's Gone" in his acoustic set — a song normally sung by his lead singer brother Jeff.

"It's a rare opportunity to see Steve McDonald singing 'Annie's Gone.'"

Details

Gear Donation Drive and Acoustic Show
When: Jan. 25, 2 p.m.
Where: Healing Force of the Universe, 1200 E. Walnut St., Pasadena
Tickets: $12 (pre-sale) / $15 (door) / or donate a working musical instrument

After the Department of Justice issued a wide-ranging subpoena to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles last June, the records of more than 3,000 patients now will be protected until at least February 2029 under a settlement reached between patient families and the federal government.

What the federal government was seeking

The DOJ wanted to pull a wide swath of information from CHLA’s records related to hormone therapy prescriptions, including the identities and social security numbers of the people it was prescribed to. Lawyers for CHLA patient families said the broad request also included details of patients’ sexual health data and records of their mental health and said the inquiry violated their constitutional rights.

What CHLA’s lawyers are saying

“This is a massive victory for every family that refused to be intimidated into backing down,” said Khadijah Silver, director of gender justice and health equity at Lawyers for Good Government. “The government's attempt to rifle through children's medical records was unconstitutional from the start.”

Silver also noted that DOJ confirmed it had not received any sensitive patient data under the parts of the subpoena that had been struck down.

What’s in the settlement

Under the agreement, which was first reported by Reuters, the federal government has withdrawn its requests for personal information like social security numbers, prescription records and “documents relating to the clinical indications, diagnoses or assessments that formed the basis for prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy.”

The government cannot make new requests of this type to CHLA until February 2029. The settlement also establishes a process for the DOJ to continue to pursue seeking some limited redacted medical records from CHLA.

What it means for parents and children

In the aftermath of the subpoenas, many advocates were worried that families would face federal prosecution for seeking gender-affirming care for their children.

However, according to the settlement, the DOJ said it “is not currently aware of information that would support the federal prosecution of parents or guardians who have sought and consented to receiving gender-related care for their children at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.”

What the hospital and DOJ say about the win

LAist has reached out for comment to both entities and has not heard back.

The backstory

The subpoenas were issued on or about June 11, 2025, according to the settlement. They were made public in July, though many patient families remained in the dark about whether they were affected. CHLA announced it planned to close its clinic for trans youth June 12.

Judges have ruled against similar requests and struck down subpoenas seeking records from other hospitals, like Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Boston Children’s Hospital.