The Brief

Turn off Highway 99 in rural Elverta, drive five miles down the road and you’ll find a dusty lot crammed with cars on this scorching Friday evening. Behind the wooden fence, for a $10 entry fee, awaits a gathering akin to a block party crossed with a high-potency farmers market.

Alongside shirtless young men displaying jars of weed and decorative bongs, there are tacos and smoothies for sale. A woman in cannabis leaf-patterned shorts peruses the merchandise, while another with a severe black bob offers dab hits near the front. The DJ occasionally interrupts his mix of throwback hip-hop tunes (do you enjoy Coolio’s “Fantastic Voyage”?) to sell tickets for a raffle raising money for one vendor’s comatose employee.

Next to his booth, a table gives out free cannabis for veterans, who don’t have to pay to get into the event. Neither do patients with a doctor’s recommendation, like Dannie, a barber who was shot three times in his left arm and smokes cannabis to manage pain often inflamed by cutting hair.

Dannie, who agreed to be identified only by his first name, said he carries a medical recommendation because it’s safer should he ever get stopped by the police. But he still prefers buying weed at these clandestine pop-ups, where the products are more potent than at a dispensary.

“I’d rather spend my $30 on something that lasts,” he said.

This is just one of four unlicensed cannabis “seshes” in the Sacramento area that Bette Braden will host this week, as she does every week. The events started eight years ago for medical marijuana patients in an era of looser regulations, before California legalized recreational sales.

Since 2016, when voters approved Proposition 64, the initiative that authorized a commercial cannabis market in the state, Braden has come to view her seshes as both a business opportunity and an act of protest. Like many longtime advocates, she believes all weed use has a medical purpose, and considers it immoral that high taxes and a lack of dispensaries have made it inaccessible to many patients.

“The laws are so hideous,” Braden said, as she supervised from a camp chair near the entrance. “I used to be an activist. Now I’ve gone over to the underground.”

‘No one really cares about the medical side’

Frustration runs deep among medical cannabis patients and advocates who — by persuading voters to pass Proposition 215 in 1996 — paved the way for legal weed in California, but now feel left behind in a post-Proposition 64 era. In a profit-centered system focused on recreational sales, they argue there is little consideration for patients and their unique needs.

Collectives that once provided cannabis and community largely dissolved nearly five years ago, as California transitioned to a new regulatory framework based around licensed growers and retailers. Dispensaries, which are still prohibited in many parts of the state by local rules, have not widely embraced a replacement program that allows them to donate medical marijuana to patients who cannot afford to buy it. Medical identification cards, which can cost several hundred dollars to renew annually, confer few tangible benefits.

“No one really cares about the medical side, and that’s a mistake, because that’s where the value is,” said Richard Miller, who has promoted patients’ rights at the state Capitol for nearly two decades as a member of the American Alliance for Medical Cannabis and Americans for Safe Access. “I’ve been feeling over the past year like my work is a failure.”

The shift to treating medical marijuana users more like customers is especially tough for older patients with limited incomes and those with chronic conditions who need a large amount of cannabis for treatment. While California physicians can recommend cannabis for conditions including arthritis, glaucoma, migraines and seizures, most health insurance plans do not cover medical marijuana because it remains illegal at the federal level.

So some cost-conscious patients seek other ways of getting their supply, such as the underground seshes sprouting up around the state. That further bolsters an illicit market that California has struggled to bring under control and alarms advocates who want patients to have high-quality, safe medicine.

“There are some things in this world that should not have a f—ing price tag. And feeling good when you’re sick is f—ing one of them,” said Bonnie Metcalf, who lives in Sacramento County and suffers from sarcoidosis, a disease of the immune system that fills her body with lumps of inflamed cells called granulomas.

With an $1,100 monthly disability payment her only income, Metcalf said she cannot afford dispensary prices and relies on friends and Braden’s pop-ups for cannabis.

“It ain’t funny no more. My life is being messed with,” she said. “I should not have to continue to do this, to have to, you know, search out ways of finding the only medicine that has ever helped me in a way that I can still have a value to my life.”

‘It’s nothing but pain’

Metcalf’s body is snap, crackle, popping as she rolls into the living room in her motorized wheelchair for breakfast. An excruciating tingle runs from her neck and shoulders down through her hips and legs, she said, like a limb that has fallen asleep. It’s a dull, aching, don’t-fricking-talk-to-me kind of feeling, the same agony she wakes up to every day “until I get some pot in me.”

“As soon as I hit this reality, it’s nothing but pain,” Metcalf said. “It’s the first thing I think about. Because how can it not be?”

Metcalf does not like the side effects she experienced with pharmaceuticals — she took a steroid for her lungs that she said gave her diabetes — so she primarily sticks to cannabis and meditation to treat her sarcoidosis.

“It’s very strange, because there’s a point you get to where you don’t give a f— that you have pain. You’re so euphoric,” she said. “People would say, ‘Oh, you’re just doing it to get high.’ Well, yeah, dude, I would rather be in a euphoric state of mind than, you know, I can’t get comfortable. You can’t eat. Your muscles are constantly spasming. I’m on hot water bottles. I mean, it’s ridiculous.”

Bonnie Metcalf prepares to take a cannabis-based product during her medicating session at her residence in Sacramento on July 20, 2023.

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Rahul Lal

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Cannabis has been part of Metcalf’s life for decades: Now 61, she said she first smoked weed at the age of 8, when an older teen gave her a joint at the park, and became an activist for cannabis access as a teenager.

While living in San Francisco in the 1980s, she worked with cancer and HIV/AIDS patients, Metcalf said, advocating for them to be able to use cannabis in medical settings. She collected signatures for the initiative that legalized medical marijuana and, after it passed in 1996, moved home to Yuba County, where she opened her own cooperative. Metcalf said she would drive a bus of patients down to San Francisco twice a month so they could see a doctor and get their paperwork in order.

That ended after 11 years, when Metcalf became too disabled to run the collective any longer. Despite her activism, however, she now refuses to get a doctor’s recommendation or a medical card or shop at dispensaries. She’s furious at how Proposition 64 commercialized cannabis in California, prioritizing getting high over medication and pushing aside longtime activists, growers and mom-and-pop businesses with expensive licenses and regulations.

“The system that exists is bulls–t,” she said. “These rich people are paying more for packaging and branding than they are worried about medicine for people. They don’t care. It’s not a medicine to them. It’s just another money-making scheme like beer or cigarettes.”

After eating a sausage scramble with green onions, Metcalf follows a meditative routine to help her mind vibrate above the pain. After her rituals she takes off her shoes and sits in the backyard for a few minutes, sticking her bare feet into the dirt to ground.

Finally, it’s time to medicate. Metcalf said she can no longer smoke weed because of the granulomas in her lungs. Instead, she takes two daily doses of FECO, a highly-concentrated cannabis extract — one in the morning to relax her body and one in the evening to help her sleep.

Back in her room, Metcalf turns on a playlist of affirmations by the musician Toni Jones and says a silent prayer (“May all beings live in peace, harmony, love and bliss”). Then she dips a fork into her jar of FECO and puts a dab of the oil on her tongue. She spits a chunk back into the jar, then bites another piece off the fork, until she estimates that she has half a gram.

The sensation starts in her head. She can feel her blood pressure calm. Her eyes relax and she sees the world in a whole different way. Everything is sparkly.

“It’s like a rain. It just starts raining,” she said, as the relief slowly washed down her body, loosening her joints before arriving, finally, at her feet.

“As long as my mind is high, I can control the body,” she said. “I can choose to disconnect from the pain. I can choose to put it in the background.

‘Our whole system fell apart’

Though it was the first state in the country to legalize medical marijuana with Proposition 215, California has always had a fraught relationship with it.

The Compassionate Use Act allowed people with a valid doctor’s recommendation, as well as their caregivers, to cultivate cannabis for their personal medical use — opening the door for collectives where patients unable to grow their own medicine could pool their resources to pay “caregivers” to do it for them. Compassionate care programs offered weed to the sickest and poorest patients for minimal or no cost.

But federal pressure from the “War on Drugs” remained, and the state was reluctant to jump into regulating medical cannabis until 2015, largely leaving the task to local jurisdictions. Writing recommendations became a lucrative business for some unscrupulous physicians, while illicit operators took advantage of the enforcement gaps to open hundreds of what were functionally retail dispensaries, enhancing skepticism about the legitimacy of the medical marijuana system.

That changed in 2019, after the passage of Proposition 64, when California began requiring collectives to get licensed like a commercial dispensary. Unable to complete the expensive and complex process, many shut down. More than 60% of cities and counties in the state still ban cannabis retailers, even for medical use, though starting in January, they can no longer prohibit medical cannabis delivery.

“Overnight, our whole system fell apart,” said Valerie Corral, founder of the groundbreaking cooperative Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz. “They were so busy counting tax dollars that they put us all out of business.”

Corral received a license, but she sold it after it became clear opening and operating a dispensary would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars that her donation-based organization did not have. Now she grows cannabis and works with local dispensaries to donate it for free to patients — the result of a 2019 law that, after a multiyear effort, established a replacement to California’s traditional compassion programs.

Leona Powell, a former member of Corral’s collective who smokes weed daily to deal with lingering pain from a 1978 airplane crash, said she misses volunteering in the garden and connecting with other patients at weekly meetings, where they would share information and potluck dinners. Living primarily on Social Security payments, the 75-year-old Powell said she relies on donated cannabis from a local dispensary, because she otherwise cannot afford the price of a standard eighth of an ounce, which typically costs $40 or more plus tax.

“That’s only a couple of joints. That’s two days’ worth. Now what?” she said. “I don’t have that kind of money.”

Efforts to formalize the medical marijuana system in California also lagged. In 2003, the state established a medical identification card for patients, mainly as a way to defuse interactions with law enforcement, but made it voluntary. Few people applied for one, perhaps afraid to register themselves with the government — though some activists did as a political statement.

At its peak, in the 2009-10 fiscal year, counties issued 12,659 annual medical cards, according to data from the state Department of Public Health. Surveys at the time estimated hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million, medical cannabis patients in California. By last year, the number of medical cards dropped to just 3,218, among the lowest on record.

Advocates say there is little reason to get a card, which carries an annual fee of as much as $100, on top of the cost of the doctor’s recommendation. With the card, patients are exempted from the state sales tax on their cannabis but not other state and local taxes, so they would need to spend hundreds of dollars per month at a dispensary to realize any savings. Californians can also get medical cards before they turn 21, when it is legal to buy weed for recreational use, and cardholders can purchase more cannabis per day.

“There’s a tendency to be dismissive of cannabis users” among the medical establishment, which is then reflected in policy, said William Dolphin, a University of Redlands lecturer who researches and writes about medical cannabis. “We’ve seen across the country a desire to wash their hands of it.”

Cannabis products on display at A Therapeutic Alternative in Sacramento on July 19, 2023.

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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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The state Department of Cannabis Control points to extensive testing and labeling requirements in the licensed market as a major benefit for patients, ensuring that Californians with potentially compromised immune systems are not using products tainted with hair, rat feces, heavy metals, illegal pesticides or mold.

In May, the department awarded UCLA two grants to study medical cannabis use in California, including what conditions patients are treating, what products they prefer and how they are accessing them.

“If they’re turning to the unlicensed market, we want to understand why they’re doing that so we can craft policies to bring them into the licensed market,” said Devin Gray, a policy analyst with the department’s policy and research division.

‘We sell products to stay alive’

Even dispensaries and other organizations dedicated to the philanthropic tradition of compassionate care are struggling amid a broader industry downturn.

Kimberly Cargile owns A Therapeutic Alternative, which opened in a converted house near downtown Sacramento in 2009 to serve medical marijuana patients. These days, it also has a license for recreational sales — and one of the only compassion programs in town, allowing low-income patients to receive cannabis for free.

Cargile said many dispensaries are reluctant to establish these programs because of the expense. Hers, serving an estimated 200 people, runs between $1,000 and $2,000 per month for staff time to manage applications, intake stock and consult with patients.

That’s a bigger sacrifice than it used to be. After a statewide surge in cannabis sales during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Cargile said sales dropped by $3 million, or 20%, at her dispensary over the past two years. She’s been looking for savings everywhere she can to stay afloat, though the compassion program will remain a priority for as long as she can manage.

Kimberly Cargile, CEO of A Therapeutic Alternative, at the dispensary in Sacramento on July 19, 2023.

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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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“We’re doing everything we can to stay true to our mission,” she said. She doesn’t want a cancer patient to feel forced to turn to “dirty” products on the illicit market.

“The whole entire reason I’ve dedicated my life to patients’ rights is because I want them to have access to high-quality, lab-tested products to treat their symptoms,” Cargile said.

Jude Thilman, who runs Dragonfly Wellness Center in Fort Bragg, said it is financially impossible for cannabis businesses to focus solely on medical use anymore. That has meant dispensaries providing less education for consumers, manufacturers of therapeutic products shutting down because they cannot adapt to new rules and a heritage slowly disappearing. Of the seven medicine makers that Thilman personally knew before Proposition 64, she said five have gone under and the other two are operating illegally.

“We sell products to stay alive,” Thilman said, “and then we sell products to help people.”

Medical donations through compassion programs increased over the first three years of the 2019 law, according to data collected by the state Department of Cannabis Control, though the reach remains relatively small. Last year, 440 dispensaries reported donating cannabis products to patients, fewer than a quarter of California’s nearly 2,000 licensed retailers.

Retailers reported 13,278 donations in 2020, 41,775 donations in 2021 and 47,371 donations in 2022. Each donation is counted separately, so the number of patients served is likely much lower.

Advocates said they initially benefited from an oversaturated commercial market, with businesses donating more products that they could not sell. But in recent months, as a dramatic price drop caught up to growers and decimated cannabis communities, supply has been scarcer.

“What’s been heartbreaking is that extinction of all the small farmers who have been our most loyal donors,” said Ryan Miller, who founded Compassionate Veterans, until recently known as Operation EVAC, a program that combines peer support sessions with free cannabis to prevent suicides. “The corporations are not stepping up, to be honest.”

After his pioneering San Francisco collective had to stop handing out cannabis to patients in 2019, Joe Airone, known as Sweetleaf Joe, turned his attention to logistics for compassion programs, helping find and deliver donations. He said his efforts connected more than 3,000 patients with 1,600 pounds of free medical cannabis last year — but without more support, such as tax write-offs, for participating businesses, securing donations is getting more difficult.

“All of our partners are taking a financial hit to do this,” he said. “There’s no incentive to do this. Zero.”

‘How much are you really helping people?’

In spite of the triple-digit heat, Metcalf was among some 400 people who attended the underground marketplace in Elverta that Friday evening. After visiting with Braden, she stopped by a booth for The Sisters Edibles, where she sometimes buys gummies.

Metcalf eyed the table stacked with tubs of colorful CBD-infused bears and worms, packaged by the generous handful, available for $10 each or three for $25. It was a fraction of the cost of what she could get at a dispensary, where a tin with 10 doses would be $20 plus tax.

“If you limit it, how much are you really helping people?” said the owner, Jen, who said she started taking cannabis three years ago to treat her migraines and moved into manufacturing her own products to supplement her veteran disability payments. She declined to share her last name out of privacy concerns. “I have so many people who come up to me and say, ‘I can get out of bed now.’”

Metcalf continued on to find some weed for her caretaker. At another small booth, she held brown mason jars to her nose, inhaling the scents of dried cannabis flowers. Dank. Like a cheese.

“That has a nice little sweet kickback smell,” she said. “I’ll take a half.”

With only two $20 bills, Metcalf was $10 short of the price for half an ounce. The vendor, who asked to withhold his name so as not to jeopardize applications he has submitted for cannabis delivery and manufacturing licenses, waved it off.

Touched by his generosity, Metcalf asked for his number. She knew a lot of people who might want to order from him.

“Do you have a medical card?” he asked. He said he didn’t charge patients delivery fees.

Metcalf, a self-proclaimed outlaw, shrugged at the idea and threw up her middle fingers.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman has missed nearly 3,000 votes since she was first elected in 2020, according to an analysis by LAist — a number that has been criticized by her opponent in the upcoming mayoral race.

A closer look at data from the L.A. city clerk reveals Raman ranks in the middle of the pack of the 15-member council when it comes to votes missed. She was eighth among her colleagues when it came to votes missed so far this year.

Last year she ranked third. In 2024, she ranked sixth.

The vast majority of those votes were unanimous or near-unanimous among the other council members, meaning her vote on those matters would not have changed the outcomes.

Still, the campaign of her mayoral opponent — incumbent Karen Bass — has stressed that the missed votes matter.

"This isn't just missing a few votes, it's about six years of Nithya Raman not showing up — for constituents wanting encampments outside of schools cleaned up or voting to make it cheaper to film here,” said Alex Stack, Bass’ campaign spokesperson.

“If you don't show up for your job, you shouldn't get a promotion," he said.

Bass brought up Raman’s City Council meeting absences during a debate earlier this month, and the campaign has since set up a website, titled NoShowNithya, devoted to highlighting those absences.

Raman’s campaign said she was officially excused from many of the meetings because she was appointed to represent L.A. on the Air Quality Management District board, which is charged with reducing local air pollution and improving public health.

Those meetings happened at the same time as some council meetings. The board meets on the last Friday of every month. The City Council meets three times a week — on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

“The data shows that Nithya’s attendance is in line with other council members,” said campaign spokesperson Liz Garcia. “These desperate attacks from Mayor Bass will not distract Nithya from campaigning to make LA a city that works and is affordable for everyone."

The numbers

City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian has missed the most votes so far this year — 393 — compared to Raman, who was ranked eighth at 233. Last year, Councilmember Monica Rodriguez ranked first with 631 and Raman ranked third with 556.

In 2024, Rodriguez ranked first with 741. Raman ranked sixth with 575.

Bass isn’t the only one who believes this is an issue.

“Attendance at meetings isn't ceremonial,” said Pomona College Associate Professor of Politics Sara Sadhwani. “It’s where amendments and laws get shaped, it's where budgets get fought over and it's where constituents' priorities either make it into policy or they don’t. So missing that work means missing those leverage points.”

“Generally, the expectation is that you show up for work,” she added.

In January, Bass removed Raman from the Air Quality Management District AQMD board, a role she’d been serving in since 2022 when she was appointed by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Nazarian was appointed to the air quality board to replace Raman.

As for Raman’s absences, her campaign sought to turn the tables on Bass. It pointed to the incumbent’s absences from commission meetings of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

Since joining, the mayor has skipped more than half of the meetings held by the L.A. Homeless Services Authority Commission, according to an LAist review of attendance records, despite the mayor’s insistence that homelessness is her No. 1 issue.

The Raman campaign also pointed to Bass’ absence during the early hours of the Palisades Fire when she was on a diplomatic trip to Ghana.

"This is ironic coming from a mayor who was missing during our city’s most devastating emergencies [and] failed to show up for more than half of LAHSA homelessness meetings,” Garcia said.

Bass’ office told LAist that, regardless of her attendance record, she has kept up to date on what LAHSA has been doing. The regional agency is responsible for managing the region’s homelessness response.

Earlier this month, following LAist’s reporting, Bass announced she was stepping down from the LAHSA Commission.

“It cuts both ways, and it's a reminder that both of these candidates are political insiders and have a track record with the city,” Sadhwani said.

Too many meetings?

The issue of missed meetings points to another question: Does the City Council meet too often? The city charter mandates that the panel meet three times a week. Its counterpart on the county level — the Board of Supervisors — meets once a week even though its budget is far larger.

In addition to deciding who will be L.A.’s mayor, voters in November will decide whether the number of mandated weekly City Council meetings should be modified. The council has placed a proposed change to the city charter that would require only one meeting per week.

Updated September 14, 2026 at 21:26 PM ET

Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay is hosting the Emmy Awards on Monday night. The ceremony is on NBC and Peacock starting at 8 p.m. PT, 5 p.m. ET.

Last year's winner for best drama, The Pitt, is up against Pluribus, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, The Diplomat, and more. On the comedy side, two Apple TV newcomers — Widow's Bay and Margo's Got Money Troubles — are up against a slate of returning nominees including Hacks, nominated for its fifth and final season, and The Bear, nominated for its fourth season. (Eligible shows aired between June 2025 and May 2026.)

Noah Kahan is set to perform "Bridge Over Troubled Water" for the In Memoriam segment.

We'll be updating this page with winners in bold as they come in.

Outstanding writing for a comedy series

WINNER: Katie Dippold, Widow's Bay
Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary
Tim Robinson, Zach Kanin, The Chair Company
Michael Patrick King, Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback
Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, Jen Statsky, Hacks
Anthony King, Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat

Outstanding lead actor in a comedy series

WINNER: Matthew Rhys, Widow's Bay
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Wonder Man
Steve Carell, Rooster
Jason Segel, Shrinking
Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building

Outstanding lead actress in a limited or anthology series or movie

WINNER: Sally Field, Remarkably Bright Creatures
Claire Danes, The Beast In Me
Carey Mulligan, Beef
Sarah Pidgeon, Love Story
Sarah Snook, All Her Fault

Outstanding supporting actor in a drama series

WINNER: Tom Pelphrey, Task
Patrick Ball, The Pitt
Billy Crudup, The Morning Show
Shawn Hatosy, The Pitt
Gerran Howell, The Pitt
Jack Lowden, Slow Horses
Carlos Manuel-Vesga, Pluribus

Outstanding lead actor in a drama series

WINNER: Noah Wyle, The Pitt
Sterling K. Brown, Paradise
Gary Oldman, Slow Horses
Mark Ruffalo, Task
Rufus Sewell, The Diplomat

Outstanding reality competition program

WINNER: The Traitors
Dancing With the Stars
RuPaul's Drag Race
Survivor
Top Chef

Outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series

WINNER: Stephen Root, Widow's Bay
Colman Domingo, The Four Seasons
Paul W. Downs, Hacks
Nick Offerman, Margo's Got Money Troubles
Michael Urie, Shrinking
Tyler James Williams, Abbott Elementary

Outstanding lead actress in a drama series

WINNER: Rhea Seehorn, Pluribus
Carrie Coon, The Gilded Age
Chase Infiniti, The Testaments
Keri Russell, The Diplomat
Zendaya, Euphoria

Outstanding supporting actress in a drama series

WINNER: Allison Janney, The Diplomat
Taylor Dearden, The Pitt
Fiona Dourif, The Pitt
Katherine LaNasa, The Pitt
Sepideh Moafi, The Pitt
Julianne Nicholson, Paradise
Karolina Wydra, Pluribus

Outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie

WINNER: Matthew Rhys, The Beast In Me
Riz Ahmed, Bait
Jason Bateman, Black Rabbit
Charlie Hunnam, Monster: The Ed Gein Story
Oscar Isaac, Beef

Outstanding supporting actress in a limited or anthology series or movie

WINNER: Linda Cardellini, DTF St. Louis
Dakota Fanning, All Her Fault
Laurie Metcalf, Monster: The Ed Gein Story
Joy Sunday, DTF St. Louis
Youn Yuh-jung, Beef
Constance Zimmer, Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette

Outstanding supporting actor in a limited or anthology series or movie

WINNER: David Harbour, DTF St. Louis
Jason Bateman, DTF St. Louis
Richard Gadd, Half Man
Richard Jenkins, DTF St. Louis
Charles Melton, Beef
Nick Offerman, Death by Lightning

Outstanding lead actress in a comedy series

WINNER: Jean Smart, Hacks
Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary
Ayo Edebiri, The Bear
Elle Fanning, Margo's Got Money Troubles
Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback

Outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series

WINNER: Kate O'Flynn, Widow's Bay
Dale Dickey, Widow's Bay
Hannah Einbinder, Hacks
Janelle James, Abbott Elementary
Michelle Pfeiffer, Margo's Got Money Troubles
Megan Stalter, Hacks
Jessica Williams, Shrinking

Outstanding comedy series
Abbott Elementary
The Bear
Nobody Wants This
Hacks
Margo's Got Money Troubles
Only Murders in the Building
Shrinking
Widow's Bay

Outstanding directing for a comedy series
Randall Einhorn, Abbott Elementary
Christopher Storer, The Bear
Andrew DeYoung, The Chair Company
Lucia Aniello, Hacks
Mary Lou Belli, The Ms. Pat Show
Hiro Murai, Widow's Bay

Outstanding drama series
The Diplomat
The Gilded Age
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Paradise
The Pitt
Pluribus
Slow Horses
Your Friends and Neighbors

Outstanding directing for a drama series
Salli Richardson-Whitfield, The Gilded Age
Hanelle M. Culpepper, Paradise
Noah Wyle, The Pitt
Vince Gilligan, Pluribus
Saul Metzstein, Slow Horses
Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Task

Outstanding writing for a drama series
Peter Ackerman, Debora Cahn, The Diplomat
Kirsten Pierre-Geyfman, R. Scott Gemmill, The Pitt
Valerie Chu, The Pitt
Vince Gilligan, Pluribus
Will Smith, Slow Horses
Brad Ingelsby, Task

Outstanding limited or anthology series
All Her Fault
The Beast In Me
Beef
DTF St. Louis
Love Story

Outstanding variety series
The Daily Show
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Saturday Night Live

Copyright 2026 NPR

Updated September 14, 2026 at 21:18 PM ET

The Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, rejecting his efforts to enact new mail-in voting restrictions for the midterm election.

The ruling released Monday by the high court means the U.S. Postal Service is expected to continue delivering ballots as usual.

Voting by mail has already begun in states including Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin, with more soon to follow — including Western states such as Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, where elections are held primarily or fully with mail ballots.

Under the still-blocked USPS plan, which followed an executive order by Trump, states would have had to turn over lists of voters' names and addresses and have certain specific barcodes on ballot envelopes in order to have them delivered by the mailing agency.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Boston issued a preliminary injunction against USPS, blocking it from imposing those new ballot requirements on states. The judge found the requirements are likely illegal because the Postal Service has no authority to control mail-in voting. A second federal judge issued another preliminary injunction late Sunday.

Now, a majority of the Supreme Court decided to keep that injunction in place. The court said the Trump administration was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a short concurring opinion, saying "there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority." But, he added, "applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections."

Indeed several Republican state election officials, including from the mostly vote-by-mail state of Utah, signed on to a Supreme Court brief, warning that any attempt to carry out the USPS plan now "will almost certainly lead to mistakes, delays, and confusion for both voters and election officials."

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from the order, and would have granted the administration's request to pause the Boston-based judge's ruling.

While the USPS plan remains paused for the midterms, the legal fight will likely continue over how the agency may try to implement it for future federal elections.

For now, challengers of the proposal are celebrating their victory.

"Today, the Supreme Court refused to allow the federal government to throw our elections into chaos just weeks before Election Day. The Postal Service exists to deliver Americans' mail — not to rewrite election rules, demand voters' personal information, or decide which ballots make it through the system," Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, said in a statement.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James said in a separate statement that she was "truly relieved" by the high court's ruling.

"Voters should never have to wonder whether a ballot they legally cast will be counted because the federal government suddenly changed the rules," said James, whose state was among the 24 mainly Democratic-led states that sued alongside Washington, D.C. "We will keep fighting to make sure every eligible ballot is counted come November. Now, I encourage all eligible Americans to get out and vote — and vote early."

Trump said he issued the call for USPS to change its rule for mail ballots as a way to stop illegal voting by non-U.S. citizens, a problem that many studies and audits show is extremely uncommon. For this legal fight over the USPS plan, the administration's lawyers have provided the courts with no evidence of mail-voting fraud.

Trump has been a vocal critic of the way about one-third of voters cast ballots in the last two federal elections. In 2024, the share of voters who reported casting ballots by mail was higher among Democrats (37%) than Republicans (24%), according to a national survey by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.

In a social media post last year, Trump said he is "going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS" and claimed that "ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING."

This year, Trump himself voted by mail in Florida.

Editor's note: USPS is a financial supporter of NPR.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey

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Ray Jayawardhana, a seasoned astrophysicist and university administrator, officially took over as Caltech’s 10th president on July 1.

The newly appointed president sat down with Larry Mantle on AirTalk, LAist 89.3’s daily news program, to talk about his plans for the future of the esteemed university.

Ray Jay and Caltech — it was in the cosmos

Jayawardhana, who goes by “Ray Jay,” told Larry he was always interested in the cosmos growing up.

He shared that, as a teenager in Sri Lanka, he wrote to the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) — NASA's leading space exploration center, which is managed by Caltech — to ask for images from the Voyager space missions they were conducting during the 1980s.

“I waited impatiently for a response, and one day, this large envelope with an oversized wheel of books arrived with a set of images of the outer planets and their moons,” he said. “That just delighted me to no end.”

Saturn and its satellites Tethys (outer left), Enceladus (inner left) and Mimas (right of rings) are seen in this mosaic of images taken by NASA's Voyager 1 on Oct. 30, 1980 from a distance of 18 million kilometers (11 million miles).

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This view of Jupiter was taken by Voyager 1. This image was taken through color filters and recombined to produce the color image. This photo was assembled from three black and white negatives by the Image Processing Lab at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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This picture of Neptune was produced from images taken by NASA’s Voyager 2 in the summer of 1989 as it became the first spacecraft to fly by the planet.

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Today, he’s the first South Asian American to lead Caltech, overseeing the operations of the same Jet Propulsion Lab he wrote to in the '80s.

How he came to the U.S.

After attending St. John’s College in Sri Lanka, he decided to pursue higher education in the United States. He earned an undergraduate degree from Yale and subsequently his doctorate in astronomy from Harvard, quickly establishing himself as one of the world’s most renowned astrophysicists.

He previously held positions at Cornell University and Johns Hopkins.

Exoplanetary president

Aside from his main focus as the school’s head of administration, Ray Jay continues his own research exploring the formation of planets and stars, saying it keeps him intellectually engaged.

He's part of a team that works with the James Webb Space Telescope to observe and characterize so-called exoplanets — planets around other stars — with an eye toward the potential for life beyond Earth.

He’s confident in Caltech’s future with JPL

Universities like Caltech are on rocky terrain amid sweeping federal government cuts of public funding for scientific research.

Additionally, JPL's future is uncertain. NASA — which now owns and sponsors JPL — is opening its contracting to other research institutions for the first time, which could mean a bidding war.

The entrance to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

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Losing the contract for Caltech would mean losing a stream of federal funding valued at $3 billion per year.

Jayawardhana said he’s confident Caltech and JPL’s partnership will continue, saying that the university's value proposition is unrivaled.

“It’s not only about the self-interest in continuing to ensure there's federal and public funding for research, it's also about enriching humanity,” he said.

NASA’s current contract with Caltech expires in September 2028.