The Brief

President Donald Trump’s new law-and-order approach to homelessness bears several striking resemblances to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s.

Trump wants cities to enforce laws that make it illegal for homeless people to sleep outside. So does Newsom.

Trump threatened to withhold funding from places that don’t. So did Newsom.

And the president wants to make it easier to force homeless people living with serious mental illness or addiction into treatment. So does Newsom.

It’s rare for Trump and Newsom, typically adversaries, to see eye to eye on anything. But when the president signed an executive order this week pushing cities and states to use law enforcement to get unhoused people off the streets, some of it read like déjà vu to Californians.

“I don’t know that there’s a huge contrast between parts of this order and what winds are already blowing toward in California,” said Ryan Finnigan, deputy director of research for the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

But Trump doesn’t want to stop at banning homeless encampments and pushing people into treatment, and that’s where he and Newsom diverge: The president wants to upend two core tenets of California’s homelessness policy.

Trump wants to abolish federal support for “housing first,” which is the idea that homeless individuals should get housing even if they are still using drugs, and “harm reduction,” which focuses on preventing overdoses and otherwise making drug use safer.

Both tenets are backed by research and have been the gold standard in California — and at the federal level — for years

The threat of abandoning those philosophies has left local service providers scrambling to figure out whether they’ll have to change how they’ve helped homeless Californians for years or risk losing out on federal funds.

“For all of that to be upended, the entire structure of service delivery is going to be turned upside down,” said John Maceri, CEO of The People Concern, a nonprofit that serves unhoused people in Los Angeles.

More of the same in California?

Trump’s executive order, titled “Ending crime and disorder on America’s streets,” seeks to prioritize funding for states and cities that enforce bans on open drug use, camping, loitering and squatting. It also orders the Attorney General to make federal funds available for removing encampments in places where state and local resources aren’t enough.

The order comes a year after the U.S. Supreme Court removed protections for people living on the streets in California and other western states, ruling cities can ban camping even if they have no shelter beds.

Newsom already was pressuring cities to crack down on homeless encampments long before Trump’s order. In May, he urged every city in the state to pass an ordinance making it illegal to camp on public property. As an example of how this should be done, he released a model ordinance that would make it illegal to camp in one place for more than three nights in a row, block streets or sidewalks and build semi-permanent structures.

But Newsom was quick to distance himself from Trump’s policies.

“Like so many of Trump’s executive orders, this order is more focused on creating distracting headlines and settling old scores than producing any positive impact,” spokesperson Tara Gallegos said in an emailed statement. “But, his imitation (even poorly executed) is the highest form of flattery.”

Some experts say Trump, who has a history of holding funding hostage over perceived slights, could use his new executive order as a way to cut off money to California.

The order doesn’t specify exactly what compliance looks like, Finnigan said. At least 50 California cities have banned homeless encampments in the past year, according to a study by UC Berkeley researchers. But if homelessness doesn’t decrease in a way Trump is satisfied with, the president could accuse California of failing to enforce those laws and cut the state’s funding, Finnigan said.

That threat comes as the Trump administration already is cutting funds for homeless services, affordable housing and Medicaid.

Trump’s order also prioritizes committing more people to institutions from the street. The order seeks to make it easier to commit people with mental illness who can’t care for themselves, while also promising grants and other assistance to help ramp up commitments, and threatening to divert funding away from places that don’t push people into treatment facilities “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” It also promises to prioritize funding to expand mental health courts and drug courts.

Newsom, too, has made it a priority to get people living with mental illness and addiction out of encampments and into treatment — without their consent, if necessary. His CARE Court program, which went live in all 58 counties at the end of last year, allows judges to put people into mental health and addiction treatment plans, but stops short of allowing judges to force compliance. Newsom also supported a 2023 law that expanded who could be forced into treatment under a conservatorship.

Trump’s order prompted a backlash from groups that support the civil rights of people with mental illnesses and disabilities. The National Alliance on Mental Health, which maintains that forced treatment should be used as a last resort, said Trump’s order raises “grave concerns.” Disability Rights California, which also opposed CARE Court, said Trump’s order goes a step beyond what California is already doing.

“The playbook looks similar,” said Greg Cramer, associate director of public policy. “But I think the consequences of the Trump action go even further.”

But the order doesn’t include funding for new mental health or addiction treatment beds. In a state already struggling with a lack of resources, some experts said Trump’s order for more forced treatment feels hollow.

“Even if they agreed to go into treatment, where are these facilities that they’re supposed to go into?” Maceri asked.

No more housing first

In ending federal support for housing first and harm reduction strategies to fight homelessness, Trump’s order ends years of precedent. California has long practiced housing first, which means everyone is entitled to housing, even if they have an untreated mental illness or are using drugs. The idea is that it’s much easier to receive treatment or get clean while housed than it is on the street.

Instead, Trump wants people in federal housing programs to have to submit to substance abuse treatment or mental health services as a condition of participation. His order also stops federal funding for harm reduction.

The People Concern, which provides street outreach and runs permanent housing, offers the opiate overdose reversing drug Narcan to its clients. It gives out antiseptic wipes to help people who inject drugs avoid dangerous infections, and it doesn’t evict tenants just because they are using drugs.

The organization also refers people to treatment programs. But not everyone is ready for that, Maceri said. The harm reduction strategies help build trust — and keep people safe — until they are ready to get clean, he said.

The People Concern, like many nonprofits, uses state and private funds — not federal dollars — to pay for harm reduction services.

But Trump’s order directs the Attorney General to review whether organizations that get federal funds and also “knowingly distribute drug paraphernalia” or “permit the use of distribution of illicit drugs” on their property are violating federal law – and bring civil or criminal actions against them if so.

That could mean groups like The People Concern have to change their practices.

“If it goes that far,” Maceri said, “I’m certainly not going to put our staff or our clients in legal jeopardy.”

Route 66 is celebrating 100 years of being the country's most famous highway, an icon of American culture.

As it passes through eight states — from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif. — its charm is all about driving on the open road, through the plains and prairies, canyons and deserts. Past big cities, cow towns and ghost towns, stopping at roadside motels, retro diners and kitschy tourist traps.

Like every good road trip, Route 66 has a soundtrack — starting with the famous anthem sung by Nat King Cole (and later, his daughter Natalie).

If you ever plan to motor West/ 
travel my way, take the highway that's the best/ 
Get your kicks on Route 66…

Bobby Troup, then an aspiring songwriter and jazz pianist, wrote that 1946 song during a road trip he took to California. Over the years, many others have recorded their own versions, including Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters.

It winds from Chicago to L.A/
More than 2,000 miles all the way/
Get your kicks on Route 66…

The famous thoroughfare was created in 1926, and three years later, the Depression hit, followed by the Dust Bowl — when drought and dust storms devastated farmland.

A family in Pittsburg County, Okla., is forced to leave their home in June 1938 due to a serious drought in the region.

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"The Dust Bowl drove thousands of families away from their farms in the Midwest and southwest states," said Jim Ross, who has written nine books about Route 66. He lives on an original section of the highway. "Most of them headed for California, because that's where the jobs were, or so they thought."

For the Farm Security Administration Project, Dorothea Lange photographed displaced families as they traveled West. The migrants drove in covered jalopies, hitchhiked and walked barefoot with their belongings along the highways.

Route 66 expert Michael Wallis says their trek was heartbreaking — "Following the scent of citrus out to California to rebuild their lives, they were hooked into that old dream, the land of milk and honey, which let them down.

Writer John Steinbeck chronicle the migration along Route 66 - which he named "The Mother Road" — in The Grapes of Wrath.

Steinbeck's 1939 novel won a Pulitzer Prize and was made into a now classic film. It starred Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, an ex-con traveling from Oklahoma with his sharecropper family.

"Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can't eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad," he said in a monologue that would later inspire songwriters Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen.

And legends of Route 66 shifted gears with the times.

After World War II, cars and Route 66 tourism were heavily marketed. Families began taking road trips around the country. And by the early 1960s, their spirit of adventure was captured by rock and rollers Chuck Berry and The Rolling Stones.

It goes from St. Louis, Joplin, Missouri/
and Oklahoma City looks so pretty./
You'll see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico/
Flagstaff, Arizona, don't forget Winona/ 
Kingsman, Barstow, San Bernardino… 

Route 66 was also celebrated by a TV series with the same name, with a theme song by composer and arranger Nelson Riddle. It features two young adventurers who hit the transAmerican highways in a Corvette convertible.

Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in a scene from the 1969 film <em>Easy Rider</em>.

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Route 66 was also the scenic road in the 1969 film Easy Rider. It starred Henry Fonda's son Peter, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson as counterculture wanderers who traveled by motorcycle.

"All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut," Hopper's character says in one scene, referring to some haters.

"Oh no," Nicholson's character responds. "What you represent is Freedom.

Into the 21st century

In 1985, Route 66 was officially decommissioned as a federal highway. But its lure endured. Two years later, the English electronic band Depeche Mode made a music video about it.

Won't you get hip to this timely tip?/ 
And you'll you make that California trip/
Get your kicks on Route 66

The documentary Depeche Mode:101 followed a group of fans traveling across the country on a tour bus. It was an inspiration for reality TV shows in the 1990s: The Real World and Road Rules.

Route 66 was also celebrated in Pixar's 2006 animated movie Cars. With John Meyer's version of the old classic as its theme song, Cars was set in a fictional town along Route 66: Radiator Springs. The popularity of the movie and a sequel led to a theme park attraction, at Disneyland's California Adventure.

A 2012 handout photo provided by Disney Parks shows the Radiator Springs Racers attraction.

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Author Michael Wallis consulted for the Disney Imagineers and the Pixar filmmakers. And he was the voice of the animated sheriff in the movie — a 1949 Mercury Club Coupe police car.

A vintage postcard-style map traces Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles with landmark illustrations along the border, marking the road's 100th anniversary.

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Wallis co-founded the Route 66 Alliance, and is on the highway's Congressional Centennial Commission. The 81-year-old says the road has stirred his imagination ever since he was a child.

"There's a sense of adventure," he said. "If you've not been in a pie palace or greasy spoon on the Mother Road, you don't know what to expect."

Wallis' bestselling 1990 book The Mother Road is credited with sparking a revival of interest in Route 66.

"It's the path connecting two big cities across two thirds of the continent," he said. "People renting you a room, selling you a cheeseburger, a peek at the snake pit. A dream. An illusion. That's what it's all about."
Copyright 2026 NPR

A cat walks past a Route 66 signs at the El Rancho Motel, once a major Route 66 landmark, on June 15, 2007 in Barstow, Calif.

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California voters faced big questions about money in this election, and the results sent mixed signals about how the electorate feels about taxation.

They want to tax the rich — but only sometimes. They want the money counters at the Franchise Tax Board to stay far away from personal assets, but are leaving the door open for future taxes or taxes on other people.

On Election Day, voters:

• Rejected Proposition 40, an effort to levy a first-of-its-kind wealth tax on billionaires
• Rejected Proposition 41, a taxation transparency measure 
• Approved Proposition 42, a ban on wealth taxes and retroactive taxes 
• Rejected Proposition 43, an attempt to make it more difficult for local governments to raise taxes
• Approved Proposition 3, a proposal to make permanent a tax on high-income earners

Voters also approved several high-profile local taxes, including two measures to fund the Bay Area’s regional transit systems, including Muni and BART, and a half-cent sales tax to fund firefighting in the city of Los Angeles.

The mixed outcome, experts say, shows that California voters are embracing tax hikes — but only when they can ensure the money is funding tangible services they support.

“Voters are willing to open up their wallet if they believe it’s for a good cause … and that it’s actually going to that place,” said Brandon Castillo, a prominent ballot measure strategist in California.

It also demonstrates voters’ willingness to support taxes that likely won’t affect their own pocketbook, said Mark Baldassare, survey director of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

“We are a very progressive state where voters, particularly today when affordability weighs on them, have a tendency to say somebody else will be paying taxes, not me.”

Still, that “not me” attitude didn’t stretch as far as the state’s contentious billionaire tax, which faced opposition from business interests, Democrats and deep-pocketed Silicon Valley executives alike.

Why did the billionaire tax fail?

The failure of the billionaire tax represents the most stunning defeat of Election Day for progressive Democrats who tried unsuccessfully to capitalize on souring sentiment toward the ultra-wealthy amid high gas prices and worsening inflation for average Californians. How could the most progressive measure in the most progressive state fail during a “blue wave” election?

“California voters are sometimes more conservative on ballot propositions than they are on voting for candidates,” said Christian Grose, a political science and public policy professor at USC.

In recent years, voters through ballot measures got tougher on crime, shot down a minimum wage increase and rejected efforts to make it easier to pass local bonds. In fact, voters upheld the death penalty the last time it appeared on the ballot even though the state has not executed anyone since 2006. In a historic decision, Gov. Gavin Newsom also earlier this month commuted all death row sentences to life without parole.

Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant, said this trend likely holds true because ballot initiatives — including taxation questions — generally ask voters to consider one issue at a time and are presented in a nonpartisan manner. In contrast, voting for a liberal or conservative candidate requires voters to weigh multiple aspects of a person’s record, character or values.

“They just have the policy question, and voters sort it out for themselves,” Stutzman said.

Those centrist tendencies helped push Prop. 42, one of two measures put on the ballot by billionaires trying to protect their wealth, across the finish line. That measure bans taxes on personal property, business interests and financial investments. The Associated Press confirmed its passage by 51.3% Friday.

Anti-tax and union supporters touted it as a way to protect retirement savings and pensions potentially targeted by the billionaire tax, though billionaire tax proponents countered that their measure never targeted ordinary retirement accounts in the first place.

Experts say voter confusion and a $378 million opposition warchest donated primarily by Silicon Valley tech billionaires doomed the billionaire tax.

Props. 41 and 42 were designed specifically to kill Prop. 40 if it had passed, creating a chaotic array of choices. The billionaire tax also amassed a coalition of diverse and vocal opponents, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, Planned Parenthood, medical clinics and the state’s largest teachers union, despite the California Democratic Party and California Labor Federation supporting it.

Polling showed support for the measure dropped 6 points in the last two months before the election, taking it from a narrow lead to a crushing defeat.

“The campaign against the billionaire tax was a success,” Grose said.

Other taxes succeeded

But few view the results on Prop. 40 as a referendum on the state’s progressive tax system. Instead, many analysts said it was simply bad policy that splintered California’s Democratic base.

Prop. 40 aimed to focus almost all the revenue in healthcare while cutting out other areas of state spending, which would lose funding if billionaires left the state and stopped paying income taxes, said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego. That, he said, was “an unforced error.”

“It made it a David and Goliath fight, but it didn’t need to be,” he said. “You don’t pass a landmark progressive tax increase that is sort of a change to how America has historically done anything by dividing up the progressive coalition.”

At the same time, Prop. 42’s anti-taxation sentiment was also somewhat tempered by the defeat of Prop. 43, which would have made increasing taxes for local public services more difficult, and the success of Prop. 3, which sticks a higher tax bracket on high-income earners to help fund schools.

Prop. 43 would have required a two-thirds vote to pass any local tax dedicated to specific services. Kousser said voters are concerned the measure would allow for “minority rule,” where just a third of voters would be able to block essential funding for local services.

“Voters don’t like to put in place these rules that seem to be tilted in one direction,” he said.

David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, said Prop. 3’s passage sent a “resounding message of support for taxing the wealthy.” That measure passed with nearly 59% of the vote and sets a higher tax bracket on individually earned income above $360,000.

People in that income bracket have been paying that extra tax since 2012 as a temporary state budget fix; Prop. 3 made it permanent.

Why could voters distinguish between the income tax Prop. 3 and the wealth tax in Prop. 40? Partly because Prop. 3 had no opposition among Democrats, Kousser noted. It also extended an existing tax, whereas Prop. 40 opponents ran ads claiming that state lawmakers could come after average Californians’ personal savings.

Ballot box tempting for revenue seekers

Dustin Corcoran, chief executive of the California Medical Association, which opposed the billionaire tax, said he also does not view its defeat “as an endorsement of wealth inequality or the status quo.”

The state still needs to find a way to securely finance healthcare, education and other core services, Corcoran said, and the medical association is exploring future ballot initiative options to generate revenue.

Not even Prop. 40’s supporters view its defeat as a reason to stop trying to tax the ultra-wealthy in California. Dave Regan, president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the primary proponents of the billionaire tax, vowed to come back in 2028 with another billionaire tax initiative.

Regan also pushed back on the notion that Democrats were divided on wealth taxes, arguing that polling showed between 60% to 70% of Democrats supported the measure and only Democratic leaders such as Newsom and Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra opposed it.

“At the very highest levels of state officials there’s actually, you know, a different point of view, but that’s out of step with where regular people are at,” Regan said.

Still, fiscal conservatives, the state’s non-partisan budget analyst, and even some moderate Democrats say taxation cannot be the only solution to California’s budget woes. The state has faced four consecutive deficit years and spending that outpaces revenue despite the budget as a whole growing. The current state budget calls for $351.7 billion in total spending — a 64% increase over the $214.8 billion Newsom signed in his first year as governor seven years ago.

“California’s budget is structurally overextended despite booming and near-record revenues,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office wrote in a new budget assessment. “This overextended budget reflects a higher ongoing spending base; diminished reserves; an already accumulated wall of debt; and annual, out-year operating deficits of $8 billion to $10 billion.”

Updated November 14, 2026 at 13:52 PM ET

WASHINGTON— Friday's nationwide ground stop started when a contractor updated old Federal Aviation Administration telecommunication lines, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday.

Tens of thousands of passengers across the U.S. are still stranded Saturday after the rare ground stop. Bryan Bedford, the FAA administrator who joined Duffy at Saturday's media briefing, said schedule problems should be resolved by Sunday evening.

Nearly 25,000 flights were delayed, and over 9,000 were cancelled on Friday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking site. The disruption seeped into Saturday morning with more than 4,000 cancellations recorded, which is 18% of flights departing the U.S., according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

L3Harris, a long time contractor for the FAA, was doing routine maintenance in at least one remote location changing copper wire to fiber optics, Duffy said. "When I tell you that we're using old equipment, we're using old equipment," he said.

He said the FAA is still investigating the exact error that started flooding other routers in the air traffic control system, and if L3Harris was at all responsible.

"It's pretty straightforward work that we were doing yesterday at, again, a very remote location. So what we're working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error, installator error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router?"

L3Harris did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.

These updates have been happening in American institutions for decades, Duffy said.

"Virtually every single institution in America has gone from copper to fiber, from analog to digital," Duffy said. "Just maybe the FAA is the last one to be doing this work because the investments haven't been made, but this is not complicated."

Bedford said there was no evidence of anything nefarious happening or any AI-related issues.

Since his time in office, Duffy said he's been asking Congress for money to make more upgrades. In July 2025, Congress approved $12.5 billion to modernize the nation's aging air traffic control system.

With that money, 70% of copper communications have been replaced to high-speed fiber, Bedford said. Duffy called the innovations and the need for more a "bipartisan moment."

"This is the moment, if we don't start to switch out our systems, when, how long are we going to wait, America, and Congress?" Duffy asked.

Thousands of passengers miss flights

Passengers wait at boarding gates at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC on November 13, 2026.

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For about four hours on Friday, thousands of flights at U.S. airports were grounded in one of the biggest disruptions of the nation's air travel system since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The aviation system is back online and slowly returning to normal Saturday morning, but delays and cancellations will continue, Duffy said. Bedford said all passengers will be put on new flights or they'll get a full refund, but that people should reach out to their airlines directly.

Flight boards at airports across the country Saturday morning continued to be riddled with red cancelled marks. At Tampa International Airport in Florida, people in the main terminal area before security curled up in chairs to grab a wink of sleep.

On Friday night, a flight board at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in D.C. showed dozens of flights delayed into the early morning hours or cancelled.

Passengers Erin and Jake Britt spent half the day at the airport in D.C. on Friday. Their plane to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. boarded at 3 p.m. By 5:30 p.m., they were getting off the plane — but they were still in D.C.

"Overall, our plane was definitely annoyed, but reasonable," Erin Britt said, as the couple left the airport at 8 p.m. "People being upset and asking like, 'Well, how are you not prepared for this?' And it was like, 'Well, no one was prepared.'"

She said neither the pilot nor flight attendants had any more information than passengers."They seem just as in the dark," she said.

The pair decided to cancel their weekend trip, but the night didn't end there. They spent over nine hours overnight waiting on the JetBlue customer service call line to be reimbursed. "I was setting alarms in 20 minute intervals in case I fell asleep," Erin Britt said.

For people who had events or plans over the weekend – the delay added an extra layer of stress. Joe Romano and Maddie Cabana had a cruise leaving Orlando, Fla. Saturday afternoon.

"It was a big eye roll. I mean, I travel a lot for work already, so I'm constantly dealing with flight delays," Romano said. "When this happened, I was just like, 'Of course, it always happens to me.'"

"Just rather inconvenient and frustrating," Cabana added, as the pair contemplated checking their bags or going home. They even thought about driving to Florida. "Hopefully, everything will be fine. It'll all work out. It always does."

And it did— eventually. After their JetBlue flight was ultimately cancelled, they quickly booked another one on Southwest Airlines and made it early Saturday morning.

Others, like Suze DiPietro decided flying wasn't worth it anymore. Her husband drove about four hours down from Ocean City, New Jersey to pick her up in D.C. Luckily, they had friends in the area where they spent the night.

"My husband, my hero, is driving down from New Jersey to come get me," DiPietro said.

Other alternatives included people switching to Amtrak trains as they struggled to get to their destination. Although, even Amtrak's system had a brief outage Friday night.

This was only the second nationwide ground stop since September 11, 2001. The U.S. last issued a ground stop of this scale in 2023, when all U.S. airports were shut down due to an outage in the NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which alerts pilots and airports of real-time hazards.

That outage prompted fears of a cyberattack, but the FAA later determined the issue was caused when contract workers inadvertently deleted critical files.

The FAA has recently begun rolling out an AI-enhanced software tool known as the SMART system as part of its ambitious overhaul of the nation's air traffic control system. But Air Space Intelligence, the company that makes the tool, quickly dismissed speculation that its product could be connected to the flight disruptions.

"The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC," the company said on social media.

Ava Pukatch contributed to reporting.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Eggs from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast have hatched.

"We are excited to share that some of the olive ridley sea turtle eggs from Seal Beach successfully hatched after a 58-day incubation period," said the Aquarium of the Pacific in a social media post.

The Long Beach-based aquarium has been keeping watch over 204 olive ridley sea turtle eggs, laid on Seal Beach and Huntington Beach in September. A second set of eggs found on Huntington Beach is still incubating

The aquarium said the hatchlings were released early Saturday morning in a coastal area with little light and human disturbances.

Baby turtles, the aquarium said, go through a “frenzy period” after hatching, where they swim nonstop for up to two days

The eggs came from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast. Scientists say unusually warming water tied to El Niño likely drew the rare turtles to the Southern California coast.