The Brief

In the past year alone, they’ve helped catch suspected murderers, bank robbers and hit-and-run drivers. They’ve located dozens of stolen cars and helped send a wildland arsonist to prison.

They’re also distrusted and despised by privacy rights activists on the left and on the right. Just last month, police accused a suspect in Monterey County of yanking down three of them with his pickup.

They’re called automated license plate readers. Every day, untold numbers of Californians drive past the thousands of cameras that at least 230 police and sheriffs’ departments have posted along roadways or installed on their patrol cars. The cameras in real time capture and read plate numbers, then cross-reference them with law enforcement databases of vehicles police want to locate, such as stolen cars, getaway vehicles or those that may be carrying a missing or wanted person.

Since 2019, California Democratic lawmakers have unsuccessfully sought to further restrict how police use the technology. They’re trying again this year with a bill that would add limits on how long police may retain license plate data, how they access it and with whom they share it.

Police agencies and officers’ unions across the state oppose the latest measure, which is similar to a bill Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed last year.

“This bill is about one simple principle: Protecting the privacy and safety of Californians while ensuring law enforcement tools are used responsibly before it’s too late,” the author of this year’s legislation, Riverside Democratic Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, told the Assembly privacy committee last month. She did not respond to a request for an interview from CalMatters.

Critics of the technology cite high-profile examples of California police using license plate data inappropriately, including to stalk or harass innocent people. As CalMatters reported last year, California officers have repeatedly violated an 11-year-old state law that prohibits sharing the data with federal authorities and others outside the state.

404 Media also reported last year that a Texas cop searched a national license plate database to try to locate a woman who had an abortion, leading to fears that conservative states that criminalize abortion are accessing California’s plate data to hunt down patients or providers.

Cervantes’ bill would generally limit to 30 days the amount of time agencies could keep license plate data, unless it pertains to an active investigation or is part of a search for missing people. It also sets limits around who can access the data and adds training and search-tracking requirements.

Police and sheriffs’ departments would be prohibited from entering into contracts with camera companies that provide default access to plate databases that federal and out-of-state police can search.

That provision is in response to Flock Safety, a prominent license plate reader company that allowed federal authorities to search local license plate data as part of a pilot program, said Tracy Rosenberg of Oakland Privacy, one of the bill’s supporters.

“(Police departments) learned after the fact, like our advocates did,” Rosenberg said. “And we all said, ‘What the …’ You know, pick your four-letter word.”

Flock Safety did not respond to CalMatters’ request for an interview, but the company says on its website that it doesn’t work with immigration agencies and it stopped its federal pilot programs. Local agencies have total control over the data Flock readers collect, the company said.

“By default, sharing with federal agencies is disabled,” the company wrote. “ICE does not have direct access to Flock cameras, systems or data.”

Why police are opposed

At least 39 police agencies and officers’ unions oppose Senate Bill 1013. Combined, they have spent at least $5.6 million on legislative campaigns since 2000, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.

Police say the technology has proven invaluable at helping them solve crimes.

Tustin Police Chief Sean Thuilliez, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, said the technology helped clear an innocent man. It also identified a suspected killer when a woman was shot and killed on a street in the Orange County city in May.

The woman had just testified against her ex-husband in a restraining order case, making him a prime suspect, Thuilliez said.

But Thuilliez said that thanks to the city’s 102 license plate readers, eight of which are from Flock, detectives quickly ruled out her ex-husband and were able to apprehend her former boyfriend at the Mexico border. He’s now charged with first-degree murder.

“It’s technology mixed with good investigative work,” he said in an interview. “But within one weekend, we were able to arrest the suspect for this person’s murder.”

The Berkeley Police Department noted similar successes after 52 Flock cameras were installed last year. In a report to the Berkeley City Council, the department noted license plate readers had been used in 121 cases, contributed to 58 arrests and led to the recovery of 37 stolen vehicles.

The department noted its rate for solving robbery cases climbed from 34% in 2024 to 49% the following year, thanks in part to the license plate data.

“The technology has fundamentally improved how officers patrol and how detectives investigate crimes spanning a range of serious offenses including robbery, kidnapping, carjacking, burglary, weapons violations, organized retail theft, stolen property and DUI,” the report said.

Why Newsom vetoed last year’s bill

Such investigative success stories may have helped persuade Newsom to veto last year’s bill, which would have required police to dump their license plate data within 60 days.

In his veto message, he said the restrictions on sharing data and forcing departments to purge it could hinder officers’ ability to solve cold cases and find missing people.

State Sen. Sabrina Cervantes also authored last year’s license plate reader bill, which Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed.

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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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CalMatters/Pool

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Newsom also said there was no money in the budget to pay for the mandatory California Department of Justice audits last year’s bill would have required.

To address Newsom’s concerns, this year’s proposal allows police to retain data to locate missing people and it makes a state audit program contingent on future funding.

Newsom’s press office declined to say whether he has a position on the latest bill, which has advanced through the Legislature with only Republicans voting against it. The measure is now pending before the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Meanwhile, at least one Republican lawmaker is taking the issue to Congress. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky recently shared a meme of a “Don’t Tread on Me” snake wrapped around a camera. The riff on the yellow Gadsden flag says, “Don’t Flock me.”

“I’ll soon be sponsoring a bill to withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy Flock (and other style) cameras to surveil law-abiding citizens,” Massie wrote on Facebook.

Rosenberg of Oakland Privacy said she understands the cameras’ usefulness to California police, but she thinks they’ve become ubiquitous. Police, she said, also shouldn’t have a permanent pass to keep “mountains” of data for as long as they want.

“There is kind of a balancing act. We as human beings also need some camera-free space,” she said. “We don't want to be on camera every minute of every single day.”

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

Aidan Reilly, who grew up in Santa Monica, was in college when the pandemic hit. Back at home, he decided to volunteer at his local food bank.

“And they said, ‘We don't need volunteers. We need food, especially fresh food,’” Reilly told LAist.

That inspired him and a couple of friends to found the Farmlink Project. They cold-called hundreds of farmers across the state, learned about various produce markets and what causes farmers and warehouses to have to dump their food, and figured out how to build a truck fleet to pick up that food on a dime.

Today the nonprofit rescues millions of pounds a week from farms and warehouses in California and across the country.

“We've moved well over half a billion pounds of food at this point, and that's at a rate of about 5 million pounds a week of usually almost entirely fresh produce,” Reilly said.

While Reilly is by no means the first to attempt food rescue to address food insecurity, the scale at which his company does it has earned international attention in large part because of their scale — they mostly work in California but do have operations in all 50 states.

The nonprofit was recently one of 10 companies around the world awarded the Keeling Curve prize. The award comes with a check of $50,000, which Reilly said will go, in part, to paying the salaries of their small team of 25, as well as trucks to move food from farm to food bank. He estimated they could move another 500,000 pounds of fresh produce with the funds.

That food goes to people facing hunger, instead of rotting in farm fields or landfills and releasing the powerful greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, further heating up our planet.

Reilly says the rescues also help farmers save money on costly dumping fees for food that may not be grocery-store perfect, but is fine to eat.

“We make sure it gets to people who need it and provide a tax benefit back to the farmers,” he said.

Fresh produce and fruits at a farmers market.

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A long tradition

With his nonprofit, Reilly joins a long tradition of neighbors stepping up to help their neighbors in times of crisis. One of their primary partners, Food Forward, has a similar story, as does another hyperlocal partner, United Hands of Compton, which was also launched during the pandemic.

Arnali Ray, executive director of the Hollywood Food Coalition, which has operated since 1987, said  the Farmlink Project is an important addition to the existing food rescue “ecosystem.”

“You need all the different players at the different scales in order to make this happen,” she said.

Federal cuts and state policy add to the need

Ray said cuts to and additional requirements to access federally funded benefits, such as CalFresh, as well as rising grocery prices and other costs of living, are rapidly increasing the number of people who are food insecure.

“We've started to see more people that are housed that are seeking resources,” Ray said. “We're noticing more people opting out [of CalFresh], especially folks who are undocumented and scared and nervous about putting their information into the system.”

State policies, such as SB 1383, which requires residents and businesses to divert food from landfills, is pushing more demand for food rescue at the same time. The law was intended to prioritize food rescue, but has proved complicated for many businesses to implement because the mandate came with no long-term funding and requires tailored approaches for each business. And that can take time and resources that many lack.

Still, Ray said they’re getting more calls from local restaurants, grocery stores and other potential food donors who are trying to comply.

“ I look at this as a perfect opportunity because we've got such an abundance of food, and we have so many people who are starving,” she said.

More than three dozen women and children are at risk of losing the services that supported their families after escaping domestic violence, officials are warning.

The contract for an L.A.-area transitional shelter for domestic violence survivors expired at the end of March. No funding has come in since then through the region’s troubled homeless services agency, according to Jewish Family Service L.A., which runs the shelter.

That has forced the organization to cover the roughly $300,000 portion of annual costs through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, also known as LAHSA, to keep the shelter up and running, according to Eli Veitzer. If that contract doesn’t come through, he said the shelter won't be able to take in new survivors and officials would have to find other arrangements for the families currently in their care.

“The women who are in our shelters have experienced enormous trauma and fear and violence,” he told LAist. “But the children who are in our shelters are just children, and they've also experienced all of that.”

“I'd like to know how they would explain to a 10-year-old girl who's gone through hell why there's no more money for the shelter?” Veitzer added, his voice cracking with emotion.

The number of people experiencing homelessness in L.A. from fleeing domestic or intimate partner violence jumped more than 43% since early last year, according to the results of the annual point in time count released in recent weeks. That equates to more than 5,690 people in the city.

The shelter contract is through LAHSA, and funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. LAHSA told LAist the plight of providers like the shelter is why LAHSA is suing HUD over its decision to suspend the agency from federal grant activity.

“Their actions are putting thousands of people who are safely inside housing in danger of returning to the street,” Ahmad Chapman, a spokesperson for LAHSA, said in an email.

A survivor’s ‘safe haven’

Yaminah is a single mother of two children, a 6-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son, and a former resident of the Hope Transitional Shelter that’s dealing with the budget shortfall.

She suffered more than eight years of emotional and physical abuse from her children’s father, whom she said she now has a restraining order against. LAist is not publishing her last name out of concern for Yaminah and her children’s safety.

In 2024, Yaminah and her children ended up homeless after fleeing the violence. She said she called more than 20 shelters looking for help and a place to stay. But every call was a closed door, with wait lists stretching up to two years, she said.

Their first stay at an emergency crisis shelter connected her to the Hope Transitional Shelter, which provides free, long-term services for women and children who are survivors of domestic violence. Families get assistance with case management, as well as parenting and mental health support. The average stay is between 9 to 15 months, and the eventual goal is to help families move into their own housing.

Yaminah described the transitional shelter as a “safe haven” that gave her family a chance to get back on their feet.

“We didn't have to worry about our fear that ‘Oh what if he finds us,’” she added. “It just gave us that sense of I'm safe, someone else cares, someone is here to help me. And that's so important, because when you're in a domestic violence situation, you feel alone.”

Yaminah and Veitzer, who leads the shelter organization Jewish Family Service L.A., said many survivors stay in domestic violence situations because they don’t know a way out. Yaminah said a loss of funding could be “detrimental” with fewer shelter beds and even longer wait lists.

“What options are you giving them? Where do they go? So do I just stay with the person that's abusing me?” she said. “If the shelters are not fund[ed], it's out of their hands. How can they help us?”

How we got here

HUD suspended LAHSA from federal grant activity in June, pending an investigation into alleged mismanagement by the agency. HUD has said the suspension means LAHSA cannot fulfill its role as collaborative applicant for the entire region’s application for federal homelessness dollars for the upcoming fiscal year.

LAHSA filed a lawsuit challenging the suspension a few weeks later, and a federal judge intervened last month. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter issued a legal order pausing HUD’s effort to suspend LAHSA pending an Aug. 6 court date.

Chapman said the agency is looking forward to this week's hearing “where LAHSA will have its day in court on behalf of all of these federally funded service providers.”

The shelter is being left in limbo amid the federal funding drama, according to Veitzer. LAHSA’s contract is its largest funding source, accounting for 50% to 60% of the program’s budget.

Veitzer said LAHSA and the L.A. County Department of Homeless Services and Housing have been “fairly good” about communicating the status of the legal fight, “but most of what they're communicating is we don't have any answers for you right now.”

He said the most immediate concern is getting a signed contract and funding for ongoing services.

As the organization waits, Veitzer said he’s focused on the 12 women and 25 children living in the shelter, not how the politics play out.

“I do get emotional about this because people are very busy doing a lot of legal stuff, and we're just looking at the hopes and dreams of women and their children to actually live a better life,” he said.

Aaron Schrank’s reporting contributed to this story.

An estimated 26,000 children who entered the U.S. without parents or guardians are expected to be left without independent legal representation as soon as Monday, according to lawyers who help represent them.

For more than two decades, the U.S. has been required by law to protect children who cross the border alone, because of fears that they could be easily exploited, abused or trafficked. After children cross the border unaccompanied, they are typically transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). A network of nearly 100 legal groups helps provide children who arrive in ORR custody with legal services, funded by Congress.

But in November, ORR stopped paying for those legal services, after lawyers declined to provide the agency with confidential information it had requested about the children. The attorneys say that information is covered by attorney-client privilege.

"The government is withholding payment for work that has already been performed in order to extract confidential information about kids, information the government has no right to," Acacia Center for Justice, the nonprofit that manages the legal services contract with ORR, said in a statement on Thursday.

ORR did not renew the contract with the network of legal providers, which expired Friday.

Alexa Sendukas, an attorney at the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, one of the organizations that provides legal help to migrant children, said that come Monday, the children may have to represent themselves in court and that most who would have to do that would likely end up being deported.

"We know that without a lawyer, unaccompanied children win the right to stay in the United States less than 1% of the time," said Sendukas. "And they've come to the United States seeking safety and protection. And what this administration is asking us to do now is to turn our backs on them completely. And they will undoubtedly be sent to harmful, dangerous situations. And I worry some will be killed if they lose their lawyers."

A group of legal nonprofits filed a lawsuit last year asking a judge to order the government to pay them for what it is owed — some $65 million — and continue paying them for more services. After going more than eight months without pay from ORR, some legal service providers have had to reduce their staff.

"Due to the loss of funding for children's immigration work, ProBAR laid off more than 20% of its staff this week," Lauren Fisher Flores, the legal director of ProBAR, a project of the American Bar Association that provides legal services to children in ORR care, said in an emailed statement on July 31.

On July 29, Acacia received notice from the federal government that ORR was considering a new contract, potentially with different legal providers. But ORR did not share much more information.

"It is not clear who the new contractor will be. They have not answered the questions that we have put to them," said Bettina Rodriguez Schlegel of Acacia, in response to a question from NPR. "And so there remains a lot of uncertainty and a great deal of concern."

Neither ORR nor the White House responded to NPR's requests for comment about this story.

Almost 1,800 children were in ORR custody in June, according to agency data. ORR has a legal obligation based on a 2008 law to promptly match children with guardians, or "sponsors," in the U.S. who can take care of them. Those children were held in custody for an average of 194 days before being released to sponsors, which lawyers who represent the children say is unusually long and has been detrimental to the health and safety of the children.

For years, lawyers from the network have given presentations for children arriving in ORR care to inform them of their rights and screen them to determine which legal services they are eligible for. Children who are victims of trafficking or abuse, for example, are entitled to special protections. Some of the network's lawyers told NPR they will no longer be able to provide some of those services.

But some of the attorneys say they won't simply abandon the children, even though the contract has not been renewed and they have not been paid by ORR.

"We have an ethical responsibility. We can't just drop a case. If you have a hearing tomorrow, we can't just not show up because the government decided to stop paying us," said Mickey Donovan, the director of legal services at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. "So we'll be there in court on Monday, to introduce ourselves to kids and try to do what we can to prevent their deportation."

Copyright 2026 NPR

The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired the biggest prize on the trade deadline market, getting two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night.

Skubal got the news during the Tigers’ 8-6 win over the Athletics and was emotional after the game as he prepared to leave the team that drafted him in 2018 and developed him into a star to join the two-time defending World Series champions.

“I’m excited to be a Dodger,” he said. “I’m excited to get down there and meet all those guys and chase three championships in a row. That’s hard to do, so I’m so excited to be a part of that. But it’s a lot of different emotions. Definitely kind of a roller coaster a little bit.”

Skubal is the latest star to join the high-priced roster for the Dodgers that already has big-name players like Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Mookie Betts. If everyone is healthy, he could be part of a rotation with Ohtani, reigning World Series MVP Yamamoto, fellow two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. The Dodgers lead the majors with a 3.36 ERA from their starting pitchers and now add Skubal to the mix.

The Dodgers are in first place in the NL West and were already the favorites to become the first team to three-peat since the New York Yankees from 1998-2000 before adding Skubal. They began the season with a $323.3 million opening-day payroll for their 40-man roster and a $163.7 million tax for a $487.1 million total. They will pay Skubal about $9.5 million for the remainder of the season.

ESPN first reported the deal and said the Tigers would receive three minor league prospects in right-handers River Ryan and Brady Smith and outfielder Zyhir Hope.

Skubal is eligible for free agency after the World Series. He has a $32 million salary, a record total in arbitration, after the team offered $19 million, and is expected to sign a massive contract in the offseason.

The 29-year-old lefty said in July that it was his preference to finish the season with the Tigers and to compete for a World Series championship, which has eluded the franchise since 1984. Skubal took the loss in the decisive Game 5 of the division series against Cleveland in 2024 and then got a no-decision in a 15-inning loss to Seattle in Game 5 of the division series last year.

He said it was “very tough” to leave the Tigers having fallen short of the goal of winning a title.

“Ever since that ’24 Game 5, the failure that I experienced on the mound, I’ve used that as fuel to try and bring a World Series to the city of Detroit. I truly did,” he said. “That whole offseason, I’ve never been more motivated and then go in and we lose Game 5 again. That failure kind of sparks some more motivation, just to dig deeper and see how good you can truly be. The goal was always to win a World Series for the city, for the organization that took a chance on me. It’s tough. I love all those guys in there. They’re some of my best friends.”

Detroit planned to contend again this season, bolstering the Skubal-led rotation by giving two-time All-Star pitcher Framber Valdez a $115 million, three-year contract in free agency and retaining three-time All-Star infielder Gleyber Torres with a $22 million deal.

The Tigers, though, got off to a rough start and are currently 2 1/2 games out of the last wild-card spot in the American League.

“It’s crazy. Going into the season, this isn’t what I planned on doing,” Skubal said. “But circumstances change, situations change, and I’m very appreciative of everything the Tigers have done for me.”

They bounced back in June and most of July to get into playoff contention with Skubal leading a rotation and three All-Stars in the lineup: rookie infielder Kevin McGonigle, catcher Dillon Dingler and outfielder Riley Greene.

With a chance to possibly persuade management to keep Skubal by improving its playoff positioning, Detroit lost ground by dropping four of its last five games at home, including Skubal’s last start that was made even more memorable by a late-inning collapse.

The Tigers led Baltimore 7-0 after six innings Wednesday and lost 10-9 in 12 innings. Skubal started the game, recorded his 1,000th career strikeout and was cheered at every opportunity by a crowd of 34,406.

“I’ve watched this guy rise to the top of the sport,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “He’s carried us a lot. I’ll forever be grateful that our paths crossed and the things that he did for this organization and for a couple of playoff teams. His presence, his work ethic, his example, his dominance. There’s so much to go through, it’s hard to capture in one quote or kind of one setting. But I’m very grateful that I was able to manage him for the time that I did.”

Skubal is 7-5 this season with a 2.79 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 96 2/3 innings. He is 61-42 with a 3.04 ERA over seven seasons, all in Detroit. In two postseasons, Skubal is 2-1 with a 2.04 ERA in six starts.

Skubal had a minimally invasive surgery on May 6 to remove a loose body from his pitching elbow and returned to pitch on June 13.

“The way the surgery went is exactly how it was supposed to go,” he said in July.

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AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in Detroit contributed to this report