Land that developers want to destroy with shit....

Squatters' homes now among hottest places to stay in a Calif. state park

By Christine Hitt

Driving the Pacific Coast Highway between the affluent Southern California beach cities of Corona Del Mar and Laguna Beach, there’s a stretch of coastline that remarkably doesn’t have a resort or rows of million-dollar houses blocking the ocean view.

The 3.2 miles of open beach and 2,400 acres of backcountry make up Crystal Cove State Park, and it’s one of the last remaining examples of a natural shoreline in Orange County. 

More than 2 million people visit its white-sand beach, campgrounds or trails every year.

The park is also home to a 12.3-acre historic district that comprises 46 cottages that were built about 100 years ago. “The cottages themselves were built in the ’20s and ’30s by squatters,” said Laura Davick, founder of the nonprofit Crystal Cove Conservancy, which was formed in 1999 to save the historic cottages. “It was basically during the Depression era and also during Prohibition era, where families, as squatters, started constructing these one-room, little cottages down at Crystal Cove and word spread, and so more and more people would come down.” 

Located right on the beach, more than half of the cottages have been carefully restored and are used for overnight accommodations. They provide rentals for 24,000 people per year. Eight additional newly restored rental units are expected to be ready to rent this month.

Frozen in time, the colorful little abodes with oceanfront decks are all unique, surely representative of the original owners who built them. The low rental cost (as low as $49 for a single room or from $222 for an individual cottage) and location make them highly sought after, with a 98% occupancy rate year-round.

The beach’s popularity started in 1917, when it drew silent filmmakers looking for a Polynesian setting. Actors would have parties on the beach “boozing it up,” Davick recalled from an interview with a man who lived there in 1928 at the age of 12. She said there are also stories of rum runners offloading liquor here during Prohibition, because it was so remote back then.

In the summers, beachgoers in tents populated its shoreline. Then, people started constructing more permanent shelters, the origin of some of the current cottages, on the beach.

Three generations of Davick’s family lived at Crystal Cove, from 1921 to 2001. Her parents met there as teenagers as tent campers. After her parents got married, they acquired Cottage No. 2 when Davick was a year old. 

Growing up, Davick said she often found Prohibition-era liquor bottles that had washed ashore. Her favorite bottle in her collection is a brown bottle shaped like a guitar, inscribed: “Federal law prohibits the sale or reuse of this bottle.”

The land was owned by Irvine Company and, in 1940, it sent a letter to all the squatters. “If you wanted to move your cottage, you could, but if you didn’t, it officially became their property, and that’s when the leasing system started,” Davick said. Those who stayed were able to lease the property to continue living there for decades.

Crystal Cove became a state park in 1979, when it was purchased from Irvine Company. “At $32 million, it was, at the time, the most expensive acquisition of state parkland in California history,” Scott Kibbey, a state park superintendent for California State Parks, explained to SFGATE in an email.

In 1997, the state signed a 60-year concession contract with private developers, who wanted to turn the cottages into a luxury resort. However, conservation groups bought out the contract to prevent it from happening. In 2001, all of the tenants were evicted by the state, including Davick. 

Instead of a luxury resort, the cottages were restored in phases, keeping their original style. Work began on the cottages in 2003, and the first overnight guests in the historic district were in 2006. This is also when the park’s Beachcomber restaurant, a renovated cottage, opened.

Ever since, Crystal Cove Conservancy and the state park have been working together to steward the highly coveted coastline. “Crystal Cove State Park’s combination of historical significance, scenic beauty, ecological diversity, educational opportunities, and recreational experiences make it stand out as a truly unique gem among California’s state park,” Kibbey said.

Obstacle for EVs

UAW deal eases just one obstacle for EVs

By JOEL KIRKLAND 

The deal between the United Auto Workers and Detroit automakers could ensure unionized workers play a large role in the transition to electric vehicles.

But it’s still unclear whether Ford, General Motors and Stellantis (think Jeep, Dodge and Ram) will be able to successfully transition from gasoline cars to electric ones — and be profitable in the end, writes David Ferris.

The traditional automakers are up against Tesla, which isn’t unionized and has cut the prices of its top selling models. The Detroit Three, meanwhile, have slowed their investments in the electric vehicle market, as they grapple with wavering buyer enthusiasm for still-pricey vehicles.

“When you have higher labor costs, does it change your ability to invest? I would say yes,” Rob Handfield, a business management professor at North Carolina State University, told Power Switch.

Political tightrope

The labor deal comes as President Joe Biden faces a tough reelection campaign in must-win states like Michigan. Through his push to get more EVs on the road, Biden is making a case that an aggressive effort to combat global warming can yield secure jobs for Americans.

But a careful balancing of policy priorities is required to get there.

China dominates the global supply of materials and designs for electric car batteries. Biden’s Treasury Department is expected to set rules soon spelling out how strictly it will enforce a U.S. ban on car companies using battery parts and minerals from Chinese suppliers.

That matters for both electric car makers and buyers. Embedded in Biden’s signature climate law are tax credits that add up to $7,500 in savings on cars built with domestically sourced supplies. That help from the federal government to bring down the cost of purchasing an EV has spurred billions of dollars in spending on EV and battery plants across America’s midsection, from Michigan to Tennessee.

But access to critical minerals such as lithium and nickel is the hitch: North America has virtually no large-scale supply chain for the minerals needed for battery manufacturing. That accounts for half of the EV tax break.

Pursues nuclear deals

Macron pursues nuclear deals in Russia’s back yard

French president hopes to secure uranium supply in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

BY GIORGIO LEALI

French President Emmanuel Macron travels on Wednesday to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where he hopes to secure uranium for his country's nuclear plants.

The trip comes as geopolitical tensions grow with the EU's current major suppliers, Niger and Russia.

Macron’s visit to the two countries aims to expand French influence in an area which has strong ties with Russia and is now also growing closer to China, an Elysée official said.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are respectively France’s largest and third-largest suppliers of uranium, which is burned to fuel nuclear plants.

Last summer a military junta took over Niger, which supplies 15 percent of France’s uranium needs, sparking questions as to whether the African country can continue to be a reliable source. Uncertainty has also surrounded imports of Russian uranium since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

“Niger raises questions, Russia could raise questions in the long term [if] the EU imposes sanctions on the nuclear sector. Macron’s visit to Central Asia helps to anticipate those concerns,” said Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, an energy expert at the Jacques Delors Institute think tank in Paris.

Russia's nuclear sector has not been targeted by EU sanctions so far, but member countries continue to turn away from Moscow. The quantity of uranium the EU imported from Russia fell by 16 percent last year from 2021, while the amount from Kazakhstan rose by over 14 percent.

Earlier this year, Yerzhan Mukanov, CEO of the country’s state-run nuclear firm Kazatomprom, told POLITICO he was seeing increasing interest from Europe, and that Kazakhstan “intends to become a significant contributor to the European nuclear market.”

French nuclear firm Orano is active in Kazakhstan, where it has been operating uranium mines since the 1990s, and more recently in Uzbekistan. Orano President Claude Imauven is accompanying Macron on his trip along with 14 other French executives, including Luc Remont, head of French energy giant EDF.

An Elysée official said that new contracts and business partnerships will be announced during the trip, including in the energy sector. 

EDF has also positioned itself to become a supplier of nuclear reactors for Kazakhstan’s first nuclear plant.

The visit comes as Brussels competes with China for influence in the region via investment programs focused on infrastructure. 

Both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are benefitting from Chinese investment under Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, with their presidents attending a high-level meeting on the subject in Beijing in October. The EU is trying to gain influence in the two countries by involving them in cooperation and investment projects under its "Global Gateway" initiative, the bloc’s response to Belt and Road.  

Biden’s green agenda

Offshore wind company pulls out of New Jersey projects, a setback to Biden’s green agenda

“We are extremely disappointed,” head of energy company Orsted said.

By RY RIVARD

Orsted, the company that Democrats up and down the Eastern Seaboard have been counting on to build offshore wind farms, is pulling the plug on two of its largest projects, a setback for President Joe Biden’s clean energy goal.

The Danish energy company said Tuesday night that it was killing plans to build a pair of wind farms in New Jersey.

The decision dents Biden’s climate change plans and also dashes New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s hopes of his state being a clean energy leader before he leaves office in 2026. It also comes a week before legislative elections in New Jersey, where Democrats are trying to hold their majorities in the face of Republican attacks over wind power.

For months, Orsted has been teasing financial problems for its two New Jersey projects, Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2. Now both are being scrapped. David Hardy, the head of the company’s American operations, blamed macroeconomic factors, like inflation and supply chain issues.

“We are extremely disappointed to have to take this decision, particularly because New Jersey is poised to be a U.S. and global hub for offshore wind energy,” Hardy said in a statement.

Ocean Wind 1 would have been New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm — a project 15 miles off the South Jersey coast big enough to generate power for a half-million homes. It was expected to help launch a multipart supply chain in the state and provide hundreds of new jobs.

But now New Jersey has gone from the aspirational epicenter for offshore wind to a graveyard of Orsted projects.

Murphy trashed Orsted and said the state would still become a “global leader” in offshore wind.

“Today’s decision by Orsted to abandon its commitments to New Jersey is outrageous and calls into question the company’s credibility and competence,” the governor said in a statement. “As recently as several weeks ago, the company made public statements regarding the viability and progress of the Ocean Wind 1 project.”

There was good news for other states. Orsted is all in on Revolution Wind, a project off the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and is continuing construction of South Fork Wind in New York. Other projects in New York and Maryland have an uncertain future but remain alive.

The Biden administration pointed to active projects in New York and Virginia, one of which was advanced earlier on Tuesday by federal regulators, as concrete results of their push to boost offshore wind.

“While macroeconomic headwinds are creating challenges for some projects, momentum remains on the side of an expanding U.S. offshore wind industry — creating good-paying union jobs in manufacturing, shipbuilding, and construction; strengthening the power grid; and providing new clean energy resources for American families and businesses,” White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa said in a statement.

In New Jersey, Orsted’s announcement leaves Murphy and state Democrats holding a doggy bag of political headaches.

One of the Murphy administration’s top legislative priorities this year was a law meant to save Ocean Wind 1 from financial ruin by allowing the company to keep federal tax incentives that would have otherwise been used to lower ratepayer bills.

The Legislature narrowly approved the bill amid intense opposition from Republicans and coastal voters before recessing this summer ahead of the election, in which all 120 legislative seats are on the ballot.

Now, a week before that election, Republicans will be able to point to the unpopular vote being all for naught.

Murphy administration officials on Tuesday night began pushing back against criticism they expect of the law. They argued that the law, called a bailout by some, has not resulted in any money going to Orsted because the project wasn’t built. They argue instead that the company had put $300 million on the table that the state gets to keep thanks to the law — though $100 million of that will almost certainly be subject of a dispute between the company and state.

“I have directed my Administration to review all legal rights and remedies and to take all necessary steps to ensure that Orsted fully and immediately honors its obligations,” Murphy said in his statement.

New Jersey utility regulators have approved three wind farms in recent years by agreeing to direct ratepayer dollars to buy power from them. Only one is alive following Orsted’s exit — Atlantic Shores, a company that is considered to be a more straightforward and accommodating partner. Atlantic Shores has said its costs have gone up 30 percent since the project was approved by the state in 2021. But now it’s unclear if there is any political support to help the company, especially after lawmakers put their careers on the line to help a company that jumped ship months later.

The Murphy administration — which has perhaps the nation’s most ambitious offshore wind energy goal — is currently entertaining bids from four energy companies to build other wind farms. The administration also hopes that other states will use products by EEW, a wind-related manufacturer that has set up shop in South Jersey.

Broadly speaking, the offshore wind industry has been struggling to fulfill its early promise, and a whole generation of projects that were approved before or during the pandemic have been asking for money to deal with inflation and other rising costs. Biden, Murphy and other Democrats have said that they are fighting climate change by moving toward clean energy, a large part of which was supposed to be offshore wind. In New York, regulators recently declined to prop up offshore projects that were asking for money, but then quickly approved other offshore projects to keep momentum going in the industry.

It’s unclear if New Jersey is ready to move that quickly, but the industry certainly has boosters at the state Board of Public Utilities, where officials are often seen wearing pins depicting wind turbines on their lapels.

Support for offshore wind in New Jersey is complicated by opposition from coastal residents who don’t like the sight of wind farms and by critics of Murphy’s clean energy agenda who argued it was too costly.

“This is the sad but always inevitable conclusion to the story — the underlying math never added up, and no amount of state or federal bailout money could change that fact,” said Michael Makarski of Affordable Energy for New Jersey, a business and labor group critical of offshore wind.

Support for the industry was also ruined by the unfounded claim that projects were contributing to a spate of dead whales washing ashore.

State Sen. Michael Testa (R-Cumberland) posted an image on social media Tuesday night that said #SavedTheWhales and, in another post, said, “The people of NJ have officially sunk the wind out of Ørsted & @GovMurphy’s sails.”

At one point, support for the industry was bipartisan and included labor unions, environmental groups and industry advocates. In New Jersey, a law to encourage the industry was signed by then-Gov. Chris Christie.

3 top military leaders

Senate eyes vote on 3 top military leaders after Marine general hospitalized

If successful, the chamber will approve top leaders for the Navy, Air Force and the Marine Corps’ No. 2 as soon as Wednesday.

By CONNOR O’BRIEN

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has lined up a vote to confirm the Marine Corps’ second ranking officer after the service’s leader was hospitalized over the weekend, leaving a leadership vacuum at the top of the Corps.

Schumer also teed up votes on President Joe Biden’s picks to serve as the top officers in the Air Force and Navy.

Those votes could take place as soon as Wednesday if all senators agree to speed up the process.

The trio of senior nominees is caught up in Sen. Tommy Tuberville‘s (R-Ala.) blockade of hundreds of military promotions in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy. The move by Schumer would head off maneuvering by Republican senators to force votes on the nominees themselves.

Tuberville is pushing for a vote to confirm Lt. Gen. Christopher Mahoney as assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, a day after it was announced that Commandant Gen. Eric Smith was hospitalized on Sunday. The New York Times reported that Smith had an apparent heart attack while jogging, though the service has declined to go into specifics.

On the Senate floor Tuesday evening, Schumer said the gap in Marine leadership is an “avoidable emergency” created by Tuberville’s hold, a move he called “supremely risky.”

“Emergencies happen, and when they do the chain of command must be able to respond,” Schumer said. “But thanks to Senator Tuberville, there is no current No. 2 with the Marine Corps to fill in.”

The looming confirmation votes also mean the entire Joint Chiefs will be Senate confirmed for the first time since the summer. The nominees advanced by Schumer to lead the Navy and Air Force — Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Gen. David Allvin — are holding their respective posts on an acting basis.

The Alabama Republican is receiving renewed criticism over his hold after the Marines tapped a three-star general to take over for Smith, while the assistant commandant position is also vacant. Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) speculated that Smith’s need to perform two jobs amid the hold may have contributed to his medical emergency.

Reed said Smith’s condition demonstrates “how destructive these holds are.”

Tuberville isn’t the only Republican aiming to force action on senior picks.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) has been circulating cloture petitions in recent weeks to force votes on Franchetti and Allvin.

Schumer’s move marks just the second time during the monthslong hold that the Democratic leader has allowed standalone votes on military promotions. Schumer has long resisted efforts to hold individual votes, noting that it would eat up hundreds of hours of floor time. Instead he has put the onus on Republicans to intervene.

A similar move by Tuberville last month forced Schumer’s hand on three top nominees. The Senate confirmed Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Smith in separate votes.

Too Small To Be useful....

Trump fights loom large for a Supreme Court that has tried to ignore him

A tiff over a Trump-related T-shirt is just the beginning. The justices, despite their reluctance, may soon have to take up a flurry of major Trump legal disputes.

By JOSH GERSTEIN

Donald Trump is staring down four criminal prosecutions that could lead to his imprisonment, a civil trial that threatens to dismantle his business empire and a series of lawsuits aimed at throwing him off the ballot in next year’s presidential race.

Yet, on Wednesday, the Supreme Court will take up an entirely different Trump-related case: the weighty dispute over whether a T-shirt maker can get a trademark for a mocking reference to Trump’s genitalia.

The slogan at the center of the case — “Trump Too Small” — could just as easily describe the Supreme Court’s view of many of the former president’s legal entanglements since he lost his bid for reelection in 2020.

Time after time over the past three years, the justices have turned down Trump’s pleas for the high court to intervene in his various legal matters. Often, the court has batted down his requests without issuing any opinion, a signal that the legal issues raised were, well, too small to justify the court’s attention.

But as Trump’s legal problems grow larger, the justices may have little choice to wade in, even if they’d prefer not to deal with polarizing cases involving the former president.

“Are they going to be forced to address those cases? I think the answer is yes,” said George Washington University law professor Paul Schiff Berman. “Whether the Supreme Court wants to get involved in issues relating to the election, it’s going to be very hard to deny cert in every one of these Trump-related appeals that we expect to see happening.”

Trump hasn’t made any formal request yet for the justices to step into any of his criminal prosecutions since he made history last April by becoming the first president or former president to face criminal charges. But on the day after he was arraigned in August on federal charges of attempting to undermine the 2020 election, Trump called publicly for the high court to step in and head off the wave of criminal cases pummeling him.

“It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social.

He might soon get his wish. A federal judge’s gag order on Trump is likely to generate fast-moving emergency appeals. Arguments about whether Trump is immune from prosecution also appear destined for the Supreme Court, because they raise untested and momentous issues about presidential power and accountability. And many legal scholars say the justices must soon resolve a brewing question about whether Trump is an insurrectionist who is disqualified from future office under the Constitution.

How the high court would resolve any of these issues is highly uncertain. The court is, of course, quite conservative, and three of the nine justices are Trump appointees. But as the past three years illustrate, the court has not always looked favorably on Trump’s most brazen legal arguments, especially when those arguments seemed more tied to his personal fortunes than the policies he advanced while president.

A taunt, a T-shirt and a First Amendment challenge

Trump isn’t even a party to the T-shirt trademark case being argued before the justices Wednesday, although he was still in office when the Patent and Trademark Office turned down a request from California labor lawyer Steve Elster to gain exclusive rights to use the phrase “Trump Too Small” on shirts and similar attire.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar’s petition asking the justices to take up the case dances around the double entendre at the core of the dispute, dryly attributing the phrase to “a memorable exchange between President Trump and Senator Marco Rubio from a 2016 presidential primary debate” and noting that Elster said he wanted to express the idea “that some features of President Trump and his policies are diminutive.”

Rubio instigated the exchange by saying on the campaign trail that Trump has “small hands” — a claim that dates to the 1980s, when Spy magazine frequently mocked the real estate mogul as a “short-fingered vulgarian.” Trump picked up the gauntlet at a debate a few days later, declaring: “He referred to my hands if they’re small, something else must be small. … I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee you.”

Federal law bars the issuance of trademarks that refer to a person without that person’s consent, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled last year that the law violated the First Amendment by limiting “speech critical of government officials or public figures.”

Three years of snubs

The T-shirt tussle is a break from what appeared to be an aversion by the justices in recent years to hearing Trump-related cases.

In the wake of the 2020 election, the Supreme Court turned down a series of cases directly challenging the vote, including a Trump-backed bid by the state of Texas to overturn Biden’s victory in four battleground states.

The justices also decided not to take up Trump’s request to shield his White House records from the House committee probing the events of Jan. 6, 2021, although Justice Clarence Thomas signaled he’d have blocked Congress’ access to the files at least temporarily, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a three-page statement indicating that a former president might be able to invoke executive privilege in other circumstances.

Without any recorded dissent, the Supreme Court also turned down an emergency bid by Trump to put classified documents found by the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago estate back into a court-ordered review process after a federal appeals court carved them out. When the appeals court shut down that process entirely, Trump didn’t even bother asking the justices to restore it.

And Trump struck out at the court last year when he attempted to block a House committee from a long quest to obtain his tax returns. Again, no justice came to his aid. About a month later, the House panel made public six years of his tax filings.

Big battles ahead

But many lawyers doubt the high court will manage to completely duck the cloud of legal problems swirling around Trump now, as he tops the field for the Republican presidential nomination and for a rematch with Biden.

Within weeks, the justices could be asked to rule on a raging dispute about a gag order that a federal judge has issued against Trump. The judge is presiding over special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion prosecution against the former president.

Smith’s team says the order is necessary to prevent intimidation of witnesses and even potential jurors as a result of Trump’s frequently caustic attacks on his perceived enemies, often via social media posts. Trump and his lawyers say it’s an unconstitutional infringement on his free speech rights in the heat of a political campaign.

Trump has appealed the gag order to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, but if it doesn’t lift the directive, he’s likely to ask the justices to do so.

Trump also is seeking to dismiss the federal election subversion case altogether, on grounds that he is entitled to “absolute immunity” for acts taken as president. If the judge rebuffs that request, Trump’s lawyers are expected to take that up on appeal and possibly to the Supreme Court.

Similar fights over the immunity issue are looming in the three other criminal cases against him: a federal prosecution in Florida for allegedly retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, a state prosecution in Georgia for alleged attempts to tamper with the presidential election results there and a state prosecution in New York over his handling of payments to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election.

But the biggest 2024-election-related legal fight that the justices are likely to confront in the coming months is an ongoing series of battles aimed at throwing Trump off primary and, potentially, general election ballots in various states.

These legal efforts, relying on a provision of the 14th Amendment, argue that Trump supported an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and therefore is disqualified from holding office again.

The efforts are gathering momentum this week. On Monday, a trial got underway in a state court in Denver on a lawsuit brought by Republican voters aimed at knocking him off the ballot there. On Thursday, the Minnesota Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on a similar attempt in that state. Legal challenges claiming Trump is ineligible to run as a result of his actions after the 2020 election are pending in at least 20 states.

While some legal experts have been pushing for the Supreme Court to resolve the issue quickly, others say it’s already basically too late to do so in an orderly way, with the first primaries and caucuses set for mid-January.

“There’s no time,” said Boston University law professor Jed Shugerman. “It puts the court in an impossible position. … It is impossible for them to reach a decision before the primary process is over on both sides.”

However, Trump allies say that if he is struck from the ballot anywhere in the country, the justices must drop their past reluctance to take up Trump-related cases.

“They must take this case because these are republic-ending tactics,” former Senate Judiciary Committee GOP counsel Mike Davis said Monday on a podcast hosted by GOP activist Roger Stone.

Davis said the court has acted in “weaselly ways” in the past to avoid legal issues raised by Trump but will have to grapple with any attempt to knock him off the ballot in part because his supporters will view such a move as just what some accuse Trump of: an outrageous attack on democracy.

Said Davis: “These Supreme Court justices will have to put on their big boy pants.”

Rafah crossing

Egypt opens Rafah crossing for foreign nationals and injured Palestinians

People from Britain, Finland, Austria, Czech Republic and other nations can leave Gaza during “time-limited” periods.

BY MARI ECCLES

Foreign nationals are being allowed to leave Gaza via Egypt — the first people to be given permission to exit the Palestinian territory since the war between Israel and Hamas began.

A limited number of wounded Palestinian civilians have also entered Egypt through the Rafah crossing to receive medical treatment.

The U.K’s foreign office wrote on X: “We understand the crossing will be open for controlled and time-limited periods to allow specific groups of foreign nationals and the seriously wounded to leave.”

“It is therefore likely the departure of British nationals from Gaza will take place in stages over the coming days,” it added.

A list of foreign passport holders who can leave via the crossing was agreed following a deal between Israel, Egypt and Hamas brokered by Qatar, according to Reuters.

It includes people from Austria, Finland, the Czech Republic, Britain, Japan, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Australia and Jordan. Some 500 people are on the list expected to leave Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Ambulances carrying the first group of injured evacuees from Gaza have already crossed the border, according to Egyptian media.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote on social media that the WHO “welcomed” the move but added: “We need an immediate acceleration in the flow of medical aid permitted into Gaza.”

After Hamas killed more than 1,400 people on October 7, Israel launched airstrikes and, recently, ground operations across Gaza, killing more than 8,500 people, including thousands of children, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health. 

Strikes hit Gaza refugee camp

Another wave of Israeli strikes hit Gaza refugee camp as crossing opens for foreigners and wounded

The Hamas-run government said the strikes killed and wounded many people, but the exact toll was not yet known.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Israeli airstrikes hit apartment buildings in a Gaza refugee camp for the second day in a row Wednesday, Palestinian officials said, as the territory’s only functioning border post opened to allow foreign passport holders to leave for the first time since war broke out over three weeks ago.

Al-Jazeera television, one of the few media outlets still reporting from northern Gaza, aired footage of devastation in the Jabaliya camp near Gaza City and of several wounded people, including children, being brought to a nearby hospital. The Hamas-run government said the strikes killed and wounded many people, but the exact toll was not yet known.

The Al-Jazeera footage showed nearly identical scenes as the day before, with dozens of men digging through the gray rubble of demolished multistory buildings in search of survivors.

The toll from Tuesday’s strikes was also unknown, though the director of a nearby hospital said hundreds were killed or wounded. Israel said those strikes killed dozens of militants, including a senior Hamas commander who was involved in the militants’ bloody Oct. 7 rampage that ignited the war, and destroyed militant tunnels beneath the buildings.

The strikes came as Israeli ground forces pushed to the outskirts of Gaza City, days after launching a new phase of the war that Israel’s leaders say will be long and difficult. As when Israeli troops first pushed into Gaza in larger numbers over the weekend, internet and phone service was cut for several hours Wednesday.

The isolated Palestinian enclave, home to 2.3 million people, is in the grip of a severe humanitarian crisis amid a siege imposed by Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. Over half the population has fled their homes, and supplies of food, medicine, water and fuel are running low. A territory-wide blackout has left hospitals reliant on generators that could shut down soon as Israel has barred all fuel imports.

The strikes in Jabaliya underline the anticipated surge in casualties on both sides as Israeli troops advance toward the outskirts of Gaza City and its dense residential neighborhoods. Israeli officials say Hamas’ military infrastructure, including hundreds of kilometers (miles) of underground tunnels, is concentrated in the city, which was home to some 650,000 people before the war.

Despite the deteriorating circumstances, no one has been allowed to leave Gaza, except for four hostages released by Hamas. Another captive was rescued by Israeli forces earlier this week. But a limited agreement appeared to have been reached Wednesday.

The Palestinian crossing authority said more than 400 foreign passport holders would be permitted to leave for Egypt, as would some wounded people. Egypt, however, has said it will not accept an influx of Palestinian refugees because of fears Israel will not allow them to return to Gaza after the war.

Dozens of people could be seen entering the Rafah crossing — the only one currently operating — and ambulances carrying wounded Palestinians exited on the Egyptian side. More than 80 Palestinians — out of many thousands wounded in the war — will be brought in for treatment, Egypt’s Health Ministry said, and a field hospital has been set up in an Egyptian town near the crossing.

Those who remain behind are contending with multiple crises, made worse Wednesday by the communications blackout. The Palestinian telecoms company Paltel said internet and mobile phone services were gradually being restored in Gaza following a “complete disruption” that lasted several hours.

Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org attributed both disruptions to “measures imposed by Israel.” Alp Toker, the director the group, said “service remains significantly below pre-war levels.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross said such blackouts make it harder for civilians to seek safety. “Even the potentially life-saving act of calling an ambulance becomes impossible,” said Jessica Moussan, an ICRC spokesperson.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, meanwhile, said that Gaza’s only hospital offering specialized treatment for cancer patients was forced to shut down because of lack of fuel, leaving 70 cancer patients in a critical situation.

More than 8,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 21,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Palestinian militants also abducted around 240 people during their incursion and have continued firing rockets into Israel.

The Israeli military confirmed Wednesday that nine soldiers have been killed in fighting in northern Gaza, bringing the total number of soldiers killed since the start of the ground operation to 11.

Israel has been vague about its operations in Gaza, but residents and spokesmen for militant groups say troops appear to be trying to take control of the two main north-south roads.

An estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled south from Gaza City and other northern areas following Israeli orders to evacuate, but hundreds of thousands remain in the north.

Israel has allowed international aid groups to send more than 200 trucks carrying food and medicine to enter from Egypt over the past 10 days, but aid workers say it’s not nearly enough.

Israel has vowed to crush Hamas’ ability to govern Gaza or threaten it, while also saying it does not plan to reoccupy the territory, from which it withdrew soldiers and settlers in 2005. But it has said little about who would govern Gaza afterwards.

In congressional testimony on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested that “at some point, what would make the most sense is for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza.”

Hamas drove the authority’s forces out of Gaza in a week of heavy fighting in 2007, leaving it with limited control over parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinian support for the President Mahmoud Abbas has plunged since then, with many Palestinians dismissing the PA as little more than Israel’s police force because it helps suppress Hamas and other militant groups.

The war has meanwhile threatened to ignite more fighting on other fronts. Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group have traded fire daily along the border, and Israel and the U.S. have struck targets in Syria linked to Iran, which supports Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups in the region.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an military spokesman, said Israeli forces “intercepted a threat” overnight south of the southernmost city of Eilat that did not pose any risk to Israelis and did not enter Israeli airspace, without elaborating. A day earlier, the military said it shot down what appeared to be a drone near Eilat and intercepted a missile over the Red Sea. Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed the attacks.

Lay out need for AI rulemaking

US and China join global leaders to lay out need for AI rulemaking

At a two-day AI summit held by the United Kingdom, the likes of Gina Raimondo, the U.S. Commerce Secretary, and Věra Jourová, Europe’s digital chief, called for unity.

BY MARK SCOTT, TOM BRISTOW AND GIAN VOLPICELLI

The United States and China joined global leaders to sign a 27-country agreement on the risk of AI that launched a two-day AI Safety Summit.

In a major diplomatic coup for the British hosts, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo took the stage on Wednesday morning alongside Wu Zhaohui, China's vice minister of science, at the summit at Bletchley Park — a former military installation north of London where British engineers used early forms of computers to break German codes during World War II.

The site — symbolic of what London believes is a similar global need to rein in the potential harms of artificial technology — forms the backdrop for efforts by politicians, tech executives and academics to find new ways to police a technology evolving faster than almost all governments can respond to it.

This week alone, the U.S. government and G7 group of leading Western democracies published separate efforts to regulate artificial intelligence in the form of a White House executive order and voluntary code of conduct, respectively. The EU expects to complete its separate Artificial Intelligence Act by early December and the United Nations’ newly-created AI advisory board will provide its own recommendations by the end of 2023.

“We will compete as nationals. But even as we compete vigorously, we must search for global solutions for global problems,” said Raimondo, who is traveling to the United Kingdom alongside U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. "The work, of course, does not begin and end with just the U.S. and the U.K. We want to expand information sharing, research, collaboration, and ultimately policy alignment across the globe."

In a summit communiqué, published Wednesday, 27 countries and the EU signed the so-called Bletchley Park Declaration on AI. The document focuses solely on so-called “frontier AI,” or the latest version of the technology that has become popular via digital services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. 

The signing countries include both China and the U.S. despite the world’s two largest economies battling over everything from technology to geopolitical power. The voluntary statement commits governments to work together toward trustworthy and responsible AI — catchwords for the safe use of the emerging technology.

“China is willing to engage on AI governance for the promotion of all mankind. That’s our objective,” Wu Zhaohui, China’s vice minister of science and technology, told the audience in Bletchley. The official sat on stage next to the U.S.’s Raimondo despite the countries’ ongoing tension.

References to global AI regulation efforts undertaken by international organizations such as the United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which were featured in an earlier draft, did not make it to the final communiqué. Questioned about that in a press briefing, U.K. Digital Minister Michelle Donelan said that the summit “complements and doesn't cut across the existing processes” unfolding at the international level, and that officials from the U.N. and the OECD see the U.K.'s initiative as “as a missing piece of the [AI regulation] puzzle” as it specifically deals with advanced frontier AI.

The British government announced the next AI Safety Summit will be held in South Korea in May, 2024 and a third event is planned for France by the end of next year. The U.K. and the U.S. also announced plans to work together on AI Safety Institutes, which are expected to exchange analyses.

Věra Jourová, the EU’s digital chief, welcomed the renewed efforts to rein in potential risks associated with the most advanced systems of artificial intelligence. The 27-country bloc has been working on its own AI legislation for the last three years. But the Czech politician acknowledged much had changed over that time period when it came to what AI systems could now do.

“We have a common obligation for doing this right,” Jourová told the British audience Wednesday in reference to global efforts to set guardrails for the emerging technology. “The future will ask us if we did the right thing at the right moment.”

Regulate AI

The race to regulate AI: How California could go beyond Biden

“I see the benefit of a single system of regulation, but none of us trust that D.C. can get there fast enough. AI is moving at such a rapid clip,” Bay Area Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan told POLITICO.

By LARA KORTE

California Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan wants the Golden State to take the lead on regulating artificial intelligence before it’s too late.

President Joe Biden this week signed an executive order marking the most ambitious national effort yet to guide a rapidly-evolving technology. The sweeping measure was praised by both industry and consumer advocates as an important first step, but without more forceful action from Congress, its impacts are likely to be limited.

Enter California — home of the globe’s most powerful tech companies and the Democrats who have become increasingly willing to go up against them.

Bauer-Kahan, a Democrat whose Bay Area district includes major tech hubs, is championing an effort to prohibit “algorithmic discrimination” — regulating automated decision tools that make a determination that may have a significant effect on a person’s life, such as in hiring, medical decisions, or parole rulings.

Her bill didn’t make it out of the Legislature this year, but it attracted the attention of tech companies and industry groups across the nation. We caught up with the lawmaker shortly after her trip to D.C. for Biden’s announcement to hear about what’s next for her legislation, and the future of AI in California.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity

You just got back from Washington, where you met with White House leaders about AI regulation. After that trip, and Biden’s sweeping executive order, what do you see as California’s role in this arena?

“I think [Biden’s order] is very complementary … but I think our work will go a step further in ensuring that we’re creating a market for safe AI.”

Do you think Washington is looking to California to lead on this issue?

“I wouldn’t say Washington is looking to California. I think they would like to be the ones acting — there’s no question in my mind — but I don’t think they can.

I think they are open to the states acting. It does create a patchwork across the country that is really hard to comply with for these companies that will be operating across state borders. So I see the benefit of a single system of regulation, but none of us trust that D.C. can get there fast enough. AI is moving at such a rapid clip.“

AI is such a broad field. Why did you zero in on the question of algorithmic bias with Assembly Bill 331?

“I have been on the privacy committee my entire tenure, so five years now, and I had seen our previous chair, Assemblymember [Edwin] Chau, do his bills, and every single one failed on this question of ‘What is AI?’ and the definition of AI.

So I came into this thinking, ‘OK, that can’t be what stops this, because we have to protect society, so how do we think about it differently?’

To me, this felt like the lowest-hanging fruit, and the most important thing to do first because we all agree, hopefully, that we should not be discriminating in these consequential areas.

I think a much larger stab at AI is much harder, because we don’t really know where it’s going at this point.”

But even your bill, as narrow and low-hanging as it was, didn’t pass. What does that say about the path forward for regulation?

“It didn’t pass in the black hole of appropriations, so I think that is a different beast. But it did really get incredible support in committee, and every Democrat voted for it, including very moderate members, and Republicans who sat on those committees spoke very positively about it — they didn’t actually vote for it — but they were not pooh-poohing it in ways that I actually was anticipating, to be honest with you.

I do remain optimistic that this is something we can build consensus around.”

Can you tell us why you think it failed and what you’ve learned for the next round?

“It was a really tough budget year. And anything we do in this space, if we want it to be enacted in a meaningful way and we want meaningful enforcement, it will require us to build up expertise and it will require us to build up our agencies to do what they are not doing today.

A year ago, when we first started drafting legislation, ChatGPT had not even been dropped.

I think people are much more aware, even a year later, how prolific this is in our lives, and that we as a government are actually behind the ball.

There were people who would say to me, ‘This is premature,’ and I would say ‘Fifty percent of these decisions are being made by AI today’ — and that was a year ago. I imagine today it’s even more. So we really need to catch up to where the technology is going.”

California prides itself on being an incubator for innovation, but some of our tech leaders here have derided Biden’s order as stifling innovation. How do you respond to that?

“I was a regulatory lawyer at the beginning of my career, and I understand from that work that it is their job to innovate and create and to build successful businesses and employ Californians. And it is our job as the government to protect society. And I do truly believe that if we’re smart and thoughtful about how we do this, we can do both.”

What will happen if California doesn’t regulate AI?

“What I had hoped for when I introduced AB 331 was that we could set the stage for a national standard, that we wouldn’t have patchwork regulation, but we would have other states follow our lead.

But I think it is dangerous for us to let other states go first and set a standard that is not up to California standards — or that is not as nimble in allowing innovation. “

Do you think it will take another ballot initiative threat like with the privacy laws to pass AI legislation in California?

“I was on a panel a week ago and I said I don’t think we should allow that to happen. But I think that if we don’t act — I just saw a poll that 90 percent of Californians want us to regulate AI.

So if that is where the electorate is, they will act without us if we don’t act. I truly believe that.”

What can we expect from you next year in terms of AI regulation?

“This one [AB 331] will be back, I promise. It won’t be the exact bill, but it will be back.

We’re looking a lot at what is federally preempted and what isn’t.

I imagine there’s going to be a lot in this space.

And to your point about innovation and regulation, we do need to be careful to make sure we balance the two, because there’s a lot of benefit. I’ll tell you the other day I had to help my son with his math, and I used Chat GPT to help me learn how to do it.”

Did it work?

“It did, but it ... it was not advanced math.”