Cal. Child Sex Traffic Bill Advances After Language Removed To Make Purchase Of 16 & 17-YOs Felony

 California lawmakers on the Public Safety Committee advanced a bill that would crack down on child sex trafficking - but only after language was removed that would have made it a felony to purchase 16 and 17-year-olds.

Assemblymembers Mia Monta (D) and LaShae Sharp Collins (D) abstained from the vote.

Assembly Bill 379, introduced by Assemblymember Maggy Krell (D), targets buyers of commercial sex. Krell previously worked at the California DOJ, where she became known for prosecuting the operators of Backpage.com - which was shut down in 2018 for facilitating sex trafficking and prostitution.

The bill is opposed by Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez (D-Los Angeles), who says the bill would disproportionately impact communities of color.

So, it's racist to crack down on child sex trafficking. Got it.

The bill, introduced in February, includes provisions to create a misdemeanor for loitering with the intent to solicit commercial sex - and imposes fines as high as $25,000 for soliciting minors under the age of 16. It also allows felony human trafficking charges for repeat offenders who buy sex from minors.

It also would create a first-of-its-kind Survivor Support Fund - which would go to community-based organizations led by survivors of human trafficking.

As the Epoch Times notes further, while introducing the bill to the committee, Krell said it would support victims and give law enforcement better tools to prosecute the buyers.

“Demand is the buyers,” she said. “It is the rows of cars of men lined up on street corners to buy teenagers for sex,” she said. “Without the buyers, we don’t really have sex trafficking.”

The bill drew support from the California District Attorneys Association, the California Police Chief Association, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, the City of Stockton, the Association for L.A. Deputy Sheriffs, the League of County Board of Supervisors, and more.

The bill also reinstates penalties for offenses that were decriminalized by a 2022 California law, such as loitering with the intent to purchase a victim. Those convicted would face a misdemeanor and pay up to a $1,000 fine that would go toward the fund for survivors.

Opponents, including survivors of child trafficking, focused on this aspect of the law in their testimony.

Jess Torres, a child trafficking survivor and director of programs at Rising International, respectfully opposed the bill, saying it hinges on a vaguely defined suspicion of intent to do something criminal, rather than evidence.

“This bill will only escalate violence against survivors because persons who are trafficked in commercial sex are harmed when they operate in a criminalized environment,” Torres said. “When buyers believe they are taking on greater risk, they often become more demanding, and that pressure frequently becomes compromising.”

Leela Chapelle of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking also opposed the bill, arguing that loitering with intent laws harm communities they claim to protect and are unconstitutional.

“We do believe that this will cause the same issues that we have seen over and over again, that we spend our resources clearing the criminal records of survivors, that should not have happened in the first place—these criminal records that prevent them from lives of stability,” Chapelle said.

Opposition also included the LA Public Defenders Union and the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office.

The bill is now due to advance on to the Assembly Appropriations Committee before it can advance to a full vote on the Assembly floor and the Senate.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/california-child-sex-trafficking-bill-advances-after-language-removed-make-purchase-16-17

Trump warns of a 'tariff wall' for pharmaceutical companies

 President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that there will be a tariff "wall" for pharmaceutical companies operating in the United States after a certain amount of time.

https://www.aol.com/news/trump-warns-tariff-wall-pharmaceutical-214613530.html

US and Ukraine sign deal to form reconstruction investment fund, Washington says

 On April 30, the United States and Ukraine signed an agreement to establish the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund.  In recognition of the significant financial and material support that the people of the United States have provided to the defense of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion, this economic partnership positions our two countries to work collaboratively and invest together to ensure that our mutual assets, talents, and capabilities can accelerate Ukraine’s economic recovery.

Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, the Treasury Department and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) will work together with the Government of Ukraine to finalize program governance and advance this important partnership.

“Thanks to President Trump’s tireless efforts to secure a lasting peace, I am glad to announce the signing of today’s historic economic partnership agreement between the United States and Ukraine establishing the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund,” said U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “As the President has said, the United States is committed to helping facilitate the end of this cruel and senseless war. This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term. President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine. And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.” 

Both the United States and the Government of Ukraine look forward to quickly operationalizing this historic economic partnership for both the Ukrainian and American people. 

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0126

US House votes to rescind approval for California heavy-duty truck rules

 The House on Wednesday voted to axe California’s clean truck rules — defying Congress’s own internal watchdog in doing so.

The House voted to nix the Biden administration’s approval of the California rules, which aim to cut pollution and planet-warming emissions from trucks, using a using a tool known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA).

One of the truck rules the House voted to overturn explicitly seeks to make more trucks electric, while the other seeks to limit emissions of nitrogen oxides, which can form smog and also contribute to asthma and respiratory infections. 

The measures passed 231-191 and 225-196.

Thirteen Democrats voted with Republicans for the resolution on the first vote, and 10 did the same on the second vote. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) was the only Republican to vote with Democrats against the measures. 

The CRA allows Congress, with just a simple majority in both chambers and presidential approval, to reverse recent regulations, evading the Senate filibuster’s 60-vote threshold. It’s sometimes used at the start of a new administration to eliminate regulations put forward by the previous one.

However, the votes come in defiance of the Government Accountability Office — a nonpartisan congressional watchdog that sometimes issues legal opinions. 

That office has determined that because the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval came in the form of a waiver rather than a rule, it is not subject to the CRA. 

By holding the votes anyway, House Republicans are demonstrating they are willing to carry out their agenda regardless of whether the nonpartisan arbiter deems them legal. 

Rachel Weintraub, executive director of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, a group that supports environmental and other regulations, described the decision to defy the Government Accountability Office (GAO) as a violation of congressional norms.

“The system has been in place since [the] CRA was established,” she said. “The unprecedented nature of ignoring the GAO …is profound.”

Republicans, meanwhile, celebrated the vote.

“The Biden Administration left behind comply-or-die Green New Deal mandates that threaten to crush our trucking industry and drive up costs for hardworking Americans,” said Rep. John James (R-Mich.), who sponsored one of the resolutions, in a written statement.

Senate Republicans, who also want to go after California’s rules, are facing a similar challenge. The Senate parliamentarian, a rules authority for the upper chamber, has also said the waivers allowing the rules to go forward are not subject to the CRA.

Senate Republicans have signaled they could seek to defy the parliamentarian but have not yet said definitively whether they actually plan to do so.

If they do, they could be setting up a legal and procedural kerfuffle — especially as the parliamentarian also sets the rules for what provisions can go into a high-stakes budget package that also evades the filibuster.

Sean H. Donahue, an environmental lawyer with the firm Donahue, Goldberg & Herzog, said a legal challenge could be expected if the resolution is ultimately signed into law.

“We’d be in uncharted territory, but I think you’d have an illegal action … I would expect that there would be pushback,” said Donahue, not to be confused with a Trump EPA appointee of the same name.

The House was initially slated to also vote to axe California’s phaseout of gas-powered cars, but postponed that vote until Thursday.

California is allowed to set its own vehicle pollution rules — with the approval from the EPA — because of a clause in the Clean Air Act that comes in response to historic smog problems in Los Angeles. That provision allows the EPA to waive laws that typically preempt states from setting regulations that go beyond the scope of those set at the federal level.

More than 10 percent of the U.S. population lives in California, giving it a significant share of the auto and trucking markets. And its rules are also adopted by some other states, making them even more impactful.

https://myfox8.com/news/politics/hill-politics/house-votes-to-overturn-california-clean-truck-rules-defying-internal-watchdog/

MTA plops another $5M to stop bus fare dodgers, but half of passengers still aren’t paying

 The MTA plopped down another $5 million to combat fare evasion on buses – as scofflaws continue to avoid the farebox with impunity.

A pilot program that gives MTA workers handheld devices to check if Select Bus Service passengers paid for their rides will be extended to 2030 after a vote by the transit agency’s board Wednesday.

Transit officials, however, were mum on how well the pilot — for which board members approved a $4.9 million contract modification going to Cubic Transportation Systems — worked in the first place.

More than 50% of passengers on Select Bus Service lines don’t pay the fare, the MTA’s own numbers show.

“The success is that the technology worked,” said Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA construction and development, without providing any specific figures.

The MTA extended a pilot program to stop fare evasion on buses.Stephen Yang
Fare evasion has been a costly problem across the MTA’s system of trains, buses, bridges and tunnels, with $700 million lost in 2022 alone.

The transit giant’s quest to recover the lost revenue has led to some embarrassingly ineffective solutions, such as $700,000 electronic panel doors that were defeated on TikTok with a simple hack and a $1 million study into the psychology of fare beaters.

Fare dodging on buses reached a peak of 49% of all bus passengers in summer 2024, although it has been inching downward since, MTA data shows.

The MTA last summer deployed fare inspectors, known as EAGLE teams, to stop scofflaws on buses.

Nearly half of bus passengers last summer skipped the farebox, according to MTA data.Christopher Sadowski

EAGLE teams have been using the so-called “onboard validation devices,” which are mounted on MTA workers’ mobile phones to scan credit cards to see if passengers indeed made payments, officials said.

MTA boss Janno Lieber said the devices will help the agency fight fare evasion on buses.

“This is what the New York Post wants, pushing back against fare evasion,” he said, adding its down in subways 30% since last summer.

“There’s been for the first time in some years some turnaround in bus fare evasion and we’re determined to keep moving in the right direction by having a more effective fare evasion enforcement system and these devices are essential to do that.”

https://nypost.com/2025/04/30/us-news/mta-plops-another-5m-to-stop-bus-fare-dodgers-but-half-of-passengers-still-arent-paying-data/

Harvard FINALLY admits in its Oct. 7 report that woke politics have wrecked the school

 Harvard University has admitted the ugly truth: The left’s long march through its faculty and administration has borne poisonous fruit in the form of blazing Jew-hatred and the overall ruin of its campus climate and curricula.

Don’t take our word for it: Just read the elite Ivy’s own report on the Tentifada that sprang up in support of Hamas after Oct. 7. 

The committee tasked with looking into this antisemitic conflagration detailed how over decades what began as a tense, even rancorous zone of disagreement on campus — specifically, over Israel’s efforts to defend itself from terrorist aggression and the national aims of various Palestinian political factions — changed into an “attempt by student activists to drive Israeli students (and Jewish students who feel connected to Israel) out of student life.” 

This process was in train well before Oct. 7, and results (to use the words of a faculty member the report cautiously cites) from a “general shift of power from regular faculty and to para-academic administrators” that “has played an outsized role in the politicization and radicalization of academia and its intellectual and reputational decline.”

In short, Harvard has suffered “an ideological effort underway to weaken the post-World War II social consensus that antisemitism is a form of bias” along with “politicized instruction that mainstreams and normalizes” Jew- and Israel-hate (though the school couches this in a dodge: i.e. “what many Jewish and Israeli students experience as antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias”). 

Turns out when you hand the keys to a school over to a cadre of frothy-lipped ideologues, its quality declines.

And it’s not just Jews who suffer: Everyone loses out on the diversity of thought and free exchange of ideas that should characterize life on campus.

Instead of reading the greats or mastering organic chemistry, they get crammed with gutter propaganda and crackpot theory.

That it took a mini-pogrom and months of public scrutiny to get Harvard to admit this glaring fact is beyond insane. 

Yet, for all the report’s circumlocutions and efforts to bend over backward for armchair terrorists and the malleable-minded children of the American elite, Harvard has admitted the truth. 

Embracing the blood libels of the left around Israel and the academic theories that undergird them and letting radicals abandon teaching for indoctrinating does foundational harm to any university. 

Harm that is likely irreparable without (to use a buzzphrase popular among THamas fellow-travelers) systemic change. 

Whether the Trump administration’s rightful cutoff of funding will effect such change is an open question. 

ut the woke-academic cat is now out of the bag. 

And there’s no shoving it back in. 

https://nypost.com/2025/04/30/opinion/harvard-finally-admits-in-its-oct-7-report-that-woke-politics-have-wrecked-the-school/

US, Ukraine sign long-awaited mineral deal two months after Trump, Zelensky White House fight

 The Trump administration and the Ukrainian government finalized a deal Wednesday creating a joint fund to boost the reconstruction of the war-torn nation, calling for investment in Kyiv’s oil, gas and rare mineral industries.

Ukraine Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko posted on X that the fund would be managed 50/50 and that future military aid from Washington could be considered a contribution.

The pair were in an explosive argument inside the White House that led to Ukraine’s president being booted.AFP via Getty Images

“Together with the United States, we will create a fund that will attract Western investments to our country,” Svyrydenko said. “We will manage this fund jointly with the United States. Neither party will have a majority vote, reflecting an equal partnership between Ukraine and the United States.”

The fund will be filled with income only from new licenses “for projects in the field of critical materials and oil and gas,” which will be split in half between the US and Ukraine, according to Svyrydenko.

She further said the United States “will help attract additional investment and technology” to drum up more business for the fund, which will be supported by the US International Finance Cooperation, or “DFC.”

“DFC will help us attract investments and technologies from funds and companies in both the US and the EU and other countries that support our fight against the Russian enemy,” Svyrydenko said.

The fund will not be taxed “so that investing yields the greatest possible results,” she added.

Trump and Zelensky had an intimate conversation at Pope Francis’ funeral.PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE HANDOUT HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The Treasury Department in a statement announcing the agreement touched on the US’ prior support of Ukraine during Russia’s 38-month-old invasion.

“In recognition of the significant financial and material support that the people of the United States have provided to the defense of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion, this economic partnership positions our two countries to work collaboratively and invest together to ensure that our mutual assets, talents, and capabilities can accelerate Ukraine’s economic recovery,” the statement read.

However, Svyrydenko clarified that “the agreement does not mention any debt obligations of Ukraine to the US,” which was a key sticking point for Kyiv.

“The implementation of the agreement will allow both countries to increase their economic potential through equal cooperation and investment,” she wrote.

A framework agreement had been circulated for at least two months and was thought be close to finalization Feb. 28. However, on that day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky got into an Oval Office shouting match with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance and left without the agreement being signed.

The minister said she hoped the agreement would “become a signal to other global players that it is reliable to cooperate with Ukraine in the long term — for decades.”

https://nypost.com/2025/04/30/us-news/us-ukraine-sign-long-awaited-mineral-deal/