Daily IntelligenceReport

Nearly 500 Orange County public workers strike over a 3% raise offer

The workers keep roads, flood channels, landfills, parks and beaches running for 3 million residents. The union says the county stalled for months and is filing unfair labor practice charges.

Members of Teamsters Local 952 at OC Public Works, OC Waste and Recycling, OC Community Resources and other departments walked out on Tuesday. The union asked to begin bargaining in December 2025, and workers say the county made no meaningful progress until August. The strike could delay road and flood channel maintenance, landfill operations, park and beach upkeep and repairs to county and first responder vehicles. The county says it respects the right to strike and has "contingency plans in place to minimize service disruptions."

"We deserve more than the 3% they offered us."

Sam Carlin, representative, Teamsters Local 952

Carlin said the county "has not bargained in good faith" and went without a proposal "for months and months."

Sources

• CBS Los Angeles

ICE drags a father from his car in front of his screaming children in Harrison, New Jersey

Video shows agents surrounding Jhon Maykel Correa Sangucho's SUV and pulling him out. DHS says it arrested him over "multiple traffic violations."

ABC7 reports the arrest took place the day before the Marble Hill shooting. DHS says Correa refused repeated lawful orders to leave the vehicle, and that he will stay in ICE custody pending removal proceedings and "receive due process." The mayor and town council issued a statement, and Rep. Rob Menendez said the administration's mass deportation campaign is "tearing families apart."

"It is heartbreaking to hear of children witnessing such a frightening and potentially traumatic experience in their own community."

Harrison Mayor James Fife and the Town Council

Sources

• ABC7 New York

New York officials call for a Target boycott, saying ICE staged at the Marble Hill lot before the shooting

Officials say residents have reported agents staging there for months. The city comptroller, who oversees the pension funds, has written to Target's board demanding an independent review.

Elected officials, clergy and immigrant advocates gathered outside the Marble Hill Target, where officials say agents staged before shooting Belgal on 8 October with his 5-year-old son in the back seat. They demanded that Target publicly condemn ICE's use of the lot and bar agents from it, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams told New Yorkers not to shop there. Comptroller Mark Levine wrote to Target's board demanding an independent review "to look at the human rights risk, the legal risk, and the business risk." The rally was organized by Until Freedom, whose co-founder Tamika Mallory has pushed a Target boycott since the company dropped its diversity programs in January 2025. The lot is owned by Kingsbridge Associates, a Washington Square Partners affiliate. Target spokesperson Lauren Frank has said the company has "no agreement in place with ICE or any other immigration enforcement agencies."

"Target has been silent. If you can take our money, you should be able to stand up and protect us, and until you do, boycott Target."

Councilmember Pierina Sanchez

State Sen. Gustavo Rivera says an explicit ban would make agents on the lot trespassers. In August the American Federation of Teachers called a back-to-school boycott of Target over its response to the immigration surge in the Twin Cities.

Sources

• Gothamist
• NY1
• Bronx Times

Jayapal answers the Omar raid by pointing to border czar Homan's $50,000 bag of cash

Homan was recorded taking the cash from undercover FBI agents in 2024. Trump's Justice Department dropped the case, and the attorney general who cleared him has since been fired.

Jayapal posted a nearly three-minute video Tuesday, the day after federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's home. Under the Biden administration, the FBI ran a sting in which agents posing as businessmen sought help winning government contracts if Trump returned to power, and Homan was recorded in September 2024 taking $50,000 in cash. Trump-appointed officials closed the case. Attorney General Pam Bondi said last year the investigation "found no credible evidence of any wrongdoing"; Trump fired her in April. Democracy Defenders Fund and Democracy Forward are fighting for the case records and the recording. This September, Homan said there was an "ongoing criminal investigation" into Omar. Rep. Don Beyer called Homan "the man leading Trump's authoritarian 'investigation' of Rep. Ilhan Omar right before the midterm," and said the Justice Department "simply dropped the case and covered it up." A poll released Tuesday found 59% believe Trump has done illegal or unethical things to cash in.

"If the administration wants to investigate anyone, maybe they should look at themselves first. Anyone remember this?"

Rep. Pramila Jayapal

Sources

• Common Dreams
• CNN (via KVIA), 2025
• CBS News

Musk becomes the biggest donor of the midterms with $366 million

The world's richest man has put $276 million into right-wing groups since July alone, led by $158 million to the Senate Republicans' super PAC.

The figures, first reported by the New York Times ahead of Thursday's federal filing, top the nearly $300 million Musk spent in 2024. Besides the $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, he gave $76 million to his own America PAC, $20 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, $10 million to the Republican Governors Association, $10 million to a PAC backing Ken Paxton against Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race, and $10 million in January to Nate Morris in Kentucky, who withdrew in May to become ambassador to Colombia. The ads he funds use anti-trans rhetoric and call Democrats "radical socialists," and he reposted an America PAC video on Talarico calling it "madness." Musk led DOGE last year before his falling-out with Trump. Spectrum News reports Republicans have moved money from Senate races in North Carolina and Georgia to Kansas and Texas.

"Radical socialists."

Musk-funded ads, describing Democrats

Sources

• The Guardian
• Spectrum News

"Medicare for Americans" turns out to be a public option that leaves private insurers in place

Majority Democrats, a group of Democratic lawmakers whose top funder is a hedge fund billionaire, rolled out the plan in a six-minute video. It recycles Buttigieg's 2020 "Medicare for All Who Want It."

The video promises to "offer every American who is sick and tired of private insurance a plan through Medicare" while letting people keep private coverage, a government plan that would compete with the insurers. It warns that Medicare for All "comes with a $40 trillion price tag" over a decade, without noting that a Yale School of Public Health study in August put Medicare for All's yearly cost about $1 trillion below the current system's $5.3 trillion. The latest Axios-Ipsos poll found a plurality of Americans support replacing private insurance with Medicare for All. Democratic operative Lis Smith, who has worked for Buttigieg, called the plan a "transformative, once-in-a-generation healthcare reform." The Lever called it "the billionaire option."

Medicare for All supporters want to "blow up the whole system and tax the hell out of everyday Americans."

Majority Democrats video, on Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez

Sources

• Common Dreams
• Majority Democrats

Data centers on federal land become a fight in Nevada's governor race

The Townsite project near Boulder City was the first data center approved on federal public land. More than a dozen more are in planning in a state that is 80% federal land.

The Bureau of Land Management approved the Townsite site after developers moved to adjacent federal land. A judge then ruled the government could not rely on an old environmental review written for a solar farm, stalling construction. Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, does not oppose data centers on public land if they have community support, signed an agreement with the Trump administration to streamline infrastructure projects, and in September ordered data centers to pay more toward schools. Attorney General Aaron Ford, the Democratic nominee, pledged to oppose data centers on public land and proposed pausing new tax abatements pending an audit.

"Not only did we not get to decide anything or have a say."

Janelle Sorenson, Boulder City resident

Sources

• AP
• AP (via PBS NewsHour)

San Diego police explore buying AI to write police reports

The department calls it an "exploration phase." Its body cameras are made by Axon, which sells an AI report writer called Draft One.

SDPD issued a request for information on 31 July for AI that helps officers write reports. Neighboring Chula Vista already uses AI for reports. Criminologist Ian Adams found AI-written reports were rated worse on accuracy, and law professor Andrew Ferguson warns of "digital poisoning" of facts in criminal trials. Khalid Alexander of Pillars of the Community says it removes humanity from policing.

AI "may be an option to reduce time spent on certain tasks to put officers back in the field responding to additional calls for service faster."

Ashley Nicholes, SDPD spokesperson

Sources

• AP
• Voice of San Diego

Cruz report finds consultants take $200 million or more a year from the schools' internet program

The report's fixes include moving the E-Rate program, and the Universal Service Fund behind it, into the annual appropriations process.

Sen. Ted Cruz's report, "The Cost of Connection," finds some consultants charge school districts $100,000 or more a year. Milwaukee Public Schools has received more than $115 million over two decades and still pays more than $250,000 a year for consulting. The report recommends simpler rules, public disclosure of consultant pay, focusing support on high-cost and high-need schools, and that Congress consider moving E-Rate and the Universal Service Fund into annual appropriations.

"Consultants should not be skimming hundreds of millions of dollars off a program intended to serve children."

Sen. Ted Cruz, chair, Senate Commerce Committee

Sources

• Reuters
• Senate Commerce Committee

FTC and seven states ask a court to hold Martin Shkreli in contempt of his lifetime pharma ban

They say he has traded the stocks of at least 60 drug companies and run public campaigns to short them since leaving prison in 2022.

In 2022 a federal court barred Shkreli from "directly or indirectly participating in any manner in the pharmaceutical industry" after finding he ran a scheme that raised Daraprim's price from $17.50 to $750 a tablet. The FTC says he has since traded drug stocks, broadcast opinions on drug companies' management, and livestreamed lessons, telling viewers, "I'm showing you how to trade and invest in biotech." The filing seeks divestiture, a fine equal to his trading profits and escalating penalties up to jail.

"It doesn't matter what trades I make because I can always find a couple of biotech stocks to smoke."

Martin Shkreli, on a livestream, per the FTC filing

Sources

• The Guardian
• FTC