Olympian David Hearn indicted for alleged vandalism of Reflecting Pool

(CALIFORNIA) — As he gears up for a possible presidential bid, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday proposed a national “billionaires’ tax,” — a day after the state wealth tax measure he opposes qualified for the November ballot. 

Newsom’s counter proposal calls for a federal minimum tax rate on Americans worth more than $100 million, rather than a state level one-time 5% wealth tax that the governor argues could be dodged by billionaires who could leave the state for another.

Newsom, who said earlier this month that he is “considering running for president,” said the country should return to pre-2017 corporate tax rates and close offshore loopholes that allow multinationals to shift profits and pay less in taxes. He also said inheritance rules need to be rewritten.

“Over the next twenty years, this country will live through the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in human history, with roughly $124 trillion changing hands. If we do not act, that transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth,” Newsom wrote in a Substack post announcing the proposal on Friday morning.

The announcement comes a day after California’s own billionaire tax qualified for the November ballot, having collected more than double the signatures needed. The measure, a one-time 5% tax on billionaire wealth introduced by healthcare workers union SEIU-UHW, in response to steep healthcare funding cuts resulting from President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” has faced opposition from Newsom, California Democratic gubernatorial nominee Xavier Becerra and major lobbying organizations.

“We can’t let a single advocacy organization, however well-intentioned, write the state’s tax code on its own terms,” Newsom wrote, calling out the SEIU-UHW. 

The measure has also led to heavy spending from billionaires, who oppose the tax. The nonprofit, Building a Better California, which supports committees promoting two competing ballot initiatives that would nullify the billionaire tax initiative, if passed, has raised more $118 million — and $80 million of that comes from Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Newsom says that he understands the “anxiety driving the wealth tax proposal in California,” but that he’s voting no on the California proposal, because he argues the measure dedicates almost all of the revenue to just state-funded healthcare services.

SEIU-UHW Vice President Debru Carthan said Thursday that the coalition supporting the tax would not back down.

“The billionaire tax will be on the November ballot,” said Carthan. “And we intend to win.”

About 250 billionaires would be taxed under the California measure, and the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office says it’s likely that some billionaires would leave the state.

“You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” Newsom writes. “Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes. The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”

Dan Schnur, a political science professor at UC Berkeley, called Newsom’s tax proposal “savvy political positioning” as it helps him enter the 2028 field without being seen as an opponent to taxing the rich.

“He’s not against taxing billionaires, he just has a different way of doing it,” Schnur said. “He now has an answer for progressive Democrats, whether in California or in early primary states, as to why he didn’t support the ballot measure.”

In Washington, another 2028 contender, California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, joined Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders — both of whom supported the California’s initiative — in introducing legislation that would establish an annual 5% wealth tax on billionaires nationwide.

Newsom is also proposing a national public equity fund, giving Americans a stake in economic gains generated by artificial intelligence companies. The fund — aimed at workers left behind by automation — would support universal child care, free higher education, career training and healthcare. 

“Part of this fund could provide a real transition for the laid-off factory worker in Ohio or the 25-year-old coder in San Francisco who sent out a thousand resumes and got zero callbacks,” Newsom wrote. “This could include significant severance and portable benefits while we support them through the transition and into new jobs with programs like enhanced employment insurance.”

“As artificial intelligence reshapes the country, every American should own a piece of the future it builds,” Newsom wrote.

Other potential 2028 contenders are also beginning to stake out their positions on AI. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has introduced legislation proposing a nationwide moratorium on AI data center construction, which would create a temporary prohibition on the construction and expansion of data centers until Congress passes legislation to address the economic, environmental and safety impacts of artificial intelligence.

ABC News’ Will Lennon contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — With government funding in the rear view, the House on Thursday canceled votes for the last two weeks of September, leaving just four days of legislative business before the Nov. 3 midterm elections — a reversal from Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments on the matter earlier this week.

After a vote series Friday morning, lawmakers will fly home for a district work period over the Labor Day holiday, as well as the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas.

The House is scheduled to return on Sept. 14 for four days of legislative business — leaving on Sept. 17 for six full weeks of campaigning ahead of the midterm elections.

The sparse floor schedule is not particularly unusual for an election year — but is a reversal of Johnson’s position earlier this week when he told reporters that he did not intend to cancel any scheduled legislative business this month.

“Republicans are here to work,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday when pressed if GOP Rep. Thomas Massie’s prediction of a schedule change might come to fruition. “We have a schedule, a calendar that’s been out for a year. We are abiding by that calendar. We are going to work all the way through September and every day that’s on the calendar, so long as people like him don’t stop the progress.”

But earlier this week, the House passed government funding through Dec. 11 — clearing the speaker’s top legislative priority ahead of the election.

Lawmakers will return again for a lame duck session on Nov. 9 — scheduling five more weeks of legislative business before the end of the 119th Congress.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department notified a federal judge Thursday night the Kennedy Center will delay implementation of its board’s resolution honoring President Donald Trump for more than a month.  

In a filing late Thursday, the DOJ said the effort to add Trump’s name to the facade and plaza will “not be effectuated before October 8, 2026.”

The Trump administration’s filing came following a two-hour hearing Thursday during which U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper urged the center to delay its plans to give him more time to consider his decision.

The hearing Thursday featured the lead attorney for Ohio Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who sits on the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees as an ex-officio member, repeatedly accusing the Kennedy Center board of thumbing its nose at the court by voting to honor Trump after Cooper ordered his name off the building in a decision earlier this year. 

“I don’t say this lightly,” said attorney Nathaniel Zelinsky.  “We view this as outright defiance.”

“Are they attempting a renaming?” Zelinsky asked. “Absolutely, yes. They are doing the same thing they were told they couldn’t do before.”

Cooper did not signal at the hearing that he necessarily agreed.  Nor did he leap at the chance to issue an order stopping the board from immediately moving forward with its plans to honor Trump as the man who “renovated and restored” the center.  

Instead, he used the hearing to probe both sides on the legality of the board’s move earlier this month to again add Trump’s name to the famed cultural institution.  

Cooper seemed to grapple with whether the renaming of the plaza after Trump violates a 1983 law blocking “additional memorials” in the center’s “public areas.” 

“Could a plaza just outside the building be considered the ‘public area’ of the building?” Cooper asked Zelinsky. 

Zelinsky pointed to the Justice Department’s most recent filing in the case, in which administration lawyers said the board’s intent was to rename “the complex” after Trump.  

But the administration’s lawyer insisted the Kennedy Center would continue to exist as a memorial to John F. Kennedy.

“There is no renaming here,” said Justice Department attorney Brantley Mayers.  “The board has not taken any action to rename.”  

Mayers also said there was “no evidence” that the move to add Trump’s name back onto the building is imminent, even as he said it was “clear that recognizing the president will help address both the financial and structural issues” he said the center faces.  

Cooper shrugged off the bluster of the Trump administration’s most recent filing, which suggested the performing arts center could face demolition in the event he issued an order permanently blocking President Donald Trump’s push to renovate the facility with additions intended to recognize Trump personally.

“That may be great atmospherics,” Cooper told Mayers. “But I gotta say, the first four of five pages of your brief seem to be a non-sequitur.  We’re here to discuss whether the board’s resolution was consistent with my order and consistent with the statutes.”

Cooper said he’ll need to take some time to “give the issues the attention they deserve” and asked the DOJ to delay any plans to give him time to rule. 

Cooper suggested he might impose an order keeping the status quo if center management didn’t go along. 

Zelinsky had asked the judge to act more urgently, pointing to the “overnight” move to add Trump’s name to the center following a similar vote by the board earlier this year.

“They don’t contest that the last time they did this, they ruined the marble,” Zelinsky said.  “Talk about an irreparable injury! They’ve drilled into it and they’re going to be poised to do that again.”

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