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Grafanacon  The founder of the Open Telemetry project says its maintainers may need to turn to AI tools to get some elements robust enough for the project as a whole to graduate.…

Nothing's new on-device dictation tool supports over 100 languages.

DeepSeek says both models are more efficient and performant than DeepSeek V3.2 due to architectural improvements, and have almost "closed the gap" with current leading models, both open and closed, on reasoning benchmarks.

Windows giant offers buyouts to eligible staffers willing to walk

Microsoft has committed to improving the quality and reliability of Windows, and a step on the path to that goal is… encouraging a chunk of its US staff to leave the company.…

After months of furious writing, my book is advancing toward publication. The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy will arrive on August 18, 2026. So far, it will also be published in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Poland.

Writing my first book has been an amazing (and challenging) experience. Sitting in front of the computer for fourteen to sixteen hours a day was not very fun. The tight deadline required me to orient my entire life around the project. This meant abandoning any semblance of a social life and devoting all my time to deep research on fascism, venture capital, genocide, and the significance of the Antichrist, etc. I became a prisoner of the book, but there was no other way.

The payoff: Through the magical processes of reporting, thinking and writing, I produced hundreds of pages of a shocking and painstakingly detailed story that will soon go out into the world—a clarifying and terrifying tale about the radicalization of Silicon Valley. It feels good to be on the other side of so much work. Soon, I can return to aimless walks and drinks with friends. I will also be picking up the pace on this newsletter, which has suffered due to my focus on the book. (Thank you to our paid subscribers for keeping us afloat!)

It has been a year since my book deal was announced, and it’s still mind-blowing to me that this little newsletter has come so far. The Nerd Reich started as a blog where I planned to catalogue the extremist politics of Silicon Valley. At the time, very few people seemed interested, so I didn’t expect much of an audience. Unfortunately, tech fascism has quickly become an open, obvious, and existential threat to democracy. Every day I reckon with the fact that my success means terrible things are happening! 

But there is power in words and stories. My hope is that the book will help people understand what’s happening to our world—and move them toward solutions. We must understand the dire urgency of our situation to see clearly what must be done about it.

And here’s what you can do right now: please pre-order the book! Early sales make a big difference.

• Click here to pre-order The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and The War On Democracy (USA)
• UK readers please click here.

This is going to be an interesting year. I’m already banned from Elon Musk’s X, and the book hasn’t even been published yet.

Dreaming Against The Machine with Adam Becker

Last year, I interviewed astrophysicist Adam Becker, author of More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. Among other things, Becker explained why Elon Musk’s Mars fantasies are total BS (and that episode is still the most-downloaded episode of the Nerd Reich podcast).

Now, Adam has his own podcast, “Dreaming Against The Machine”:

 Dreaming Against the Machine is a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future. Each week, the show’s host, journalist and astrophysicist Dr. Adam Becker, will have an earnest (and entertaining!) conversation with a guest about possible futures, seen through the lenses of history, science, and culture. In a world where tech oligarchs and their power fantasies are driving visions of the future, Dreaming Against the Machine aims to take back the terms of the public conversation about what our world can and should be.

 If you read the Nerd Reich newsletter, you’ll love “Dreaming Against the Machine.” Adam is brilliant and funny, and he finds hope in the darkest of places. Please give him a listen and support his work!

Chipzilla hopes agents, robots, and edge devices make CPUs cool again... now it has to build the chips

Intel is betting on AI to reverse its fortunes, wagering that inference and agentic workloads will restore the CPU to the center of compute - even as its chip manufacturing struggles persist.…

Elementary school principal Renee Golder, 48, and UC Santa Cruz senior Gabriella Noack, 24, are competing to win the Santa Cruz City Council District 6 seat, which covers part of Santa Cruz’s Westside and UC Santa Cruz. 

Incumbent Golder has been on the council for six years and assures voters that they “know what they’re gonna get” if she’s elected. She says she’s not a politician and unsuccessfully searched for the past two years for a replacement candidate to run this year. Despite her desire to not seek reelection, Golder feels called to do the job.  

ELECTION 2026: Read more local, state and national coverage here from Lookout and our content partners

“I want to serve my community, and I consider myself to be a problem-solver more than a leader,” she said. “That’s why I want to do this work.” 

Newcomer Noack offers District 6 voters a young voice who holds several opposing viewpoints to Golder on substantive issues, such as Flock Safety cameras. Driven to run in part by her background of being raised by both her adopted parents of an upper-middle-class background, and by her biological family — who faced incarceration and lower incomes — Noack has firsthand experience of the disparate access to opportunities people have based on the household in which they were raised.  

“If we were born into a different family or into a different place that had different social systems, we wouldn’t ever get the opportunity to be that same person,” she said. “Taking care of our social systems and taking care of my community, it inherently feels like taking care of myself and taking care of my [biological] family.”

The next District 6 councilmember will serve a four-year term representing the district’s approximately 10,500 residents, who reside between the oceanfront homes on West Cliff Drive to the northern portions of UCSC student housing. Of that population, about 6,200 registered voters will be asked to select either Golder or Noack for the race, unlike the mayoral race, which all registered voters in the city will have on their ballots. 

Lookout sat down with the candidates to learn more about their views on development and Flock cameras, their backgrounds and why they’re running for the position. 

A problem-solver seeking reelection

Golder, a longtime teacher and now principal of about six years, has worked for 20 years at Bayview Elementary School. She has two adult children and her husband, Mike, is a firefighter. She says her priorities since her first days on the council have been public safety and homelessness. 

Golder leans more conservative than her counterparts. She has also been a supporter of greenlighting affordable housing construction and she was part of the majority vote to end a contract with controversial license-plate reader firm Flock. 

She said she’s open to approving a contract for a different vendor to replace Flock, saying she would first like to see what the options are and gauge whether her constituents support it.

“I feel like any decision I make, I have to go with the information that’s given to me at the time. It’s not about my personal opinion, when I’m up there on the dais,” she said. “I’m not going to say I would never do anything.” 

Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Golder said her feelings about city development are complicated. On the positive side, she is “so proud” of the city’s collaboration with Santa Cruz City Schools and UC Santa Cruz to get workforce housing up in her district. The school district broke ground on a workforce housing project earlier this year, and UCSC expects to open a workforce and student housing complex later this year. 

As for Golder’s concerns about development, she has been lobbying for more local control. California cities are under state mandates to develop thousands of new units by 2031 – including 3,736 for Santa Cruz. Because Santa Cruz is one of a handful of cities that are on track with building those units, Golder says, she and the city council have been lobbying the state to loosen its grip over development. For example, she said the city could have more control over parking and density bonuses. 

“We’d love to have a little more say in those things, and especially since we’re being proactive and good players,” she said. 

Golder said one of the issues that led her to seek a seat in the first place was the city’s response to homelessness. She said Santa Cruz is “cleaning up the mess” of what city leaders did decades ago: enabling large encampments. Golder says the poor health and safety and environmental damages in encampments make her angry, expressing dismay that anyone could be allowed to suffer like that. 

MAY 7: Hear from Santa Cruz mayoral, city council candidates in an election forum moderated by Lookout

The City of Santa Cruz, often with Santa Cruz police and nonprofit Housing Matters, carry out frequent encampment sweeps citing health and safety concerns. Critics have decried the sweeps, saying that the practice only exacerbates challenges for people experiencing homelessness. This year, advocates also have denounced the end of day services offered by Housing Matters. 

Golder said she understands the concerns and wants to provide care to people experiencing homelessness. But she thinks that should be addressed through a collaboration between nonprofits and county agencies. 

“What I would continue to do moving forward is continued collaboration with the county like we’ve been doing in order to most effectively spend the money that we have,” she said. “We’re a city, we don’t have a health and human services department. Any money that we’re putting out there for the homeless is coming straight from the general fund. It’s money that’s not being used to build a pool. It’s money that’s not being used for raises for SEIU.” 

Among her proudest accomplishments are her work on the council to repair West Cliff Drive after the 2023 storms, as well as her work to better align the city’s recreational offerings with interests at Santa Cruz schools at no cost to families. 

For example, previously some school-parent organizations fundraised to have a skateboard club to bring skateboards and ramps to the schools, but it wasn’t accessible to all kids. Now, through the city’s Parks & Recreation department, any child can, regardless of their income. 

Golder has endorsements from former and current city councilmembers including Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, Ryan Coonerty and Cynthia Mathews. 

A hopeful youth 

What Noack lacks in years, she makes up for in life experience. Born in Baltimore, Noack was later raised in Sacramento by her adoptive parents. Growing up and taking trips along the coast, she fell in love with Santa Cruz’s culture and made it her goal to move here, study here and to raise a family here. 

After high school, she worked manual labor jobs — including stonemason, cook and ski lift operator — for two years to save money for college, which she started in 2022 at Cabrillo College. At Cabrillo, she was a volunteer peer tutor, and also a volunteer teacher in the Watsonville jail. 

UCSC senior Gabriella Noack is running for the Santa Cruz City Council District 6 seat. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

She later transferred to UC Santa Cruz, where she’s double-majoring in philosophy and sociology and is planning to graduate this spring. Through a UCSC program, she’s co-facilitating a technology program at local nonprofit Barrios Unidos that aims to teach vocational technology skills to people who were previously incarcerated. 

In addition to Noack’s drive to ensure fair access to opportunities to all Santa Cruzans, Noack has another idea motivating her to run for city council. Since late last year, she has seen peers transformed by hope following the victories of young leaders – New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Olympic gold medalist Alyssa Liu. 

For a long time, Noack saw peers express “disillusionment with politics,” but she said Mamdani changed that. Liu transformed ice skating, a sport with rigid standards, into something she enjoyed. 

“That’s really how I feel about politics,” she said. “We’ve seen corruption, and it’s made a lot of people, especially in my generation, ignore politics. But I think my generation can be the change, and I want to be a part of that.”

Noack’s positions on the city’s response to homelessness and Flock cameras diverge from Golder’s. Noack said she would not accept another vendor to replace Flock. 

“I think that privately contracting out highly sensitive information to private companies that make a living off of mass surveillance isn’t prioritizing community safety,” said Noack. “No, I would not support another private contract with a different private [automated license-plate reader] system.” 

Last month, Housing Matters ended its day services program, such as showers and mailboxes, leading dozens of people to scramble for other providers. Addressing the area’s dwindling options for people experiencing homelessness, Noack said the city should provide more services and continue collaborating with local nonprofits. 

“I think we need to take this as a lesson, as saying we need government-provided services that can’t just go away without an explanation at the blink of an eye,” she said. “I think that more progressive taxing initiatives are a good way to create this wealth.” 

She’s also against encampment sweeps: “You’re just taking sleeping bags away from people who desperately need them.”

Noack says expanding affordable housing in Santa Cruz is her No. 1 priority. She wants to add more workforce housing and thinks the city should focus on hiring local construction companies, to put dollars back into the pockets of local workers so they can afford to live here. 

“When we’re building in Santa Cruz, if we’re prioritizing local labor, if we’re prioritizing local companies,” she said. “That means that we’re incentivizing our local economy that naturally is going to funnel back into Santa Cruz better.” 

Another priority is for the city council to revisit the city’s district maps. For example, she said that the District 6 map splits up UC Santa Cruz, which means that the university students, who make up a large portion of the city’s population, don’t have a single district that represents them. 

“It’s a huge problem,” she said. “It’s really important that we think about accurate voter representation.” 

Outside of school and volunteering, Noack works two jobs: at Companion Bakeshop farmers market stand and modeling for portrait drawings. She said she has a waitressing job lined up starting this summer, after graduation.

Noack has endorsements from Santa Cruz for Bernie, Get The Flock Out and SEIU Local 521. 

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

The post A Westside elementary school principal and a UCSC student face off for Santa Cruz City Council’s District 6 seat appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

After flubbing the Metaverse, Zuck embraces the Neoverse

Meta plans to deploy tens of millions of Amazon Web Services' Graviton 5 CPU cores as part of a multi-year collaboration that will make the social network among the largest-ever consumers of the cloud giant’s homegrown silicon.…

After 28 years, Java Junction will close its River Street location on Monday. Owner Michael Spadafora cites steep rent increases, prolonged construction disruptions and conflicts with landlord Balboa Retail Partners and property manager JLL. The closure follows months of reduced sales tied to lost outdoor seating and limited communication about the project, said Spadafora. The café’s Seabright and Santa Cruz Harbor locations will remain open.

The post River Street’s Java Junction to close after 28 years, citing rent hike and construction impacts appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Meta has commandeered a big chunk of Amazon's homegrown CPUs (not GPUs) for AI agentic workloads, signaling that a new kind of chip race has begun.

Ailing scaling blamed by Windows-maker for unreadable missives

Microsoft's update to harden Remote Desktop against phishing attacks has arrived. When users open a Remote Desktop (.rdp) file, they should now see a warning listing all requested connection settings - or they would if it was displaying correctly.…

Candidates in the June 2026 primary election filed their first pre-election campaign finance forms on Thursday. Local candidates and ballot measure committees are required to file campaign statements by specific deadlines, disclosing the contributions they have received and the expenditures they have made. 

Of those that filed their disclosures by Thursday night, Santa Cruz mayoral candidate and longtime politico Ryan Coonerty’s campaign received by far the largest total donation amount in the most recent fundraising period, at just over $50,000. District 4 county supervisor candidate Tony Nuñez was a distant second, with slightly more than $20,000 raised.

ELECTION 2026: Read more local, state and national coverage here from Lookout and our content partners

The reports are filed as Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) Form 460s and apply to all candidates and committees that have raised or spent at least $2,000 in a calendar year.

This first filing covers the period between Jan. 1 and April 18. The next pre-election filing is due on May 21, and covers the period from April 19 and May 16. A semi-annual deadline follows on July 31, and covers the period from May 17 through June 30.

The amounts listed are solely cash contributions from individual donors. They do not include loans or non-monetary contributions, and do not include cash expended so far.

Neither Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge candidate, Bryan Hackett and Alisa Thomas, filed a disclosure form by Thursday evening, so they are not included below.

Lookout will update this story with late candidate filings as they become available.

District 4 county supervisor

Tony Nuñez has raised $20,022.99 since the start of 2026. Notable donors include Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds CEO Dori Rose Inda, Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance CEO Jasmine Najera, Santa Cruz Port District Chair Reed Geisreiter, Community Bridges Chief Finance Officer Douglas Underhill, philanthropists Bill and Brigid Simpkins, Low Carbon executive Ed Colligan, former Pajaro Valley Health Care District board member Katie Gabriel-Cox, Gayle’s Bakery & Rosticceria owners Gayle and Joseph Ortiz, tech entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki, Watsonville High School Principal Joe Gregorio, and Community Foundation Santa Cruz County Communications Coordinator Josue Monroy.

Elias Gonzales has raised $5,878 since the start of 2026. Notable donors include former FoodWhat development director and Santa Cruz City Council candidate Kayla Kumar, Ecology Action program manager and local campaign manager Celeste Gutierrez, Santa Cruz mayoral candidate Chris Krohn, and Santa Cruz for Bernie.

Incumbent Felipe Hernandez did not file a disclosure form by Thursday night.

Santa Cruz mayor

Ryan Coonerty has raised $50,115 since the start of 2026, by far the most of any local candidate on the ballot. Notable donors include Sempervirens Fund Director of Government Relations Rachel Dann, Santa Cruz City Councilmember Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson’s 2024 committee, Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley, Santa Cruz Symphony board president Linda Burroughs, former Scotts Valley city councilmember Jack Dilles, former Santa Cruz mayor Cynthia Mathews, longtime politico and Coonerty’s father, Neal Coonerty, Bookshop Santa Cruz owner and Coonerty’s sister, Casey Protti, Meta executive and Coonerty’s brother-in-law Michel Protti, Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, NHS owner Richard Novak, former county office of education administrator Carol Polhamus, county analyst Andy Schiffrin, city planning commissioner Pete Kennedy, Santa Cruz City Councilmember Renee Golder, developer Owen Lawlor, former Santa Cruz City councilmember Martine Watkins, Democratic Central Committee member Andrew Goldenkranz, Granite Construction Vice President of Government Affairs Don Roland, Bay Federal Credit Union CEO Carrie Birkhofer, former Scotts Valley city councilmember Jim Reed, Cushman and Wakefield managing director Reuben Helick, Lincoln, Nebraska, mayor Leirion Baird, and Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read’s committee Friends of Tobias Read.

MAY 7: Hear from Santa Cruz mayoral, city council candidates in an election forum moderated by Lookout

Ami Chen Mills has raised $6,664 since the start of 2026. Notable donors include Harm Reduction Coalition services coordinator Denise Elerick, Campaign for Sustainable Transportation co-chair Rick Longinotti and local activist Jasmeen Miah.

Chris Krohn has raised $5,652 since the start of the year. Early Santa Cruz for Bernie member and co-founder Jeffrey Smedberg is a notable donor.

Gillian Greensite has raised $4,689 since the start of 2026. Housing activist and emeritus UC Santa Cruz sociologist John Hall is a notable donor.

Joy Schendledecker has raised $2,650 since the start of 2026. Notable donors include housing activist and emeritus UC Santa Cruz sociologist John Hall, local activist Jasmeen Miah and Santa Cruz for Bernie.

Santa Cruz City Council District 4

Scott Newsome has raised $5,738 since the start of 2026. Notable donors include Bookshop Santa Cruz owner and Ryan Coonerty’s sister, Casey Protti, city planning commissioner Pete Kennedy, Democratic Central Committee member Andrew Goldenkranz and the Democratic Women’s Club of Santa Cruz County.

Hector Marin did not file a disclosure form by Thursday night.

Santa Cruz City Council District 6

Renee Golder has raised $11,659 since the start of 2026. Notable donors include Santa Cruz City Councilmember Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson’s 2024 committee, Santa Cruz mayoral candidate Ryan Coonerty, developer Owen Lawlor, former county office of education administrator Carol Polhamus, longtime commercial real estate agent William Ow, Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley, former Santa Cruz mayor Cynthia Mathews, Play Bigger CEO and Save West Cliff founder Al Ramadan, Bookshop Santa Cruz owner and Ryan Coonerty’s sister, Casey Protti, and Pacific Wave Surf Shop.

Gabriella Noack did not file a disclosure form by Thursday night.

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

The post A look at local candidates’ first pre-election campaign finance disclosures of 2026 appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

OpenAI's first security hire, Ari Herbert-Voss, thinks more automated bug finding will improve security without costing jobs

Black Hat Asia  Open source models can find bugs as effectively as Anthropic's Mythos, according to Ari Herbert-Voss, CEO of AI-powered security startup RunSybil and OpenAI's first security hire.…

An administrator from San Jose’s Moreland School District will be the new Live Oak School District superintendent starting July 1. 

Moreland School District Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Jennifer Baldwin will be the new Live Oak School District superintendent starting July 1. Credit: Courtesy of Live Oak School District

Moreland Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Jennifer Baldwin will replace Pat Sánchez, who was in the role since summer of 2024. 

“Jennifer has been described as a highly collaborative leader with exceptional integrity and a distributive leadership style,” governing board president Kristin Pfotenhauer said in a statement. “She has a history of team building around a unifying vision resulting in significantly improved student outcomes and strengthened morale for staff.” 

Baldwin, who lives in Santa Cruz, has 30 years of public education experience, ranging from teacher to assistant superintendent. She’s spent the past seven years at Moreland, where she was first the assistant superintendent of human resources and is currently leading educational services. She received a doctorate in educational leadership and innovation from Arizona State University.

“I am truly honored and excited to join Live Oak School District and serve a community so committed to students,” Baldwin said in a statement. “I look forward to partnering with our students, staff, families, and community to build on the district’s strong foundation and create meaningful opportunities for every student to succeed.”

Teachers union president Lauren Pomrantz said teachers are relieved that the school board has made a choice. She said she’s still learning about Baldwin, but heard a “glowing review” from the president of the Moreland teachers union.

“That’s always a good sign,” said Pomrantz, adding that teachers are happy that Baldwin is local and already has many contacts in Santa Cruz. 

Sánchez’s last day will be June 30. 

Have news that should be in Lookout Briefs? Send your news releases, including contact information, to news@lookoutlocal.com.

MORE LOCAL COVERAGE

The post Live Oak School District announces new superintendent appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Capitola’s contract with Flock Safety for automated license-plate readers in the city will continue for another 24 months. Meanwhile, members of grassroots group Get The Flock Out say they’ll continue to let police and elected officials in Capitola and Watsonville, which also has a deal with Flock, know about their concerns with the Atlanta-based company.

The post Capitola automatically renews contract with Flock; anti-surveillance organizers see ‘long road ahead’ appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz County is falling far behind its housing goals, with most jurisdictions on pace to meet barely half their targets – or less, write housing advocates Rafa Sonnenfeld and Janine Roeth. The problem, they write, isn’t a lack of planning; it’s that high costs, fees and delays make building financially unworkable. Proven solutions such as faster approvals and lower barriers are already on the table, but action keeps getting pushed years into the future. Every delay deepens the shortage, drives up prices and pushes more residents out, they write.

The post Delay is driving Santa Cruz County’s housing crisis deeper appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Republican lawmakers are attempting to shield big oil from having to pay for its contributions to the climate crisis, alarming environmental advocates.

New House and Senate bills led by Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) would give oil and gas companies broad legal immunity from policies and lawsuits aimed at holding the industry accountable for damages caused by its emissions.

Dubbed the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026, the proposal would protect the sector from liability. It is similar to a 2005 law that has largely blocked lawsuits against the firearms industry over gun violence.

“To try to legislate that science away is something that’s really alarming.”

The Republicans’ proposal is designed to stop a surge of climate accountability measures launched by states and municipalities—which Hageman’s office called “leftist legal crusades punishing lawful activity,” in a statement. In recent years, more than 70 state and local governments have sued oil companies for allegedly deceiving the public about the dangers of their products. Meanwhile, New York and Vermont have also passed climate “superfund” laws requiring major polluters to pay for damages from past emissions, with other states considering similar policies.

If passed, the new federal legislation would dismiss pending climate accountability lawsuits, void all climate superfund laws and block similar future efforts. The proposals attempt to undermine the very foundations of climate accountability measures, said Delta Merner, lead scientist at the science hub for climate litigation at the science advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists.

Hageman, for instance, in a statement said her bill would “affirm” that the federal government had exclusive authority and jurisdiction over the regulation of greenhouse gases, but legal experts dispute that, Merner noted. The language attempts “to take away the ability for local harms to be decided at the local and state level,” Merner said.

Cruz’s bill, meanwhile, attempts to discredit climate attribution studies—scientific analyses quantifying how much the climate crisis altered the likelihood or intensity of specific extreme weather events—on which some climate legal claims are based. “To try to legislate that science away is something that’s really alarming,” said Merner.

This year, the top US oil lobby, the American Petroleum Institute (API), said blocking “abusive” climate lawsuits was a top priority. Months earlier, 16 Republican state attorneys general asked the justice department for a “liability shield” for oil companies. And last year, both the API and energy giant ConocoPhillips also pressed Congress on draft legislation to limit climate liability.

“The industry knows it’s vulnerable. They are not totally confident they can win cases on their merits.”

“Immunity is clearly something the industry has been after,” said Cassidy DiPaola of the pro-climate superfund group Make Polluters Pay. “We’re in a period where there’s a Republican trifecta that will basically bow down to the industry, and I think they view this moment as one of their biggest opportunities to get it.”

Industry groups have praised the federal proposal. In a joint statement, Mike Sommers, the API CEO, and Chet Thompson, the CEO of the influential fuel lobby group American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, thanked Hageman and Cruz for the legislation, saying: “Congress should act decisively to reaffirm federal authority over national energy policy and end this activist-driven state overreach.”

Asked about advocates’ concerns about the new policy proposal, API referred the Guardian to its previous statement.

The bills’ introduction came as red states are also proposing to block climate lawsuits and superfund acts. Last week, Tennessee passed a measure blocking big oil accountability efforts, and Utah greenlit a similar law earlier this month. Other states are considering similar policies, but none of them are as straightforward about their goals as the federal proposals, said DiPaola.

“It’s honestly shocking how direct the federal lawmakers are being with with their wording,” she said. “We kind of anticipated it being a little bit more discreet, but they’re not hiding the ball whatsoever. They’re saying it out front: ‘You can’t hold us accountable.’”

The industry and its allies have made a variety of other attempts to thwart climate accountability efforts, including challenging superfund laws in court and attempting to have litigation thrown out. “In some ways, this federal bill feels like a capstone [of the] multi-layered strategy that we’ve been watching unfold, where the fossil fuel industry is attacking climate accountability on several fronts at once,” said Merner.

The industry has seen mixed results. Some climate litigation, for instance, has been thrown out. But last week, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from the Trump administration that aimed to pre-emptively block Hawaii from suing big oil. “The industry knows it’s vulnerable,” said Merner. “They are not totally confident they can win cases on their merits.”

Jay Inslee, a former Washington governor, has recently been raising concerns about the fossil fuel industry’s desire for a liability waiver, particularly since Hageman indicated in February that a federal proposal was in the works. “Every elected official who cares about the interests of their constituents more than those of corporate polluters should oppose this disgraceful proposal,” Inslee said in a statement.

It’s not clear whether Republicans could muster the votes to pass the legislation as it is written. But the bills could help lay the groundwork for a similar measure to be slipped into a larger piece of must-pass legislation, or via the reconciliation process when measures can pass with a simple majority rather than the 60-vote filibuster threshold. “We don’t think that the strategy is to pass this bill as a freestanding bill,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, which backs the litigation against the oil industry. “But bad things can happen at any minute, and we’ve got to be ready for it.”

The introduction of the federal legislation, Wiles said, “demystifies” oil industry allies’ objectives.

“If there was any doubt that they would try to do something this outrageous and this damaging to the justice system and to people’s rights to go to court to seek redress for harms, there’s no doubt any more,” he said.

Oval Office resident rants about Blighty's Digital Services Tax with threats that don’t quite add up

Donald Trump has threatened to whack the UK with a "big tariff" if it doesn't scrap its tax on large US tech firms, reviving a long-running spat over who gets to skim the proceeds from Silicon Valley's global empire.…

The top candidates vying to be California’s next superintendent of public instruction took the stage for two virtual forums this week, detailing how they would handle achievement gaps, artificial intelligence concerns, LGBTQ+ protections and more. 

Six candidates participated in the forums hosted by EdSource, about six weeks before voters will go to the polls for the June 2 primary election. Whoever wins the position will help shape the future of nearly 6 million students in California. 

ELECTION 2026: Read more local, state and national coverage here from Lookout and our content partners

Tuesday’s forum featured San Diego Unified School District Board Member Richard Barrera, former State Sen. Josh Newman and Chino Valley Unified Board President Sonja Shaw. Wednesday’s forum included State Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Nichelle Henderson, a trustee for the Los Angeles Community College District. 

The forums took place in a wide-open race with no clear front-runner. None of the candidates reached even 10% of support from likely voters in a survey released last week by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The achievement gap

One of the biggest challenges facing the next superintendent will be persistent achievement gaps across racial and ethnic groups, as well as between low-income and affluent students in California schools. 

Newman suggested three approaches: reforming curriculum to “make sure that standards are set and maintained in every district,” ensuring that teachers are paid enough to live in the communities where they teach and addressing chronic absenteeism by “bringing kids back into school and making them engaged.”

Muratsuchi touted his role in passing the Local Control Funding Formula, California’s education funding formula designed to give more resources to districts with the highest percentages of low-income students. He said the funding formula has helped, but acknowledged more needs to be done, especially before students reach kindergarten.

“We need to make sure that we provide more quality child care, quality preschool experiences for all kids, regardless of income, in order to close the achievement gap,” he said.

Barrera pointed to San Diego Unified as a model for improving outcomes at the high school level. He said that when he joined the district’s board, only 45% of all students overall, and 25% of Black and Latino students, were graduating having completed the A-G requirements, the college preparatory courses needed for admission to a California State University or University of California campus.  

“We raised the standards for our graduation rates,” he said. “We said we want A-G to be the sequence that all students take and all students have access to. And we got those numbers up to 70% for the entire student body, and also 70% for Latino and Black students.”

Artificial intelligence

Several candidates agreed that artificial intelligence in the classroom presents risks and challenges and called for stricter guardrails.

Shaw said she is concerned that artificial intelligence is eroding students’ critical thinking skills and called for more research, including creating a “group to study” AI. 

Henderson said students should be taught “how to utilize AI to enhance their learning” and prepare for future careers, predicting that many jobs they will hold have yet to be created “because of the innovations and the rapid change of AI.”

Rendon pointed to New York as a model, where he said teachers are “front and center” in the discussions around how to use artificial intelligence in the classroom. He said California should do the same. “Incorporate teachers into that conversation to make sure it’s not just administrators who are telling schools and telling teachers how they need to be incorporating AI,” he said.

Protecting LGBTQ+ students

The forums were not designed as debates, but some of the candidates did clash over California’s efforts to make LGBTQ+ students feel more welcomed in schools. Those efforts include the SAFETY Act, a 2024 law prohibiting districts from requiring staff to disclose a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Barrera said California’s laws protect LGBTQ+ students, but added that there are “uneven protections” depending on the district. He said his district, San Diego Unified, partnered with Equality California, an LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, and has been recognized as a model district on issues including sexual health education curriculum and anti-bullying efforts.

Moments later, Shaw accused Barrera and San Diego Unified of financial mismanagement for “putting money towards ideologies in the classroom.” She also claimed groups such as Equality California are discriminatory, and that “our daughters don’t feel safe in their locker rooms and in their sports.” Shaw has worked to keep transgender athletes out of girls sports.

Barrera responded by citing estimates that there are 65,000 to 80,000 transgender students in California schools and noted that the mother of AB Hernandez, an openly transgender track athlete from Jurupa Valley, sent Shaw’s district a cease and desist notice, which accused Shaw of cyberbullying.

“That’s not the kind of leadership that we need in California,” Barrera said.

Shaw’s stances were also brought up during Wednesday’s forum, when Rendon said that if he isn’t elected, he wants to make sure that a candidate other than Shaw wins the election. He said Shaw is “very much against the principles that we as Californians have stood for repeatedly.”

Opposition to restructuring CDE

Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed that the operation of the California Department of Education be shifted away from the superintendent of public instruction and instead to the governor and the State Board of Education.

Unsurprisingly, the candidates all said they oppose that idea.

Shaw noted that voters elect the superintendent to run the Department of Education, calling it a “constitutional seat.” Barrera agreed, noting that California voters in the past have rejected initiatives to eliminate the superintendent as an elected position. He called Newsom’s proposal an “end-around” to bypass voters.

Newman suggested the proposal, if implemented, would decrease accountability. That view was echoed the following night, when Muratsuchi said the state superintendent serves as part of a “checks and balance system” to the governor. 

Rendon voiced perhaps the strongest opposition to the proposed changes, which he called “awful.”

“I think they would be bad for Californians. I think they would be bad for California schools. And ultimately, they would be bad for democracy at a time when we see the demise of democracy, threats to democracy all over the world,” he said.

Henderson, who arrived late to Wednesday’s forum, was not present when Newsom’s proposal was brought up, but she has previously said she is against the idea.

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