Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign Good evening and welcome to the local news. Today is Thursday, May 1st. I'm Lauren Schmidt reporting for KMUD. In tonight's news, infant presumed dead after vehicle plunges into Trinity River.
California Attorney General highlights abuse in detention facilities and Congressman Huffman on Donald Trump's first hundred days rising authoritarianism and the fight for democracy. Stay tuned news for those stories and more coming right up.
Tonight's news begins with tragedy. A nine month old infant is presumed dead following a car crash on Highway 299 east of Burnt Ranch near Big Flat. Gaymed News spoke with the California Highway Patrol for an update on recovery efforts.
Please be advised some details in this story may be distressing to our listeners.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: This is Officer crick with the CHP out of Trinity County. On May 1st at approximately 1:35 this morning, a single vehicle collision occurred on SR 2992 miles east of Big Flat in Trinity County. The driver was traveling eastbound on 299 at a known speed when the vehicle traveled off the roadway down an embankment and into the Trinity river where it became submerged. The driver and the adult passenger sustained minor to moderate injuries and they self extricated out of the vehicle and were taken to a nearby hospital.
During the self extrication the child whereabouts became unknown and the adult or the driver believed the baby to still be in the vehicle.
The vehicle was located by helicopter and the recovery is underway as we speak.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: The driver, a 21 year old woman from Shasta Lake and a 19 year old male passenger sustained minor to moderate injuries and were transported to Trinity General Hospital.
A nine month old infant who was also in the vehicle remains missing. Although the child has not yet been located. The crash is presumed to be fatal.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: That is correct.
Until the baby is found, it's presumed fatality. There is a tow company en route to extract the vehicle to potentially hopefully locate the baby.
It's unclear on whether the baby's in the vehicle still or was washed away. So there are search and rescue and like I said, there's a tow truck on its way for getting the vehicle out.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: As for any known factors that may have led to the collision, Officer Crick says the incident is still under investigation.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: We're not aware of any other factors. Alcohol or drugs were not a factor either.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Motorists on Highway 299 are asked to use caution as recovery efforts are ongoing.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: If anybody happens to be driving along Tranny river and they see something unusual, definitely report it.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Cane by News extends our condolences to the family of the missing child.
Burn permits are now required in Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino counties and across much of California. As May 1 marks the beginning of a drier, warmer period, Cal Fire's Shane Lampkin, a battalion chief with the Mendocino unit, shared more on why permits are necessary and how they help prepare prevent catastrophic fire in our region.
[00:04:57] Speaker C: Yeah, we're just now getting into fire season. Cal Fire is going to require a burn permit for any burning that's going on in the sra. The SRA is the state responsibility area. So if you reside within the state state responsibility area, you will need to acquire a burn permit to help with the fuel reduction process on your property.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: While Cal Fire no longer uses the term fire season, since wildfires can now happen year round, May 1 still marks the traditional start. That's why burn permits are now required as of today.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: It's that in between time where everything's still kind of green. It's transitioning to drier fuels, and we want to make sure that everybody's doing it safe. It's a, it's a very educational portion of fire season because we do encourage the fuels reduction to continue to happen, though. We don't want anything to escape anybody's control. So there's a lot of education that goes along with this. And going through the burn permit process, you obtain a lot of knowledge and coaching that goes along with the burning, the fuel reduction season.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Applying for a burn permit takes less than five minutes and helps prevent wildfires by enforcing safety rules tied to weather and fire danger. It notifies fire agencies so they aren't dispatched unnecessarily to control the burns and helps landowners avoid fines or liability from unauthorized or out of control fires.
[00:06:46] Speaker C: As you go through the steps on the burn permit process, you're going to have all the tools you need to successfully complete burn projects on your property. You just want to make sure that you're paying attention to the weather. You're making sure you're paying attention to air quality control restrictions because they, they ultimately have the say of whether you can burn or not. And then when burn season is over, that is declared by the unit chief. And there'll be a time where we're not going to allow burning on the property whether you have a permit or not, because the extreme hazard that it could possess of a fire growing out of control.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: A complete burn ban is expected within the next two months, depending on vegetation, moisture and how many fires Cal Fire has responded to.
[00:07:44] Speaker C: I want to encourage everybody to burn and get it done as early as possible, but weather is going to dictate that and then with weather dictating that, it'll be the call of the unit chief. And in years past it's been somewhere between June 1 and July 1, but it's very weather dependent and we don't want to put our the citizens of Mendocino county in a bad situation by allowing them to continue to burn when conditions don't warrant for it.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: In closing, we asked if there's any models or forecast predictions on how severe this year's fire season may be.
[00:08:26] Speaker C: I would always expect to be on the more cautious side of things.
We do have a significant grass growth this year which has the capability to carry fires into the more extreme areas, the steeper topography, the thicker fuel such as the brush and the timber. So just be cognizant of the grass that we have out there. That's the most receptive fuel that we have in the county. And if that starts and it can carry, there's always a potential for large growth.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: For helpful tips and more information on burn permits, you can visit fire.ca.gov in state news Geo Group named among the most dangerous employers as California attorney General highlights detention center abuses KPFA's Kennedy Cuello.
[00:09:30] Speaker D: Reports Geo Group, a private prison company with four immigrant detention centers in California, landed on the Dirty Dozen list for dangerous employers. That's according to the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, or cosh, which releases a yearly report on worker safety in the United States, including a list of what it calls the 12 worst employers in protecting its workers. National COSH said it added Geo Group to the list on account of its treatment of immigrants who participate in the voluntary work program available at the detention centers. Senior attorney with California Collective for Immigrant justice, or CCIJ Mariel Villarreal says the program is not actually voluntary since detainees have to purchase necessities while in the center.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Prices for like toothpaste or a razor.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Or more food or food that doesn't have bugs in it, you know, is provided, but at an extremely marked up price.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: And they also have to pay for.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Phone calls to be in touch with their loved ones.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: So being in detention is not free.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: For the person who is being caged. And in order to pay for those things, these basic necessities, they feel forced to participate in this work program.
[00:11:00] Speaker D: Following the release of the Dirty Dozen list, Attorney General Rob Bonta released his own report regarding the abuses that took place at immigrant detention centers across the state, including four GEO Group detention centers. The report detailed abuses that were reported in the centers, including labor abuses. The California Department of Justice found serious civil rights violations in several immigrant detention facilities across the state, citing harmful practices affecting the health, safety and due process rights of detained individuals. The California DOJ flagged poor medical record keeping, delays in critical care, inadequate suicide prevention, and overuse of force, especially against those with mental illness. Additionally, some detainees were placed in prolonged solitary confinement without mental health reviews and denied fair access to legal proceedings. Deputy Attorney General Kelly Burns was a member of the review team for the report. She said abuses by GEO Group included crackdowns on detainees who were protesting against their labor conditions.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: There was a period of time that a number of detainees were on hunger.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Strike to protest the low wages that were associated with the voluntary work program.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: It was just a dollar a day.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: And there was a calculated use of force used against them.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: These detainees were transferred to another facility.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Out of state in response to this hunger strike strike and related to GEO Group. This was a use of force that they did not report to California DOJ when we were inspecting, nor did they report to dhs, OIG when they were.
[00:12:42] Speaker C: Inspecting and we both found out about it otherwise.
[00:12:45] Speaker D: CCIJ's Villarreal echoed similar findings as to what was going on in the detention center. She said that if a detainee refused work assignments, they would simply have to do the task anyways without paying since GEO Group wouldn't hire people for tasks such as cleaning. She emphasized that companies like GEO Group are profiting off of detainees and said the problem may get worse under Trump.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Under Trump, they are hoping to expand the detention population by double it, probably up to around 100,000. That's their plan. And so that just means, you know, double the exploitation, double. Like all of the abuses that are ongoing in these detention centers, which in this case we are highlighting, the labor exploitation that's going on will just massively increase.
[00:13:40] Speaker D: While Bonta is uncertain how the state will proceed, he says it is clear conditions need to change in immigration detention centers. For KPFA News, I'm Kendi Cuel.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: In national news, President Donald Trump holds rally marking 100 days into his second term with boasts of policy winds even as public skepticism and economic strain cloud his agenda. Scott Bhaba shares this report.
[00:14:12] Speaker D: Holding his largest political gathering since returning to office, President Donald Trump celebrated the milestone of the first 100 days of his second administration.
Speaking at Macomb Community College in Michigan, President Trump claimed victory on job creation, border security and other issues.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: This is the best, they say, hundred.
[00:14:33] Speaker D: Day start of any president in history.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: And everyone is saying it. We're just, we've just gotten started. You haven't even seen anything yet. It's all just kicking in.
And week by week, we're ending illegal immigration.
[00:14:51] Speaker D: We'Re taking back our jobs and.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Protecting our great American auto workers and all of our workers, frankly, we're protecting.
[00:14:58] Speaker D: All of our workers.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: We're restoring the rule of law.
[00:15:03] Speaker D: Despite the show of force, Trump faces growing public skepticism. Polls show his approval ratings hovering below 45%, with many Americans critical of his handlings of the economy, trade and the scope of his deportation policies. His push to overhaul global trade through steep tariffs has drawn backlash, particularly from industries grappling with higher costs and supply disruptions. Democratic lawmakers were out in force denouncing the president and his record in office so far. Senate Minority Leader Chuck schumer called Trump's second term so far 100 days of chaos.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: In these hundred days, what has gone up?
[00:15:45] Speaker D: Cost of groceries up.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Energy costs up. Cost of clothes, of homes, of cars up. What has dropped your retirement and 401ks down. The stock market down. The dollar down. And today we saw the trend continue. Consumer confidence down.
[00:16:09] Speaker D: Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson conceded that there had been, quote, bumps along the road during Trump's first 100 days, but insisted the president's term so far had been a massive success. With many campaign promises fulfilled, President Trump has.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Here's a list.
[00:16:26] Speaker C: Removed men from women's sports, ended DEI in the federal government and the US Military, expanded oil and gas extraction to lower prices, taken steps to end unfair trade practices, secured trillions of dollars in new investments in American manufacturing, deported criminal illegal aliens, stood up for religious liberty and rooted out anti Christian bias, combated victims, virulent anti Semitism on college campuses. The list goes on and on and on. That's just barely scratching the surface.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: That's in a hundred days. We're just getting started.
[00:16:55] Speaker C: And that's one of the reasons that we're so excited.
[00:16:58] Speaker D: Meanwhile, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus gathered to express their views of the first 100 days of President Trump's second term in office, with Democratic Representative Jimmy Gomez of California calling Trump's time in office so far a good guide for how to destroy a nation.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: In 100 days, he has tanked the US economy, he has isolated the United States from their traditional allies, and he has driven a lot of those traditional allies into the arms of China in 100 days. Think about that.
[00:17:37] Speaker D: If there was ever going to be.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: A movie written about this 100 days, it would be how to Destroy the World's greatest economy in 100 days or less.
[00:17:47] Speaker D: Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota said that Trump's second administration has been even more damaging and destructive than progressives had feared it would be.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: We knew that the lies, the chaos and the destruction were on its way when Trump got sworn in hundred days ago.
And just in three months, we have seen, seen the gutting of institutions, the.
[00:18:12] Speaker D: Shattering of norms, and the fundamental rights.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Of so many people being trampled on. We have watched Trump tear through our government like a wrecking ball by destabilizing federal agencies, undermining the rule of law, and lashing out against anyone who dares to dissent.
[00:18:36] Speaker D: With economic anxiety rising, global tensions escalating, and key voter blocs showing signs of fatigue, critics warn that the next stretch of Trump's presidency may deepen divisions rather than deliver the stability many Americans crave.
I'm Scott Baba, Pacifica Radio, kpfa.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: In national news, KMUD got an opportunity to speak with our representative for the North Coast, Congressman Jared Huffman, in this interview.
Congressman Huffman, to begin, how would you summarize Donald Trump's first hundred days in office from your perspective in Congress?
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Longest hundred years of my life.
It's a wrecking ball. It is far more extreme, destructive and reckless than even I would have imagined. And I was out there warning the country and lighting my hair on fire about Project 2025 all summer and fall last year. And it's as if Donald Trump took Project 2025 and just said, hold my beer.
I'm going to go way beyond all of this. And that's sort of where we are.
Whether it is just the day to day chaos, what it's doing to our economy, to the global economy, to our trade and foreign policy relationships and alliances, what it is doing throughout the federal government with everybody on edge, if they're not already laid off, worried about a firing that's about to happen. Just the misery of being in the federal workforce, the endless litigation, 130 plus lawsuits and the court orders. This is everything I worried about. And worse.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Top Democrats estimate that over $430 billion in federal funds have been disrupted, 60,000 federal jobs have been cut and 150,000 more are at risk, all within the first hundred days of the Trump administration.
With added instability from a trade war and a weakened federal infrastructure, what kind of political fallout should we expect in the next hundred days?
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it won't get better. That's what you can expect. I mean, you know how recessions work, right? It's consecutive periods of zero or negative growth and you don't know you're in One, until you get the backward looking data that shows it right.
I'm no economist, Lauren, but I'm pretty sure we're in a recession right now. And that will be validated in the next month or two as we get the rest of the data. But the fact that the Q1 data showed a contracting economy tells you that the recession probably began in April. That's my best sense. And all of the analysis I've seen is that it just cannot and will not snap back into an economic recovery. The things he's doing in many cases are pretty structural. The folks that are making investment decisions to leave the US to go somewhere else, the scientists and other people that are fleeing our country, this is going to take a long time to repair the damage. So it's unlike anything I've ever seen. This is going to be a recession that is totally self inflicted and I've never seen that. I've seen recessions caused by, you know, other factors, you know, bank collapses and tech busts and things like that, but never something that a President of the United States just came in and started doing wildly dumb things and crash the economy.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Recent headlines suggest a diverging of loyalty between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, two of the world's wealthiest individuals. Do you think this power dynamic has any implications for public policy?
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know about the intrigue of that clash between those two, but I do know that we have too many mega billionaires that are way too cozy with the President of the United States. It's really unlike anything I've seen. I was at this, I may have told you, I was at the luncheon right after the inauguration, which is kind of an intimate affair. Maybe a couple hundred people at the most in Statuary hall for a lunch. And everywhere I looked was a billionaire. I mean, it was like Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Zuckerberg, Elon.
I mean, they were all there. The guy from Google.
That's crazy to me. And just right in that room, a huge percentage of the entire national wealth of our country was concentrated.
There's something wrong with that.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Now that Congress has returned from recess, Republicans are moving quickly to advance legislation aligned with Trump's agenda. Minority Leader Schumer has described it as tax cuts for the billionaires paired with the dismantling of Medicaid. How are Democrats planning to respond to this push?
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Or we're calling it out on them? We have been working hard the first three months of the year to explain to people why cuts to programs like Medicaid would be so Devastating to help people understand that, you know, even if they don't use Medicaid for their health insurance, I mean, one in three Americans do use Medicaid as their health insurance. But even if you don't, it's going to affect your health clinic's ability to stay open. It's going to affect your health care, because emergency first responders and your ER and everything else is going to be strained, and it could cause, like, a broader collapse, not just for folks who directly depend on Medicaid. I mean, the nursing home system in the US is almost entirely dependent on Medicaid. 100% of the people with disabilities in the US depend on, on Medicaid. And so you start pulling, you know, major amounts of funding out of that program and things unravel very quickly.
So that's, that's our message. We are taking it to them in every way we can in our hearings and our public messaging. And I think you're beginning to see that they're feeling some of that pressure. Some of my Republican colleagues are, you know, expressing doubt about whether they should vote to cut Medicaid.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: One of the foundational principles of American democracy is that the Bill of Rights protects all people, not just citizens. Yet we've seen thousands detained without due process, including some US Citizens, like a child receiving cancer treatment. How do you respond to these humanitarian concerns? Are lawsuits enough, and what role does Congress need to play in defending civil liberties?
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Yes, and, well, lawsuits no to the pot. Are lawsuits enough? Lawsuits are super important because it's a way to quickly get a court order that can hold an abusive policy and a cruel policy in check. And we've been able to support lawsuits that are doing that right now. But no, Congress can't. You know, we're just not bystanders here. Congress is where the legislative power resides. So we are certainly pushing bills. We are using the bully pulpit to the extent we can. And I'm on all kinds of resolutions and letters on this subject. It is deeply dystopic when habeas corpus, you know, one of these fundamental civil liberties seems to seem to just not be respected anymore by an administration that's rounding up people and disappearing them. And you, you pointed it out. I mean, it's not just non citizens, some US Citizens have been caught up in this. And so this is dark and dystopic and un American and unthinkable. And it's one of the biggest fights that we have right now with this administration.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: My final question, Is the United States still a democracy? A recent NPR report cited more than 500 political scientists who concluded that the US has shifted from a full democracy to what's described as a competitive, authoritarian system. Do you agree with this assessment? And if so, what must elected officials and citizens do to reverse that trajectory?
[00:27:31] Speaker B: We're democracy in name, but it is hard to argue with that analysis that in practice we've sort of been bought off by all of these oligarchs and we have allowed this totalitarian leader to assume all of these anti democratic powers. So I take the point. And, you know, I guess the only way to answer that question is to say that the voters now have to decide. You know, one of the things that Donald Trump says to defend all of these outrageous things, all of these ways in which he's flouting the law, flouting the Constitution, flouting Congress, is to say, well, you know what, I told people I was going to do this and they voted me in.
So I don't think that's what Americans voted for. I think they voted for Trump for a variety of reasons, but not to shred the rule of law and upend democracy and replace it with a dictatorship.
But now that the lines have been drawn so clearly, that's going to be what, that's going to be a big part of what the 26 midterm election is all about.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Is there anything else you would like to leave us with today, Congressman Huffman?
[00:28:41] Speaker B: That's about it. First hundred days, you know, really a terrible moment, I think, in the history of this country and hopefully a call to action for everyone who wants to continue to have a democracy.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Again. That was our representative for the North Coast, Congressman Jared Huffman. If you have a question you would like asked, you can email them to newsament.org we will return with Congressman Huffman at the beginning of June.
That's all for tonight's broadcast. Thank you for listening. Thanks to our engineer and thanks to our reporters, Kennedy Cuello and Scott Baba. KMUD News is online. You can find us on kmud.org and now streaming on most podcast platforms where you can download our stories and newscasts for offline listening. If you have questions or suggestions, you can give us a call at 707-923-2605 or or send an email to newsametic.org reporting for KMUD in Redway, I'm Lauren Schmidt.
