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California, other states sue to block Trump effort to roll back fair housing protections

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California and a coalition of other states sued the Trump administration Monday over its efforts to roll back fair housing rules that bar certain types of discrimination by landlords, including against LGBTQ+ people.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rule change threatening funding for states that offer housing protections for LGBTQ+ and other marginalized individuals who are not explicitly covered by federal law is illegal, undermines state efforts to combat discrimination and would push vulnerable people onto the streets.

“In effect, the Trump administration is attempting to roll back civil rights enforcement in housing at the federal level, and pressure states to weaken their own protections as well,” Bonta said during a news conference Monday. “That’s not just bad policy, it’s unlawful.”

Representatives from HUD and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The federal Fair Housing Act explicitly bans discrimination based on seven traits: race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability. Under rules set forth during the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has for years interpreted the law as banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Many states, including California, also have adopted laws explicitly banning discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups not mentioned in the federal law, with California also banning discrimination based on marital status, ancestry, source of income and veteran or military status.

In September, HUD issued new guidance threatening to decertify state housing agencies — stripping their federal funding and ability to investigate discrimination claims — if they provide anti-discrimination protections other than those spelled out in the Fair Housing Act. The guidance also barred state agencies from using federal funds to “promote gender ideology,” “fund or promote elective abortions” or promote illegal immigration, according to the lawsuit.

The guidance followed that of HUD Secretary Scott Turner, a former NFL player and Trump loyalist, who announced last year that HUD would no longer adhere to a 2016 Obama-era rule protecting transgender people from housing discrimination, which Turner said “tied housing programs, shelters and other facilities funded by HUD to far-left gender ideology.”

“We, at this agency, are carrying out the mission laid out by President Trump on January 20th [2025] when he signed an executive order to restore biological truth to the federal government,” Turner said in a statement, referring to Trump’s order calling on federal agencies across the government to rescind protections for transgender Americans.

“This means recognizing there are only two sexes: male and female,” Turner said. “It means getting government out of the way of what the Lord established from the beginning when he created man in His own image.”

Among other things, the administration said rules barring discrimination against transgender people allowed “biological men to enter shelters intended for women impacted by trauma, domestic abuse and violence.”

LGBTQ+ advocacy groups condemned the move, noting that transgender Americans face heightened discrimination in a slate of areas — including housing — and need protections. They also contended that HUD’s new policies violate a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision barring employment discrimination based on gender or gender identity.

Bonta said the Fair Housing Act “set a floor, not a ceiling, for protections against discrimination,” which means that states “have the authority to go further and protect more people,” as California has endeavored to do.

He said HUD has supported the state’s anti-discrimination work for decades through the Fair Housing Assistance Program, which provides funding to state and local agencies to investigate and enforce laws against housing discrimination. HUD’s new guidance “threatens to undermine that system” by demanding an end to state protections not just for LGBTQ+ people, but for military veterans, immigrants as well as women receiving abortions and other reproductive healthcare, he said.

“Families across California are already struggling to find homes they can afford, and the last thing they need is for the federal government to make it harder,” Bonta said. “At its core, this lawsuit is about protecting a fundamental civil right: the right to rent, buy, or live in housing without discrimination.”

Bonta said California interprets the Fair Housing Act’s ban on sex discrimination as protecting LGBTQ+ people, but the Trump administration doesn’t agree — making the state’s more explicit protections important.

He said about $3 million in federal funding is currently at stake for California, with millions more at stake in other states.

Illinois Atty. Gen. Kwame Raoul, who is helping lead the lawsuit and spoke alongside Bonta Monday, said states with robust antidiscrimination laws “will not go backwards and we will not give in to threats” from the Trump administration.

“These actions are part of a broader, ongoing pattern by this administration to subvert the legal protections our country has put in place to combat discrimination, and to tear down the hard fought progress we have made for civil rights,” Raoul said. “It is also just the latest page in the president’s illegal playbook to use funding and programs created by Congress to try to strong arm states into adopting Trump’s preferred policies.”

The states allege that HUD’s targeting of state antidiscrimination policies comes after it downsized its own workforce and significantly reduced its ability to investigate housing discrimination complaints and enforce fair housing laws. They say the new guidance violates multiple federal laws, including laws that govern federal spending and rule changes, and are asking the federal court to immediately invalidate the guidance as unlawful.

Bonta and Raoul are joined in the lawsuit by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

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Trump’s Threat to Delay Summit With Xi Casts New Shadow Over China Relations

President Trump warned that he could postpone a meeting set to begin in just over two weeks if China refuses to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

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Reading Europa’s Fingerprints – Universe Today

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Europa is not supposed to look the way it does. Jupiter’s icy moon is scarred by a chaotic patchwork of fractured terrain, criss crossed ridges, and disrupted surface regions that suggest something dynamic is happening beneath its frozen shell. Scientists have long suspected that a vast liquid ocean, kept warm by the gravitational kneading of Jupiter’s enormous gravity, lies hidden beneath that ice. Now, a new study using the James Webb Space Telescope is adding a crucial piece to the puzzle, and the implications reach right to the heart of astrobiology.

The surface of Europa captured by Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s (Credit : NASA)

The research, led by Gideon Yoffe and colleagues, applied a sophisticated technique called spectral decomposition to JWST observations of Europa’s leading hemisphere. Think of it as chemical fingerprinting at a distance. Every molecule absorbs and reflects light at characteristic wavelengths, leaving a distinctive signature that a sensitive enough telescope can detect and map. By analysing nine separate spectral bands covering water ice, carbon dioxide, and other compounds, the team was able to unpick the different chemical layers on Europa’s surface and reconstruct where each one sits.

They found that carbon dioxide, which had already been detected on Europa before, concentrated in a geologically chaotic region called Tara Regio, an area where the surface appears to have been broken up and refrozen, pulling material from deeper down. The working assumption was that this was a localised feature but the new analysis suggests otherwise. The carbon dioxide enrichment extends well beyond Tara Regio, sprawling across multiple regions of chaos terrain in a broad, lens shaped distribution. Crucially, wherever the carbon dioxide is richest, the ice itself shows unusual textural properties, as if the surface has been reworked from below.

A series of images of Europa in different wavelengths by the James Webb Space Telescope. The different wavelengths show the presence of different forms of carbon dioxide on Europa (Credit : NASA)

That combination, the pattern of the carbon dioxide and the anomalous ice texture points toward something more interesting than simple surface chemistry driven by radiation. The team’s findings suggest the distribution of volatiles on Europa reflects not just where material is deposited, but where the surface is best able to hold onto it. The ice microstructure itself may be determining what gets retained and where. That’s a subtler and more physically rich picture than the simple story of carbon dioxide arriving and staying put.

Carbon dioxide is one of the six elements considered essential for life as we know it. If the surface deposits are originating from the subsurface ocean as the concentration in geologically young chaos terrain implies, then that ocean contains carbon. It is also in chemical communication with the surface, exchanging material across the ice in ways we are only beginning to understand and explore.

Europa Clipper, NASA’s dedicated mission to Jupiter’s moon, will begin its close flybys in 2031. When it does, the chemical map being assembled by JWST will tell it exactly where to look.

Source : Spectral Decomposition Reveals Surface Processes on Europa

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Bear swipes woman walking dog in Monrovia; incident reported as ‘unusual’

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An adult black bear swiped a woman with its claw on Saturday in Monrovia in what police described as an unusual incident.

A woman walking her dog on the 700 block of Oakglade Drive was approached by the bear at 9:20 a.m. It “kind of charged” the woman, said Lt. Kevin Oberon, before swiping the back of her knee. She was treated for non-life-threatening and non-serious injuries.

Police said the Department of Fish and Wildlife has been notified of the incident.

California is home to roughly 60,000 black bears, the highest population estimate for anywhere in the contiguous U.S., but attacks are rare. In the areas surrounding the San Gabriel Mountains, bear sightings are especially frequent. A few months ago, one black bear was found living underneath a house in Altadena.

Oberon said the incident marked the first time that he’d heard of a bear swiping a human in his 23 years at the police department.

Humans have moved deeper into wildlands where bears live, while the bruins have similarly expanded into areas where they once were absent or scarce.

Some experts contend the 2025 Eaton fire in nearby Altadena worsened the situation, driving bears whose habitat was charred into neighborhoods to seek food and water. Residents living near these communities are urged to ensure food and trash bins are not left out, as the animals are highly food-motivated.

Times staff writer Lila Seidman contributed reporting.