Free Republic

A Westlake man has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for throwing rocks and ignited debris at California Highway Patrol officers trapped underneath a freeway overpass during a violent anti-immigration law enforcement protest last year, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Ismael Vega, 42, was also ordered to pay $253,415 in restitution. Vega pleaded guilty on April 29 to one count of obstructing, impeding and interfering with law enforcement during civil disorder and was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison. During the evening of June 8, 2025, Vega was part of a large group of protesters...

Gavin Newsom has sought to transform California’s massive prison system into a Nordic-style rehabilitation program. Newsom has placed a moratorium on all executions, transferred condemned prisoners to facilities across the state, and dismantled San Quentin State Prison’s death row. As part of this transformation, the Newsom administration approved a $189 million contract to provide new digital tablets — generic, flat-screen devices in a plastic shell — to every inmate in the state prison system, at “no cost” to offenders. The administration heralded the effort to replace inmates’ old tablets — which were piloted in 2018 and given to nearly all...