SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Local, state, and federal law enforcement officers who cover their faces while conducting official business could face a misdemeanor charge in California under a new proposal announced Monday.

The bill would require all law enforcement officials show their faces and be identifiable by their uniform, which should carry their name or other identifier. It would not apply to the National Guard or other troops and it exempts SWAT teams and officers responding to natural disasters.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat representing San Francisco, and State Sen. Jesse Arreguin, a Democrat representing Berkeley and Oakland, said the proposal seeks to boost transparency and public trust in law enforcement. It also looks to protect against people trying to impersonate law enforcement, they said.

“We are seeing more and more law enforcement officers, particularly at the federal level, covering their faces entirely, not identifying themselves at all and, at times, even wearing army fatigues where we can’t tell if these are law enforcement officers or a vigilante militia,” Wiener said.

“They are grabbing people off our streets and disappearing people, and it’s terrifying,” he added.

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In Los Angeles, a series of immigration raids June 6 by federal officers, some with face coverings, triggered days of turbulent protests across the city and beyond and led President Donald Trump to deploy National Guard troops and Marines to the LA area. More than 100 people were detained during those raids and immigrant advocates say they have not been able to contact them.

The state senators said that in recent months, federal officers have conducted raids while covering their faces, and at times their badges and names, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Concord, Downey and Montebello.

“Law enforcement officers are public servants and people should be able to see their faces, see who they are, know who they are. Otherwise, there is no transparency and no accountability,” Wiener said.

Videos of raids showing masked officers using unmarked vehicles and grabbing people off the streets have circulated on social media in recent weeks.

By JENNIFER McDERMOTT and MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has fired a Democratic commissioner for the federal agency that oversees nuclear safety as he continues to assert more control over independent regulatory agencies.

Christopher Hanson, a former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a statement Monday that Trump terminated his position as NRC commissioner without cause, “contrary to existing law and longstanding precedent regarding removal of independent agency appointees.”

The firing of Hanson comes as Trump seeks to take authority away from the independent safety agency, which has regulated the U.S. nuclear industry for five decades. Trump signed executive orders in May intended to quadruple domestic production of nuclear power within the next 25 years, a goal experts say the United States is highly unlikely to reach. To speed up the development of nuclear power, the orders grant the U.S. energy secretary authority to approve some advanced reactor designs and projects.

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White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told reporters that “all organizations are more effective when leaders are rowing in the same direction” and that the Republican president reserves the right to remove employees within the executive branch who exert his executive authority.

Trump fired two of the three Democratic commissioners at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an independent federal agency responsible for enforcing federal laws that prohibit discrimination in the workplace. In a similar move, two National Labor Relations Board members were fired. Willie Phillips, a Democratic member and former chairman of the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, stepped down in April, telling reporters that the White House asked him to do so.

Trump also signed an executive order to give the White House direct control of independent federal regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.

New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called Hanson’s firing illegal and another attempt by Trump to undermine independent agencies and consolidate power in the White House.

“Congress explicitly created the NRC as an independent agency, insulated from the whims of any president, knowing that was the only way to ensure the health, safety and welfare of the American people,” Pallone said in a statement.

Senate Democrats also said Trump overstepped his authority. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, Patty Murray and Martin Heinrich said in a joint statement that “Trump’s lawlessness” threatens the commission’s ability to ensure that nuclear power plants and nuclear materials are safe and free from political interference.

Hanson was nominated to the commission by Trump in 2020. He was appointed chair by President Joe Biden in January 2021 and served in that role until Trump’s inauguration to a second term as president. Trump selected David Wright, a Republican member of the commission, to serve as chair. Hanson continued to serve on the NRC as a commissioner. His term was due to end in 2029.

Wright’s term expires on June 30. The White House has not said if he will be reappointed.

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called Hanson a dedicated public servant and a strong supporter of the NRC’s public health and safety mission. Firing Hanson is Trump’s “latest outrageous move to undermine the independence and integrity” of the agency that protects the U.S. homeland from nuclear power plant disasters, Lyman said in a statement.

The NRC confirmed Hanson’s service ended on Friday, bringing the panel to two Democrats and two Republicans. The commission has functioned in the past with fewer than the required five commissioners and will continue to do so, the statement said.

McDermott reported from Providence, R.I.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

Seventeen statewide anti-domestic and sexual violence coalitions are suing President Donald Trump’s administration over requirements in grant applications that they don’t promote “gender ideology” or run diversity, equity and inclusion programs or prioritize people in the country illegally.

The groups say the requirements, which Trump ushered in with executive orders, put them in “an impossible position.”

If they don’t apply for federal money allocated under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, they might not be able to provide rape crisis centers, battered women’s shelters and other programs to support victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. But if the groups do apply, they said in the lawsuit, they would have to make statements they called “antithetical to their core values” — and take on legal risk.

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In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island on Monday, the coalitions said that agreeing to the terms of grants could open them to federal investigations and enforcement actions as well as lawsuits from private parties.

The groups suing include some from Democratic-controlled states, such as the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, and in GOP-dominated ones, including the Idaho Coalition against Sexual and Domestic Violence.

The groups say the requirements are at odds with federal laws that require them not to discriminate on the basis of gender identity, to aid underserved racial and ethnic groups, and to emphasize immigrants with some programs and not to discriminate based on legal status.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, did not respond to a request for comment.

The suit is one of more than 200 filed since January to challenge President Donald Trump’s executive orders. There were similar claims in a suit over anti-DEI requirements in grants for groups that serve LGBTQ+ communities. A judge last week blocked the administration from enforcing those orders in context of those programs, for now.

By SAFIYAH RIDDLE, Associated Press

The 39-year-old man shot and killed at a weekend “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City was a successful fashion designer and former “Project Runway” contestant who devoted his life to celebrating artists from the Pacific Islands.

Arthur Folasa Ah Loo was killed when a man who was believed to be part of a peacekeeping team for the protest shot at a person brandishing a rifle at demonstrators, accidentally striking Ah Loo. Ah Loo later died at the hospital, authorities said.

Detectives don’t yet know why the alleged rifleman pulled out a weapon or ran from the peacekeepers, but they charged him with murder and accused him of creating the dangerous situation that led to Ah Loo’s death, Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said at a Sunday news conference.

Ah Loo leaves behind his wife and two young children, according to a GoFundMe for his family that raised over $100,000 in 48 hours.

The “self-taught” fashion designer born in Samoa, known to many as Afa, devoted his life to doing “the good things for his neighbors and community,” state Rep. Verona Mauga said.

Mauga was at the “No Kings Protest” a few blocks from where Ah Loo was shot. She said she only had a sense that something was wrong when she saw the crowd running.

As tragic as his death is, she said, Ah Loo would have been proud that his last moments were spent fighting for what he believed in.

“If Afa was going to go out any other way than natural causes, it would be standing up for marginalized and vulnerable communities and making sure that people had a voice,” Mauga told The Associated Press on Monday.

While he wasn’t typically overtly political, Ah Loo had a knack for connecting “culture and diversity and service,” and bringing people together, Mauga said.

Benjamin Powell, a hair salon innovator from Fiji, co-founded Create Pacific with Ah Loo shortly after they met four years ago. The organization uplifts artists from the Pacific Islands.

The two artists had a rare creative synergy, Powell said. Ah Loo’s vibrant work delicately weaves traditional Pacific Island attire with modern silhouettes and design. He used flowers indigenous to Samoa as motifs, and frequently incorporated the traditional Pacific Islander art called Tapa, a cloth traditionally made from tree bark, into the garments he made.

Powell admired the meticulous attention to detail that made Ah Loo’s work distinctive.

“You would know right away that it was an Ah Loo design,” Powell said.

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Ah Loo and Powell were working on an upcoming August fashion show when he died. Powell said “the show will continue” and honor Ah Loo’s unwavering vision for his community.

Ah Loo’s portfolio has earned numerous accolades over the years. He was a contestant in 2017 on Bravo’s “Project Runway,” a reality television show where fashion designers compete in front of celebrity judges to create runway looks on tight deadlines.

Recently, Ah Loo designed a garment for the star of the Disney Channel animated movie Moana 2, Hawaiian actor Auliʻi Cravalho.

Cravalho wore the outfit, which combined traditional and modern aesthetics from her culture, to the film’s red carpet premiere in Hawaii last November.

“This was the first time I was so active in helping to design a custom look, and Afa surpassed what I had envisioned,” Cravalho told the magazine at the time.

But not all of his work was high-profile, Mauga said.

Ah Loo would volunteer his time and resources to tailor clothing for people who needed help, often refusing to let people compensate him for his work, Mauga said. Sometimes, Ah Loo would playfully criticize the outfits the newly elected Democratic representative wore on the campaign trail, and invite her to his studio so he could make her a new set of blazers. He would also make her dresses for events, sometimes just on a couple of hours notice.

“Afa was so much a part of the community,” she said.