By LINLEY SANDERS and JOSH BOAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most California voters didn’t like redrawing their congressional districts to favor Democrats. But many may have felt Republicans left them with no alternative.

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The AP Voter Poll, an expansive survey of more than 4,000 voters in California, captured the mixed emotions of an electorate that chose to adopt President Donald Trump’s own strategy of rewriting the rules by redistricting outside of Census years. Most voters in favor of the proposition hoped to counter his efforts to preserve Republican control of the House in next year’s midterm elections – even if they thought redistricting should ideally happen another way.

The ballot measure’s success, as well as voters’ apparent hesitations, demonstrates how many people appear to see the current redistricting fight as a political necessity, even if they don’t agree with it in principle. The findings suggest that voters see this as a tense and high stakes moment for the country, where compromises may be required.

California voters said party control of Congress was highly important

About 9 in 10 California voters said that, generally speaking, each state’s congressional district lines should be drawn by a non-partisan commission. But a majority nevertheless backed Proposition 50 to replace the existing districts with new maps crafted to send more California Democrats to the House of Representatives.

Roughly 7 in 10 California voters said party control of Congress was “very important” to them, and those voters overwhelmingly supported the amendment to the state’s constitution backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has emerged as one of Trump’s leading antagonists.

Newsom said ahead of the vote that democracy itself was at risk.

“Prop 50 is not about drawing lines on a map,” Newsom told a crowd. “It is about holding the line to what makes us who we are.”

The ballot measure was a response to Trump’s efforts earlier this year to tilt more congressional districts toward the GOP. Voter discontent with the status quo was apparent. About half of California voters said they are angry about the country’s direction, and a similar share pointed to the economy as the most important issue facing the state. Many voters have been left frustrated as Trump’s pledge to vanquish inflation has gone unfulfilled, while his import taxes have created a sense of confusion and chaos among businesses and the public.

The president has successfully pushed Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri to craft new congressional districts, with Trump placing pressure on additional states in an attempt to swing midterm races that have traditionally favored the party out of the White House.

“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote.

Proposition 50’s “Yes” voters hoped to counter Republicans in other states

Two-thirds of California voters said they were opposed to states redrawing their congressional district lines in response to how other states have drawn their lines. But the vast majority of the voters who supported the ballot measure said it was necessary to counter the changes made by Republicans in other states.

California now has the chance to do that by recrafting its 52 House seats in ways that could add five Democrats to Congress in next year’s elections. Democrats and voters who lean toward the Democrats — who make up a majority of voters in the state — overwhelmingly voted in support of the ballot measure.

Many acknowledged the process so far has been unjust. About half of California voters said neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are handling the redrawing of congressional district lines fairly.

But knowing the choices made by other state legislatures, enough California voters decided they had the right reason – even if it felt like the wrong thing.

The 2025 AP Voter Poll, conducted by SSRS from Oct. 22 – Nov. 4, includes representative samples of registered voters in California (4,490), New Jersey (4,244), New York City (4,304) and Virginia (4,215). The AP Voter Poll combines data collected from validated registered voters online and by telephone, with data collected in-person from election day voters at approximately 30 precincts per state or city, excluding California. Respondents can complete the poll in English or Spanish. The overall margin of sampling error for voters, accounting for design effect, is plus or minus 2.0 percentage points in California, 2.1 percentage points in New Jersey, 2.2 percentage points in New York City, and 2.1 percentage points in Virginia.

In a previous generation of hockey, intentionally knocking the net off its moorings could preserve a win. In the modern NHL, dislodging the net can cost you a goal. Or a game.

That was a hard lesson the Nashville Predators learned in St. Paul on Wednesday.

Marcus Johansson’s overtime winner for the Minnesota Wild was declared a goal after Predators goalie Justus Annunen appeared to use his left arm and leg to knock the net off kilter just as Johansson and Kirill Kaprizov were bearing down on the crease.

Instead of whistling the play dead, the referee on the scene signaled for a goal, giving the Wild a 3-2 win. He did so again a few minutes later after a video review by the league’s war room in Toronto.

How?

Per the official rule book of the NHL, rule 63.7 states that a goal can be awarded if the goal post is displaced by a defending player if the attacking player has an imminent scoring opportunity before the net is moved. If this happens, the referee can award a goal even if the puck never crossed the goal line, if they determine that dislodging the net prevented a goal.

Even Johansson was confused by all of it afterward.

“I think I saw something the other night, or not too long ago, where a goal was scored where the net was off,” he said. “I don’t know, honestly. I was standing there, the puck was there, so yeah, it felt good.”

As could reasonably be expected, there was a differing opinion in the Predators locker room.

“Obviously, one of the refs who made the call on the ice thought our goaltender pushed the net off on purpose and therefore denied an opportunity for them to score,” said Steven Stamkos in a postgame TV interview. He had forced overtime with a one-timer that went in the Wild net with just .3 seconds left in regulation.

“There’s two sides to everything. Our side thought obviously the net came off, but he missed the shot,” Stamkos said. “And if the net wasn’t off, at the angle it was at, the puck would’ve (gone) behind the net.”

Previously, dislodging the net in most cases meant a whistle and a faceoff. In some cases, a penalty for delay of game or even a penalty shot could be called if the dislodging was deemed intentional. But until a decade ago or so, there was no rule allowing a goal to be awarded without the net in place.

This sometimes led to what can best be described as “shenanigans” in close games.

Long before he was a U.S. Congressman from Duluth, Pete Stauber was a sophomore forward at Lake Superior State. With the Lakers battling St. Lawrence in the 1988 NCAA title game in Lake Placid, N.Y., and the game tied in the final minutes of regulation, Stauber potentially thwarted a goal by the Saints. He forcefully, and clearly intentionally, dislodged the net during a scramble where the puck was loose around the Lakers crease.

No penalty was called on the play. The game went to overtime, and Stauber helped set up the Lakers’ game-winner for the Michigan school’s first national title.

More recently, University of Michigan goalie Erik Portillo had a habit of dislodging the net during Gophers scoring opportunities when the Wolverines would play at 3M Arena at Mariucci. In the 2023 Big Ten title game, when it happened for the second or third time in the opening period, Portillo was penalized for delay of game in a contest the Wolverines won anyway.

At the time, Michigan officials claimed that the design of the net anchors at Minnesota’s arena made them susceptible to come off the moorings more easily. But it is worth noting that since Portillo moved on to pro hockey — he got one game for the Los Angeles Kings last season — the nets in Dinkytown seem to stay put.

As for the Wild, they will gladly take the two points, and the lesson about what intentionally dislodging the net can cost you in the modern NHL.

“I’m happy until it happens to me,” Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson said with a smile.

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By BERNARD CONDON, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk turned off many potential buyers of his Tesla cars and sent sales plunging with his foray into politics. But the stock has soared anyway and now he wants the company to pay him more — a lot more.

Shareholders gathering Thursday for Tesla’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas, will decide in a proxy vote whether to grant Musk, the company’s CEO and already the richest person in the world, enough stock to potentially make him history’s first trillionaire.

It’s a vote that has sparked heated debate on both sides of the issue, even drawing the pope’s comments on it as an example of income inequality.

Several pension funds have come out against the package, arguing that the board of directors is too beholden to Musk, his behavior too reckless lately and the riches offered too much.

Supporters say Musk is a genius who is the only person capable of ushering in a Tesla-dominated future in which hundreds of thousands of self-driving Tesla cars — many without steering wheels — will ferry people and humanoid Tesla robots will march around factories and homes, picking up boxes and watering plants. The pay is necessary to incentivize him, they say, and keep him focused.

Musk has threatened to walk away from the company if he doesn’t get what he wants and has blasted some of the package’s critics as “corporate terrorists.”

What is up for a vote

To get his Tesla shares, Musk has to secure approval from a majority of the company’s voting shareholders. Improving the odds, Musk gets to vote his own shares, worth 15% of the company.

Shareholders first heard about the pay package in September when the board of directors proposed it in a detailed filing to federal securities regulators. The document, running 200 pages, also contains other proposals up for a vote at the meeting, including whether to allow Tesla to invest in another Musk company, xAI, and who should serve on the board in the future.

How Musk can get $1 trillion

Musk won’t get necessarily get all of that money, or even a cent of it, if the package is approved. He first has to meet several operational and financial targets.

To get the full pay, for instance, he has to deliver to the car market 20 million Teslas over 10 years, more than double the number he has churned out over the past dozen years. He also has to massively increase the market value of the company and its operating profits and deliver one million robots, from zero today.

If he falls short of the biggest goals, though, the package could still hand him plenty of money.

Musk will get $50 billion in additional Tesla shares, for example, if he increases the company’s market value by 80%, something he did just this past year, as well as doubling vehicle sales and tripling operating earnings — or hitting any other two of a dozen operational targets.

Musk v Rockefeller

Musk is already the richest man in the world with a net worth of $493 billion, according to Forbes magazine, and well ahead of some of the wealthiest of years past.

He’s worth more than two Cornelius Vanderbilts, the shipping and railroad magnate of the 19th Century whose inflation-adjusted wealth hit $200 billion or so at its peak. The steel giant, Andrew Carnegie, was once worth $300 billion, according to the Carnegie Corp., well below Musk’s wealth, too.

Musk is still trailing John D. Rockefeller, but he’s closing in fast. The railroad titan hit peak inflation-adjusted wealth of $630 billion in 1913, according to Guinness World Records.

What really drives Musk, or so he says

Musk says it’s not really about the money but about getting a higher Tesla stake — it will double to nearly 30% — so he can control the company. He says that’s a pressing concern given all the power Tesla may soon have, specifically something he referred to in a recent investor meeting as its future “robot army.”

That was a reference to Tesla’s Optimus division, which makes humanoid workers that will be so numerous that, as Musk put it recently, he wouldn’t want anyone else but himself to control them.

Split among shareholders

Many investors have come out in support of the package, including Baron Capital Management, whose founder called Musk indispensable to the company. “Without his relentless drive and uncompromising standards,” wrote founder Ron Baron, “there would be no Tesla.”

Critics include the biggest in the U.S. public pension fund, Calpers, and Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest. They argue the pay is excessive, with the Norway fund expressing concern that the board that designed it, which includes Musk’s brother, is not independent enough. Two giant corporate watchdogs, Institutional Shareholder Service and Glass Lewis, said they are voting against it, too.

Even the Vatican has weighed in, decrying the wealth gap in the world and blasting the trillion dollar offer in particular.

“If that is the only thing that has value anymore,” said Pope Leo XIV, “then we’re in big trouble.”

Musk’s record at Tesla is mixed

Judging from the stock price alone, Musk has been spectacularly successful. The company is now worth $1.5 trillion.

But a lot that runup reflects big bets by investors that Musk will be able deliver things that are difficult to pull off, and the way Musk has run the company recently doesn’t inspire confidence. He has broken numerous promises, and his tendency to say whatever is on his mind has sabotaged the company.

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Just this year, for instance, he vowed to deliver driverless taxis in several cities, secure regulatory approval in Europe for his self-driving software and push sales up 20% or 30%.

Instead, his driverless robotaxis in Austin and San Francisco have human safety monitors inside. Europeans still haven’t approved his software. And Tesla sales continue to plunge, with new figures out Monday showing a stunning 50% drop last month in Germany alone.

That said, Musk has pulled off the impossible before. His company a half dozen years ago was widely feared to be near bankruptcy because he wasn’t making enough cars, but then he succeeded and the stock soared.

“He frequently teeters on the edge of disaster,” said Tesla owner and money manager Nancy Tengler, “and then pulls back just in the nick of time.”

By YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press Business Writer

TOKYO (AP) — Toyota reported a 7% year-on-year drop in profit for April-September on Wednesday, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs slammed Japanese automakers.

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Net profit for the April-September period at Toyota Motor Corp. totaled 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion), down from 1.9 trillion yen a year earlier.

But the maker of the Camry sedan and Lexus luxury models lifted its profit forecast for the full fiscal year ending in March 2026 to 2.93 trillion yen ($19 billion), citing better vehicle sales and cost-cutting efforts.

The forecast would represent a 38.5% drop from the 4.77 trillion yen profit Toyota reported for the last fiscal year. It had earlier forecast 2.66 trillion yen ($17 billion) in profit for this year.

Although tariffs are hurting its business, Toyota said its sales grew in the U.S. and its home market of Japan.

U.S. tariffs on Japanese automobiles and auto parts fell to 15% in September from the 27.5% rate Trump initially ordered after returning to the White House. That’s much higher than the original 2.5%.

Japan’s exports to the U.S., including vehicles, have plunged recently.

But Toyota said its efforts, such as bigger sales, better model mix and cost cuts, will add more than 900 billion yen ($5.8 billion) to the company’s bottom line in this fiscal year.

“Despite the impact of U.S. tariffs, we have continued to build upon our improvement efforts such as increasing sales volume, improving costs and expanding value chain profits,” it said in a statement.

Members of the media and guests look at Toyota’s Corolla concept during the press day of the Japan Mobility Show, in Tokyo, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)

During the six months through September, it sold more than 1.5 million vehicles in North America and 970,000 vehicles in Japan.

First half sales grew 5.8% to 24.6 trillion yen ($160 billion). For the latest quarter through September, Toyota reported a 62% rise in profit to 932 billion yen ($6 billion) on 12.38 trillion yen ($80 billion ) in sales, up 8% on year.