The situation unfolded before 2:30 p.m. local time. Social media video obtained by CBS News showed people fleeing a shopping center parking lot as multiple gunshots are heard. In the video, a person carrying what appeared to be a firearm could be seen outside the restaurant opening the doors to a parked sedan. 

In a news conference Saturday night, Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks told reporters that there were fatalities, but he could not confirm an exact number. Joshua Palmer, a Twin Falls city spokesperson, had initially told CBS News that at least three people had been killed and two more wounded. 

Hicks said there were "a number of people being treated for injuries" at St. Luke's Magic Valley Medical Center, a local hospital. 

"Due to the active shooter incident occurring in Twin Falls, please avoid going to St. Luke's Magic Valley unless it is an emergency," St. Luke's also posted to its social media account. 

The suspected gunman was dead, Hicks disclosed, but he did not detail how the person was killed. 

"The suspected shooter in this incident is deceased," Hicks said. "He was nearby on the scene there, and we are working to try to ascertain his identity and the motivations behind that."

The police chief said that investigators were attempting to interview "hundreds of people" that were in the area at the time of the shooting. 

"We have literally hundreds of people that were in some way, shape or form in the area of this restaurant at the time that are being interviewed right now," Hicks said. 

Police shut down roads and a nearby bridge during the response and asked residents to stay away from the area. An FBI spokesperson told CBS News that its agents were on scene and assisting with the investigation. 

Twin Falls is located in southern Idaho, about 120 miles southeast of Boise. 

The Padres remained a game back of the third NL wild-card spot.

The Padres had to rally after Osleivis Basabe, a late replacement for MLB batting leader Luis Arraez, hit a two-run double off All-Star Mason Miller with two outs in the eighth to tie it at 5.

Xander Bogaerts hit a leadoff double off Dylan Smith (0-3) and was sacrificed by Freddy Fermin. With two outs, Fernando Tatis Jr. was intentionally walked before Cronenworth singled to center.

Miller (4-1) got the win as well as his first blown save.

With the Padres trying to hold onto a 5-3 lead, Miller relieved Jeremiah Estrada with the bases loaded and one out in the eighth. He struck out pinch-hitter Grant McCray before Basabe, playing in just his third game this year, hit a 103-mph four-seam fastball from Miller just in front of the wall in left to bring in Rafael Devers and Willy Adames. Miller got Bryce Eldridge to ground out.

Fermin hit a two-run homer in the fourth off Tyler Mahle for a 3-2 lead.

Basabe had tied it at 2 with a two-run homer off Walker Buehler with one out in the third. The Giants went ahead 3-2 when Buehler walked Willy Adames with the bases loaded.

It was the first homer since 2023 for Basabe, who started at second and batted ninth after Arraez was scratched minutes before the game with cramps.

The Giants said Arraez was scratched as a precaution after he came out of Friday night's game in the seventh inning with cramps. Arraez, who leads the majors with a .328 batting average, is among the top trade candidates as Monday's deadline approaches.

Basabe's contract was selected from Triple-A on Tuesday after Casey Schmitt went on the injured list.

Giants RHP Landen Roupp (7-9, 4.12 ERA) and Padres RHP Michael King (6-7, 3.38) were scheduled to start the series finale Sunday.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Cal Fire said the fire reached 100% containment after burning 226 acres. All evacuation orders and warnings issued during the incident have since been lifted, and road closures related to the fire have been removed.

The Dove Fire broke out at about 2:48 p.m. on July 26 near Highway 108 and Mill Villa Road, southwest of downtown Sonora and northeast of Jamestown.

At its peak, the fire prompted mandatory evacuation orders and warnings for nearby neighborhoods as hundreds of firefighters, aided by air tankers and helicopters, worked to slow the flames. Fire officials reported two firefighters were injured during the response.

A dozen structures — a home, two commercial buildings and 9 minor structures — were destroyed while two others — a commercial building and a minor structure — were damaged, Cal Fire said.

Cal Fire arrested 30-year-old Jacob William Hoskins, of Sonora, on suspicion of recklessly causing a fire, the sheriff's office said Monday.

On Sunday, not long after the fire started, several people made reports to the sheriff's office that they saw a man wearing a straw hat running from the area. The sheriff's office said photos and video of the man then began circulating on social media. He was later identified as a local transient, known to area law enforcement. 

According to the sheriff's office, the suspect's name is Jacob William Hoskins. Deputies said they did not have enough probable cause to detain him when they first contacted him.

Cal Fire's Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit law enforcement soon gathered more information, and alongside a deputy who spoke to an associate of Hoskins, they were able to arrest him on suspicion of violating California Penal Code § 452(c) – recklessly causing a fire.

The sheriff's office said a deputy found Hoskins at Rotary Park in Sonora and also found the same clothing, including the straw hat seen in photos and videos, at the park.

"The vigilance of community members who promptly reported suspicious activity and captured photos and videos of Hoskins proved invaluable to the investigation and ultimately contributed to his identification and arrest," the sheriff's office said.

Federal assistance for firefighting effort

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday announced that California had secured a Fire Management Assistance Grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to bolster the state's response to the Dove Fire. The grant allows local, state and tribal agencies to apply for 75% reimbursement of their costs of suppressing the fire.

Cal Fire said in its Dove Fire incident report that there were 484 total personnel responding to the fire as of Monday afternoon.

Officers responded at about 8:06 a.m. to the Caltrain platform in the 1100 block of 22nd Street after receiving a report of a deceased person, the San Francisco Police Department said.

Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene.

The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner responded to investigate the death. Police did not release the man's identity or provide information about how he died.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the San Francisco Police Department.

The investigation remains ongoing.

Combine that with a dangerous surf warning for the coast, and there was even more drama than usual.

Now that the World Cup is over, we can get back to what is really the most popular sporting event on the planet: the World Dog Surfing Championships. At least, that's how it felt by the size of the crowd at Pacifica's Linda Mar Beach.

"I love World Dog Surfing," said contestant Sophia Sadlowski from Huntington Beach. "They are the best event out of all the events that we do. This is the best event. The crowd is the best."

Fourteen dogs showed up for this 10th annual competition. Winning is a bit subjective, with the canine contestants judged on how long they stay on a wave and how happy they seem to be about the whole thing.

Sadlowski said her small miniature pinscher, Rusty the Surfing MinPin, won't let her leave the house alone if he thinks she's about to hit the beach.

"Whenever I get ready to go surf, and I don't take him, he gets very upset," she said. "He runs up and down the stairs going, 'ooh, ooh, ooh.' And if I make it to the garage door, he's there."

But there was more drama than usual this year. With a hazardous surf warning in effect for the entire coastline, the waves were larger than usual and caused a few of the later heats to be cancelled.

"It was rough," Sadkowski said. "A little too rough for that size dog. Yeah, I mean it's rough for the other dogs, but when you're 12 pounds, it's just too much."

"The surf was great this morning. Just for the last half-hour to hour, it started picking up and getting a little rough," said event crew member Laura Cass. "So, we definitely want to keep the dogs safe..."

But a few intrepid canine surfers gave it a try anyway. One of them was crowd favorite Rippin' Rosie, a fearless yellow lab who normally surfs Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz. She managed a couple of short runs in the crashing waves and got a hero's welcome back on the shore.

"That was not Pleasure Point. That was pretty brutal, but hey, it was super fun, challenging, a great event. Look at all these people cheering us on. It's amazing," said Rosie's surf partner, Steve Drottar. "She's a fearless beast. She just goes. It's scary for me. I'm the one that's exhausted and she's like, 'ahh let's go' "

The competition was free to the public, so there were no official estimates of the crowd's size. But the event has grown to the point that it was being recorded for an upcoming ESPN broadcast.

When the awards were handed out, Rusty and Rosie were both winners in their class. But friends Debbie Cohen and Tina der Torossian, who witnessed the spectacle, considered themselves among the winners, as well.

"And it's an excuse to get up, and dogs are great!" said Cohen. "Just something about dogs in the water is a kick."

Or as the surfers like Drottar might put it: "It's just nothing but good vibes out here. It's the way surfing's supposed to be, just good vibes!"

General manager John Lynch announced the decision on Saturday for Pearsall to undergo surgery to repair his posterior cruciate ligament. Pearsall initially injured the knee last season and came back to play late in the season. But he was shut down after two practices in training camp because of swelling in the knee.

The Niners announced that former All-Pro Deebo Samuel had returned to the team on a one-year deal worth up to $7 million to take Pearsall's place on the roster. Samuel took part in practice on Saturday as he returned to the place where he played for his first six seasons in the NFL.

"I wouldn't say it was different. It kind of felt like I didn't even go nowhere to be honest," he said. "When I got back, I was just like, 'Well, I know what's going on. I know the people here, staff still the same.' It's kind of like the same."

Pearsall has flashed when he is healthy, but has struggled to stay on the field since being drafted with the 31st overall pick in 2024. He missed most of training camp as a rookie with a shoulder injury and then was shot in a robbery attempt just before the start of that season. Pearsall returned to make 31 catches for 400 yards and three TDs in 11 games.

Pearsall was slowed early last summer by a hamstring injury, but got off to a fast start to the season with 20 catches for 327 yards in his first four games before going down with a knee injury in Week 4.

He missed the next six games and had only five catches for 20 yards in his first three games back. Pearsall then had six catches for 96 yards the following game against Tennessee before reaggravating the knee injury. He missed two of the final three regular-season games and the playoff opener before being a nonfactor in a divisional round loss to Seattle.

Pearsall has 67 catches for 928 yards and three TDs in 20 games over two seasons. Pearsall's lack of playing time makes it unlikely the team would put up his fifth-year option for 2028 next spring.

The 49ers bolstered the receiver room by signing free agent Mike Evans in March and drafting De'Zhaun Stribling with the first pick of the second round in April. Now they are also bringing back Samuel after he spent last season in Washington. Stribling missed practice Saturday with hamstring tightness but has been impressive early in camp.

Samuel spent his first six seasons with the 49ers after being drafted in the second round in 2019, helping the team reach the Super Bowl twice and earning All-Pro honors in 2021 when he had 1,770 yards from scrimmage and 14 touchdowns.

Samuel was traded to Washington in 2025 for a fifth-round draft pick and had 72 catches for 727 yards and five TDs for the Commanders last season. He became a free agent in March and now will join the Niners to provide reinforcement with Pearsall out.

"I've hated him so long, and it's so nice to have him back in a friendly atmosphere," said defensive coordinator Raheem Morris, who went up against Samuel when he ran the Rams defense from 2021-23.

"He's the ultimate piece that can move around and you have to game plan around because his ability to run the football, his ability line up at receiver, his ability take screens, his ability do a bunch of different things on special teams, whether it be return man or whatever the case may be."

Samuel has 406 catches for 5,519 yards and 27 touchdowns in his career and has been one of the most dynamic players after the catch in the NFL. His average of 8.7 yards after the catch on receptions rank first among all receivers with at least 100 catches since 2019. He also has rushed for 1,218 yards and 21 TDs in 97 games.

Several other players were dealing with new injuries on Saturday for the Niners. Defensive lineman Cameron Sample (knee) and rookie DL Romello Height (elbow) didn't practice. DL Keion White (abductor) and DL Mikail Kamara (knee) got hurt in practice.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL

"This is essentially triage. We're preserving these plants, which have as you can see. They've essentially been abandoned in bulk at a construction site, "said K.C Wassner.

Rosetta Wang put out the appeal after she visited the UC Berkeley campus late last Friday afternoon. Wang, who is the founder of the Wild Harvest and Restoration Fund, saw a large heap of mature California pipevines, unearthed and drying under the hot sun.

"I was really sad to see all the pipevine unearthed and in a pile," said Wang, a Berkeley alum.

The pile was in a thriving habitat for the California pipevine swallowtail. The butterfly needs the vine to lay its eggs, and for its caterpillars to eat. 

But the university needed to remove some of them so it could proceed with constructing a major new clean energy infrastructure. The existing system burns fossil fuel.

"It's currently nearing the end of its life. It's the single largest source of our campus emissions, and the campus is taking it upon itself to become more sustainable and efficient," said Kyle Gibson, Director of Communications for the campus.

The university has voluntarily come up with a plan to preserve the pipevine and replant it once the construction is finished.

Last Friday, early in the morning, the University told CBS News Bay Area that the landscape crew retrieved some of the uprooted vines to transplant them later at alternate habitats along Strawberry Creek. They plan to restore the existing habitat and perhaps to even expand it and protect it. Some pipevines remain on this site further away from the road and closer to Strawberry Creek.   

Once the call went out, the Pipevine Posse in Oakland took the pile, brought it to a backyard in Oakland, and got to work. They bought soil, compost, planters, and some big bins into which they drilled drainage holes.

Students will submerge the vines in the big bins and planters and keep the soil moist. The team also constructed metal shelves that will hold the big bins under the shade of a tree.

Gowthan Chandrasekaran began coiling vines and putting them at the bottom of some big planters.

"These are like the temporary housing for the pipevines," said the young man.

Mamodou was learning about the California pipevine and the butterfly for the first time.

"I thought planting and saving some plants, and helping out others and hanging out with friends is a fun time, so why not?" Mamodou said, smiling.

Alyssa Pun is a UC Berkeley undergraduate, a member of the campus Botany Club, and very familiar with the habitat. She is a researcher at the Leong Lab, where she studies Conservation & Resource Management.

She hopes that the pipevines will survive until the planting season and says the action of submerging the plants under dirt needs to happen quickly.

"When these plants were found, they were exposed. They were unearthed. They would probably be dead within the next few days," said the student.

Arman Omidavr is a sophomore at Cal who is also majoring in botany and also a member of the Botany Club. He explained how they will put them on a water regime that starts early fall before the first rain begins.

Once the plants sprout new shoots, the team will propagate them.

"From those nodes on the vines where the plant's stem cells are, will emerge completely new shoots and roots, and then we'll be able to cut those out and they'll become their own individual plants," said Omidavr.

While neither the butterfly nor the vine is endangered, the students know that biodiversity, which promotes as many healthy species as possible, is the strongest natural defense against a warming planet.  The more species you have, the more chances some will survive the rising temperatures.

"What we don't realize about biodiversity, or what I feel a lot of people overlook, is that you know once it's gone, it's gone," noted Omidavr.

If they are successful, from these discarded vines, the team will make many new pipevine plants, ready to get planted.

The group will continue to pot and propagate the vines until they are strong enough to give away and replant in the cool dormant season. Some will be given away for free in October.

Wang is now scouting for sites to plant them and is accepting tips for locations on her website.

"Maybe it's a creek, in a park near you, or it could be your backyard," she said.

Around 8:30 a.m., first responders and deputies were sent to the 100 block of Struve Road for a report of an infant being found in the area.

Fire crews declared the infant dead at the scene.

The sheriff's office said they are investigating and asked anyone with information to call them at 831-755-3700.

"It is with profound sadness and immense heartbreak that we confirm that Nirmal Purja tragically lost his life following the avalanche on Broad Peak," Purja's company, Elite Expeditions, said on social media. "We have also received confirmation that other members of the expedition sadly did not survive."

Karrar Haidri, the vice president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, confirmed the news.

"This is heartbreaking news for all of us, and we extend our condolences to the families and friends of the climbers," Haidri said.

Rescuers backed by military helicopters resumed the search Saturday for six members of a 10-member expedition who were swept away by the avalanche. Three of the four bodies found so far have been recovered, officials said.

A local police official, Tahir Khan, said the remains of Omani climber Nathira Ahmed were being flown to the capital, Islamabad, while the bodies of American climber Mallory Geis and Nepalese climber Bahadur Gurung remained at a hospital in Skardu, the main city in Pakistan's northern Gilgit-Baltistan region.

He said the search-and-rescue efforts were ongoing despite fading hopes.

The team lost contact with their base camp Thursday after an avalanche struck Broad Peak as they attempted to scale the mountain, said Karrar Haidri, vice president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, on Friday.

He said there has been no contact since then and that experienced Pakistani climbers and army helicopters are taking part in the search-and-rescue operation.

Purja, who led the expedition and was widely known as Nims Dai, had previously climbed the world's 14 highest peaks in a record 189 days in 2019, an achievement featured in the Netflix documentary "14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible." His record was broken in 2023.

"The world has lost one of the mountaineering's greatest climbers; a leader who inspired millions through his courage, humility and unwavering belief that human potential is far greater than we often imagine," his company said on social media, adding: "Through his actions, he inspired millions of people to believe that they, too, could achieve more than they ever thought possible."

According to the Alpine Club, the expedition included five Nepalese climbers, the Omani and American climbers, Pakistani climber Sohail Sakhi, a Chinese climber identified only as Wang and another foreign climber whose identity has not been released.

Moving Mountains, a travel company based in Pakistan, announced late last month that the expedition team was on its way to the small town of Askole and wished them a safe journey climbing Broad Peak.

The expedition was Geis' first try at an 8,000-meter peak in Pakistan. The 39-year-old, who lived in San Antonio, announced on social media earlier this year that she was closing her Pilates studio to take "a giant leap of faith into the unknown to see where life goes. I have a sneaking suspicion there will be lots of helmets, harnesses, and crampons involved."

Geis's father, George Geis, remembered his daughter as intelligent and determined, CBS affiliate KENS 5 reported. He said she had asked for some time away from the family's real estate business to go on the trip.

"She was a very positive person, and very smart, and could do almost anything she wanted to do," he told the San Antonio news station.

It was expected that this expedition would be the final one for Sakhi, who is a guide for Moving Mountains, as well as a geographer and high-altitude photographer who has climbed some of the world's major peaks.

Broad Peak, at 26,401 feet, is the world's 12th-highest mountain. It lies in Pakistan's Karakoram range, home to five of the world's 14 peaks above 26,000 feet, attracting climbers from around the globe.

Accidents are common on climbing expeditions in northern Pakistan because of avalanches, falling ice and rock, high altitude and rapidly changing weather.

Here's what to know.

Hot Inland Temperatures

In Sacramento and throughout the San Joaquin Valley, triple-digit temperatures are expected to begin Saturday.

Temps will be in the low triple-digits in Sacramento and Stockton, with Sunday and Monday being the warmest days.

In the Bay Area, expect warm temperatures around the bay and hot temperatures inland through the weekend, as high pressure moves in. Temperatures on Friday are expected to range from the 70s in San Francisco and Oakland, to the upper 80s and 90s inland.

According to the weather service, expect hotter temperatures through the weekend and into early next week. Areas expected to reach the low 90s this weekend include San Jose, Santa Rosa and Napa. Meanwhile, inland East Bay locations such as Concord and Livermore are expected to approach triple-digits.

Areas closer to the coast will also see warmer-than-usual temperatures, with highs in San Francisco expected to reach the upper 70s this weekend, and highs around 80 in Oakland.

Officials offered several tips to beat the heat, including staying hydrated, taking breaks in the shade and not leaving children or pets in unattended vehicles.

Spare The Air Alert

Along with high temperatures and high surf, air quality will also be a concern, due to wildfire smoke from the Woodside Fire burning on the Sonoma County coast. Smoke is expected to blow into inland Northern California Friday, peaking in the afternoon and evening hours.

The Bay Area Air Quality District has issued a Spare the Air alert for the entire region through Saturday but lifted it Saturday morning.

Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District said parts of the county are also experiencing smoke impacts.

Officials urged residents to avoid smoke exposure by staying indoors, if temperatures allow.

Dangerous Surf

A beach hazards statement for the Bay Area shoreline and Central Coast is in effect through the evening of Saturday, Aug. 1. The advisory covers all Pacific coast beaches from Sonoma County down to Monterey County.

According to the National Weather Service, sneaker waves and strong rip currents will continue to be an issue along the coast. Breaking waves could be up to 10 feet along some south- and southwest-facing beaches and break points, including Pacifica, Santa Cruz and parts of Stinson Beach and Ocean Beach.

Officials urged people to maintain a safe distance from the water and to stay away from jetties, piers, beachside rocks and other waterside infrastructure.

The danger of high surf was illustrated during a dramatic rescue at Seabright State Beach in Santa Cruz County on July 25. During the rescue, which was caught on video, 16-year-old lifeguard Ryder Williams and another lifeguard pulled a 10-year-old to safety amid pounding waves.

Bay Area architect Eugene Lew calls it 'Domicity'. 

Lew said the goal is not to build traditional low-income housing, but to create high-quality homes that middle-income earners can afford.

"I don't believe there's anything in the city that comes close to resembling what I'm trying to do," Lew said.

His concept would replace two-story single-family homes in neighborhoods such as the Sunset or Richmond with five-story buildings that could be replicated at scale, one lot after another.

He said the model could lower costs by using standardized designs for typical San Francisco lots, which are often 25 by 125 feet. The idea is that by using repeatable plans, developers could reduce expenses tied to permitting, planning and construction.

"I've worked with contractors, developers. I've done the pro formas and the numbers right, so I know the basic concept of how I'm going to be reducing costs," Lew said.

The five Domicity models range from one-bedroom units to multi-generational homes with more than three bedrooms.

Corey Smith, with the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition, said his organization analyzed the concept and found a three-bedroom home could potentially be built for under $1 million, up to 40% less than the cost of a comparable home.

"When you have an idea that hasn't been done like this before, just getting that first yes is sort of challenging," Smith said.

Smith said the model could become more affordable if foundations or charities acquire lots and offer favorable land leases. His coalition has been working to bring developers and foundations together to discuss whether the concept could move forward.

"It's not just unfortunately one project that an investor or partner would look to get in on. We need a big pot of money because we need to be building these a bunch of times over in order to achieve those cost savings," Smith said.

Lew believes new state housing laws and San Francisco's recent upzoning efforts could help make Domicity possible after years of planning.

He said offering several different models would also give neighborhoods a say in how they grow.

"Neighborhoods can choose to have diversity by allowing different types of plans to be built in their neighborhood," Lew said.

For Lew, the project is not about financial gain. He says he hopes the idea can begin in San Francisco and eventually spread to other cities facing similar housing affordability challenges.

"I do believe my ideas, if I get it started in San Francisco, will translate across many cities in America," Lew said.

Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco, which often acquires land through donations, says it has been in contact with Lew and others about a possible partnership on a Domicity project.

Its CEO believes a Domicity home could be built by next year if all the pieces come together.

San Diego (56-54) sits a game behind the Philadelphia Phillies for the third and final National League wild card.

In the fourth inning, the 25-year-old Bowen launched a 384-foot solo drive to left field that put the Padres up 4-0. France added a two-run single later in the inning before capping the scoring with a sacrifice fly in the sixth.

Manny Machado drove in the first run with a sacrifice fly in the first inning, and Luis Campusano extended the lead to 2-0 with an RBI single. Xander Bogaerts grounded into a double play that scored Jackson Merrill in the third.

Fernando Tatis Jr. got his 150th career stolen base in the fourth, swiping third for his 26th steal this year.

Bradgley Rodriguez pitched a hitless first inning for the Padres before Yuki Matsui (2-1) took over. He threw 49 pitches in three innings, both career highs, while permitting one hit and striking out two. Germán Márquez earned his first career save, allowing one hit over the final five innings.

Giants starter Carson Whisenhunt (2-2) gave up six runs and seven hits in 3 1/3 innings.

Giants RHP Tyler Mahle (3-9, 4.96 ERA) is expected to start Saturday against Padres RHP Walker Buehler (6-5, 5.13).

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

The fire, dubbed the Woodside Fire, was first reported shortly after 1:40 p.m. Thursday. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), the fire is burning along Highway 1 near Timber Cove.

As of Friday night, the fire has burned 152 acres and is 37% contained. The fire is burning through heavy timber, and no structures are currently threatened, officials said.

"We expect to make great progress today. We are going to continue to see smoke, and we hope to open Highway 1 within the next one to two days," Cal Fire incident commander Marshall Tuberville said in a video posted Friday.

Smoke from the fire drifted to other parts of the Bay Area. As of about 2 p.m., the air quality index in Santa Rosa was at 167, which is in the unhealthy range, according to AirNow.gov. Moderate air quality was reported in other parts of the Bay Area.

According to the National Weather Service, smoke is expected to continue blowing into the North Bay valleys, with the peak transport occurring Friday afternoon and Friday evening.

The Bay Area Air District also has a Spare the Air Alert in the region through Saturday due to smoke. During a Spare the Air Alert, use of all wood-burning devices is prohibited.

Evacuation orders have been issued for Salt Point State Park and Timber Cove, including north of Fort Ross Road, south of Kruse Ranch and Hauser Bridge roads, east of the coastline and west of the Gualala River's south fork. Mandatory evacuations were also in place for Steelwater Cove Regional Park and the Ocean Cove Private Camp.

An evacuation warning was issued northwest of Cazadero, including north of Fort Ross Road, south and west of Kind Ridge Road, and east of the Gualala River's south fork.

Additionally, Highway 1 between Timber Cove Road and Stewarts Point-Skaggs Springs Road has been shut down.

The cause of the wildfire is under investigation.

The Portsmouth Square pedestrian bridge, known around the world to skateboarders as "China Banks," is being demolished. Skateboarders have flown in from every continent to ride the banks over the decades, and on Friday, a couple of locals came to say goodbye before the demolition.

"It was just truly incredible," said Mike Archimedes, known as "Arco," who is credited with discovering the spot in 1979.

"When I come out here tomorrow, it's going to shed a tear for a souvenir. Because this is where I grew up," Arco said.

For decades, the steep concrete bank connecting Portsmouth Square and the Hilton wasn't just a bridge — it was a proving ground for skateboarders, and legends were made there.

"I must've been around nine years old when I saw the structure here and it looked like something I saw with the popular skateboarding magazine at the time so I was like -- maybe you could do that," Arco said.

No architect ever designed the bridge with skateboarding in mind, but Arco says that's exactly what made it last.

"Brought so many generations of people to interpret their style of skateboarding upon this," he said.

According to the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, 77% of Chinatown residents wanted the bridge gone, arguing it blocked light and took up valuable space in what many call "Chinatown's living room." The bridge will be removed piece by piece starting this weekend.

Greg Smith, who goes by "Schmitty," is one of the creators behind a documentary about the skate spot for Thrasher Magazine.

"Hearing it and seeing it is just very real," Smith said. "It is a real big bummer."

The difficulty of skating China Banks made landing a trick there come with serious prestige, Smith said.

"I have so many friends that moved here from the East Coast because of things like China Banks, Fort Miley, Embarcadero," he said.

Still, both Smith and Arco say skateboarding doesn't need the bridge to survive.

"Skateboarding will never die -- yeah, it's the greatest thing ever," Arco said. "I mean, we'll tear some things down, but you can't tear skating down."

By the end of the weekend, China Banks will be gone, but skaters say its influence — and its footage — will outlast the concrete.

Developers say the bridge's removal marks a major milestone for the Portsmouth Square Improvement Project, adding 20,000 square feet of usable park space. Kearny Street will be fully closed between Clay and Washington streets Saturday and Sunday, and again next weekend.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the Superior Court of Delaware, claims that the teens suffered years of harm from using the platforms, including social media addiction, severe sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.

The Social Media Victims Law Center, a legal advocacy firm, filed the complaint on behalf of the four families, who are from Minnesota, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. The children, who died between July 2024 and September 2025, were ages 13, 14, 17 and 18 at the time of their deaths, according to the firm.

"Despite living hundreds of miles apart, their parents describe nearly identical patterns: once‑vibrant children who became anxious, withdrawn or depressed as their use of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube intensified," the Social Media Victims Law Center said in a statement shared with CBS News.

Social media companies' "actions have eroded public trust, misled policymakers, and created a national youth mental health crisis that has already cost us a generation and will take years to repair," Matthew Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, added in a statement.

Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube parent company Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Thursday's complaint represents the latest in a series of suits filed against social media companies alleging that they are addictive and dangerous. In a landmark decision in May, a jury held Meta and YouTube liable for creating products that led to harmful and addictive behavior by young users.

If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You can also chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline here.

For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org.

The proposal from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation spares Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming from facing mandatory cuts for now. But it's a temporary fix as the states that rely on the river still fight over a long-term management plan for the dwindling resource that powers huge swaths of the Western U.S.

Under the plan, the Lower Basin states could face collective cuts up to 3 million acre-feet (130 billion cubic feet) through 2036, "subject to hydrology," according to a press release by the Department of the Interior. That's about enough water to serve more than 25 million people a year.

The plan would also allow annual releases between 5 million and 12 million acre-feet from Lake Powell, the basin's second-largest reservoir. Under the 10-year federal framework, water management decisions will be made every two years.

"This framework provides the flexibility to respond to changing hydrologic conditions while preserving the opportunity for the Basin States to continue working toward durable, consensus-based solutions," said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum in the press release.

Water supplies in Lake Powell and Lake Mead — the nation's two largest reservoirs, both on the Colorado River — have fallen to record low levels this year after an exceptionally dry winter in the drought-stricken West.

Federal forecasts show that by the end of the year, Lake Powell's water levels could fall so low they won't be able to spin turbines at the nearby Glen Canyon Dam. Those turbines generate electricity to power homes, businesses and irrigation systems across the region.

The proposed cuts in the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada would be the biggest to date and could have huge impacts across cities and farms — higher water prices, increased groundwater reliance, more agriculture out of production and conservation mandates in places where none have existed before.

The federal plan comes after years of deadlocked negotiations between the states. Federal officials are expected to finalize the plan in the coming days.

Along with more than 40 million U.S. residents, several tribal nations and Mexico, farmers, wildlife, industries and hydropower all rely on the dwindling 1,450-mile-long Colorado River. Years of overuse combined with rising temperatures and drought have severely depleted flows in the Colorado today than in decades past.

The 356 pages the state released include the executed contract, internal analyses, vendor proposals and email threads between the California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) and the organizations that responded to the state's request for information.

CBS California Investigates reviewed every page.

Nothing in the released records reveals illegal conduct. The exemption lawmakers added to the budget made it legal for the administration to bypass ordinarily required competitive bidding and state contract review.

Instead, the records raise questions about why the state designed a program its own agency warned could waste taxpayer-funded diapers. They also show the state selected Baby2Baby even though the state's recommendation identified the other finalist as ready to provide the planned direct-to-consumer component. 

The records reveal repeated warnings that Newsom's taxpayer-funded California diaper program could "lead to waste." 

Read the full investigation here.

These are some of the other key findings. 

• Records reveal repeated warnings that Baby2Baby's plan to send every baby home with 400 diapers in limited sizes could lead to waste. The other finalist offered more diapers, more sizes and a direct-to-consumer option.
  
• The contract locks in the same design that prompted those waste concerns raised by applicants and state staff. Families receive 400 diapers at hospital discharge, limited to Newborn and Size 1, with no right to return or exchange them if the baby outgrows the supply.  
  
• The state designed the program around Baby2Baby's existing hospital-distribution model before officially seeking information from other potential vendors, then signed a contract that adopted Baby2Baby's specific plan.
• The 356-page record release contains no bid scoring sheets, evaluation criteria or rankings showing how proposals were assessed against one another. The state's comparison spreadsheet contains numerous "Not answered" cells, and the closest thing to an evaluation in the released records is the agency's final recommendation.
  
• That recommendation identifies two finalists and documents significant advantages offered by the other finalist. SupplyBank.org offered more diapers, in more sizes, along with direct-to-consumer distribution.
  
• Other proposals offered families more flexibility but are absent from the state's final comparison documents. Amazon proposed vouchers that would allow families to select diaper sizes, receive them at home and make returns, but Amazon does not appear in the comparison or finalist records.
  
• The state's own records do not agree on how many organizations responded. Different documents identify 11, 14 and 15 respondents. At least one applicant says it submitted a response but never received a meeting.
• The contract requires taxpayers to cover California branding. The records say a simpler design "could reduce" costs and warn that diaper quality could affect "the State's reputation."
  
• Confidentiality and coordinated messaging are written into the agreement. The program's oversight committee meetings are "not open or public," and the state and Baby2Baby must mutually approve the communications strategy and talking points.
  
• Baby2Baby declined to identify its diaper manufacturer during the selection process. The manufacturer is in Mexico.
  
• The executed contract originally cited a prescription-drug law as authority to bypass contract oversight. In the released copy, that citation is crossed out and replaced with the budget exemption beside a notation dated eight days after CBS California Investigates requested the records.
  
• Despite concerns about transparency, oversight and the optics of the Baby2Baby deal, lawmakers renewed both the diaper program and its contracting exemption for a second year.
  

CBS California Investigates sent the state several follow-up questions July 20 and is still waiting for answers.

(Document links in this story open the individual state records on DocumentCloud, redacted to remove personal contact information and confidential pricing information.)

Continuing Coverage

CBS California Investigates has been following the state's no-bid Baby2Baby diaper deal since May, when our fact-check found the loudest criticisms of the program were wrong, but the state refused to release the contract.

The Newsom administration then delayed releasing the records for 66 days while lawmakers weighed giving agencies even more time to respond to requests like these.

In the meantime, the investigation revealed that what the governor called a "competitive bid process" was actually "non-competitively bid". It was legal, exempted by a single sentence in the state budget, one of dozens of similar exemptions covering more than $1 billion in state contracts. 

Six hours after that investigation was published, the state released the 356 pages of records. 

Thirty minutes later, the governor's office responded, calling our reporting "demonstrably false." CBS California then published a point-by-point review, checking every claim against the state's own records. That review also revealed that the governor's proposed budget funded the Baby2Baby program at the expense of traditional diaper bank funding, which lawmakers later restored.

CBS California Investigates then summarized the key findings in the 356 pages of records that Californians waited 66 days to see. The findings ranged from missing bid scores and conflicting respondent counts to a taxpayer-funded branding premium and a contract cloaked in confidentiality.

The full investigation details those findings and links directly to the relevant records, including repeated warnings that the program could lead to wasted taxpayer-funded diapers. 

The full investigation details those findings and links directly to the relevant records, including repeated warnings that the program could lead to wasted taxpayer-funded diapers. 

UPDATE 7/29/2026: Read more about what the 356 pages of records revealed here.

Thirty minutes later, an email from the governor's office arrived, "reaching out to clarify misrepresentations and factual inaccuracies regarding the Golden State Start initiative." It requested corrections and called parts of our reporting "demonstrably false." The office's statements are quoted in full below.

We take correction requests seriously. So we went back through every claim in the email and checked it against the record. That includes the governor's own budget documents, the Legislature's bill texts and analyses, the Legislative Analyst's Office, and the records the state itself released.

Where the record supported additional details, we updated the story and said so. Where the office's claims don't match the record, we're showing our work below.

We asked the governor's office for a response before our story was published. They didn't respond until after.

Issue 1: The headline: "Newsom's 'competitive bid' diaper deal wasn't"

Governor's Office claim: "This is an inaccurate representation of the RFI process. The process was still competitive, receiving 15 applicants who were judged on multiple factors including diaper cost, cost for implementation, existing infrastructure for manufacturing/distributing, and other significant considerations. The Governor was referring to the process being competitive in nature, which remains accurate."

The governor said, on camera, that the deal "went through a competitive bidding process." The state's own contract database codes the deal "NON-COMPETITIVELY BID." The document that governed the process says it is "Not a Solicitation" and that pricing "will not be considered a proposal/bid."

"Competitive bidding" is a defined legal process in California. State law requires competitive bids for state contracts, and the rules are specific: evaluation criteria must be published and advertised, proposals are scored against them, and losing bidders are notified with the right to protest. The state's contracting manual devotes an entire chapter to how it works. State rules also allow a handful of legal exemptions, which require justification and are publicly posted. None of that happened here.

The budget exemption made skipping it legal, which was the point of the story. This deal was exempted from the required competitive bid process.

The office's response concedes the governor was not using "bidding" in its formal sense when he said this.

As for the "15 applicants" "judged on multiple factors": the newly released records contain no scoring sheets, no evaluation criteria, and no rankings. The closest documents include a side-by-side chart with cells that read "Not answered" and a "Finalists Recommendation" report in which it says the agency "met with all RFI respondents…" At least one tells us they never got a meeting.

Also, the state's documents give conflicting counts of 11, 14, and 15.

We've asked the state to clarify and produce the scoring records. If they exist, we'll report what they show.

Issue 2: "For two months, the administration delayed providing those records"

Governor's Office claim: "The administration has not delayed providing records in an effort to conceal documents as implied by your coverage. The work required to satisfactorily produce the PRAs per your request required extensions to grant our legal team adequate time to process and work on these requests."

CBS California reported a timeline. Not a motive. The request was filed May 12. California law requires agencies to "promptly notify" requesters whether records are disclosable, within a maximum of 10 days plus a 14-day extension in "unusual circumstances." The state took 24 days just to determine whether the records were public and disclosable. 

The state extended its own deadlines three times. Each time, the state waited until the end of the last day of the extension to send notice of the next extension. The most recent notice came at 5:09 p.m. on July 3, a federal holiday, nine minutes after the state's close of business on the final day of the final extension. (*Correction 7/22/26: An earlier version of this sentence referred to July 3 as a "state holiday." State employees received a holiday credit because the July 4 holiday fell on a Saturday.)  

The records were finally produced July 17, 66 days after the request, 70 days after the governor publicly announced the contract, and hours after our latest story was published. The office's email confirms extensions were required. "Delayed" is an accurate description of that timeline.

Issue 3: Key finding: "NON-COMPETITIVELY BID"

Governor's Office claim: "Again, the process was competitive in nature. The 'non-competitively bid' refers to the RFI, which is labeled 'non-competitive' because of an exemption to provide flexibility to deliver on the project at the scale needed to serve Californians. The Governor did not use the term 'bidding' in its formal technical sense, but in the sense that we received a variety of proposals to review."

The story quoted the state's database coding verbatim, and later included HCAI's explanation of it.

We sent an email on July 13 asking to publicly use the office's "on background" description of what the governor meant by the term "competitive." The office did not respond.

The office's assertion that the deal is "labeled 'non-competitive' because of an exemption" confirms the finding rather than contradicting it.

Issue 4: Key finding: "The 2025 budget funded the free diaper program at the expense of traditional diaper bank funding"

Governor's Office claim: "This reporting is demonstrably false – diaper banks and the diaper program initiative received the same funding in the final 2025 budget:

• Diaper Access Initiative—$7.4 million General Fund in 2025-26.
• Diaper Bank Funding—An increase of $7.4 million one-time General Fund for diaper banks.

Diaper banks received more funding in this year's final budget (2026/2027), exceeding the funding provided to the diaper access initiative:

• Diaper Access initiative: $12.5 million General Fund in 2026-27 for the Department of Health Care Access and Information to contract for the provision of diapers at no cost to California families with newborn babies via hospital systems to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes.
• Diaper Bank—An increase of $16.5 million one-time General Fund for various organizations to provide diaper and wipe distributions to low-income families with infants or toddlers."

We did report all of those details. However, the governor's office is specifically referring to a "Key Finding" bullet point at the top of the article, which abbreviated a more fulsome explanation further down in the story.

We updated the bullet to clarify that it was specifically Newsom's 2025 budget that funded his $7.4 million Diaper Access program at the expense of traditional diaper bank funding. The bullet now reads:

• Newsom's 2025 budget funded the free diaper program at the expense of traditional diaper bank funding.  Lawmakers then amended the budget to remove the governor's program entirely, reallocating that $7.4 million back to diaper and food banks, per the LAO's recommendation, before passing the budget. The additional $7.4 million for the governor's program was later added in the Budget Bill Jr. (Updated 7/18/26) 

THE DIAPER BANK FUNDING TIMELINE

2025 

• JAN/MAY | Both the governor's initial budget and the May Revision cut existing diaper bank funding entirely. 
• FEB |The Legislative Analyst's Office reviewed the governor's plan and recommended the Legislature "support the state's existing diaper banks" instead. 
• MAY | Lawmakers raised the concern with the Newsom administration at a May budget subcommittee hearing. 

It was ultimately the Legislature that stepped in to fund diaper banks, initially at the expense of Newsom's program. 

2025 

• JUNE 13 | In June, lawmakers removed the governor's diaper program from the budget entirely, gave the full $7.4 million to diaper banks instead, and passed that budget with no funding for the governor's program. 
• JUNE 27 | After "nearly two weeks" of reported "closed-door negotiations," lawmakers agreed to add an additional $7.4 million in the Budget Bill Jr. to fund the governor's diaper program, agreeing to exempt his program from competitive bidding and DGS oversight.
• NOV |The LAO noted the diaper banks' $7.4 million was "a year-over-year decrease of about $2 million (about 20 percent)."

As the Governor's Office notes, and we reported, the Legislature increased diaper bank funding to $16.5 million in the recently passed 2026 budget. 

2026 

• JAN/MAY | Once again, the governor's budget removed funding for diaper banks. The only diaper-related funding in the governor's budget was for the Baby2Baby contract. 
• MAY 8 | After the Governor's controversial Baby2Baby contract announcement in May…
• MAY 20 | And after the May Senate Budget hearing where lawmakers raised concerns about extending the no-bid Baby2Baby exemption...
• JUNE 11 | Lawmakers added the $16.5 million for diaper banks through a Senate amendment, 

As the Governor's Office notes, and we highlighted in our reporting, the Legislature's allocation for diaper banks now exceeds Baby2Baby's $12.5 million 2026 funding.

For completeness: on July 18, we published a clarification, adding the legislature's restoration to the Key Findings bullet. The body of the story has reported the restoration and the 2026 increase since first publication.

Issue 5: "The administration told lawmakers that diaper banks would be able to competitively bid"

Governor's Office claim: "The link included in the article goes to a subcommittee hearing earlier in the budget process before the budget was finalized, which is disingenuous to the reality of the final 2025 budget."

That link supports the sentence that sits under it. On May 20, 2025, six days after the governor's May revised budget continued to defund diaper banks, the administration told lawmakers the diaper banks would be able to bid through an RFP process. That was five days after the window closed for diaper banks to respond to the state's RFI. The state never issued an official RFP request for competitive bids.

The administration's email doesn't dispute any of that.

Issue 6: "The one the state won't release"

Governor's Office claim: "This reporting is disingenuous considering the fact that we anticipate you to receive the PRA today. The state is releasing the contract, and in an effort of greater transparency, this contract will be published on HCAI's website."

The sentence was accurate when the story was published. The records were released at 5:34 p.m. on July 17, six hours after we published our latest story and 66 days after our request. The office's email anticipating same-day production arrived exactly 30 minutes after the records did.

We updated the story with links to the contract.

Issue 7: The subheadline: "Diaper banks lost their funding and were promised a shot"

Governor's Office claim: "Again, the framing of this is blatantly misleading. As you note in your reporting, diaper banks received more funding this year than last year. Yet you choose to lead with a subheadline that misleads the public into thinking the administration cut funding to diaper banks, when in reality the Governor signed a budget proposal expanding their funding. We request an update to the framing/subheadline so that it accurately reflects the state of funding approved by the Governor to support diaper banks."

The subheadline says the diaper banks lost their funding and were promised a shot. The record in Claim 4 shows both:

• The diaper banks' funding was expiring.
• The governor's proposals in consecutive years contained none.
• The administration told lawmakers the banks could bid.
• No bid occurred.
• The Legislature, not the governor's budget, restored a reduced amount in 2025 and increased it in 2026.

The office's email confirms the banks got more this year than last. That is exactly what our story reports beneath that subheadline.

Issue 8: "Lawmakers wrote Baby2Baby's name directly into the budget"

Governor's Office Claim: "This was a $1.5 million legislative augmentation in the 2023 Budget for Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services to work with Baby2Baby for diaper production and distribution – not the administration's add. This fact is not clear in your reporting. Please update to reflect that this originated from the Legislature – not the administration."

Our story already attributes both earlier no-bid deals to lawmakers, saying they "wrote Baby2Baby's name directly into the budget" and did it again the next year. Notably, the governor signed both budgets.

What we updated

• Updated the story after the state released the contract and RFI respondent records six hours after publication. The update notes the release timeline, links the contract, notes Amazon's response, and reports HCAI's "Finalists Recommendation" claim that it "met with all RFI respondents or organizations representing RFI respondents," alongside a respondent's account that it never got a meeting.
• Added the governor's office post-publication statement to the story's "Non-competitively bid" section, and updated the records timeline throughout. The story's references to a pending release were accurate when published and were overtaken by the July 17 release, 66 days after our request and 70 days after the governor announced the contract.
• Clarified the Key Findings bullet on diaper bank funding, described in Issue 4. The original did not say whose budget defunded the diaper banks. The updated bullet attributes the 2025 cut to the governor's budget, the restoration to the Legislature, and the later re-funding of the governor's program to the Budget Bill Jr.

The questions the Governor's Office didn't answer

The email asked us for corrections. It did not answer the questions we've put to the state, so we'll repeat them here and have added a few more:

• HCAI's own follow-up questions to Baby2Baby acknowledged that 300-400 diapers at discharge "might be overwhelming" and that limiting sizes could "waste product." Why does the executed contract nonetheless limit the program to two sizes, distributed at discharge, with "no right to return or exchange diapers"?
• Was Amazon Business's September 2025 response evaluated? It appears in none of HCAI's comparison or finalist documents.
• The governor's January 2025 budget proposal set the plan before the RFI ever went out: 40 million diapers, roughly $6.2 million for the vendor, and $500,000 reserved to explore a Phase 2 low-cost diaper marketplace. The executed Baby2Baby contract matches that plan almost line for line, down to the $3.8 million manufacturing estimate. So what in the process could have produced a different outcome — and why did the state pick the partner its own recommendation says "would not enable" consumers to buy low-cost diapers in the marketplace it budgeted half a million dollars to explore? Who made the final decision?
• Records show HCAI told Baby2Baby it was selected on January 7, 2026. That was four months before the May 8 announcement. Were unsuccessful respondents notified at any point before the public announcement? If so, when and how?
• Please produce the evaluation criteria and scoring records for the "judging" your email describes. None appear in the production, despite the state's stated intent to release "bid scoring sheets."
• Please reconcile the respondent count: HCAI's Executive Summary says 11 responses; its Finalists Recommendation says 14; your email and HCAI's press release say 15.
• HCAI says it "met with all RFI respondents or organizations representing RFI respondents." At least one respondent tells us they never got a meeting. Can you please identify who you met with from each organization?
• The executed contract's Std 213 face sheet shows the DGS exemption citation struck through and replaced with the Budget Act citation, in a notation reading "RZ 5-20-2026," eight days after our records request. The original citation, Health and Safety Code §127692(b), is a provision of the Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act. Who made that change, in what capacity, and was the executed agreement formally amended? Why did the executed contract cite the drug statute? What legal authority governed the agreement on the date it was executed?
• Baby2Baby declined to name its diaper manufacturer during the RFI process, and records show HCAI was still asking in August. Who manufactures the program's diapers, and did the state confirm the manufacturer before signing?
  
• The 2025 budget provided $7.4 million; the executed contract totals $6.2 million. HCAI testified the $7.4 million will also 'cover a couple of years of Phase two.' Please provide the breakdown of the roughly $1.2 million not covered by the contract.
  
• The RFI told respondents 400 diapers is "approximately a 3-month supply." Usage data submitted in response to the state's RFI indicates newborns require roughly double that in the first three months. Does the state stand by the three-month characterization?
  
• It's our understanding that Baby2Baby was awarded the full two-year contract. However, the contract you've provided, signed in April of this year, only includes the first year — $6.2 million. Will Baby2Baby be awarded year two, or will there be a separate competitive bid process? 
  

We've asked the administration to answer on the record. We'll report what they say, or what they don't.

Continuing Coverage

(UPDATED 7/29/2026) CBS California Investigates has been following the state's no-bid Baby2Baby diaper deal since May, when our fact-check found the loudest criticisms of the program were wrong, but the state refused to release the contract.

The Newsom administration then delayed releasing the records for 66 days while lawmakers weighed giving agencies even more time to respond to requests like these.

In the meantime, the investigation revealed that what the governor called a "competitive bid process" was actually "non-competitively bid". It was legal, exempted by a single sentence in the state budget, one of dozens of similar exemptions covering more than $1 billion in state contracts. 

Six hours after that investigation was published, the state released the 356 pages of records. 

Thirty minutes later, the governor's office responded, calling our reporting "demonstrably false." CBS California then published a point-by-point review, checking every claim against the state's own records. That review also revealed that the governor's proposed budget funded the Baby2Baby program at the expense of traditional diaper bank funding, which lawmakers later restored.

CBS California Investigates then summarized the key findings in the 356 pages of records that Californians waited 66 days to see. The findings ranged from missing bid scores and conflicting respondent counts to a taxpayer-funded branding premium and a contract cloaked in confidentiality.

The full investigation details those findings and links directly to the relevant records, including repeated warnings that the program could lead to wasted taxpayer-funded diapers. 

State records reveal it didn't.

UPDATE 7/29/2026: Read more about the governor's response to this story and what the 356 pages of records later revealed here.

California's official contract database lists the $6.2 million Baby2Baby deal as "NON-COMPETITIVELY BID."

Baby2Baby is not alone.

CBS California Investigates found more than two dozen similar exemptions in California's new state budget totaling more than $1 billion in appropriations for programs ranging from a $253 million opioid-response fund to suicide-crisis grants to a $12.9 million prison re-entry program. Two out of three of the exemptions never expire.

Because these deals are also exempt from state contracting oversight, they are largely hidden from public view and don't appear in California's public database of no-bid contracts.

Had the governor not publicly announced the Baby2Baby contract, prompting questions about the nonprofit's ties to Newsom and his wife, the "non-competitively bid" contract may never have been discovered.

That public announcement, and the controversy that followed, prompted CBS California Investigates to fact-check some of the critics' claims.

As part of that fact check, we requested a copy of the Baby2Baby contract and competitive bid records through a California Public Records Act Request.

For two months, the administration delayed providing those records, prompting us to dig deeper into state records that were already publicly available.

After cross-referencing the state contract database, non-competitive bid database, two years of budget hearings and four different budget bills connected to Baby2Baby non-competitive contracts dating back to 2022, it became clear that this investigation was no longer about diapers.

Key findings

• State records label the Baby2Baby contract as "NON-COMPETITIVELY BID", despite the governor's public description of a "competitive bidding process."
• State law requires competitive bids, with a few legal exemptions. This contract didn't go through the normal exemption process, which requires justification and public disclosure.
• Instead, an exemption was buried in the state budget waiving competitive bidding, oversight by the state contracting watchdog, and the public posting of no-bid contracts in the DGS database.
• CBS California Investigates found more than two dozen similar exemptions in the 2026 state budget totaling more than $1 billion in appropriations. Those contracts are also exempt from public posting and third-party oversight.
• This is at least Baby2Baby's third no-bid state contract. The first two listed Baby2Baby by name in the budget, but neither appears in the state's no-bid database.
• California is never identified in Baby2Baby's public tax filings. Government grants appear only as a single $2.5 million line item, and the contributor schedule is restricted from public view, as federal law allows.
• Governor Newsom's 2025 budget funded the free diaper program at the expense of traditional diaper bank funding.  Lawmakers then amended the budget to remove the governor's program entirely, reallocating that $7.4 million back to diaper and food banks, per the LAO's recommendation, before passing the budget. The additional $7.4 million for the governor's program was later added in the Budget Bill Jr. (Updated 7/18/2026) 
•  The administration told lawmakers that diaper banks would be able to competitively bid for the contract. Instead of a competitive bid, the state issued a Request for Information, which says it is "Not a Solicitation." Fifteen organizations responded.
• Several respondents, including one of the nation's largest diaper bank networks, say they either didn't get an interview or felt they weren't seriously considered.   
• The state released the diaper contract and competitive bid scoring records to CBS California Investigates — 66 days after it received our Public Records Act Request and 70 days after the Governor announced the contract. (Updated 7/18/2026) 

"Non-competitively bid" — in the state's own words

California's contract database entry for the Baby2Baby deal is blunt. Acquisition method: "Exempt by Policy – Other (buyer must indicate policy) – NON-COMPETITIVELY BID."

Pressed to explain the contradiction with the governor's announcement, a spokesperson said the term competitive "refers to the competitive nature" of the state's Request for Information, adding the exemption provided "flexibility to deliver on the project at the scale needed to serve Californians." 

But at a May Senate budget hearing, the department's own chief deputy director described what the exemption really does: it "allows you to essentially engage in negotiated contracting outside of state rules," because the formal bid process "can be cumbersome and time consuming."

Governor's office response sent after publication:

"This is an inaccurate representation of the RFI process. The process was still competitive, receiving 15 applicants who were judged on multiple factors including diaper cost, cost for implementation, existing infrastructure for manufacturing/distributing, and other significant considerations. The Governor was referring to the process being competitive in nature, which remains accurate." (Updated 7/18/2026) 

The normal way to skip a bid — and what happened instead

Skipping a competitive bid isn't necessarily improper. State rules allow a handful of legal exemptions, including in cases of an emergency contract or for a product that only one company makes. But that path comes with strings: agencies must justify the no-bid deal to the Department of General Services, and approved exemptions are publicly posted — 474 of them since 2018.

The diaper contract took a different path entirely.

One sentence, in the 893-page budget

The Budget Act of 2025 contains a single provision exempting Diaper Access Initiative contracts from the competitive bidding law, from public advertising of the bid, and from "the review or approval of any division of the Department of General Services," the state's contract watchdog. 

No bid required. No watchdog review. No entry in the public no-bid database. The only public trace: one coding line in a contract registry most Californians have never heard of.

And here's how it got there. The governor proposed the free diaper program in his January 2025 budget, which never described a competitive process, saying only that the state would "identify a partner." The exemption itself appeared in the budget bill in late June. Three days later, it was law. 

More than two dozen similar exemptions

CBS California Investigates searched the full 893-page 2026 Budget Act for the same exemption language and found more than two dozen matching clauses across seven state departments, each verified against the chaptered bill text.

Each waives both competitive bidding and DGS review.

They include a $253 million opioid-response fund, grants supporting the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, and a $12.9 million prison reentry program.

The exemptions also cover funds implementing Proposition 1, the governor's signature mental health measure. That measure squeaked past voters 50.2% to 49.8% in 2024. The margin was so thin that it took 15 days to call.

One clause gives the Office of Health Care Affordability, the state's own health-cost watchdog, a no-bid authority through 2031. The same budget item shields that office's report-related documents from the Public Records Act until 2031. It also grants emergency-regulation powers that skip the normal public rulemaking process.

Two-thirds of the exemptions never expire.

A separate February bill applied a similar formula to $90 million in reproductive health grants. The Governor's office says those funds went to Planned Parenthood and other clinics. What the press release did not say is that those contracts, by law, "shall not be made public." Lawmakers wrote findings into the bill to justify the secrecy, citing the safety of medical providers and patient privacy after federal defunding.

Baby2Baby's third no-bid contract

This is at least the third time Baby2Baby has received state money without a competitive bid. But the earlier deals were done differently.

In 2022, lawmakers wrote Baby2Baby's name directly into the budget for a $1 million car seat contract. In 2023, they did it again: $1.5 million, by name, for L.A. diaper distribution. Naming the vendor in the law provided a level of transparency. Lawmakers saw who was getting the money and voted on it.

But even those "transparent" no-bid deals had blind spots. Neither contract appears in the state's no-bid database. Unless you searched the budget's hundreds of pages, you'd never know they existed. And competitors never had the opportunity to bid on those contracts either.

This time, there's no name in the law at all. The administration selected Baby2Baby through a process the governor called competitive. The records call it non-competitive.

Baby2Baby's ties to the state span the governor's tenure. He credits the nonprofit with bringing him the idea to eliminate the diaper sales tax. He suggests the free diaper program grew out of conversations with the organization. And one of its co-CEOs sits on the board of the First Partner's California Partners Project.

Missing from the tax filings, too

You can't trace the state's payments through Baby2Baby's public tax filings either.

The nonprofit's most recent 990 reports government grants as a single line item: $2.5 million, with no indication of which governments paid. Federal law allows nonprofits to withhold the names of contributors, including government grantors, from the public copies of their filings. Baby2Baby's contributor schedule is marked "RESTRICTED." (The new $6.2 million diaper contract began in May and wouldn't appear in any filing yet. The earlier state-funded deals can't be identified in the public filings either.)

None of that is improper. It's how the disclosure rules work. But it means the only document that can confirm what California is paying Baby2Baby, and for what, is the contract itself, which the state delayed releasing for 66 days.  (Updated 7/18/2026)    

Diaper banks lost their funding and were promised a shot

The free diaper program came at a cost to California's existing diaper banks. The governor's 2025 budget proposal eliminated their traditional funding and replaced it with the new statewide program. When lawmakers asked what would happen to them, state officials said at a budget hearing that the diaper banks would be able to bid.

No competitive bid process ever happened.

In June, lawmakers amended the budget to remove the governor's program entirely and, per the LAO's recommendation, reallocated its full $7.4 million to eleven named diaper banks and food banks. 

They passed that budget with no funding for the governor's program. Only after closed-door negotiations, did lawmakers agree to add an additional $7.4 million in the Budget Bill Jr. to also fund the governor's program, along with exemptions for bidding and DGS oversight. (Updated 7/18/2026) 

This year, lawmakers more than doubled the diaper banks' funding: $16.5 million to the same eleven organizations for diaper and wipe distribution. 

That means the diaper banks' allocation this year is now larger than the $12.5 million appropriated for the next phase of the Baby2Baby program itself. The difference: the diaper banks are named in the law, in plain sight.

"Not a Solicitation"

Instead of a bid, the state posted RFI #24-25068, a Request for Information seeking input "from diaper manufacturers." The document itself says it is "Not a Solicitation," clarifying it was issued "for information and planning purposes only." Responses "cannot be accepted... to form a binding contract." Any pricing "will not be considered a proposal/bid."

The state says organizations responded. The department said it evaluated them, interviewed some, and negotiated a contract with Baby2Baby. HCAI Director Elizabeth Landsberg told senators it "was a robust, meaningful process," the same approach used for the state's CalRx insulin and naloxone programs.

Here's what the state hasn't explained: what did the "bid scoring sheets" it promised to release actually score? The RFI published no evaluation criteria.

"We weren't seriously considered"

While diaper banks were encouraged to apply, CBS California Investigates spoke with several respondents who say they either weren't given an interview or did not feel they were seriously considered.

One of the nation's largest diaper bank networks told CBS California it responded to the RFI and never got an interview. When they inquired, they were told there were no updates.

Several applicants said they only learned they were out of the running when the governor announced the Baby2Baby partnership at the May press conference.

Under a traditional competitive bid, losing bidders are notified. They can request the scoring sheets. They can protest. Under this process, under this process, there was never legally a bid or scoring criteria so there was nothing to protest.

66 days

CBS California Investigates requested the contract and bid records on May 12, four days after the governor's announcement. The state took 24 days to confirm that the records are public and disclosable. Then it delayed production three times. The final delay came at 5:09 p.m. on July 3, a state holiday, indicating that notice was pre-scheduled.

The state released the records  at 5:34 p.m. on July 17, six hours after this story was initially published, 66 days after our request and 70 days after the Governor announced the contract. 

To be clear, our fact-check found Baby2Baby is a highly rated charity. Its newest filing shows the co-CEOs earning under $70,000 a year and celebrity board members earn nothing. 

Every exemption described in this story is legal, approved by the Legislature.

However, the question is bigger than diapers. Should the state be exempting more than a billion dollars in contracts from competitive bids and public oversight? And if the governor hadn't called this one competitive, would anyone have ever checked?

We've also asked the governor's office what criteria the respondents were scored against, and whether the others were ever notified.

We are reviewing the records and the response and will publish an update with the full response from the governor's office.

Neither the Governor's office nor Baby2Baby replied to our request for comment before publication.

Continuing Coverage

(UPDATE 7/29/2026) CBS California Investigates has been following the state's no-bid Baby2Baby diaper deal since May, when our fact-check found the loudest criticisms of the program were wrong, but the state refused to release the contract.

The Newsom administration then delayed releasing the records for 66 days while lawmakers weighed giving agencies even more time to respond to requests like these.

In the meantime, the investigation revealed that what the governor called a "competitive bid process" was actually "non-competitively bid". It was legal, exempted by a single sentence in the state budget, one of dozens of similar exemptions covering more than $1 billion in state contracts. 

Six hours after that investigation was published, the state released the 356 pages of records. 

Thirty minutes later, the governor's office responded, calling our reporting "demonstrably false." CBS California then published a point-by-point review, checking every claim against the state's own records. That review also revealed that the governor's proposed budget funded the Baby2Baby program at the expense of traditional diaper bank funding, which lawmakers later restored.

CBS California Investigates then summarized the key findings in the 356 pages of records that Californians waited 66 days to see. The findings ranged from missing bid scores and conflicting respondent counts to a taxpayer-funded branding premium and a contract cloaked in confidentiality.

The full investigation details those findings and links directly to the relevant records, including repeated warnings that the program could lead to wasted taxpayer-funded diapers. 

Two months after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a controversial multimillion-dollar state diaper contract with Baby2Baby, a nonprofit with existing ties to the Newsom administration and the First Partner, Californians still have not been allowed to see the contract or competitive bid records behind the deal to manufacture and deliver millions of California co-branded free diapers to new parents.

UPDATE 7/29/2026: See what the 356 pages of diaper contract records revealed when the state finally released them after 66 days.

The delay comes despite repeated requests by CBS California Investigates and despite California law requiring the state to release these records. 

The Newsom administration waited 24 days to decide whether it would even allow the public to see the records, but continues to delay releasing the Baby2Baby contract and competitive bid records that the governor announced more than two months ago.   

At the same time, California lawmakers are advancing legislation that would give state agencies additional time to respond to California Public Records Act requests, further extending how long the public must wait for records like these.

Delayed accountability 

CBS California Investigates requested a copy of the Baby2Baby contract on May 12, four days after Governor Newsom announced the partnership during a high-profile press conference. 

Given the controversy and misinformation surrounding the announcement, we asked the Newsom administration to forgo the formal California Public Records Act (CPRA) process and provide an expedited copy of the contract and competitive bid records. 

Both are expressly identified as public records under California law, which also requires agencies to "promptly notify" requesters whether records are disclosable, allowing a maximum of ten days to let them know the estimated date that they will provide the records. 

Instead, the Newsom Administration spent 24 days determining whether or not it would even allow Californians to see these public records, then said it would take another 42 days (if the state meets its latest deadline) to provide a copy of the contract and competitive bid records that the governor publicly announced two months ago. 

What is AB 1821?

Even as public interest grows, California lawmakers are advancing a bill that would allow agencies to further delay responses to Public Records Act requests, extending the maximum initial 10-day determination window and 14-day extension window from calendar days to business days.

State law does not limit how long an agency can wait to actually provide the records after they provide that initial response.   

ALSO READ: California State Secrets: What public officials don't want you to know

Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco introduced Assembly Bill 1821, which originally sought to overhaul the transparency law to allow agencies to sue if they deemed a request "malicious" and charge up to $66 an hour to provide public records.   

The proposal triggered fierce pushback from a broad coalition including the First Amendment Coalition, ACLU California Action, Common Cause California, the League of Women Voters, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Senate Judiciary Chair Tom Umberg, stripped the most controversial elements from the legislation before moving it forward.

"People shouldn't have to tell us why they want that information. People shouldn't have to pay to get information from public officials," Umberg told CBS California. 

Still, the amended version lengthens the legal window for officials to respond to records requests. 

Pacheco maintained the necessity of the changes for burdened departments.

"Agencies across the state are experiencing a sharp increase in requests that are exceptionally broad," she argued during testimony.

Demanding transparency

Ginny LaRoe of the First Amendment Coalition contends that essential documents, such as multimillion-dollar state contracts, should be accessible without any formal request at all.

"You should have that document in your hands. You should've had it in your hand the day they were talking about it," LaRoe said.

Rather than forcing Californians to wait weeks for paper-pushing, LaRoe suggests the state should proactively upload finalized agreements online with minor necessary redactions for personal information, ensuring immediate transparency and easing the administrative burden.

Umberg signaled support for a shift toward automated disclosure.

"I think there's a world where we make them do that," he said. "It's up to us to motivate them to do so."

The unanswered questions

More than two months after Newsom's big announcement, CBS California Investigates continues to wait for the state to release the Baby2Baby contract and the underlying bid documents.

After waiting 24 days to confirm the records were, in fact, disclosable, the state said it would need an additional 28 days to provide them. At 5:09 pm on the 28th day – Friday, July 3, a state holiday – CBS California received a presumably automated email informing us the state would need another two weeks to provide the contract the governor announced two months ago. 

Until these public records are actually public, questions will continue to mount about how this deal was reached and how competing proposals were scored.

56 days and counting: The reality of CPRA

Day 1 | May 12

CBS California Investigates requested a copy of the Baby2Baby contract four days after Governor Newsom announced the partnership during a high-profile Capitol press conference.

The Governor's Office referred the request to the California Health and Human Services Agency. Because of the intense public interest following the announcement, CBS California Investigates asked Deputy Secretary of External Affairs Sami Gallegos and Assistant Secretary of External Affairs Rodger Butler to forgo the formal California Public Records Act (CPRA) process and simply provide an expedited copy of the highly publicized contract.

Instead, Butler directed us to the Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI), the agency handling the procurement. HCAI acknowledged receipt of the request.

Day 7 | May 19

CBS California Investigates followed up with the HCAI, again requesting an expedited copy of the contract because we were on a deadline.

The agency responded that the request was being processed through the California Public Records Act, rather than providing the contract directly.

Day 14 | May 22

Exactly 10 calendar days after the request, the HCAI invoked the CPRA's "unusual circumstances" provision, extending the deadline another 14 days to determine whether the requested records were disclosable.

The agency wrote that it needed additional time because "two or more components of the agency have substantial subject matter interest" in the request.

Day 28 | June 5

Fourteen days later, the HCAI agreed that the records are public.

The agency determined that the Baby2Baby contract, procurement packet, scope of work, bid scoring sheets and vendor award documents are disclosable public records.

However, instead of releasing them, the HCAI said it would need another three to four weeks to identify and produce the records.

AB 1821 | While we waited

While CBS California Investigates waited for the records, lawmakers advanced AB 1821, legislation that originally proposed sweeping changes to California's Public Records Act.

After bipartisan criticism and opposition from transparency advocates, many of the bill's most controversial provisions were removed. However, the amended bill still gives agencies additional time to respond to public records requests.

Day 52 | July 3

Instead of receiving the records, CBS California Investigates received another email at 5:09 p.m. on the final day of the promised three-to-four-week production window.

Rather than releasing the records, the state delayed production another two weeks, pushing the expected release well past the two-month mark.

Day 56 and counting

Fifty-six days after CBS California Investigates requested the Baby2Baby contract, and 60 days after Governor Newsom publicly announced the partnership, Californians still have not been allowed to review:

• The executed contract
• The procurement packet
• The scope of work
• The competitive bid scoring sheets
• The vendor award documents

Translation: The Newsom administration spent 24 days determining whether records already identified as public under California law could be released. It then delayed producing those records for another six weeks. If the state meets its latest deadline, Californians will have waited 66 days from our request and 70 days from the governor's announcement to see the contract.

Continuing Coverage

(UPDATED 7/29/2026) CBS California Investigates has been following the state's no-bid Baby2Baby diaper deal since May, when our fact-check found the loudest criticisms of the program were wrong, but the state refused to release the contract.

The Newsom administration then delayed releasing the records for 66 days while lawmakers weighed giving agencies even more time to respond to requests like these.

In the meantime, the investigation revealed that what the governor called a "competitive bid process" was actually "non-competitively bid". It was legal, exempted by a single sentence in the state budget, one of dozens of similar exemptions covering more than $1 billion in state contracts. 

Six hours after that investigation was published, the state released the 356 pages of records. 

Thirty minutes later, the governor's office responded, calling our reporting "demonstrably false." CBS California then published a point-by-point review, checking every claim against the state's own records. That review also revealed that the governor's proposed budget funded the Baby2Baby program at the expense of traditional diaper bank funding, which lawmakers later restored.

CBS California Investigates then summarized the key findings in the 356 pages of records that Californians waited 66 days to see. The findings ranged from missing bid scores and conflicting respondent counts to a taxpayer-funded branding premium and a contract cloaked in confidentiality.

The full investigation details those findings and links directly to the relevant records, including repeated warnings that the program could lead to wasted taxpayer-funded diapers. 

The Newsom administration fired back, insisting the actual cost is just 15.5 cents per diaper.

But a CBS News California Investigates review of the state's own budget documents, Baby2Baby tax filings and social media claims found both sides are leaving out important context. 

UPDATE 7/29/2026: See what the 356 pages of diaper contract records revealed when the state finally released them after 66 days.

There are also many claims we can't yet fact-check because, nearly a month after the governor publicly announced the program and touted the competitive selection process, his administration will not release the Baby2Baby state contract or competitive bid records to CBS News California Investigates.

The administration says it needs more time to determine whether the records are disclosable under California's Public Records Act, pushing the deadline to decide whether to release the records to the first week of June, a full month after the public announcement.  

Key fact checks

• Californians are currently paying 18.5 cents per diaper under the new program. 
• The viral "50 cents per diaper" criticism combines multiple years of proposed spending and divides it by only the first year's diaper total.
  
• The Newsom administration's 15.5-cent fact check ignores state agency costs that add an additional 3 cents per diaper in the first year. 
• This is not a gift card or cash-assistance program; parents will leave the hospital with roughly 400 diapers for their newborns.
• Experts caution that stockpiling newborn diapers often leads to waste because babies grow at different rates and can quickly outgrow diapers in the first few weeks. 
• So far, officials can't say how they plan to ensure taxpayer funded diapers given out in bulk will not go to waste.   
• The Baby2Baby co-CEOs, widely linked to Gov. Newsom's wife, make less than $80,000 per year – not the $240,000 widely circulated online.  

Online critics repeatedly point to the Baby2Baby co-CEOs' relationship with First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The governor also alluded to a longstanding relationship between his administration and Baby2Baby during the program launch. 

Baby2Baby was previously awarded $1.5 million in the 2023/24 state budget to distribute diapers in Los Angeles County. However, the state payment is not included on the nonprofit's public 2024 tax return, which shows a total revenue of more than $70 million. 

According to Baby2Baby, the state payment was included along with charitable contributions in a confidential portion of the public tax filing, labeled as "restricted."

50-cent diaper math isn't mathing

The viral criticism spreading online started with a social media post by gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, who filmed himself inside a Target diaper aisle.

"Gavin Newsom is taking $20 million of your money to send 100,000 babies 400 diapers," Hilton said in the viral X video. "That works out at 50 cents per diaper."

Conservative commentators and influencers quickly amplified the claim.

"Allegedly, the diapers for the program, supplied by a nonprofit called Baby2Baby, are estimated to cost 50 cents per diaper," commentator Isabel Brown said in a separate X post.

Fox News and influencers also questioned the nonprofit's political connections.

But CBS News California Investigates found the "50 cents per diaper" math relies on an inaccurate calculation. The critics divide the program's full proposed two-year budget — roughly $20 million — by only the first year's diaper total: 40 million diapers.

Lawmakers have not approved the full two-year budget for a total of 120 million diapers. 

So far, they have only approved is $7.4 million for 40 million diapers in the first year, which means California taxpayers are currently paying 18.5 cents per diaper. 

That's still more than the 16-cent diapers Hilton found at Target, but far less than the 50-cent figure circulating online.

The Real Math:

• FY25/26: Total $7.4 million / 40 million diapers = 18.5 cents per 
• FY26/27: Total $12.5 million / 80 million diapers = 15.6 cents per 
• Combined: $19.9 million / 120 million diapers = 16.6 cents per diaper delivered to the hospital and sent home with each newborn 

The Newsom administration was quick to fact-check Hilton, saying Californians are paying just 15.5 cents per diaper to Baby2Baby, the vendor hired to manufacture and distribute the diapers to participating hospitals.

"The 2025-26 State Budget includes funds for a diaper contract that was awarded to Baby2Baby. The $6.2 million contract Baby2Baby received is designed to cover 25% of California births at 400 diapers per infant, which equates to 15.5 cents per diaper," the governor's office told CBS News California Investigates.  

That calculation counts only the Baby2Baby $6.2 million contract itself, which includes diaper manufacturing, warehousing, and direct program implementation.  

It does not include state staffing, oversight, or future program planning costs. The state has not provided the requested budget breakdowns for the additional $1.2 million in state agency fees. 

According to the California Department of Finance Budget Proposal, this is what Californians are paying for:

• Manufacturing: 9.5 cents per diaper
• Warehouse/distribution: 4 cents
• Direct program costs: 2 cents
• State operations: 1.75 cents
• Phase 2 planning/RFI exploration: 1.25 cents

Baby2Baby background

The online backlash also targeted Baby2Baby itself, with some posts falsely claiming executives were making "hundreds of thousands" of dollars from taxpayer money.

"Did I mention that Baby2Baby CEO Norah Weinstein is really good friends with Gavin Newsom's wife?" conservative commentator Brittany Hughes said in another video, echoing claims that she made $240,000 in 2024.  

Public IRS 990 tax filings reviewed through ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer and Charity Navigator show co-CEOs Kelly Sawyer Patricof and Norah Weinstein each reported compensation of roughly $77,566 during the most recent filing period — far below the $240,000 figures circulating online.

There are several operational employees who do make six-figure salaries; however, the total salaries and compensation amount to roughly 10% of the total revenue.

Tax records show the nonprofit generated more than $77 million in revenue in 2024 alone, with approximately 95% coming from charitable contributions.

By comparison, the state's current $6.2 million diaper contract represents a relatively small portion of the organization's overall funding and representatives say Baby2Baby will not profit from the state contract. 

However, the state has yet to release the Baby2Baby contract, so CBS News California can not independently confirm that. 

Questions also remain about the state's selection process.

Online critics repeatedly point to the longstanding relationship between Baby2Baby leadership and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

"Was it really a rigorous process if you're best friends with the CEO of the company?" commentator Isabel Brown asked in a viral social media post.

Governor Newsom maintains Baby2Baby won the contract through a competitive bidding process. But until the state releases the contract, bid sheets and scoring records, CBS News California Investigates cannot independently verify how the nonprofit was selected or how it scored against competing applicants.

Will free diapers go to waste? 

The state says the program is not a gift card or cash-assistance program, as some have claimed online.

Instead, participating hospitals serving high numbers of low-income and Medi-Cal patients will distribute diapers directly to qualifying families immediately after birth, meaning parents will literally leave the hospital with roughly 400 diapers for their newborns.

Program officials told CBS News California Investigates:

• More than 100 hospitals have already expressed interest
• Roughly 60 to 70 hospitals are expected to participate initially
• Hospitals serving the highest-need families will be prioritized.

However, they could not address some practical questions about how the diaper distribution will work.

Parenting and pediatric experts caution that newborns often outgrow diaper sizes within the first few weeks, and stockpiling leads to waste. 

Some families could ultimately end up with boxes of diapers that their babies outgrow before they can use them. So far, officials can't say how they plan to ensure taxpayer funded diapers given out in bulk will not go to waste. 

They say hospitals will largely handle those logistics individually.

Meanwhile, diaper insecurity remains a documented issue nationwide.

A study by the National Diaper Bank Network found that roughly 40% American families struggle to afford diapers and estimated diapering a child can cost families nearly $1,000 annually.

And while the political debate online continues, the biggest unanswered questions may no longer be about diaper math at all — but about transparency, oversight and whether California taxpayers believe the state should be funding free diapers in the first place.

Continuing Coverage

(UPDATED 7/29/2026) CBS California Investigates has been following the state's no-bid Baby2Baby diaper deal since May, when our fact-check found the loudest criticisms of the program were wrong, but the state refused to release the contract.

The Newsom administration then delayed releasing the records for 66 days while lawmakers weighed giving agencies even more time to respond to requests like these.

In the meantime, the investigation revealed that what the governor called a "competitive bid process" was actually "non-competitively bid". It was legal, exempted by a single sentence in the state budget, one of dozens of similar exemptions covering more than $1 billion in state contracts. 

Six hours after that investigation was published, the state released the 356 pages of records. 

Thirty minutes later, the governor's office responded, calling our reporting "demonstrably false." CBS California then published a point-by-point review, checking every claim against the state's own records. That review also revealed that the governor's proposed budget funded the Baby2Baby program at the expense of traditional diaper bank funding, which lawmakers later restored.

CBS California Investigates then summarized the key findings in the 356 pages of records that Californians waited 66 days to see. The findings ranged from missing bid scores and conflicting respondent counts to a taxpayer-funded branding premium and a contract cloaked in confidentiality.

The full investigation details those findings and links directly to the relevant records, including repeated warnings that the program could lead to wasted taxpayer-funded diapers.