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Last week, we recognized National Crime Victims’ Rights Week — a time to honor survivors, support their healing, and reaffirm our commitment to justice for all victims of crime. It is also a moment to confront the barriers survivors continue to face and ensure they are treated with dignity, respect, and compassion throughout the justice process.
Here in California, we’ve made important progress to strengthen victims’ rights, expand access to services, and ensure survivors have a voice at every stage. We issued a legal alert reminding K–12 school districts of their obligation to prevent, stop, and address sexual misconduct in education programs and activities, and we’re continuing to work with law enforcement partners and agencies across the state to ensure sexual assault evidence kits are tested in a timely manner.
My office's Victims’ Services Unit provides critical support to victims and their families — helping them track cases, receive updates on appeals, and participate in the justice process. The unit also helps track sexual assault evidence kits through a statewide system, bringing greater transparency and accountability.
If you or someone you know needs support, you can contact us at https://oag.ca.gov/victimservices/contact or call (877) 433-9069.
In solidarity,
Rob
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Reminding School Districts of Legal Responsibility to Keep Students Safe
 Sexual harassment, assault, and abuse in schools is far too common and completely unacceptable. Every student has the right to a safe learning environment, and it is the duty of our school districts — along with a moral obligation — to step off the sidelines and be part of the solution. At a press conference this week, I announced a legal alert that reminds K-12 school districts of their obligation under California law to stop, prevent, and remedy sexual misconduct, as well as a new webpage and Know Your Rights alert in six languages that reminds families and students of their rights. It’s time to turn up the volume and reject the quiet acceptance of these incidents.
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Solving Sexual Assault Cold Case, Urging Action as Audit Deadline Nears
 Alongside law enforcement partners, this week, I also announced that a series of multi-jurisdictional sexual assault cold cases have been solved through the testing of sexual assault evidence kits, resulting in one arrest. This underscores the importance of the audit required by Senate Bill 464. Authored by Senator Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), the bill requires all California law enforcement agencies, crime labs, and medical facilities to conduct an audit of their sexual assault evidence kits by July 1, 2026, and to submit the number of untested kits to my office so we can collectively seek justice for survivors. I strongly encourage full participation. Victims of sexual assault deserve to be supported in both word and deed.
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Releasing New Report on California’s Historic Decline in Gun Violence
 Assembly Bill 1252, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), directs California DOJ’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention to produce a report to the Legislature outlining a five-year strategic plan to reduce gun violence. This week, I unveiled that report: A Strategic Plan to Sustain California’s Record Progress Against Gun Violence: Part 1. It documents how California has achieved its lowest rates of firearm death, firearm suicide, and firearm homicide on record, driven in part by historic investments in gun violence prevention strategies. It also highlights that California is at a critical juncture, as the strategies that helped drive record reductions in California are now grappling with devastating federal funding cuts and declining or expiring state and local investments. We cannot lose momentum now.
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Filing Lawsuit over Trump Administration’s Failure to Implement Life-Saving Soot Standard
 Soot is a deadly air pollutant emitted from a variety of sources, including combustion-engine vehicles, factories, and construction sites. Because of the particles’ small size, once inhaled, they can penetrate the lower parts of lungs, move out of the respiratory system, and affect other organs. As a result, soot exposure can lead to myriad health problems, including shortened lifespans, heart attacks, asthma attacks, and cancer. A 2024 Clean Air Act rule protects Americans from deadly soot pollution, but the Trump Administration’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is failing to implement it. This week, I filed a lawsuit to ensure the EPA fulfills its requirement to do so. Enough is enough.
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Making Your Life Affordable
 Making Your Life Affordable: From groceries to gas, costs seem to be rising and rising ... and rising. California DOJ has your back and is committed to protecting California families grappling with the high cost of living. In this segment, find some of the ways California DOJ is protecting Californians — and their wallets.
What We Did: This week my office named names and publicly released evidence clearly showing Amazon’s illegal price-fixing scheme. The new evidence includes specific interactions in which Amazon, vendors, and competing retailers — like Target, Walmart, Chewy, Best Buy, and Home Depot — agree to increase retail prices across their platforms, all so that Amazon can maintain its profit margins at the expense of consumers.
What this Means to You: Amazon is working to make your life more unaffordable — whether or not you shop on its site. The company is price-fixing, colluding with vendors and other retailers to raise costs for Americans beyond what the market requires and beyond what is fair. Amid a crisis of affordability, Amazon is illegally working to rake in profits by making sure consumers have nowhere else to turn to for lower prices. This is unlawful and California will not stand for it. We've asked a court to order Amazon to stop this conduct while our underlying case continues, and we look forward to going to bat for American families and holding Amazon accountable for this unlawful conduct at our upcoming January 2027 trial.
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Keeping You Safe
 I am pleased to report that commonsense gun violence protections will remain in California. Following a multistate lawsuit by California and other states, the Trump Administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has agreed that it will not return thousands of forced reset triggers (FRTs) into states that independently prohibit FRTs under state law, including California.
FRTs were previously regulated as machine guns at the federal level, but Trump’s ATF agreed to return FRTs that had been seized. In filings made in the lawsuit, ATF expressly confirmed to a federal judge that it will not return FRTs into California or other plaintiff states that prohibit them. Instead, ATF now offers FRT owners options to dispose of their FRTs, such as transferring them to a state where they are legal to possess or surrendering them, effectively providing the relief the states sought in our lawsuit. Therefore, the states have agreed to dismiss the case.
We are glad this legal action worked to stop these dangerous devices from entering our state. FRTs effectively turn semi-automatic firearms into more dangerous machine guns, and they are and will remain illegal in California.
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CARE Corner
 In observance of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, California DOJ victim advocates Kenya Salazar and Xiong Vang joined the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and other partners to discuss ways to honor, serve, and protect victims and survivors during a recent statewide conference.
Kenya Salazar participated on a panel, “Serve Communities: How California Agencies are Listening to Victims and Working to Serve All Communities,” and shared information about resources and services provided by the Victims’ Services Unit (VSU) at California DOJ.
To learn more about VSU, please click on the button below.
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Post of the Week
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FLASH BRIEFING
Attorney General Bonta Moves to Permanently Block President Trump’s Executive Order Restricting Mail Voting, Exerting Control over Elections
Attorney General Bonta: Despite Trump Administration’s Efforts, Gender-Affirming Care Remains Legal
Attorney General Bonta Opposes Federal Effort to Strip Housing Support for Mixed-Status Immigrant Households
During Graduation Season, Attorney General Bonta and Superintendent Thurmond Issue Updated Guidance on Graduates’ Rights to Wear Tribal Regalia
Attorney General Bonta Files Lawsuit Against City of Poway over CEQA Violations Involving the Discovery of Ancestral Remains and Tribal Cultural Resources
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Video of the Week
The proposed merger between Paramount Global and Warner Bros. is under active investigation and, as I told Scott MacFarlane of MeidasTouch, it's “not a done deal.”
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Make a Difference at California DOJ
 Apply today to help California DOJ protect the health, well-being, and public safety of Californians. Check out our featured jobs below and visit oag.ca.gov/careers for a full listing of available positions:
Deputy Attorney General Supervisor, Licensing Section
Deputy Attorney General IV, Police Practices Section
Deputy Attorney General IV, Business Litigation
Deputy Attorney General IV, Consumer Protection Section
Deputy Attorney General Supervisor, DMFEA Criminal Prosecutions
Senior Legal Analyst, Cybercrime Section
Deputy Press Secretary, Office of Communications
Investigative Auditor IV (Specialist), Charitable Trust Section
Senior Research Associate, Criminal Justice Research Section
Senior Accounting Officer (Supervisor), Accounting Office
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