SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

Gov. Gavin Newsom has tested positive for COVID-19, just 10 days after receiving his second booster vaccine.

He tweeted his positive test results on Saturday, saying he tested this morning. Newsom had just met with New Zealand's prime minister on Friday in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tested positive for the virus earlier in May.

California's governor said he is experiencing mild symptoms and is following health guidelines, including isolating and working remotely.

Newsom's press office said in a statement that he will be in isolation until at least June 2 and until he tests negative.

"Grateful to be vaccinated and for treatments like Paxlovid," Newsom said in a tweet.

He will be getting a prescription for Paxlovid and will start a five-day regimen immediately, according to his press office's statement.

Paxlovid is a treatment for mild-to-moderate symptoms in adults and children ages 12 and older, and is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. California distributes the treatment to some health providers, and has been working to expand access to free Paxlovid treatments through 'test to treat' sites for all those who test positive for COVID-19.

Newsom is vaccinated and has received two booster shots, his most recent shot was on May 18. Health officials say COVID-19 vaccines won't completely block infection, but that the shots are mainly designed to prevent severe illness.

California will start requiring gun makers and sellers to follow a whole new set of guidelines, a new precedent aimed at keeping guns out of the wrong hands. 

Starting July 2023, gun makers and sellers in California will have to implement what the state calls "reasonable precautions against theft or selling guns to someone who could use it illegally or harm someone else." 

That requirement is subjective, and gun rights groups argue it's too vague. 

But amid a rash of mass shootings and popular demand for tighter gun laws, it's a state measure that goes beyond current background check standards.

It adds to restrictions in a state where lawmakers are trying to limit concealed carry permitting after a Supreme Court ruling upended current laws. 

"We don't want a proliferation of weapons in sensitive areas, and we don't want the wrong people to have guns. That makes sense. They all work together. And California's safer because of it," state senator Anthony Portantino said.  

After a bipartisan law passed by Congress to strengthen so-called red-flag laws, President Biden is readily admitting its shortcomings. 

"We will not save every life from the epidemic of gun violence, but if this law had been in place years ago, even this last year, lives would have been saved," President Biden said. 

He's calling on states to go further than the federal government. 

That's exactly what California is doing, following in the footsteps of states like New York, New Jersey and Delaware, which have all enacted similar laws. 

"What legislatures are looking at is limitations around who, limitations around where and limitations around just what kinds of weapons are we talking about?" Portantino said.  

The California law also gives gun violence victims and their families more leverage to sue gun makers.

That skirts a 2005 federal law that protected gun manufacturers from lawsuits. 

The law allows an exemption when a manufacturer has violated state law. 

It allows California to add restrictions to the country's most restrictive state on guns.

"Now is the time to galvanize this movement. Because that's our duty to the people of this nation," President Biden said. 

Newsy is the nation’s only free 24/7 national news network. You can find Newsy using your TV’s digital antenna or stream for free. See all the ways you can watch Newsy here. 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday emphatically defeated a recall aimed at kicking him out of office early, a contest the Democrat framed as part of a national battle for his party’s values in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and continued threats from “Trumpism.”

Newsom bolted to a quick victory boosted by healthy turnout in the overwhelmingly Democratic state. He cast it as a win for science, women’s rights and other liberal issues, and it ensures the nation’s most populous state will remain in Democratic control as a laboratory for progressive policies.

“‘No’ is not the only thing that was expressed tonight,” Newsom said. “I want to focus on what we said ‘yes’ to as a state: We said yes to science, we said yes to vaccines, we said yes to ending this pandemic.”

With about 60% of ballots counted, “no” on the question of whether to recall Newsom was ahead by a 2-to-1 margin. That massive lead was built on votes cast by mail and in advance of Tuesday’s in-person balloting. While likely to shrink somewhat in the days ahead as votes cast at polling places are counted, the lead that Newsom took among votes cast before Election Day — which were counted first Tuesday night — was insurmountable.

Republican talk radio host Larry Elder almost certainly would have replaced Newsom had the recall succeeded, bringing a polar opposite political worldview, though he would have had to contend with a Legislature dominated by Democrats.

The recall turned on Newsom’s approach to the pandemic, including mask and vaccine mandates, and Democrats cheered the outcome as evidence voters approve of their approach. The race also was a test of whether opposition to former President Donald Trump and his right-wing politics remains a motivating force for Democrats and independents, as the party looks ahead to midterm elections next year.

Republicans had hoped for proof that frustrations over months of pandemic precautions would drive voters away from Democrats. The GOP won back four U.S. House seats last year, success that Republican leaders had hoped indicated revived signs of life in a state controlled by Democrats for more than a decade.

But a recall election is an imperfect barometer — particularly of national trends. Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2-to-1 in California, so the results may not translate to governors in toss-up states or reflect how voters will judge members of Congress next year.

Trump, who had largely stayed out of the contest, made unsubstantiated claims that the election was rigged in the closing days, claims echoed by Elder's campaign. Elder did not mention fraud as he addressed his supporters after the results were in.

“Let’s be gracious in defeat. We may have lost the battle, but we are going to win the war,” he said, later adding that the recall has forced Democrats to focus on issues such as homelessness and California’s high cost of living.

Newsom for months had likened the recall to efforts by Trump and his supporters to overturn the presidential election and a push in Republican-led states to restrict voting access.

“Democracy is not a football, you don’t throw it around. It’s more like — I don’t know — an antique vase,” Newsom said after his win. “You can drop it, smash it into a million different pieces — and that’s what we’re capable of doing if we don’t stand up to meet the moment and push back.”

He became the second governor in U.S. history to defeat a recall, cementing him as a prominent figure in national Democratic politics and preserving his prospects for a future run. Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker survived a recall in 2012.

California voters were asked two questions: Should Newsom be recalled, and, if so, who should replace him? Only a handful of the 46 names on the replacement ballot had public recognition, but most failed to gain traction with voters.

Elder entered the race just three months ago and quickly rose to the top of the pack. But that allowed Newsom to turn the campaign into a choice between the two men, rather than a referendum on his performance.

Newsom seized on Elder’s opposition to the minimum wage and abortion rights as evidence he was outside the mainstream in California. The governor branded him “more extreme than Trump,” while President Joe Biden, who campaigned for Newsom, called him “the closest thing to a Trump clone I’ve ever seen.”

Though the contest didn’t quite bring the circus-like element of California’s 2003 recall — when voters replaced Democratic Gov. Gray Davis with Republican movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger — it featured quirky moments of its own.

Reality TV star and former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner entered the race but gained little momentum and left the state for part of the campaign to film a reality show in Australia. Businessman John Cox, who lost badly to Newsom in 2018, tried to spice up his campaign by hiring a live bear to join him, branding himself as the “beast” to Newsom’s “beauty.”

Newsom will soon be campaigning again; he's up for reelection next year.

Orrin Heatlie, the Republican who launched the recall effort last year, cast it as a “David and Goliath” battle and said it was telling that Newsom had called on national Democrats like Biden to “salvage his damaged political career.”

The president and other prominent Democrats offered Newsom support in the race’s closing days, while national Republican leaders largely kept the contest at arm’s length.

The recall needed 1.5 million signatures to make the ballot out of California's 22 million registered voters. It never would have come before voters if a judge hadn’t given organizers four extra months to gather signatures due to the pandemic. That decision came the same day Newsom attended a maskless dinner at the lavish French Laundry restaurant with lobbyists and friends, stirring outcry.

Supporters of the recall expressed frustration over monthslong business closures and restrictions that kept most children out of classrooms. Rising homicides, a homelessness crisis and an unemployment fraud scandal further angered Newsom’s critics.

But the broader public stayed on his side. Polling from the Public Policy Institute of California showed his approval rating remaining above 50% throughout the pandemic. With weeks to go, the institute’s poll showed 60% of Californians approved of Newsom’s handling of the pandemic.

The rise of the highly contagious delta variant led Newsom to frame the race as one of “life or death” consequences. He pointed to Texas and Florida, which were seeing worsening surges as their Republican governors rejected mask and vaccine mandates, as cautionary tales for what California could become.

Newsom has been viewed as a potential White House contender since at least 2004, when he defied federal law to issue marriage licenses to LGBT couples as mayor of San Francisco. His victory maintained those prospects, though he will still have to navigate around the ambitions of Harris, who came up through San Francisco politics alongside Newsom.

He came to the contest with advantages. California’s electorate is less Republican, less white and younger than it was in 2003, when voters booted the Democratic Davis. Newsom was allowed to raise unlimited funds, dwarfing his competitors while flooding TV screens with advertising. Public worker unions and business and tech executives poured millions into his campaign.

___

Associated Press writers Julie Watson in San Diego, Jocelyn Gecker in Lafayette and Don Thompson in Roseville contributed.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

The Gavin Newsom recall election is happening in California.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber wrote in a letter to the Department of Finance that only 43 signatures in the petition to qualify the recall on the ballot were withdrawn statewide. The remaining 1,719,900 verified signatures more than meet the threshold for the recall to initiate.

The recall required 1,495,709 valid signatures or 12% of the 12,464,235 votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election to qualify, which was met after final verification was due April 29. However, voters were given a 30-day period to request county officials to remove their signatures from the recall petition.

The Department of Finance has until Aug. 5 to determine the cost of the recall election and submit it to the lieutenant governor and secretary of state's office, as well as the chair of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.

That committee has 30 calendar days to review and comment on the estimates. Once the review period expires, the director of finance shall direct the state controller to transfer those funds.

According to state law, the estimates for the recall costs must be posted on the secretary of state's website and printed in the state voter information guide.

Now that the recall is happening, an election will decide on who would replace him. The secretary of state will certify the names of the candidates.

The recall ballot would then have two parts. Voters would be able to vote "yes" or "no" on whether to remove the governor from office. The second question would give voters the option to vote for a successor candidate. If a majority of voters said yes to the first question to recall, the votes on the second question would be counted. The candidate who received a plurality of that vote would be the successor.

The only California governor in state history to be recalled was Gov. Gray Davis in 2003, who was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Voters in that recall election faced a ballot of 135 candidates.