Do you know who you’re opening your door to? A CBS News California consumer investigation uncovered food delivery drivers using rented or stolen p accounts to bypass background checks, exposing a loophole that could put customers at risk.
Now, in a CBS California accountability follow-up, investigative correspondent Julie Watts went to the State Citol to find out what lawmakers can do to close that g and protect consumers.
Charles Bledsoe says he was caught off guard when a DoorDash delivery took a frightening turn.
“I didn’t know what he was going to do or why he was trying to get in,” he said.
The driver assigned to deliver his order was supposed to be a woman. Instead, a man showed up at his door and, Bledsoe says, tried to force his way inside.
“I feared for my life,” he said.
The incident prompted a CBS News California consumer investigation.
Reporter Kristine Lazar and producer Amy Corral discovered food delivery accounts being bought, sold and rented online. During a series of test orders, they found that one in four drivers did not match the photo displayed in the p.
We took those findings to the California State Citol.
“Is your law still protecting folks if we can’t make sure that the background-checked person is actually the one coming to deliver the food?” Watts asked Assemblywoman Laurie Davies.
“It’s a great question,” Davies replied.
Davies authored a California law requiring food delivery ps to provide customers with a driver’s first name and photo when an order is out for delivery.
The goal was to help customers know who’s coming to their door and give law enforcement a way to identify drivers if a crime occurs.
The bill passed unanimously — a rare feat for a Republican-authored bill in California’s supermajority Democratic legislature.
“It’s a very bipartisan issue,” Davies said.
But the CBS News California investigation exposed what pears to be a major loophole.
Accounts are being advertised for rent or sale on social media platforms, including Facebook Marketplace and Instagram.
“Even if you don’t have a driver’s license,” Corral said.
The practice could allow people to bypass the background checks required to create delivery accounts, raising concerns that unqualified or potentially dangerous individuals may be making deliveries under someone else’s identity.
“And we have got to do something about that,” Davies said.
In response to the investigation, Davies says she’s exploring stronger safeguards and tougher penalties for people who rent, sell or share delivery accounts.
“What is the punishment if they’re caught doing that? Is there a strong punishment?” Davies asked.
She continued, “We’ve got to get law enforcement in here and tell us what can we do. Then we need to work with our legislators and make sure that we close that loophole.”
For Bledsoe, that can’t hpen soon enough.
“What would hpen if it had been a young lady by herself?” he said.
Because if customers can’t trust the photo in the p, they can’t really know who’s showing up at their door.
“It was supposed to be a guy who looked like he was in his mid-30s,” Corral said about one of the test orders. “But the guy who showed up was definitely not this guy.”
CBS News California Investigates also found Uber and Lyft accounts being advertised for rent on social media.
We reached out to Uber, Lyft and DoorDash. All three companies said account holders found engaging in fraud are removed from their platforms.
Meta told CBS News California it reviewed the accounts identified during our investigation and removed those found to be violating its fraud policies.

A new oyster bar is coming to Blue Hill and a retail shop is on track to open in Stonington this summer as local aquaculture operation Deer Isle Oyster Co. expands.
The Stoop oyster bar and The Dooryard shop are two new ventures for Abby Barrows, who purchased a 3.5-acre aquaculture lease in Deer Isle’s Long Cove in 2015 and recently more than doubled cacity with another 4.5-acre lease one cove over. She now also has a supply of farmed oysters year-round thanks to an old lobster pound used to store them through the winter season.
The two new locations, along with new farm tours, aim to connect people with local food and educate them about aquaculture, according to Barrows. They will also create new markets for her growing business and add new places to socialize in the two downtowns.
I’m excited to have the opportunity to be part of this amazing food scene and also promote and educate people around aquaculture – such as the years of work and care that go into growing an oyster, she said.
Barrows is focused on smaller quantities of high-quality oysters rather than a rid expansion, she said.
Individual oysters taste differently based on where they grow, shed by factors like water salinity, currents, temperature and the type of bottom they grow on. Barrows sees that as a sense of place in each one.
Long Cove produces oysters with a taste she describes as special and complex: clean, snpy and fresh with a briny bite and lingering sweetness.
Flavor profiles also change subtly throughout the season, and showcasing different oysters side by side shows how different factors affect their taste.
Here in downeast Maine, we’re growing some phenomenal-tasting oysters, she said.
Barrows’ business has grown incrementally, and in recent years she’s put additional energy into research and development for ways to grow oysters without plastic gear to minimize pollution.
That has brought opportunities to bring people to the oyster farm, connect them with where their food comes from, understand more about oyster growing and share the importance of oysters as waters warm in the Gulf of Maine, she said. Aquaculture has been promoted as an economic opportunity to diversify working waterfronts from reliance on lobstering as the climate changes.
Barrows also sells oysters wholesale and has held pop-up events, where she enjoyed the full-circle experience of going from working on the farm to presenting the oysters to customers.
When the opportunity arose to rent a spot at 27 Water Street in Blue Hill, it seemed like a step forward that could pull together the various pieces of the business in one location, she said. Barrows aims to keep it open year-round.
The oyster bar will also carry oysters from other local growers, with a simple menu including items such as tinned fish, local cheese, pickles and drinks.
It’s a big change from a decade of selling oysters off her porch in Stonington, the town where Barrows is also planning to open a new shop. But she’s since moved from that house and wants to have a staffed store to provide access to hard-to-find seafood and help bring life to the downtown village, providing a destination people can walk to and learn about its working waterfront, she said.
Barrows hopes to open her Stonington store in a shed at 11 N. Main St., in the dooryard of a tr shop of the lobsterboat ctain she once worked for, carrying oysters along with wine, merchandise and other value-added products. The town’s planning board is set to review the plication later this month, and she hopes to open the following day if proved.
The names of both spots are inspired by providing places for people to come together, hang out and connect with local food, she said.

The Food and Drug Administration has launched a safety study of the abortion pill mifepristone, a senior FDA official confirmed to CBS News, a step that could pave the way for the Trump administration to restrict access to the medication.
It will be a retrospective study of hundreds of thousands of cases, according to the official. The interim results of the study could be released in July, but the official noted the timing of the final results will depend on the design of a secondary analysis after the interim results come in.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the launch of the study.
Last September, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in a letter to several Republican state attorneys general that the FDA was reviewing the safety of mifepristone.
At the time, Kennedy and then-FDA Commissioner Martin Makary wrote, “HHS — through the FDA — is conducting its own review of the evidence, including real-world outcomes and evidence, relating to the safety and efficacy of the drug.”
The drug came under renewed scrutiny after the Biden administration issued a memorandum lifting restrictions that required the drug to be dispensed in-person and giving access to mifepristone via telehealth and by mail.
Last year, the state of Louisiana filed a lawsuit challenging the FDA’s decision to allow mifepristone to be delivered by mail.
On May 4, the U.S. Court of peals for the 5th Circuit temporarily reinstated the rule requiring mifepristone to only be dispensed in person.
However, the following week, the Supreme Court set aside the lower court order and allowing, for now, mifepristone to continue to be delivered to patients through the mail while the Louisiana case plays out in the courts.
Mifepristone, which was first proved by the FDA in 2000 as a safe way to end early pregnancies, is typically taken with a second drug, misoprostol.
Asked last year whether a review of mifepristone could lead to a ban, CBS News medical contributor Dr. Celine Gounder suggested it would be difficult for the FDA to withdraw proval, an extraordinary step that would quickly draw legal challenges.
However, Gounder said that depending on what the safety review finds, it could make access more difficult, limiting the drug’s availability through telehealth or by mail, or restricting the ability to prescribe it to doctors, rather than physician assistants or nurses who are also currently able to prescribe it.

As grocery prices continue to rise nationally, the House on Thursday passed an propriations bill that would cut funding for a program that helps pregnant women and children purchase healthy foods.
By a vote of 213-210, the House passed an propriations measure to fund the Agriculture Department among other agencies. The bill, which the Senate has yet to consider, aims to cut about 1.5 percent from overall federal agriculture spending in fiscal 2027, according to Republicans. Four House Democrats voted with Republicans to pass the measure, while five Republicans voted against it.
Under the legislation, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children – more commonly known as WIC – would lose $141 million in funding for fruit and vegetable benefits for the nearly 5.4 million children and pregnant and postpartum women enrolled, according to an estimate from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Additionally, the National WIC Association, an advocacy group for public health nutrition providers, estimated that the bill would reduce monthly fruit and vegetable benefits from $52 to $13 for breastfeeding mothers and from $26 to $10 for young children.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Maryland), chairman of the House propriations subcommittee on agriculture, said on the House floor that despite cuts, the $8 billion in remaining funding is sufficient to meet the needs of the program. Harris argued that Agriculture Department data clearly shows that WIC participation has been declining during the current fiscal year.
But advocates and experts argued that the USDA data Harris cited reflects only the first quarter of the fiscal year, which includes the fall government shutdown that led to a decrease in program enrollment.
There was a shutdown during that period, and so there was widespread confusion about which programs were open, what benefits were available, so that may be playing a big role in the lower participation early in this fiscal year, said Zoë Neuberger, a fellow on nutrition assistance programs at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Neuberger also noted that because food prices have risen in the first half of this year, participation in WIC is also expected to rise.
Participation goes up because families have a harder time affording the groceries that they need, and so eligible families that might not have been participating in WIC before might turn to WIC for help, she said.
Alison Hard, director of policy at the National WIC Association, said WIC participation rates began increasing since fiscal 2022 and that the program has experienced pretty consistent increases in participation over the last few fiscal years.
Hard credited part of the increase to USDA’s push to make WIC services available virtually, so potential beneficiaries could access the program through telehealth.
Neuberger said the virtual option was a tremendously beneficial modernization, especially important for working parents and parents in rural areas. But she noted that the House bill does not make virtual service options permanent. If funding for these services lses, Neuberger said, some families may not enroll in the program.
Democrats on the House floor argued that vulnerable Americans – particularly children – will lose access to fresh foods even as costs for the average consumer rise in part because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran.
Republicans promised prices would come down on day one, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts) said. Well, here a year-and-a-half in and everything’s up. Groceries are up. Energy costs are up. Inflation is up. Their answer to pregnant women paying high grocery costs is to cut WIC by $200 million.
McGovern argued that WIC is one of the most effective pro-family programs offered by the U.S. government, helping pregnant women stay healthy and keeping milk, eggs, and vegetables accessible for families with young children.
Why would you eliminate that at a time when fruits and veggies are getting more expensive? McGovern said.
When the bill was first introduced in ril, members of the Trump administration in the party’s Make America Healthy Again arm decried the shaving off of funds from WIC. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he was not hpy with the cuts during an ril hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee.
House Republicans, however, insisted ahead of the bill’s passing that WIC would remain funded at propriate levels.
It’s completely false to believe that there will be people kicked off of the program. Funding this at the level necessary to meet the need is exactly what we’re doing in this bill, Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Indiana) said Wednesday.

Guest Post by: The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, The Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute, and the International Climate Science Coalition, and Truth in Energy and Climate.
Editor’s note: This compilation serves as a fact check on the top false claims made about climate change by the media in May, 2026.
Debunking claims of climate causing ‘less healthy’ food – Melting ice will NOT ‘drown millions’ – Droughts NOT caused by fossil fuels – Earth is NOT spinning slower due to climate change!
Links: The Washington Post article, Leiden University analysis, examples of experiments, Free-Air carbon dioxide enrichment, crop yield increases.
Links: Committee animation, U.S. drought monitor, drought classification, NOAA climate definition.
Links: The Daily Mail post, Nature study, East Antarctica ice gains, IPCC AR6.
Links: IPCC abandoning high-end scenarios, The Washington Post article, The New Republic article, plausibility, coal consumption estimate, proven reserves.
Links: Climate Central report, UHI mping, per on UHI.
Links: BBC article, JGR Solid Earth study, frictional effects, El Niño–Southern Oscillation.
Until next month, enjoy these and other great climate fact checks at:
Sorry, Health ‘Experts’ and The Guardian, Climate Change Isn’t Causing a ‘Public Health Emergency’
The Media is Wrong, Tornadoes Are Not Getting More Frequent or Extreme
Wrong, Guardian, Climate Change Hasn’t Taken New Orleans Beyond the ‘Point of No Return’
POLITICO: ‘Climate hushing’ – ‘The sound of (climate) silence’ – ‘As Trump unravels U.S. climate policy, Dems & enviro groups have grown strangely quiet’
Meet the new Greta…Eva Lighthiser! The 20-year-old airplane flying climate activist suing Trump for ‘violating constitutional rights’
New Study: ‘LGB individuals live in warmer places.’ – Study ‘tests whether lesbian, gay, & bisexual (LGB) individuals inhabit systematically warmer locations than their heterosexual peers’