Good morning. It’s Monday, May 5.
- A tour of the red tape plaguing California’s bullet train.
- Officials call Alcatraz plan unhinged and unserious.
- And L.A. federal prosecutors resign over plea deal.
Statewide
1.
“Much of California’s interior is a table-flat landscape lined by ruler-straight roads stretching toward distant mountains. It is an earthen version of graph paper. In the spaces between the lines is some of the world’s most valuable farmland, row after straight row of fruits, nuts and produce. But the planned route for high-speed rail is a diagonal squiggle, as if someone dropped a length of yarn on the map.”
Reporter John Branch drove hundreds of miles through the Central Valley on a tour of the red tape frustrating California’s bullet train. N.Y. Times
2.
A faction of California’s Democratic Party is pushing to establish a mandatory retirement age for politicians. The proposal grew out of anger over what many Democrats believe was the belated campaign exit of former President Biden — and the resulting ascension of Donald Trump. Some party members find the idea offensive. “It’s ageism,” said Connie Chan, a San Francisco County supervisor. “It’s discrimination against people who have experience.” N.Y. Times
3.
California officials recently touted new figures showing the state had surpassed Japan become the world’s fourth-largest economy. But they were quiet about recent job figures. Analysts said that while Silicon Valley has helped pump up the state’s economy, lack of housing has constrained its workforce. Over the year ending in March, California’s job growth was just 0.3%, placing it 42nd among states. “California’s labor market performance can only be described as lackluster,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist for BMO Capital Markets. Mercury News
Northern California
4.
President Trump said on Sunday that he ordered his administration to restore San Francisco’s Alcatraz as a functioning maximum-security prison. In a Truth Social post, Trump said the island prison would be a symbol of law and order in a nation “plagued by vicious, violent” criminals who “spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem.” Alcatraz, crumbling after 29 years in operation, was closed in 1963 before being reopened as a museum. It’s since become one of San Francisco’s most popular tourist destinations. Democrats called the proposal “unhinged” and unserious. L.A. Times | A.P.
- Why was Alcatraz closed? It was prohibitively expensive, held a maximum of just 336 prisoners, and was increasingly vulnerable to escape. S.F. Chronicle
5.
In the early 2000s, the Modesto Bee had more than a hundred reporters; it now has around a dozen. In the surrounding area, many residents have turned instead to Facebook groups, podcasters, and online influencers. Of 80 people interviewed recently in nearby Oakdale, not one subscribed to a regional news site, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or The Washington Post. That’s how it came to be that an armed militia stormed into town ready to battle an imaginary invasion of Black Lives Matter protesters, the N.Y. Times reported.
6.
The Berkeley animal rights group, Direct Action Everywhere, has championed its cause using a brazen strategy of “open rescues,” during which activists record themselves removing animals from factory farms. They are intended as a sort of dare to law enforcement to charge them with crimes. Zoe Rosenberg, a 22-year-old senior at UC Berkeley, is the latest activist to refuse a plea agreement in favor of a high-stakes trial. She stole four chickens valued at around $24 from a Petaluma processing plant. She faces up to five and a half years in prison. S.F. Chronicle
7.
There’s a lake in Northern California that sits at around 125 degrees year-round. Boiling Springs Lake is heated by steam vents in Lassen Volcanic National Park, where the collision of tectonic plates has melted rock into magma that acts as an underground furnace. While it would be unwise to take a dip, the lake’s beauty makes it a highlight of the park. One visitor recalled being stunned as it emerged into view: “The water is sea green, a vibrant hue photographs fail to capture.” Sierra Nevada Geotourism | Active NorCal
Southern California
8.
Several federal prosecutors resigned after the new U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, moved to knock down a law enforcement officer’s felony conviction to a misdemeanor — after he was already found guilty at trial. In February, a jury convicted Trevor Kirk, a former sheriff’s deputy, of assaulting a woman outside a Lancaster supermarket in 2023. A “post-trial” plea agreement filed on Thursday listed Essayli’s name, but lacked those of any of the prosecutors previously involved in the case. Legal experts called it extremely unorthodox. A lawyer for the victim called it a “middle finger” to the jury. L.A. Times | Legal Affairs and Trials
9.
President Trump on Sunday announced a new 100% tariff on films produced overseas, complaining that other countries have used tax incentives to lure Hollywood productions. “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,” he wrote on Truth Social. The move came as a shock to major studios that have have shifted movie production to cheaper countries for more than two decades. Much remained uncertain, including how such a tariff would be implemented for films produced both in the U.S. and overseas, a common practice. Wall Street Journal | L.A. Times
10.
It’s maritime traffic, not the fluctuations of the stock market, that offers the clearest sign of where the economy is heading, wrote the Atlantic’s Juliette Kayyem — and right now, high tariffs on China are crushing traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach:
“Tariffs don’t just reduce the flow of goods coming into the country; they also cause an atrophying of the logistics system that moves products into, out of, and around the United States. ‘Less cargo volume, less jobs. That’s the rule here,’ Mario Cordero, CEO of the Port of Long Beach, said recently.”
11.
After the January wildfires in Los Angeles, federal and state agencies refused to pay for soil testing to ensure that lots are safe. So the Los Angeles Times had it done. It found elevated levels of arsenic, lead, and mercury. The results, the newspaper wrote, “suggest that there could be more than a thousand ostensibly remediated properties still containing toxic substances” in the burn areas. Rebuilding is moving forward anyway. L.A. Times
- A public works employee named Constantino Kallimanis has become something of a hero in Altadena. He has single-handedly removed roughly 1,500 advertisement signs that have sprouted across the barren landscape. LAist
12.
The National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan visited San Diego and noticed something about its people: They seem unusually happy. “It’s really hard not to feel the joy,” he said. “It was all around, all the time. I don’t think that sort of unadulterated joy is everywhere.” Yüyan photographed a smiling guitarist in Balboa Park, a grateful seafood chef, and stoked surfers for a new photo essay of America’s finest city. National Geographic
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