Good morning. It’s Thursday, May 21.
- Tiny college prepares students for lives of service.
- CEO takes a remarkable journey to the priesthood.
- And President Trump calls Spencer Pratt “big MAGA.”
Statewide
1.
Academia is struggling. Artificial intelligence enables cheating, devices are splitting attention, and grade inflation is rampant. More broadly, we are seeing the problems created by a nation of individuals unconstrained by virtue, wrote Michal Leibowitz in an essay for the New York Times. Leibowitz visited Deep Springs College, a tiny liberal arts school on the outskirts of Death Valley, where students are steered toward lives of service through both academic and manual labor: “Yes, college education should help prepare students for the work force. But … it must also prepare them for the task that can never be outsourced to technology: living.”
2.
In recent years, starving brown pelicans have overwhelmed rescue facilities along the California coast for reasons that weren’t clear. Now other birds are dying in alarming numbers: Brandt’s cormorants, loons, common murres, and grebes. The suspected culprit is an extreme marine heat wave that researchers believe is driving fish to swim deeper or further out to sea. “Once the fish go deeper, then the birds can’t reach them,” said Philip Unitt, chair of ornithology at the San Diego Natural History Museum. L.A. Times | Times of San Diego
Northern California
3.
To sell a home in Berkeley, it has to be climate friendly. In January, the college town of roughly 120,000 became the first in the U.S. to enact the mandate, requiring listed homes to have a minimum score of six credits’ worth of green upgrades, such as solar panels (three credits) or a heat pump clothes dryer (two credits). It’s become common practice for brokers to highlight good scores in their listings, while low scores are seen as a new cost burden. Bloomberg
4.
“It’s just gotten worse year after year.”
Bixby Bridge is too pretty for its own good. For years, the classic Big Sur feature has prompted passing motorists to pull over and photograph the tableau of cliffs, canyon, creek and arch span. But Bixby Bridge is not an official tourist site, and there is no parking lot. That has led to a snarl of illegal parking and dangerous U-turns where the speed limit is 40 mph. Fed up, Monterey County supervisors voted on Tuesday to ban parking around the bridge outright for a year. KSBW | SFGATE
5.
Scott Vincent Borba helped found a cosmetics company that grew into a $3 billion juggernaut. About 12 years ago, he had settled in the Hollywood Hills and drove an Aston Martin convertible. But he was miserable: “I remember saying to myself, remember crying: ‘This is not the man my dad and mother created me to be.'” He gave up his possessions, joined a seminary, and returned to the San Joaquin Valley, where he grew up. On Saturday, Borba’s remarkable journey will culminate with his ordination as a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Fresno. N.Y. Times | KFSN
6.
Not long ago, their skill sets were seen as a ticket to the good life. Now they are joining a growing tribe of jobless tech workers as the artificial-intelligence boom scrambles the industry. The Los Angeles Times visited a group of laid-off workers seeking connection on weekly hikes in the Bay Area. It began with just three people. Now there are about 600: “The tech jobless are rethinking their lives. Some are taking pay cuts, others are leaving tech. Some are going back to study or launch startups. Some have retired.”
- Meta began laying off 8,000 employees on Wednesday, or roughly 10% of the workforce. Mark Zuckerberg framed the cuts as advancing his goal to put “superintelligence” in the hands of everyday people. S.F. Chronicle
Southern California
7.
Video obtained by SFGATE showed the wrecked sailboat of a stranded mariner on Santa Rosa Island in flames last Thursday, the day before firefighters were alerted to a conflagration on the island. “I hope I don’t start this island on fire,” the man filming the scene says. “That wouldn’t be good.” The mariner, 67, told a Ventura boat captain that he hoped someone would see the smoke and come rescue him. By Wednesday, the Santa Rosa Island fire had burned a third of the island, including the habitat of rare Torrey pines.
8.
President Trump signaled his support for Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt on Wednesday, telling reporters, “I’d like to see him do well. I heard he’s a big MAGA person.” The remarks were seen as a gift by Pratt’s rivals. Trump lost the 2024 presidential vote in L.A. by 44 percentage points. “There’s probably no more anti-MAGA of a place than L.A.,” said Fernando Guerra, a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University. “I think Karen Bass would’ve spent half of her campaign treasury getting Trump to do this.” N.Y. Times | L.A. Times
- “Pratt opened a healing crystals business called Pratt Daddy. He trained hummingbirds to eat nectar out of his hand and posted the videos on Instagram. Then, in early 2025, their house burned down.” The Wall Street Journal profiled Pratt.
9.
In 2022, Los Angeles approved a new tax on the city’s most expensive properties, known as the “mansion tax.” Even some proponents now say it is making the housing shortage worse. In one example, a developer walked away from plans to build an eight-story apartment complex with 100 units because of the tax. Instead, the property now includes “eight derelict apartments, a few small businesses, and a vacant palm-reading shop,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
10.
“San Diegans can rejoice.”
When San Diego leaders instituted paid parking at Balboa Park in January, they said it was necessary to fund the park’s upkeep. Residents complained bitterly, vandals destroyed more than 50 of the meters, and cultural institutions in the park reported that reduced foot traffic had sent their revenue into free fall. Now the city is backtracking. On Wednesday, lawmakers agreed to put an end the paid parking experiment by the end of the year. S.D. Union-Tribune | CBS8
11.
Tinder is betting Gen Z daters would rather be offline. The dating app, based in West Hollywood, began offering in-person events in the Los Angeles-area two months ago in an effort to steer people away from scrolling and toward actual dates. At the most recent gathering, there was drinking, conversation, and pickleball. A line stretched out the door. “People are getting app fatigue,” said Phil Mayer, a 36-year-old who works in marketing. It was his fourth Tinder live event. Bloomberg
12.
In a city of murals, the brightly colored works of Alejandro Poli Jr., the artist known as Man One, are unmistakable. In 2014, Poli launched #FACESLA, a citywide campaign to create large murals of Los Angeles’ everyday people — “away from the L.A. celebrity.” For the most recent phase, “Faces of Watts,” Poli used local residents as muses for portraits on the walls of a large public housing redevelopment in the historic South L.A. neighborhood. Everyone, he said, wanted to get their portrait done. See a photo gallery of the murals from “Faces of Watts.”
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