Good morning. It’s Friday, Aug. 15.
- Border Patrol masses outside gathering of Democrats.
- Trump administration considers taking stake in Intel.
- And L.A. has tense first day of school after raids.
Statewide
1.
Dozens of armed and masked Border Patrol agents massed outside the Los Angeles venue where Democratic leaders were promoting a congressional redistricting plan on Thursday. Greg Bovino, the swaggering sector chief who has been leading California’s immigration crackdown, insisted the action had nothing to do with the gathering of Trump administration opponents. “There is no coincidence in breaking the law,” he told a reporter. Inside, Gov. Gavin Newsom called for resolve in response to what he took as brazen political intimidation. L.A. Times | N.Y. Times
- See video from the operation. 👉 @Elex_Michaelson | @LATACO
2.
Newsom could face an uphill battle in convincing Californians to get behind his redistricting push. A new poll found that Californians prefer keeping the state’s current independent commission to determine House districts by a nearly a two-to-one margin. Only 36% support giving the job to state lawmakers, who hope to tilt the map in favor of Democrats to counter a Republican redistricting push in Texas. “There’s a lot of mistrust and cynicism about politicians and the Legislature,” said Jack Citrin, a political science professor at UC Berkeley. Politico
- A leaked chart revealed how Democrats plan to gerrymander the state. Politico
Northern California
3.
The Trump administration is in discussions to have the U.S. government take a financial stake in Intel, several reports said on Thursday. The talks come after Trump called for the ouster of the beleaguered Santa Clara chipmaker’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, accusing him of ties to China. Intel’s stock soared nearly 9% on the reports. It’s the latest move by the Trump administration to blur the lines between state and industry. Last month, the Defense Department announced it would become the largest shareholder in a rare-earth mining company. Wall Street Journal | Bloomberg
- New York Times: “Trump has made himself commander in chief of the chip industry.”
4.
Meta has allowed its chatbots to engage in “sensual” chats with children, offer false medical information, and help users argue that Black people are “dumber than white people,” according to an internal document outlining policies on chatbot behavior. The standards were approved by Meta’s legal, public policy and engineering staff, including its chief ethicist. Yet after a reporter inquired about them, Meta backtracked. Such conversations with children should never have been allowed, said spokesman Andy Stone. Reuters
5.
Everyone, it turns out, is helping to pay for the hungry data centers being set up by the nation’s biggest tech companies. Analysts estimate that data centers running artificial intelligence systems will consume as much as 12% of the nation’s electricity in just three years. As Google, Meta, Microsoft, and other companies expand into the energy business, the costs of upgrading the electrical grid are expected to be shared with residents and small businesses through higher rates. In some places, they already are. N.Y. Times
6.
For years, California has been on a killing campaign against invasive nutria, bucktoothed swamp rodents that have infested the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Mute swans, another invasive animal whose numbers have exploded in the delta, is similarly destructive to native species. Yet the state’s wildlife agency has not been quick to enact an eradication plan. In contrast to nutria, the swans are beautiful, with orange bills, graceful necks — and animal welfare groups that lobby on their behalf. CalMatters
7.
For this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman interviewed author Jim Newton about his biography of Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, “Here Beside the Rising Tide.” Asked about the Dead’s role in shifting American culture, Newton made a distinction between a radical, who seeks change, and a bohemian, a label that he said better characterizes the band: “A bohemian is someone who may have a very strong world view, but is determined just to live that life. … It may have the effect of changing society, but not because the bohemian demands that you change.”
Southern California
8.
A middle school teacher held a sign that read “Este es un espacio seguro para inmigrantes,” or “This is a safe space for immigrants.”
At a high school, volunteers circled the campus in cars affixed with stickers that read “Protecting communities from ICE and police terror.”
And in the neighborhood surrounding an elementary school, activists patrolled for signs of immigration enforcement activity.
In Los Angeles on Thursday, the mood on the first day of school for more than half a million students was tense against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s deportation push. L.A. Times | N.Y. Times
9.
“It’s just so inhumane.”
A man fleeing an immigration raid at a Home Depot in Monrovia early Thursday was struck by a vehicle and killed on a freeway, officials said. A day laborer told a reporter that he heard people start to yell, “La migra, corre!” or “Immigration, run!” One person hopped a concrete wall and entered the 210 Freeway, where the fatal collision occurred. By evening, a bouquet of flowers and two prayer candles appeared near the freeway. L.A. Times | L.A. Taco
10.
A Long Beach man spent days two days trapped behind a raging waterfall in Sequoia National Forest before being rescued on Tuesday. Ryan Wardwell, 46, was reported missing on Monday, a day after he set out to rappel down a series of cascading pools known as the Seven Teacups along a tributary of the Kern River. Rescuers used infrared technology to locate him and a helicopter to pluck him out from a cave behind the waterfall. “He tried for days to escape but there was nothing he could do to break through,” said Capt. Kevin Kemmerling of the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office. S.F. Chronicle | L.A. Times
- See video of the rescue.
11.
“Sometimes we’re out here and it feels like we’re all alone.”
The rural San Joaquin Valley community of Allensworth was founded in 1908 as a Black utopia. The experiment failed, but some 530 or so people still live in Allensworth. For decades, arsenic has been leaching into their wells. A short documentary chronicled the community’s fight for clean water and the official neglect that allowed the problem to persist for generations. L.A. Times
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- Isla Vista, home to thousands of UC Santa Barbara students, is a place of youthful exuberance and natural beauty. But the Paris-based photographer Cam Lindfors also found a darker side to life in the college town. He called his project “One Half Paradise.” AnOther | i-D magazine
- See more photos from “One Half Paradise.”
- Several months after Point Reyes National Seashore announced that it would do away with ranching at the park, several generations of the Lunny family gathered for their last cattle roundup. “It’s all I’ve ever known,” Kevin Lunny said, referring to the wind, the light, the salted air, and the smell of cows. Sonoma Magazine
- Los Angeles’ skyline lacks the renown of those of Chicago and New York. Yet some of the greatest architects of the 20th century worked in L.A. Instead of erecting skyscrapers, they devoted their careers to single-family homes — and some of them are open to the public. The Financial Times
- In April 2024, a Harris Hawk named Ripley flew off from the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. For more than a year, zoo officials chased dozens of reported sightings of the hawk — to no avail. Then on July 29, a woman in the Sierra foothills reported an odd-looking bird in her yard. Fresno Bee
- In San Francisco, one mall was long considered a retail anchor of the city’s buoyant downtown, while a suburban-style mall a few miles west was essentially an afterthought. Then their fortunes reversed. The New York Times published a nice photo essay on “a day at two San Francisco malls, one that died and one that thrived.”
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