Good morning. It’s Friday, Sept. 11.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom approves new online rules for kids.
- California newspaper chain announces deep staff cuts.
- And famed mountain lion to get statue in Griffith Park.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed the nation’s first prohibition against addictive social media features for users under the age of 16. It was among more than a dozen child safety measures approved by the governor that reflected the deepening public anxiety over the ways digital access is harming children. “Parents can’t compete with the engineering, can’t compete with the algorithms,” Newsom said. “You feel like you’re a lousy parent.” Tech companies were expected to challenge the legislation on free speech grounds. S.F. Chronicle | CalMatters
2.
By 2016, gray whales off the West Coast had bounced back from the slaughter of the commercial whaling era to number roughly 27,000 individuals. Then they started dying again. In 2025, the population was 13,000 or so. This year, the school bus-sized whales have again been washing up on shores with alarming frequency. Many appeared emaciated. Scientific American reports: “As scientists gather more evidence, it is becoming increasingly apparent that gray whales are starving to death.”
3.
McClatchy — the Sacramento-based chain that owns the Sacramento Bee and four other California newspapers — announced deep cuts to its newsrooms on Thursday. The Fresno Bee lost roughly 40% of its workforce, Fresnoland reported. In an internal memo, McClatchy cited a 41% drop in consumer revenue. “We cannot continue investing where subscriber interest does not support the investment,” it said. Ben Mullin, a media reporter, called it “one of the bleakest media layoff memos I’ve seen in 12 years covering the industry.” N.Y. Times | Poynter
4.
The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday published an image on X that depicted a Sikh man with the words “America for Americans” and “Get off our roads, you don’t know how to drive Mr. Singh.” The post drew bipartisan outrage in California’s Central Valley, home to the nation’s largest Sikh population. “No American should be targeted because of their faith or their name,” wrote Rep. David Valadao, a Republican. Many Sikhs adopt the name Singh to promote equality and shared identity. Rep. Josh Harder, a Democrat, called the post “disgusting.” CBS Sacramento | Sacramento Bee
5.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Joseph Ogilvy, author of the new book “Tin Can Coast: A History of Industry, Greed, and Fishing in the Golden State.” Ogilvy, who was educated at Oxford and later became a chef, challenges the idea of California as a western frontier. In truth, the earliest settlers arrived by sea, drawn by the coast’s rich marine life. “So in this setup, California is almost kind a frontier of China rather than a terrestrial frontier,” he said. “It’s a maritime frontier facing towards the Pacific.”
Northern California
6.
In a new report, Anthropic said on Thursday that it had shut down several potential plots this year by scientists who used its artificial intelligence models to conduct research that could lead to biological weapons. “You are not seeing someone in a comic book kind of way say, ‘Hey, I want to build a biological weapon to kill everybody,’” said Jacob Klein, the head of threat intelligence at Anthropic. “It’s an incredibly nuanced situation.” An outside researcher called the report “chilling.” N.Y. Times | A.P.
- OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, told employees this week that he is open to slowing down the development of cutting-edge AI as safety fears mount. Reuters
7.
Americans, known for their optimism and ambition, have turned against Big Tech. The economist Oren Cass explained why:
“Who can blame us? For the past two decades, Silicon Valley’s leaders have treated their fellow citizens like caged guinea pigs, bombarding us with inappropriate and culturally corrosive content, turning a blind eye to social dysfunction and outright addiction, flooding schools with technology that hooked young users but did little for education and then sheltering their own children from the products that they marketed to ours.” N.Y. Times
8.
San Francisco’s mayor, Daniel Lurie, declared a rent emergency on Thursday as his city faces a worsening affordability crisis. San Francisco’s already high median rent has soared nearly 26% in the past year, fueled in part by massive tech wealth. Lurie proposed a package of ordinances that would forestall evictions and limit rent increases, among other steps. “There are too many people who are asking if they can still afford to live here,” he said. N.Y. Times | S.F. Chronicle
Southern California
9.
Salomon Olea, 55, has driven a sanitation truck in San Diego for 30 years, a job that provided enough for him to comfortably buy a home and raise a family. His son, Angel Olea, who is 30 and has three children of his own, followed him into the same job. But wages have fallen and home prices have soared since his father’s day. Angel struggles to get by. He can be hard on himself, feeling as though he’s failing in some fundamental way. The L.A. Times explored the generational divide created by California’s housing crisis.
10.
P-22, the celebrated Griffith Park cougar that died in 2022, is getting a bronze statue in the park where he reigned for more than a decade. The monument by sculptor Adam Matano will live near the park’s visitor center. Its title, “Earth to City: Rhapsody of the Wild King,” was inspired by the “idea of the wild entering Los Angeles and awakening the city to the nature already within it,” Matano said. L.A. Times | NBC Los Angeles
11.
In what one sports publication called “the dumbest and most objectively hilarious sports debate of the year,” the Los Angeles Rams faced the San Francisco 49ers in Australia amid fevered speculation over their contrasting jet lag approaches. The 49ers flew out a week early to acclimate, while the Rams arrived 24 hours before kickoff. At one point during the game, Rams players celebrated by pretending to nap on the field. Ultimately, the 49ers appeared to hold the circadian advantage, winning 27-7. In a celebration post, the team wrote, “Sleep tight.” SFGATE
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week.
- “The Big Lebowski” fans may recognize the home pictured above as that of the smut mogul Jackie Treehorn. But the structure designed in the early 1960s by John Lautner holds a larger significance in the minds of architects, who rank it among L.A.’s finest midcentury homes. Wallpaper* magazine published a tour with gorgeous photos by Sterling Reed.
- Two years after the last of four major dams on the Klamath River was breached, salmon have reoccupied 88% of their historic range above the dams’ sites, a new study found. The pace of recovery surpassed even the most optimistic predictions, as some 20,000 chinook salmon migrated up the river. Inside Climate News
- The weather journalist Jonathan Petramala captured dramatic video as giant waves slammed into beachfront properties in Long Beach on Tuesday, inundating homes and ripping apart the boardwalk. YouTube
- During the pandemic, an interior designer named Melissa Strukel learned about a hotel for sale in Jacumba, a desert town along the U.S.-Mexico border. She roped in two friends to go in on Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel. They risked their fortunes, they say, to seek something more than just profit: an antidote to modern life. S.D. Union-Tribune
- Larger than Manhattan’s Central Park, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco abounds with treasures across more than 1,000 acres. The San Francisco Chronicle published a guide to its 12 best-kept secrets.
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