Good morning. It’s Thursday, June 26.
- California found in violation of Title IX over trans athletes.
- Mark Zuckerberg offers $100 million for jobs in AI push.
- And Usha Vance’s new life in Trump’s Washington.
Please note: The newsletter will be off tomorrow. Back in your inbox Monday.
Statewide
1.
The U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday gave California 10 days to rescind all sports titles of transgender girls and ban them from competing in the girls’ category after finding that their participation violated the civil rights of female athletes. The agency cited Gov. Gavin Newsom’s own assertion in March that allowing transgender girls in female sports is “deeply unfair.” Failure to comply will risk “imminent enforcement action,” it said. In a statement, California’s education department said it has no plans to change its policies, setting up a likely court battle. A.P. | N.Y. Times
2.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers reached a budget deal that provides $750 million in tax credits for Hollywood even as it dips into a rainy-day fund and cuts social programs to offset a looming deficit. The agreement more than doubles the current annual tax credit, established to compete with other states and countries that have increasingly lured productions away with generous incentives. “This is really about job creation,” said state Sen. Ben Allen, who co-authored legislation to expand the program. L.A. Times | Bloomberg
- California’s agricultural industry is struggling too, wrote columnist Dan Walters: “Implicitly politicians believe that producing movies is much more important than producing food.” CalMatters
3.
Dispatches from the immigration crackdown:
- A Los Angeles police union called for the vice mayor of Cudahy, Cynthia Gonzalez, to resign after she called on gang members to organize against ICE. “Her actions are deplorable and potentially illegal,” the Los Angeles Police Protective League said. Fox 11 | KTLA
- Video captured a food vendor clinging to a tree as immigration agents tried to pry her away in Ladera Heights on Monday. “They’re kidnapping her!” a bystander could be heard yelling. As of Wednesday, the woman’s family did not know where she was. KTLA
- Another woman, a U.S. citizen named Andrea Velez, was arrested by ICE agents while on her way to work in Los Angeles on Tuesday. “Just because of the color of our skin, they think we’re criminals,” said her sister, Estrella Rosas. A government spokeswoman said Velez assaulted an officer. KCAL
4.
The columnist Eduardo Porter wrote about “the fundamental hypocrisy” behind workplace raids:
“Voters may say they want illegal immigrants to go away. But moms and dads looking for child care, retirees seeking a caretaker, home builders and farmers and landscapers, and everyday shoppers picking up strawberries for their kids’ breakfast — all these people rely on unauthorized immigrants’ work.” Washington Post
5.
“The rocket rose in the blue sky. I managed to get a few pics, but the flames were so bright that my camera’s settings went haywire. I put the camera down and watched the rocket go up, up, up. Then it was gone. Awestruck, I stood around, wanting more. I wasn’t sure where to go afterwards. I knew I would be back.”
Launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base have become almost routine, visible from across much of California. But there’s nothing like seeing it up close. Reporter Keith Plocek went to Surf Beach in Lompoc, where the launches make “your bones rattle.” L.A. Times
Northern California
6.
A former Bay Area police officer, Morteza Amiri, was sentenced to seven years in prison after he was convicted for letting his K-9 loose on a man he had pulled over for not having a bicycle light. He later texted pictures of the victim’s wounds to other officers. “You got to see [the K-9] in action lol,” he wrote. Amiri argued that he was led astray by the policing culture within the department. FBI Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani said the sentence sent a message that officers are not above the law. “Amiri betrayed the public’s trust,” he said. KQED | S.F. Chronicle
7.
Mark Zuckerberg has offered $100 million pay packages to top artificial intelligence researchers and engineers in the latest example of the colossal sums of money being thrown around in the AI arms race. The Meta CEO has personally reached out to hundreds of candidates — including talent at OpenAI, Perplexity, and Safe Superintelligence — hosting some of them for meals at his homes in Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe. He paid $14 billion for a stake in AI startup Scale, essentially making its 28-year-old CEO Alexandr Wang one of the most lucrative hires in history. Wall Street Journal
8.
Anthropic, the San Francisco artificial intelligence company, cut millions of print books from their bindings so they could be more easily scanned, then threw away the originals. The destructive process, revealed in court documents, was part of a project aimed at obtaining “all the books in the world” to train the company’s chatbot, Claude. On Monday, a federal judge in California ruled that Anthropic did not break the law with its use of copyrighted books, holding that it qualified as fair use. Ars Technica
9.
Post-pandemic San Francisco remains troubled, with deserted downtown malls, big hotels in foreclosure, and one of the nation’s highest office vacancy rates. But one market sector is booming: luxury housing. According to a new report by Sotheby’s International Realty, more homes sold above $20 million in San Francisco in 2024 than in any other year in history. The agency said the renaissance is being driven by artificial intelligence wealth. Bloomberg
Southern California
10.
A train heist in downtown Bakersfield was captured on video Monday night, showing thieves pulling boxes and crates from open cargo doors during an operation that lasted for hours. No arrests were made. The age-old occupation of train robbery has been revived in recent years as a result of exploding e-commerce and lax train security. According to the Association of American Railroads, there were more than 65,000 train thefts in 2024, a roughly 40% jump over the previous year. Southern California, with its ports and megawarehouses, is the epicenter of the crime wave. KGET | KABC
11.
Orange County Supervisors quietly voted this week to give themselves a 25% raise, lifting their base salary to $244,000. That’s slightly more than the salary of the state’s top elected official, Gov. Gavin Newsom, and 40% more than what San Francisco supervisors make. Only Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner spoke on the raise during their Tuesday meeting. He said the officials had “more roles and responsibilities” than Superior Court judges: “This is an item that’s time has come.” Voice of OC
12.
Usha Vance, a daughter of immigrants in San Diego, was once a Democrat and a litigator for a progressive San Francisco law firm. Her mother, Lakshmi Chilukuri, is a molecular biologist and a provost at UC San Diego. In a message welcoming students back to campus post-Covid, Chilukuri wrote: “with issues of equity and systemic racism, anti-Blackness and anti-Asian racism yet unresolved, we have before us both opportunity and responsibility.” The New York Times talked to old friends bewildered by the turn Usha Vance has taken as second lady.
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