Good morning. It’s Friday, May 30.
- Huntington Beach included on sanctuary city target list.
- Anger over San Francisco park sets up recall election.
- And Santa Monica residents go to war with Waymo.
Statewide
1.
Homeland Security on Thursday listed the names of more than 500 “sanctuary jurisdictions” that it said are defying federal immigration law. California accounted for roughly a fifth of the cities and counties, some of which came as a shock to local leaders. Shasta County and Huntington Beach, both resolutely anti-sanctuary, made the list. Meanwhile, Santa Ana, a self-declared sanctuary city that recently advanced a plan to issue public alerts on ICE activity, did not. Pat Burns, Huntington’s mayor, said there must have been a “misprint.” Voice of OC | Wall Street Journal
2.
The Trump administration’s new pledge to “aggressively revoke” Chinese student visas reverberated across California, where roughly 51,000 Chinese nationals are enrolled in higher education. Sending them home would not only upend their lives, it would rob California universities of the higher tuition they pay. Chinese students described feeling “scared” and “helpless” on Thursday. Rep. Judy Chu, a Los Angeles County Democrat, cited a grim historical parallel. “That is what xenophobia is all about,” she said, “and it is reminiscent of the Chinese Exclusion Act.” L.A. Times | CalMatters
3.
For years, California required that low-income seniors and people with disabilities have no more than $2,000 in assets to qualify for Medi-Cal. When the limit was eliminated in 2024, more than 100,000 newly eligible people enrolled in the coverage. Now Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to restore the limit to help close a worsening budget deficit. Critics say the move would shove many people back into poverty. “It’s draconian — $2,000 is no safety net for people,” said Kim Selfon, an attorney who works with elderly and disabled people. CalMatters
4.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Eleni Gastis, journalism department chair at Oakland’s Laney College, about “ghost student” fraud at California community colleges. Over the last year, bots posing as real students have stolen an estimated $13 million in financial aid. The problem has become so pervasive, Gastis said, that incoming students are now being advised on how to assure their instructors that they are real people — “which is a sad state of affairs that we’ve gotten to this point.”
Northern California
5.
In Marin County, more than 80% of the electorate voted Democratic in the 2024 presidential contest. Even so, Robert Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement has found fertile ground in Fairfax, a town in west Marin County built on wellness and distrust in authority. Former Mayor Chance Cutrano said he once dismissed Kennedy’s local following as fringe. Then their voices began dominating Town Council meetings. “There’s just an aggressive, adversarial, conspiratorial energy that has come, likely as an outcropping of the pandemic,” he said. “It’s unrelenting.” KQED
6.
“In California, people really love their parks. They also really love their cars. Here, these devotions have collided.”
The transformation of a stretch of highway along the western edge of San Francisco into a pedestrian park has set off a clash over what critics say amounts to a “war on cars.” The latest sign of anger: a recall campaign against Joel Engardio, the supervisor who spearheaded the park initiative, qualified for the ballot, election officials announced on Thursday. N.Y. Times | S.F. Chronicle
7.
In his new book, “More Everything Forever,” the journalist Adam Becker outlines the future imagined by the likes of Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. It’s a vibrant utopia where labor is automated, aging has been all but conquered, and society is powered entirely by clean energy. At the center is a friendly artificial intelligence that oversees an era of abundance. But tech moguls are not merely envisioning sci-fi futures as a hobby, Becker argues: They are trying to reorganize society around them at the expense of very real concerns of people in the present. The Atlantic
8.
The art world has a triathlon and it’s held each Memorial Day weekend along 50 miles of sand, pavement, and sea in Humboldt County. This year’s race featured whimsical sculptures with names such as Bounce For Glory, Ziggy Starfish, Space Goat, Team Wisdom Tooth, and Malice in Wonderland. A couple photo collections captured the three-day bacchanal known as the Kinetic Grand Championship. 👉 KQED | North Coast Journal
Southern California
9.
At least 30 people accused a Los Angeles County probation officer of sexually abusing them when they were minors. But he won’t face charges. Thomas Jackson, 58, who resigned in 2023, raped and molested girls at the Santa Clarita juvenile camp in the late 1990s and early 2000s, then threatened them to keep quiet or face solitary confinement, his accusers said in lawsuits. Prosecutors said they would not seek criminal charges because the alleged crimes happened too long ago. A lawyer for the victims called the lack of accountability “heartbreaking” and “terrifying.” L.A. Times
10.
Santa Monica residents are going to war with Waymo. Irate over the incessant beeping of the unmanned vehicles driving themselves into company lots, locals have taken to blocking the entrances with cones. Waymo has responded by calling the cops half a dozen times. “I want the noise stopped,” said Darius Boorn, who lives next to one of the lots. “I thought it was cool, and then those freaking noises started. And then I thought, ‘Oh no, this can’t be happening.’” L.A. Times
11.
Mike White, the creator of one of the most prestigious television shows on one of the most prestigious television channels — “The White Lotus” on HBO — can’t stop competing on reality shows. He has done “The Amazing Race” twice and is now joining his second season of “Survivor.” In a 2021 interview with the New Yorker, White, who grew up in Pasadena, explained that he just really loves reality TV. “It’s not ironic. It’s not ironic,” he said. “‘Survivor’ is the only show I really devotedly watch, even though I get frustrated with it.” Hollywood Reporter | N.Y. Times
12.
☝️ This is what it’s come to.
Every spring, after the snow melts, the marmots of Sequoia National Park descend on trailhead parking lots to chew on the tubes and hoses of hikers’ car engines. What the squirrel-like rodents with sharp claws are after, according to Sequoia National Park ecologist Harold Werner, are crusty mineral deposits often found on engine parts. Some guzzle antifreeze, he said, giving them “a bit of a high.” “Junkie marmots,” as one writer dubbed them, have become such a menace that hikers routinely wrap their cars in tarps before setting off down trails. Accuweather | National Park Service
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