Good morning. It’s Monday, June 29.
- Lawmaker chased from trans rights march in San Francisco.
- Annoyingly loud streaming ads to become illegal on July 1.
- And a tour of magnificent midcentury-style homes in L.A.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new call for a national billionaire tax, while opposing one in California, seemed to invite criticism from both his political left and right. Conservative voices painted him as a wild-eyed socialist. “Newsom,” wrote Jon Fleischman in the California Post, “has concluded that the road to the Democratic presidential nomination runs through the radical left.” Rep. Ro Khanna, a potential Democratic rival in the 2028 presidential campaign, accused Newsom of punting the issue to avoid upsetting billionaires in his state. “It’s total flip flopping,” he said. Politico
2.
Starting on July 1, obnoxiously loud commercials will be illegal on streaming services in California. Under the new law, ad volume can be no louder than that of the show or movie they are interrupting. Tom Umberg, the state senator who introduced the bill, said the industry opposed it by citing technical obstacles to normalizing audio levels. His response: “If they can find a way to boost the volume, they can find a way to not boost the volume.” Ars Technica | Hollywood Reporter
The San Francisco Chronicle rounded up other new laws, among them:
- Public schools must now have at least one all-gender restroom.
- Every school district must have a policy that restricts student smartphone use.
- Food packaging can no longer refer to a “sell by” date, an industry term that led consumers to throw away perfectly good food.
Northern California
3.
Scott Wiener, a prominent gay lawmaker who has championed measures in California’s Legislature to expand transgender rights, was chased from San Francisco’s annual Trans March by protesters who screamed invective and accused him having “been terrible on Gaza.” In video of the encounter on Friday, one heckler told him, “You stopped being queer the moment you started supporting Israel.” Wiener fled. Mayor Daniel Lurie called the language directed at the Jewish legislator “targeted, hateful, and antisemitic.” N.Y. Times | S.F. Chronicle
- Columnist Joe Garofoli: The attempt to humiliate Wiener “was a gift to MAGA.”
4.
Artificial intelligence was supposed to be liberating, offloading grunt work and freeing people to focus on higher order work. But interviews with more than a dozen AI evangelists revealed a different reality, wrote Bloomberg: “The architects of AI’s promised utopia can’t stop building. And it’s leading to a flood of relentless anxiety.” Matt Van Horn, a serial entrepreneur, said he’s never worked harder in his life: “I just have 100 times the output that I had before.”
5.
John Yoo, the UC Berkeley law professor known for authoring the 2002 “torture memos” during the Bush administration, has agreed to help the Justice Department with its investigation into what President Trump’s allies have called a “grand conspiracy” to upend his first term. “I’m just signing on as a consultant on any kind of constitutional law issues they may encounter,” Yoo, 58, said Sunday. The probe has been seen as part of a wide-ranging retribution campaign that has already targeted more than 470 people and organizations since Trump took office. Politico | CNN
6.
While flying his drone off the California coast, Nick Bertocchini has seen a lot of sharks. But even he got nervous watching a great white circle a surfer in Aptos earlier this month. He tried to warn the surfer, 55-year-old Max Eder, by revving the drone’s motors, which got his attention. When Eder saw the massive shadow moving beside him, he got out of there. “It’s a fight-or-flight situation at that point,” he said later. Video of the encounter went viral online. The Inertia | Lookout Santa Cruz
7.
The Bay Area’s answer to Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Lodge offers a similarly singular setting. Cavallo Point Lodge was converted from a Civil War-era Army post within Golden Gate National Recreation Area at the southern end of Sausalito. Many of the rooms are former officers’ quarters, and most have views of the Golden Gate Bridge. Rooms are on the pricey end, but non-guests can have a drink on the veranda and take in the fabulous scenery. In a travel piece, Hollywood Reporter called Cavallo the “fort that found inner peace.”
Southern California
8.
A security guard in Carlsbad was arrested after video captured him firing a stun gun into a man’s face at point-blank range, the authorities said. The violence unfolded outside a bar just after a watch party for the Mexico vs. Czechia soccer match on Wednesday. David Marquez, 42, faced felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon and assault with a stun gun. The victim was rushed to a trauma center. His condition was unknown. FOX 5 | KGTV
9.
Last Fourth of July, 8-year-old Jasmine Nguyen was killed by an illegal fireworks explosion in Buena Park. Nearly a year later, the Orange County Register checked in with Jasmine’s mother, Haley Nguyen. “I couldn’t do anything,” she recalled. “I sat for months. I can’t hug her or hear her voice.” Even so, Nguyen said she is not demanding punishment. The neighbor who ignited the firework hasn’t yet been charged, and Nguyen doesn’t want him to be. “It really was an accident,” she said.
10.
When the Spanish architect Diego Cano-Lasso bought a pair of precariously steep plots of land with spectacular views in Los Angeles, a geotechnical engineer delivered some bad news. “He said the plots were unbuildable,” Cano-Lasso said. “He told me, ‘It is impossible. We cannot even do the soils report, because a big machine can’t fit up here on these narrow streets.’” But after a 12-year odyssey of permits and DIY construction, two magnificent midcentury-style homes now float above the hillside. The Los Angeles Times got a tour.
- See more photos of the Cano and La Canaria homes.
11.
About 100 miles off the coast of San Diego is America’s gnarliest wave. Cortes Bank is a submerged seamount that rises to within a few feet of the surface in the open ocean. When conditions cooperate, the underwater topography creates waves that are both colossal and perfectly shaped for surfing. They are are also terrifying. Surfer Greg Long, who almost drowned there in 2012, called it “as extreme and dangerous as anything that I would ever want to do in the ocean.” Cortes Bank earned a spot on National Geographic’s “ultimate superlative” list, created in honor America’s 250 years of independence.
- See incredible video of surfers at Cortes Bank.
12.
Scott Muirhead, a sales representative for an Irvine-based company, is building a following on social media by working from unconventional places. He has lugged his desk to Mammoth Mountain, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, and a bowling alley. Last week, he invited others to join him for a remote work day at Law Street Beach in San Diego. More than 100 people showed up. “I thought, ‘Why not make it a community event?’” he said. SFGATE has pictures.
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