Good morning. It’s Wednesday, July 22.
- Mistrial called in Sacramento’s deadliest mass shooting.
- OpenAI says AI models broke loose and hacked a company.
- And a hidden stash of celebrity Polaroids from the 2000s.
Statewide
1.
The White House last week acknowledged using keyword searches for the en masse revocation of nearly $2 billion in research grants at the University of California in 2025, court records showed. Grants were flagged for termination based on phrases such as “health equity,” “disadvantaged communities,” and “sexual orientation.” Framing the admission as a smoking gun, lawyers for UC professors are now asking a judge to skip a trial and formally declare that the White House violated the Constitution by disregarding the merits of individual grants. CalMatters
2.
The Trump administration said Tuesday that it is freezing more than $1 billion in Medicaid funding to California and Minnesota over suspect claims. Mehmet Oz, who oversees Medicaid and Medicare, provided no concrete examples but said the government would no longer pay for claims that “smell like fraud.” California officials have acknowledged the problem of health care fraud but note that it plagues many states. “California isn’t being targeted because Trump has evidence of fraud,” wrote Gov. Gavin Newsom. “We are being targeted for political reasons.” Wall Street Journal | Politico
3.
The population of California has been in a slump, but not uniformly. Reporters visited seven cities that have defied the trend, each having grown by at least 25% between 2010 and 2025. Chico’s growth came from tragedy, as the 2018 burning of Paradise brought an influx of new residents. Roseville, on the edge of Sacramento, was reshaped by remote work. Menifee, in the Inland Empire, absorbed waves of young families and retirees from greater Los Angeles. What they all have in common: families searching for affordability and community. S.F. Chronicle
Northern California
4.
The murder trial of two men accused in the deadliest mass shooting in Sacramento ended in a mistrial on Tuesday. Mtula Payton and Dandrae Martin were tried together in the K Street shooting of 2022, which unfolded around 2 a.m. outside crowded downtown bars and left six people dead. The authorities said rival gang members fired more than 100 bullets. But the jury failed to reach consensus on a verdict. Family members of victims held back tears as they reacted to the outcome. “It’s not right,” said John Alexander, whose 21-year-old daughter was killed. Sacramento Bee | KCRA
5.
A jury on Tuesday found former UC Davis student Carlos Dominguez not guilty of murder in a stabbing rampage that left two men dead and shocked the college town in 2023. He was convicted on a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. Dominguez had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Before the killings, Dominguez stopped bathing, skipped meals, and confided to friends that he was hearing voices. Prosecutors argued that despite symptoms of schizophrenia, Dominguez knew what he was doing when he stabbed the men. Sacramento Bee | Davis Enterprise
6.
Camille Hanson built a business teaching English to her followers.
Athenia Rodney led a group commemorating the end of slavery.
Roberto Suarez was pursuing a career as an influencer.
All three of them had their social media accounts abruptly banned by Meta on the grounds that they violated community guidelines. But none of them had done anything wrong. They were victims of artificial intelligence gone awry as Meta has handed more power to AI bots to manage its platforms. Hanson appealed. “All your information will be permanently deleted,” Meta’s response read. “You cannot request another review of this decision.” N.Y. Times
7.
OpenAI said on Tuesday that two artificial intelligence systems it was testing went rogue, hacked their way onto the internet, and broke into another company’s network. The models appeared to have decided that the hack was the quickest route to answer a question. The episode appeared to display the science-fiction potential of AI systems to break free of its makers’ constraints and unleash havoc. OpenAI briefed the Trump administration before announcing what happened. “We consider this incident to be an unprecedented cyber incident,” the company said. Washington Post | Bloomberg
8.
San Francisco is getting a new arts college thanks to Jensen Huang. The Nvidia CEO and his wife pledged $75 million to create the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang College of Art, Architecture and Design. It will be part of Vanderbilt University’s takeover of the campus of the California College of the Arts, which announced its closure in January after years of financial struggle. The San Francisco Chronicle said Vanderbilt’s messaging made the Huang College sound “less like an art school and more like an aesthetics-infused tech curriculum.”
9.
Orcas, round and panda-colored, look cute. But they are fearsome predators that torment prey and kill for sport. During an outing in Monterey Bay on Sunday, a group of whale watchers got a rare show as a family of seven orcas attacked a pod of dolphins, using ramming strikes that launched both predator and prey out of the water. Mike Sack, the owner of Sanctuary Cruises, who captured video, told SFGATE the orcas may have eaten as many as five dolphins: “They’re like wolves, working together cooperatively hunting these animals.”
Southern California
10.
“Malibu is a great deal right now.”
The aftermath of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires has prompted an unusual migration out of one of California’s most desirable stretches of coast. In Malibu, some owners of homes spared by the wildfires have grown tired of the constant threat of disaster. For others, the unsettling visual of burned neighborhoods has weakened the city’s allure. As a result, Malibu now has a glut of luxury homes and empty lots stuck on the market. Wall Street Journal
11.
This spring, a group calling itself Wildfire Victims First launched a campaign that urged lawmakers to take action on wildfire costs. Among the proposals it backs: limiting payouts to wildfire victims for pain and suffering and capping fees for attorneys who represent survivors. If those seem like curious objectives from wildfire victims, that’s because the group does not, despite its name, represent them. It was created with funding from Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, and San Diego Gas & Electric. L.A. Times
12.
In the early 2000s, Emily Shur was an in-demand celebrity photographer in Los Angeles for magazines such as GQ, Spin, Rolling Stone, Elle, and People. During shoots with a large-format camera, she would also take a quick Polaroid of her subjects. For years, the trove of images captured between 2002 to 2009 remained hidden away. On Tuesday, the New Yorker published 20 of the images for the first time. The Polaroids, the magazine wrote, “tell some unexpected tales.”
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