Good morning. It’s Monday, Sept. 21.
- Gavin Newsom signs bills to protect California elections.
- Pasadena museum is sued over paintings looted by Nazis.
- And a guide to Sonoma County’s best glamping spots.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday signed a broad package of bills designed to guard against election interference by the Trump administration and its allies during the November midterms. One measure bans the seizure of ballots before an election is certified. Another limits arrests near polling stations. Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, called the protections small but meaningful. “There’s a vigilante mood afoot,” he said. “This acts as a little bit of a deterrent for people who are cosplaying election officials.” N.Y. Times | L.A. Times
2.
Newsom also made a number of other legislative moves in recent days:
- He signed measures that add a new tax incentive for Hollywood, bar other states from sending National Guard troops to California, and establish Sept. 25 as Dolly Parton Day — a nod to the late country star’s song “9 to 5.”
- The governor vetoed bills that would have allowed undocumented students to hold jobs at public universities, loosened work-from-home rules for state workers, and boosted retirement benefits for police and firefighters. The latter veto, he said, was informed by California’s pension crisis.
3.
Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that creates a panel to study the possibility of a “kill switch” for cutting-edge artificial intelligence models. But that’s harder than it sounds, the New York Times reported. Any hypothetical kill switch would likely be vulnerable to hackers, experts said. Some fear the AI itself could dismantle the system meant to take it down. “Something that a lot of people expect you will see if you have a very capable AI system that is going rogue is that it is going to try to prevent itself from being shut down,” said Helen Toner, former OpenAI board member.
4.
Maps newly released by the U.S. Geological Survey showed the expected departure from normal precipitation this winter in California, based on six seasonal forecast models. All of them predict above-normal precipitation. John O’Brien, a climate scientist, told the San Francisco Chronicle that this year’s El Niño shares characteristics of strong El Niños in 1982-83 and 1997-98. In those years, he said, “California just got smacked all up and down the state.”
- A former rice farm in the Sacramento Valley is being converted into a floodplain. It could get its first big test this winter. Sacramento Bee
Northern California
5.
More than a year after a lithium battery storage plant went up in flames in Moss Landing, the facility caught fire again on Friday. The January 2025 fire, one of the largest ever of its kind, displaced more than a thousand people and led doctors to warn of risks posed by airborne toxins. On Friday, David Robinson watched from his boat in the harbor as smoke again filled the sky after a fire ignited during the plant’s demolition. “The big fire last year pretty much shut everything down. … Now it’s like, man, when is this going to end?” he said. Canary Media | CalMatters
6.
The New Yorker on Big Tech’s takeover of the American classroom:
“Public schools in the U.S. have effectively surrendered much of their pedagogy, curricula, and operating systems to a handful of trillion-dollar technology companies. Foremost among these is Google, whose Chromebook laptops and Google Workspace for Education software have penetrated a super-majority of districts. … In many districts, opting out of Google Classroom would be close to opting out of public school altogether.”
- San Francisco schools are using AI to teach kids to read. Parents are rebelling against it. S.F. Chronicle
7.
There’s a secluded treehouse perched in a private forest canopy in Sonoma County — and you can stay there. Located on a 400-acre working ranch, the treehouse was built in the 1990s as an office for two brothers in the leather goods business. It was later renovated as a residence with a wraparound redwood deck, accessed by spiral staircase and suspension bridge. Sonoma Magazine included Salmon Creek Ranch in a feature on Sonoma County’s best glamping spots.
8.
When Clint Eastwood was drafted into the Army at age 20, he was stationed at Fort Ord near the Monterey Peninsula. That’s how he came to discover Carmel-by-the-Sea, where he would live for many years, open a pub, and even serve as mayor. “The first time I saw the place I thought it was terrific,” he said in 1993. “Visually it was something else, and I thought it was the place I’d like to call home. So I kind of adopted Carmel.” Architectural Digest recalled Eastwood’s love affair with Carmel, in pictures.
Southern California
9.
Paramount executives and officials from state Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office spent the weekend hashing out potential concessions the studio could make to clear the way for its $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Reports said the proposals included a $1.5 billion investment by the company in production in California, a pledge to stay in Hollywood, and measures to protect CNN’s editorial independence. Demonstrators opposed to the merger held signs that read, “Bonta: Don’t You Dare.” Wall Street Journal | Hollywood Reporter
10.
During a public meeting in March, a member of the California Coastal Commission mused about what would happen to beachfront residences threatened by erosion, given that the state’s shoreline is by law public. “How many years before I’m allowed to just pull up a chair — sit in their, you know, front deck porch and watch TV because it’s public land,” he said. As more homes fall into the sea, such remarks have infuriated homeowners who are convinced the authorities expect them to simply flee in the face of rising seas. Washington Post
11.
The family of Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish Dutch art dealer, has tried for decades to reclaim a pair of Renaissance masterpieces that were stolen from Goudstikker by the Nazis before winding up in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. Rulings in U.S. courts have rejected their claims. But the family is now trying a new approach: They transferred their rights to the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, which has sued under a California law designed to strengthen such claims. If the federation wins, it plans to sell the artworks and give the money to charity. N.Y. Times | A.P.
12.
A man was arrested after he pepper-sprayed another moviegoer for using a cellphone during a film at a Burbank theater last week, the authorities said. Another moviegoer, Joe Rodriguez, said “The Uprising” had been playing for about 30 minutes. “And all of a sudden behind me, I hear the sound of an aerosol can, like a spray,” he said. “And a guy just yells out, ‘I just got pepper sprayed!'” Rodriguez said the movie wasn’t even that good. CBS News | NBC News
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