Good morning. It’s Tuesday, March 3.
- Del Monte Foods bankruptcy devastates peach growers.
- California condor egg reported in Yurok country.
- And the tax-the-rich movement comes to San Diego.
Statewide
1.
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that California cannot bar schools from telling parents if their children identify as transgender. In a 6-3 decision, the court said policies that conceal students’ use of new names and pronouns likely violate parental rights “to direct the upbringing and education of their children.” California’s lawyers said the religious parents who brought the case misconstrued the scope of the law. Schools, they argued, were not prevented from disclosing changes to gender identity; they were merely required to balance parental interests with the well-being of students. L.A. Times | SCOTUSblog
2.
Last July, Del Monte Foods, the canned fruits and vegetables staple founded in San Francisco in 1886, filed for bankruptcy, driven by the pressures of discount competition and mounting debt. Now the collapse is rippling through the San Joaquin Valley, where the closure of a cannery is leaving hundreds of workers without jobs and dozens of peach growers without a buyer. Carlos Barron, who spent four years preparing his new peach orchard to produce fruit this summer, is distraught. “When you’ve got no home for your peaches, what do you do?” he said. “Who do you talk to?” Modesto Focus
3.
President Trump could get a big win on one of his top priorities from California, of all places, after supporters of a voter ID initiative said on Monday that they had collected more than 1.3 million signatures, more than enough to qualify for the November ballot. The measure would require voters to show photo identification every time they cast a ballot. Even most California Democrats favor such rules, a Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll showed last year. Politico
4.
Calla Lily Valley, a popular Big Sur stopover where thousands of white calla lilies guide a path down a hidden ravine to the Pacific, was just destroyed. Between Wednesday and Thursday last week, someone cut the flowers and stomped the green plants into the ground. “It looked like vandalism,” said a Monterey local named Kevin O. The destruction, the first in memory, triggered debates online about overtourism and the contested presence of the calla lily, which is nonnative. S.F. Chronicle | KSBW
Northern California
5.
Scientists said they found evidence of a California condor egg in the redwood forests of the North State for the first time in more than a century. Once near extinction, the majestic vulture was reintroduced to the region in the summer of 2022 and now number 26. Two recently paired up high in a redwood tree nest, where they appear to be tending an egg laid in February. Scientists cautioned that survival rates for the first eggs of new condor parents is poor. “I do know the odds,” said Chris West, a biologist. But he added: “I am optimistic.” Eureka Times-Standard | S.F. Chronicle
6.
After San Francisco’s political pivot toward the center, moderates in the city are bracing for a rising national tide of progressive energy ahead of the midterms. The advocacy group Neighbors for a Better San Francisco said it had raised $10 million to pour into local races against progressives. “This is a wave that is coming to us, it’s coming westward,” said Jay Cheng, the organization’s director. “You can feel that pendulum swing, and it is important that someone is holding the line.” Politico
7.
Anthropic is getting a consolation prize after losing the federal government as a customer. On Friday, the Trump administration directed the government to stop working with the San Francisco artificial intelligence company over its “red lines” on mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. In the days that followed, Anthropic’s chatbot Claude experienced “unprecedented demand,” taking ChatGPT’s place at No. 1 on the Apple App Store for the first time. Wall Street Journal
8.
In September, Jack Dorsey’s Block payment processing company hosted a $60 million extravaganza for workers celebrating the company’s 16th birthday at the Oakland Coliseum and Arena. Anderson .Paak played a nighttime DJ set. Six months later, Dorsey announced plans to fire more than 4,000 employees, saying “intelligence tools” allowed the company to do more with a leaner workforce. Not everyone is buying it. Critics coined a nickname for employers using AI as an excuse for ugly layoffs: “AI-washing.” Bloomberg | Wall Street Journal
9.
A short-lived student takeover of a hall at Cal Poly Humboldt over the weekend was complicated by physiological imperatives after they found the bathrooms locked. Lost Coast Outpost reports:
“It made them very, very mad, and they talked about the bathrooms almost as much as they talked about the reasons why they were dug into the building deep as a bloodthirsty tick digs into the meaty part of the thigh, why they hid every bit of their flesh with sunglasses, gloves, and surgical masks, why so many of them wore checkered keffiyehs and headwraps, and why they thought committing this crime was worth potentially being expelled.”
Southern California
10.
The tax-the-rich movement has come to San Diego, a city that consistently ranks among the world’s least affordable. This week, lawmakers will consider a proposed ballot measure to apply a hefty tax on an estimated 5,115 empty second homes in the city. During a recent hearing, as most speakers praised the plan, Airbnb and the Chamber of Commerce were notably absent. Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera framed the debate as a moral one: “Housing is foundational to dignity and stability and that’s why we don’t believe homes should sit empty during a housing crisis.” KUSI | S.D. Union-Tribune
11.
The Pentagon’s favorite tech figure is Palmer Luckey, the Southern California founder of Anduril with an endless wardrobe of Hawaiian shirts and a penchant for cosplaying anime characters. While he’s no buttoned-up defense executive, Luckey pioneered a vision of warfare that defense officials find compelling. It boils down to autonomy, the New York Times wrote:
“If A.I.-backed fighter jets, drones, submarines, warships and combat vehicles can act as autonomous frontline machines, the technology could save a lot of lives — and help the United States win any conflict.”
12.
In 1985, the Los Angeles artist Gordon Henderson made a calendar of pen-and-ink drawings as a last-minute Christmas gift for his then-girlfriend. He made another the following year, then another. Forty years later, the calendars have attained a cult following, and Henderson, using the pen name Nib Geebles, has settled into a single recurring theme: the everyday landmarks of Los Angeles. Think mom-and-pop flower shops, Korean restaurants, and optometrists. Hyperallergic | LAist
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