Good morning. It’s Thursday, July 17.
- The Trump administration cancels bullet train funding.
- National Guard troops in L.A. complain of low morale.
- And photo booths make a comeback among digital natives.
Statewide
1.
The Trump administration made good on threats to cancel federal funding for California’s high-speed rail project, clawing back $4 billion on Wednesday after a compliance review cited missed budget and timeline targets. “The railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” President Trump said on Wednesday. California officials called the pullback partisan and “predetermined” while vowing to fight it in court. “Canceling these grants without cause isn’t just wrong, it’s illegal,” said Ian Choudri, head of the rail authority. Reuters | A.P.
2.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is threatening to redraw California’s congressional district maps if Texas indulges a demand from President Trump to adopt a similar strategy in Republicans’ favor. California, Newsom recently told a podcaster, could “gerrymander like no other state.” But even some of the state’s Democratic lawmakers are balking at the idea. “Trying to save democracy by destroying democracy is dangerous and foolish,” said Assemblymember Alex Lee, head of the state Legislature’s progressive caucus. Politico
- L.A. Times’ Mark Z. Barabak: Newsom is “blowing smoke.”
3.
National Weather Service offices in California are among the most understaffed in the country after the Trump administration shed hundreds of workers through layoffs and buyouts. Each office in the state is supposed to have somewhere from 13 to 16 meteorologists on staff. The Sacramento office has just eight; the Hanford office has five. As a result, neither is able to consistently operate on their own overnight. “It’s unheard of,” Alex Tardy, a former weather service meteorologist in San Diego. L.A. Times
4.
In interviews, several National Guard soldiers in Los Angeles said they resented being drawn into immigration raids and felt President Trump put them on the streets for a “fake mission.” Their comments aligned with other signs of low morale: Some troops became so disgruntled there were reports of members defecating in Humvees and base showers. “The moral injuries of this operation, I think, will be enduring,” said one Guard official. “This is not what the military of our country was designed to do, at all.” N.Y. Times
5.
Other dispatches on the deportation crackdown:
- A U.S. Army veteran was jailed for three days after being picked up during a raid on a pot farm in Camarillo where he works as a security guard. George Retes, 25, said he was on his way to work when agents broke his car window and sprayed him with tear gas, he said: “I told them everything — that I was a citizen, I worked there, and they didn’t care.” Reuters | A.P.
- More than half of the Mexican citizens recently detained by immigration agents had been living in the U.S. for at least a decade, according to a survey by the Mexican consular authorities in L.A. The findings showed that many of those being detained have deep roots in America, the consul said. L.A. Times
- Undocumented parents have been scrambling to designate other adults to care for their children, many of whom are U.S. citizens, if they are deported. Maria, a child-care provider, recalled being asked by a mother if she would be willing to adopt her 11-year-old. “I was speechless,” she said. L.A. Times
6.
In 2024, California law enforcement killed fewer people than in any year since the state began keeping track nine years ago, an analysis found. Officers killed 117 civilians in 2024, a 13% decline from the prior year and a 32% drop from 2020, when such deaths hit a high. Analysts credited reform efforts that sought to curb the use of deadly force through training, revised protocols, and oversight. “There’s been a layered approach that’s scaled up over time,” said Samuel Sinyangwe, a police violence analyst. The trend was the opposite in red states, which saw increased killings by police. S.F. Chronicle
7.
A San Francisco company’s photo booths were so popular it opened a store front. Legions of digital natives — mostly female, mostly under 25 years old — have been flocking to Photomatica’s photo booth “museum” on Market Street, where four vintage contraptions, retrofitted to accept credit cards and Apple Pay, spit out selfie strips with “analog magic.” Now the company is adding another location in Los Angeles, which opens on Thursday. L.A. Times
Northern California
8.
Earlier this month, the UC Berkeley community was shaken by reports that one of its professors, Przemysław Jeziorski, 43, was fatally shot in Greece on July 4. On Wednesday, Greek news outlets reported that Jeziorski’s ex-wife, Nadia Michelidaki, was arrested and accused of orchestrating the killing. Jeziorski and Michelidaki were entangled in an acrimonious child custody dispute, reports said. Four men were also arrested, including Michelidaki’s current companion, who admitted to shooting Jeziorski at Michelidaki’s request, authorities told one outlet. S.F. Chronicle | Mercury News
9.
President Trump still wants to restore San Francisco’s Alcatraz as a functioning maximum-security prison. Rep. Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Attorney General Pam Bondi planned to visit the popular tourist destination on Thursday and formally announce the reopening. Experts on Alcatraz have called the plan wasteful and unworkable. In a statement, Pelosi suggested the proposal is intended as a distraction, calling it “the Trump administration’s stupidest initiative yet.” S.F. Chronicle | KQED
Southern California
10.
In 2020, Los Angeles County voters approved Measure J, which dedicated hundreds of millions toward services that offer alternatives to incarceration, in what supporters hailed as a major win for the defund the police movement. Five years later, the measure has been wiped from existence. Inexplicably, staff failed to update the county charter, setting in motion a bureaucratic disaster that effectively repealed Measure J. Eric Preven, a political commentator, called it “an accidental — but devastating — heist of the public will.” Politico
11.
The Hollywood Reporter published an alarming report on the “rise of the machines”:
“Hollywood is currently in the midst of an AI insurgency, though even that noun may not do the moment justice. Though still fragmented, the effort is increasingly looking like a full-on takeover, a Pixar-like artquake that aims to change the provenance of images, the business of production and (not to put too fine a point on it) the language of cinema itself.”
12.
The Santa Monica Mountains are molehills compared to Los Angeles’ much taller San Gabriels. But they rise directly out of the sea, granting hikers breathtaking 360-degree views from the Pacific Ocean and Channel Islands to the Conejo and Simi valleys. The highest peak, Sandstone, is just 3,111 feet tall and can be reached in 30 minutes or so along a 3-mile round-trip trail, though regulars recommend a more meandering route. The Desert Sun included Sandstone Peak in a short piece on “the most treasured views in California.“
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