The La Mesa City Council on Tuesday got a glimpse of what the downtown La Mesa trolley station might look like in the decades ahead.

The MTS Orange trolley line that runs parallel to Spring Street in downtown La Mesa could someday tower above the city or burrow underground, according to a study completed by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG).

The study comes as SANDAG expects trolley service in San Diego County to double over the next decade. In addition to the aerial and below-ground options, there would also be a combo design with some tracks at street level and others above.

SANDAG senior regional planner Cecily Taylor presented the study at the council’s regular meeting. She acknowledged that all of the options are still very much on the drawing board.

“There’s still a long path ahead,” Taylor said. “A lot more work to be done to move any of these ideas forward.”

SANDAG gathered community feedback on the options last year. In May, the agency presented the findings to the La Mesa Mobility Commission.

Each option comes with a high price tag. The cost of aerial design is estimated at $569 million, and the below-ground option would be almost $741 million. Taylor said the aerial design would require more than four years of construction. The underground option would likely take longer.

Vice Mayor Lauren Cazares emphasized the city will not be making hasty decisions.

“I think it’s great we’re looking into options for the future,” Cazares said. “That being said, with that price tag, obviously, it’s not something we’re going to be moving on right this second.”

The next step would be for the city to identify potential funding.

As the presentation and discussion wrapped up, Mayor Mark Arapostathis thanked Taylor and made it clear that the city is not taking action anytime soon.

“We’ll let our great-grandchildren know about this,” he said, prompting chuckles from councilmembers and the audience.

🎵 Music

aja monet: Performance and Listening Room

Future is Color and ArtPower present a performance with musician, surrealist poet and activist aja monet and Def Sound at UC San Diego on Thursday evening, with Thee Sacred Souls' Josh Lane opening. aja monet and Def Sound will also be in conversation at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego on Friday afternoon for a special edition of Future is Color's "Listening Room" project. The artists will discuss monet's album "the color of rain" and spend some time listening. Tickets for the Friday Listening Room are free, but an RSVP is required and it is filling up fast.

Concert: 7 p.m. Thursday, July 30 | Epstein Family Amphitheater, UC San Diego | $40-$45 | MORE INFO

Listening Room: 4-7 p.m. Friday, July 31 | MCASD, La Jolla | Free | MORE INFO

Julianna Zachariou: 'Dreamer, Dreamer' House Show 

For local indie rocker Julianna Zachariou's current tour, she's hitting up backyards, living rooms and small or unconventional venues across the U.S. — all in celebration of DIY creativity and community. More and more artists are turning to house shows and DIY venues, whether as a form of protest against ticketing platforms and high ticket prices or simply to seek something more grassroots. Zachariou crowd-funded her latest album, "Dreamer, Dreamer," which is fantastic, and we spoke about her journey for an episode of The Finest right as she was putting the finishing touches on the album. She will also release a music video for the track "Macaroni Faithful" at a potluck event on Thursday at Home Ec and Best Bud Floral in Kensington.

For Friday's backyard concert, ticket holders will receive the exact address in North Park on the morning of the show. BYOB, snacks and extra blankets.

6:30 p.m. Friday, July 31 | Palm Street Sound, North Park | $15/sliding scale | MORE INFO

SummerFest

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the La Jolla Music Society's annual, monthlong summer chamber music festival. Directed once again by Inon Barnatan, this year's program includes 21 concerts, more than 50 free community shows and events, and will bring more than 100 musicians and composers. While Friday's opening night is sold out, Sunday afternoon's "What If?" concert features violinist Randall Goosby on Lili Boulanger's "Two Pieces for Violin and Piano," and an ensemble with vocalists will perform Giovanni Pergolesi's sacred masterpiece "Stabat Mater." Pergolesi wrote that piece in 1736, shortly before his death the same year — at the tragic age of 26.

July 31 - Aug. 29 | La Jolla Music Society, 7600 Fay Ave., La Jolla | Prices vary | MORE INFO

St. Vincent and the San Diego Symphony

Six-time Grammy winner St. Vincent, otherwise known as Annie Clark, will perform with the San Diego Symphony on Saturday, having collaborated with arranger and conductor Jules Buckley to breathe symphonic life into Clark's theatrical, mesmerizing and inventive music.

The symphony and Clark will perform pieces from her entire catalog, including albums like "Marry Me," "Strange Mercy," "MASSEDUCTION" and her latest, "All Born Screaming." For the final performance of her tour for that album, she partnered with Buckley and his orchestra at BBC Proms, which led to this expanded collaboration. Side note: My audience claim to fame is that one time, St. Vincent crowd surfed on me. I am not expecting that to happen at the symphony.

As with all Rady Shell concerts, there's a chance you could hear the music and catch a glimpse of the public walking path around the venue.

The talented Pakistani-American composer and singer Arooj Aftab will also perform. I loved her gorgeous 2012 album, "Vulture Prince."

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 1 | The Rady Shell, 222 Marina Park Way, downtown | $51-$173 | MORE INFO

🎨 Visual art

'34th Annual Juried Exhibition'

Photographer and UC San Diego faculty member Paul Mpagi Sepuya curated this year's Juried Exhibition at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, selecting 42 border region artists from a whopping 1,000 works submitted. Selected artists include Stefanie Bales, Jill Marie Holslin, Maya Grace Misra, Phuc Ha Nguyen, Helena Westra and more. The exhibit opens with a reception Friday.

5:30-7:30 p.m. Friday, July 31; through Oct. 9 | Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla | Free | MORE INFO

💃 Dance

The Rosin Box Project: 'Debuts: The Frame Wide Open'

The always inventive and incredible contemporary ballet company, The Rosin Box Project, puts together a show each year featuring all new works by company artists and guest choreographers. Pieces premiering this year include "New Archibald" by Jennifer Archibald, "Dark Matter" by Christian Denice (with an original score by Philip Daniel) and a new piece by company co-founder Carly Topazio. Be prepared for emotive, athletic, theatrical, comedic and expressive performances from this unmatched and prolific local company. Military, senior, artist and student discounts are available.

7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 6 p.m. Sunday, July 31 - Aug. 2 | The Joan (Cygnet Theatre), 2880 Roosevelt Rd., Liberty Station | $30-$60 | MORE INFO

City Ballet of San Diego: 'Ballet Under the Stars'

City Ballet of San Diego will present an outdoor performance featuring its emerging artists. The pre-professional students in the company's summer intensive program will perform alongside principal dancers in pieces including "Salute to Sousa," "Paquita" and more. While the program is free, reservations are required. Reserved seating is available for $30.

8 p.m. Friday, July 31 | Epstein Family Amphitheater, 9500 Gilman Dr., UC San Diego | Free | MORE INFO

LITVAK Dance: 'Dancing Outdoors Take 4'

North County contemporary dance company LITVAK Dance puts on an annual outdoor performance each summer. This year's event is set at ICA San Diego-North in Encinitas and spotlights distinct and diverse types of dance. Performers include LITVAK's company dancers and three Encinitas-based artists and groups: West African dancer Daunté Nabi Fyall, Odissi-style dancer Shibani Patnaik and the Ballet Folklórico of San Diego company. Live musical accompaniment will be performed by Montalban Quintet, and guests will be able to browse ICA's current exhibition, "Unfold Projects 001: We Must Imagine It," and the sculpture garden. Two performance time slots are offered throughout the evening.

5:45 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 1 | ICA San Diego-North, 1550 S. El Camino Real, Encinitas | $10-$35 | MORE INFO

🎭 Theater

'Much Ado About Nothing'

The Old Globe is referring to this Shakespearean play as "the original rom-com." We follow the bickering Benedick and Beatrice as they resist their friends' matchmaking efforts. When the Globe produced this play in 2018, artistic director Barry Edelstein said the reason this play is a comedic masterpiece — possibly the comedic masterpiece — is Shakespeare's witty dialogue. "You sit back in your chair and a bunch of super smart people get out on stage and just say wonderfully funny stuff," Edelstein said. Directed by Edelstein, this production stars Eden Espinosa as Beatrice, Tally Sessions as Benedick, Stephanie Hinck as Hero and Ainsley Melham as Claudio. Also in the cast as Margaret is the versatile (and busy) comedic actor Madi Goff, who was recently a fantastic scene stealer as Elbow in the Globe's opening summer Shakespeare production, "Measure for Measure." As with that show, "Much Ado About Nothing" will screen under the stars in the outdoor festival theater.

Aug. 2-30 | The Old Globe, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park | $44-$132 | MORE INFO

🍿 Film and family

Lemon Grove Movie Night and Projection Art: 'Rocky'

In 2024, local Lemon Grove student and artist Esteban Sánchez partnered with ArtReach San Diego and San Diego FC to paint a (huge) soccer-themed mural on the Lemon Grove Community Center wall. This Friday, the nonprofit Lemon Grove Community Activities will light up the mural with custom projection art by Sonder Eyes and also screen the classic movie "Rocky," which celebrates its 50th anniversary later this year. RSVPs are recommended for this free event. The two-hour film will start when it's dark.

7:30 p.m. Friday, July 31 | Lemon Grove Community Center, 3146 School Ln., Lemon Grove | Free | MORE INFO

Un sindicato de trabajadores de la salud ha acusado a Kaiser Permanente de examinar a los pacientes y hacer recomendaciones de atención a través de “un algoritmo digital automatizado” sin la supervisión de un médico, una práctica que, según el sindicato, viola la ley estatal.

La denuncia, presentada ante los reguladores estatales por el Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Salud, se dirige a la herramienta de evaluación de consultas virtuales del proveedor de atención médica integrada, la cual evalúa a los pacientes que creen estar experimentando ansiedad o depresión. Los pacientes responden un cuestionario de opción múltiple y la herramienta “genera de forma automática e instantánea recomendaciones de atención y vías de derivación basadas en las respuestas proporcionadas”, según indica la denuncia.

No se trata necesariamente de una cita con un terapeuta presencial: según la denuncia, las recomendaciones también incluyen derivaciones a terapia virtual, clases de educación para la salud y aplicaciones de autocuidado.

El sindicato representa a terapeutas y trabajadores sociales, entre otros profesionales de la salud, en los centros de Kaiser. Según el Departamento de Atención Médica Administrada, que supervisa los planes de salud, esta es la primera vez que un sindicato presenta una queja contra un plan de salud por el supuesto uso de algoritmos e inteligencia artificial en la atención de la salud mental.

Los miembros del sindicato afirman no haber visto ninguna evidencia de que los profesionales de la salud mental con licencia revisen las respuestas de las consultas virtuales de los pacientes en tiempo real, o en absoluto, antes de que la herramienta emita recomendaciones para la atención de seguimiento. En una audiencia celebrada la semana pasada por la Junta de Supervisores de San Francisco sobre este tema, terapeutas y trabajadores sociales declararon que las evaluaciones digitales automatizadas no pueden reemplazar la valoración de un profesional clínico.

«La inteligencia artificial y los algoritmos no capturan lo que los humanos capacitados sí pueden», afirmó Ilana Marcucci-Morris, terapeuta y miembro del comité de negociación del sindicato. Señala que las personas con depresión suelen minimizar sus síntomas, por lo que un algoritmo que se base únicamente en las respuestas del paciente podría pasar por alto señales de una afección más grave.

Kaiser no asistió a la audiencia de la semana pasada. Sin embargo, en un comunicado enviado por correo electrónico a CalMatters, Kaiser refutó la descripción que hizo el sindicato de sus procesos de salud mental.

La herramienta de consulta virtual «no utiliza inteligencia artificial para diagnosticar pacientes, tomar decisiones clínicas ni determinar las necesidades médicas. Las decisiones clínicas siguen siendo responsabilidad de los profesionales sanitarios titulados», declaró Lena Howland, portavoz de Kaiser. No ofreció más detalles sobre la tecnología que hay detrás de la herramienta.

Howland explicó que los pacientes aún pueden comunicarse con una persona en vivo llamando al número de teléfono que aparece durante el proceso de consulta virtual. “La herramienta de evaluación en línea es una vía adicional para recibir atención médica, no la única”, afirmó.

En una publicación de blog del año pasado , Kaiser describe la herramienta de consulta virtual como cada vez más popular, especialmente entre los miembros más jóvenes, y disponible para aproximadamente 30 problemas de salud. En la publicación, Kaiser afirma que las respuestas de los pacientes “son revisadas por un profesional de la salud” y que los miembros “reciben una respuesta por mensaje seguro en un plazo de 4 horas, y generalmente antes”.

Los líderes sindicales replican que las recomendaciones de atención suelen llegar casi inmediatamente después de completar el cuestionario. Argumentan que ningún médico puede revisar las respuestas de los pacientes con tanta rapidez.

El sindicato sostiene que la práctica de selección de pacientes de Kaiser viola la ley estatal , que exige que las decisiones médicas provengan de un profesional de la salud con licencia y prohíbe que la “inteligencia artificial, los algoritmos u otras herramientas de software” sustituyan ese criterio.

El Departamento de Atención Médica Administrada informó haber recibido la queja del sindicato y estar investigando el caso. «Los detalles de las investigaciones en curso son confidenciales, de conformidad con la ley y para proteger la integridad de la investigación», indicó el departamento.

Un cambio en el triaje de salud mental

La denuncia se produce en medio de las negociaciones contractuales entre el sindicato de profesionales sanitarios y Kaiser Northern California, que se han prolongado durante más de un año sin llegar a un acuerdo.

Los terapeutas y trabajadores de la salud que intervinieron en la audiencia de la semana pasada afirmaron que en 2023 se implementó un nuevo sistema de triaje que incluye la herramienta de consulta virtual. Antes de eso, equipos especializados de triaje de Kaiser, compuestos por profesionales clínicos con licencia —capaces de interpretar señales como el tono de voz—, recababan el historial clínico de los pacientes por teléfono, realizaban pruebas de detección de autolesiones y proporcionaban un diagnóstico preliminar y los siguientes pasos en la atención.

Ahora, el sindicato afirma que el personal administrativo o la herramienta se encargan de la mayor parte de la evaluación de casos de salud mental. El sindicato de profesionales de la salud presentó una queja aparte el año pasado alegando que Kaiser utilizaba representantes de servicio telefónico, en lugar de médicos, para responder a las llamadas relacionadas con la salud mental.

Marcucci-Morris explicó que suele atender a los pacientes unas dos semanas después de que el nuevo sistema de Kaiser los evalúe. «La gravedad y la naturaleza crítica de los síntomas que estoy viendo han aumentado significativamente porque la aplicación, la IA, un algoritmo o un operador telefónico sin licencia determinaron erróneamente que podían esperar 10 días para verme», afirmó.

La supervisora de San Francisco, Chyanne Chen, dijo que convocó la audiencia de la semana pasada debido a las preocupaciones que había escuchado de sus electores, tanto empleados como pacientes de Kaiser, sobre los servicios de salud mental de la gigante de la salud. Kaiser atiende a aproximadamente un tercio de la población de San Francisco.

Chen calificó de “inaceptable” la ausencia de Kaiser en la audiencia y dijo que dejó muchas de sus preguntas sin respuesta.

“Como residente de San Francisco, no estoy en contra de la tecnología”, dijo Chen. “Para mí, se trata de asegurarnos de no comprometer la calidad de nuestra atención y seguridad”.

El historial problemático de salud mental de Kaiser

Esta no es la primera vez que Kaiser no asiste a una audiencia sobre sus servicios de salud mental. El año pasado, los legisladores estatales criticaron al plan de salud después de que se negara a participar en una audiencia informativa sobre sus servicios de salud conductual.

Los problemas de salud mental de Kaiser están bien documentados. En 2023, Kaiser acordó pagar una multa de 50 millones de dólares e invertir 150 millones para mejorar sus programas a cambio de resolver las conclusiones estatales que indicaban que sus pacientes de salud mental sufrían graves retrasos en la atención. En 2021, los reguladores de California observaron un aumento en las quejas relacionadas con la salud mental, lo que los impulsó a realizar una encuesta que derivó en el acuerdo. Actualmente, Kaiser opera bajo un plan de acción correctiva y debe presentar informes trimestrales de progreso al estado.

En 2014, los reguladores estatales multaron a Kaiser con 4 millones de dólares por los largos tiempos de espera entre citas de terapia. Kaiser ha atribuido en gran medida sus problemas anteriores a la escasez de profesionales sanitarios.

El plan de salud también se enfrenta a crecientes críticas por su uso cada vez mayor de inteligencia artificial y herramientas digitales en la atención médica.

Los propios profesionales de salud mental de Kaiser se han opuesto a las herramientas de transcripción que registran las citas de los pacientes, alegando que la empresa no revela cómo utiliza ni comparte los datos. Por otra parte, las enfermeras de los centros de llamadas también han expresado su preocupación por el uso que hace Kaiser de inteligencia artificial y software para monitorizar sus llamadas.

Este programa cuenta con el apoyo de la Fundación de Atención Médica de California (CHCF), que trabaja para garantizar que las personas tengan acceso a la atención médica que necesitan, cuando la necesitan y a un precio asequible. Visite www.chcf.org para obtener más información.

Nearly half the bathrooms are closed at Mission Bay Park. The closure was prompted by a funding cut to balance the city budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year. But now, city leadership have reached a disagreement on whether surplus funds should be used to reopen the restrooms.

A cut ballot measure freed $1.8 million in the city budget. District 7 Councilmember Raul Campillo proposed allocating some of the funds to pay for maintenance of the bathrooms. He said it would cost $540,000 to reopen and maintain them.

“We need to take care of this because it's a public health issue,” Campillo said. “It's a disservice to residents of the city of San Diego.”

But Mayor Todd Gloria rejected the proposal.

In early July, the city closed 13 of the 28 bathrooms at Mission Bay Park. The lack of facilities has caused unexpected inconveniences for visitors. Chula Vista resident Angela Rivera had to pivot when she was searching for a bathroom for her 2-and-a-half-year-old grandson.

“Sadly, we had to use an alternative, which was a tree,” she said.

Rivera is not alone. Many joggers, walkers, and playground users who come to Mission Bay Park have been forced to use the lawn and trees as a bathroom replacement.

Beyond frustration this experience may cause, Campillo expressed concern that this behavior could lead to a larger public health issue.

“What I don’t want is people getting sick swimming in the water here because someone goes into the water to use the bathroom,” he said.

In 2023, there was an uptick in hepatitis A cases in San Diego County. The disease can be fatal and is caused by exposure to fecal matter carrying the infection. While Campillo notes that a resurgence in hepatitis A is a worse case scenario, he said that providing proper handwashing stations and bathrooms can help prevent the problem.

In a statement, the mayor said he wants to keep as many public restrooms open as possible. But states the identified funding would not be a sufficient long-term solution to support the staffing, maintenance, and operational costs the bathrooms require.

The mayor said the city will continue to evaluate potential options to reopen the restrooms. In the meantime, the city continues to operate 15 public restrooms at Mission Bay Park.

The clash of swords and cheers from onlookers echoed across the West Mezzanine Terrace of the San Diego Convention Center on Friday afternoon as armored fighters squared off before Comic-Con attendees.

The demonstration, hosted by the Society for Creative Anachronism, gave visitors a chance to experience medieval-inspired armored combat up close. Fighters wearing full armor wielded rattan weapons in bouts designed to recreate the techniques and spirit of historical combat while following strict safety guidelines.

The Society for Creative Anachronism, or SCA, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to researching and recreating life before the 17th century. Members explore everything from armored combat and fencing to brewing, sewing, blacksmithing and other historical crafts.

Comic-Con’s celebration of fantasy, gaming and pop culture makes it a natural venue for the SCA. The event offered attendees a chance to experience the group’s activities firsthand, while members said it serves as an invitation for newcomers to learn more about the organization and get involved.

"If it existed back then, there's somebody studying and recreating it," said Baron Torsteinn Arngeirsson of the Barony of Calafia, which serves San Diego and Imperial counties.

Unlike choreographed stage combat, the armored bouts are competitive. Participants train regularly and must demonstrate that they can safely protect themselves and their opponents before they are authorized to compete.

"Our combat is honor-based," Arngeirsson said. "If I were to strike you on the head, and you felt that it wasn't a proper killing blow because it was light or skipped off, you can tell me what was going on, and I will accept that, and we'll continue the fight."

Arngeirsson said members can pursue the hobby at whatever level they choose, whether casually exploring a historical craft or dedicating years to mastering one.

"You put into it what you get out of it," he said.

For many members, however, the organization is about more than recreating history.

"When I grew up, I really loved learning history books, but I always wondered what people actually did day to day," said Julia Solis, an SCA member whose historical persona draws inspiration from several time periods. "When I joined, I found there was actually a community that shares that with each other."

Solis said the organization gave her the opportunity to learn traditional skills in a hands-on environment while building friendships with people who share her interests.

"We learn history in a hands-on way," she said. "We relearn all this historical stuff, get to dress up, have feasts and dancing, and I've made friends from all over the U.S."

While armored combat drew crowds throughout the afternoon, Arngeirsson emphasized it represents only a small part of the organization's activities.

"This is a very tiny part," he said. "This is to get a taste, to get people to come and play with us."

A health worker union has accused Kaiser Permanente of screening patients and making care recommendations through “a digital, automated algorithm” without clinician oversight — a practice the union says violates state law.

The complaint, filed with state regulators by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, targets the integrated healthcare provider’s e-visit screening tool, which evaluates patients who think they may be experiencing anxiety or depression. Patients answer a multiple choice questionnaire, and the tool “automatically and instantaneously generates care recommendations and referral pathways based on the responses provided,” the complaint states.

That’s not necessarily an appointment with an in-person therapist: recommendations also include referrals to virtual therapy, health education classes and self care apps, according to the complaint.

The union represents therapists and social workers among other health workers at Kaiser facilities. According to the Department of Managed Health Care, which oversees health plans, this is the first time a union has filed a complaint against a health plan related to its supposed use of algorithms and artificial intelligence in behavioral healthcare.

Union members say they’ve seen no evidence that licensed mental health clinicians review patients’ e-visit answers in real-time, or at all, before the tool issues recommendations for follow-up care. At a hearing held by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on this issue last week, therapists and social workers said that digital automated screenings cannot replace a clinician’s assessment.

“Artificial intelligence and algorithms don’t capture what trained humans can,” said Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a therapist and a member of the union’s bargaining committee. She notes that people with depression commonly minimize their symptoms — so an algorithm relying solely on a patient’s answers may miss signs of a more severe condition.

Kaiser skipped last week’s hearing. But in an emailed statement to CalMatters, Kaiser pushed back on the union’s characterization of its behavioral health processes.

The e-visit tool “does not use AI to diagnose patients, make clinical decisions, or determine medical necessity. Clinical decisions remain with licensed healthcare professionals,” said Lena Howland, a Kaiser spokesperson. She did not provide more details about the technology behind the tool.

Howland said patients can still reach a live person by calling a phone number displayed during the e-visit process. “The online screening tool “is an additional path to getting care—not the only path,” she said.

In a blog post from last year, Kaiser describes the e-visit tool as increasingly popular, especially among younger members, and available for about 30 health concerns. In the post, Kaiser says patients’ answers “are reviewed by a health care professional” and that members “receive a response by secure message within 4 hours, and usually sooner.”

Union leaders counter that care recommendations typically come in almost immediately after completing the questionnaire. They argue no clinician can realistically be reviewing patients’ answers that quickly.

The union contends Kaiser’s screening practice violates state law, which requires that medical decisions come from a licensed healthcare professional and bars “artificial intelligence, algorithms, or other software tools” from supplanting that judgment.

The Department of Managed Health Care said it has received the union’s complaint and is investigating. “Details of ongoing enforcement investigations are confidential in compliance with the law and to protect the integrity of the investigation,” the department said.

A shift in mental health triage

The complaint lands in the middle of contract negotiations between the healthcare union and Kaiser Northern California, which have dragged on for more than a year without an agreement.

Therapists and health workers who spoke at last week’s hearing said that a new triage system including the e-visit tool started in 2023. Before that, dedicated Kaiser triage teams made up of licensed clinicians — who could pick up on cues like tone of voice — took patients’ brief histories over the phone, screened for self-harm, and provided a preliminary diagnosis and next steps in care.

Now, the union says clerical staff or the tool do most mental health triaging. The healthcare union filed a separate complaint last year alleging Kaiser used telephone service representatives, instead of clinicians, to answer mental health calls.

Marcucci-Morris said she typically sees patients about two weeks after Kaiser’s new system triages them. “The acuity and critical nature of symptoms I am seeing has increased significantly because the app, AI, an algorithm, or an unlicensed telephone operator incorrectly determined that they could wait 10 days to see me,” she said.

San Francisco Supervisor Chyanne Chen said she called last week’s hearing because of concerns she’d been hearing from constituents — both Kaiser employees and patients — about the health giant’s mental health services. Kaiser serves about a third of San Francisco’s population.

Chen called Kaiser’s absence from the hearing “unacceptable,” and said it left many of her questions unanswered.

“As a San Franciscan, I’m not against technology,” Chen said. “For me it’s making sure we’re not shortcutting our quality of care and safety.”

Kaiser’s troubled mental health record 

This isn’t the first time Kaiser has skipped a hearing on its mental health services. Last year, state legislators criticized the health plan after it declined to participate in an informational hearing about its behavioral health services.

Kaiser’s mental healthcare problems are well documented. In 2023, Kaiser agreed to pay a $50 million fine and to invest $150 million to improve its programs in exchange for settling state findings that its behavioral health patients were experiencing serious delays in care. In 2021, California regulators had noted a jump in behavioral health-related complaints, which prompted regulators to conduct a survey that led to the settlement. Kaiser now operates under a corrective action plan and must submit quarterly progress reports to the state.

In 2014, state regulators fined Kaiser $4 million for long wait times between therapy appointments. Kaiser has largely attributed its past problems to a shortage of care providers.

The health plan is also facing mounting criticism over its broader use of AI and digital tools in care.

Kaiser’s own mental health workers have objected to transcription tools that record patient appointments, saying the company won’t disclose how it uses or shares the data. Separately, call center nurses have also raised concerns about Kaiser using AI and software to monitor their calls.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

After five years of construction the Veterans Affairs department took charge of a new $205 million hospital in San Diego this month, a VA San Diego Healthcare System spokesperson said Monday.

The almost 200,000-square-foot facility is next to the main hospital at the Jennifer Moreno VA Medical Center.

The contract to build the new hospital was awarded in 2021. Construction was overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

A March 2023 press release by the USACE said the facility was projected to open in the fall of 2024.

In August 2025, the USACE said it would open "later" that year.

San Diego VA Healthcare System spokesperson David Haas said the goal now is to open the center to patients early in 2027. He said the delays were due to "infrastructure and technical issues."

"To ensure the facility met operational and safety requirements, VA needed to address infrastructure and technical issues that were identified during the construction and inspection processes," Haas said.

Injured veterans advocated for the new center for years.

Louis Irvin is the executive director of the San Diego chapter of the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA). He said they recognized the need for a new center about 16 years ago.

Veterans with spinal cord injuries need specialized care, he said.

"There's a massive need for long-term care for spinal cord injuries," he said.

That's what the new center offers — 50 patient beds. Twenty of them are for long-term care, Irvin said.

The existing spinal cord center is one of 25 run by the VA around the country. It serves about 850 veterans in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada, Irvin said.

Richard Johnson has used a wheelchair for 60 years. He cofounded the San Diego chapter of PVA and served as president of the national organization.

He was part of the original advocacy group more than 40 years ago that worked to get the current center built in San Diego. He said nothing can replace the VA when it comes to treating veterans' injuries.

"The keyword that I want to use is 'continuity,'" Johnson said. "Continuity of care, which I've had since 1965. There’s no place else I can go and show up and they know me and they know about me. It's critical — it's life saving."

The new hospital features several improvements the PVA says are important for the health and quality of life for paralyzed veterans.

The 50 patient beds are all in private rooms. The 20 long-term care beds are arranged in what the PVA calls a "homelike environment" that provides both privacy and opportunities for social interaction.

It also has outdoor recreation facilities that Jesse Robinson, the president of the San Diego PVA, said is "desperately needed."

That's because the existing center's outdoor area was closed for construction.

"There's not a lot of places for veterans (with) spinal cord injuries to go to get outside and congregate and speak to one another," Robinson said. "That's been very difficult."

A lot of the PVA's work involved helping veterans whose injuries are more recent and are learning and adapting to a whole new way of life.

"All of us are sitting here, you know, to help the people that come behind us," Robinson said. "We've already been through this, but we're here to promote and encourage and shift and change and educate and advocate for the guy that shows up tomorrow."

Irvin agreed.

"It's all about community and purpose, right?" Irvin said. "We provide the community and then help them find their purpose."

Irvin said the PVA is helping the VA on final design elements. This includes installing equipment and furnishings.

The building was accepted from the builder by the government July 14, Haas said.

The first poll in the general election race for California’s 48th Congressional District shows Democrat San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert in a statistical tie with Republican County Supervisor Jim Desmond.

Von Wilpert came in second to Desmond in the June top-two primary among a crowded field of Democrats to advance to the general election.

The poll was conducted by Lake Research Partners, a Democratic polling and research firm, and shared by the von Wilpert campaign on Monday. It has von Wilpert leading by two percentage points over Desmond, but within the margin of error.

Among 500 likely voters, 48% chose von Wilpert, 46% chose Desmond, and 6% remain undecided. But 38% said they “strongly support” Desmond, while 36% said the same of von Wilpert.

The margin of error for the poll was 4.4%, meaning the race is essentially tied at the outset of the general election campaign, according to UCSD political science professor Thad Kousser.

“So that means that their best guess is that Marni von Wilpert is leading 48 to 46,” Kousser said. “But it could be that she's leading 52 to 42, or it could be that Jim Desmond is leading by two percentage points.”

Kousser said a poll of just 500 people introduces a higher possibility of error, and the way surveys are conducted also creates a chance for inaccurate results. “Polls could also be wrong, and much more often are wrong due to sampling bias,” Kousser said. “So it may be that, who wants to answer a survey about politics in the summer in San Diego?”

California’s 48th District is one of five congressional districts the state legislature targeted with Proposition 50, which redrew the lines of the state’s congressional map to favor Democrats.

The seat could be one of just a few that will decide who controls the U.S. House of Representatives in 2027 and 2028.

The von Wilpert campaign shared the poll in a press release on Monday. They continued to try to tie Desmond to President Trump.

“MAGA Jim Desmond is already losing and that’s even before voters know the full story of his corrupt, costly pro-Trump agenda,” Campaign Manager Jacob Ostacher said in the press release. “Jim Desmond has never met a Trump policy he wouldn't rubber stamp or a special interest he wouldn't cash in on, and Southern California families are paying the price – at the pharmacy, the pump and the grocery store.”

But the Desmond campaign had a more optimistic view of what the poll meant for them. “Jim Desmond has a strong record of delivering results and providing proven commonsense leadership which is why even the Democrats’ own poll shows this race is within the margin of error,” campaign consultant Sam Oh said in a statement to KPBS. “As voters learn more about Marni von Wilpert’s record of supporting higher utility costs, we’re confident they’ll choose Jim Desmond’s proven leadership over her costly agenda.”

Republican and current incumbent Darrell Issa chose to retire rather than run for reelection in the redrawn 48th District. He endorsed Desmond to succeed him in March.

Lake Research Partners is a polling and research firm founded by Democratic Party strategist Celinda Lake. The firm works to advance a “progressive, inclusive future,” according to its website.

Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, on Tuesday convened San Diego regional leaders to urge the Trump Administration to process Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) renewal applications in a timely manner.

According to the Peters, current delays for DACA recipients at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services seem "intentional and politically motivated," and processing times have doubled.

"Nearly 9,000 DACA recipients call San Diego home. They work hard, pay taxes, and contribute tens of millions of dollars to our local economy every year. For many of them, the U.S. is the only home they've ever known," Peters said. "I spoke out when Donald Trump attacked DACA the first time, but our work is not over. We need answers from this administration about the never- ending delays at USCIS. How do they plan to address the backlog they created? Are DACA recipients being detained because of this lag?"

DACA is an immigration policy created in 2012 which allows people brought into the United States illegally as children the temporary right to live, study and work legally in America. More than half a million "Dreamers" now call the U.S. home.

In San Diego alone, Dreamers contribute $968 million annually to the local economy, a statement from Peters' office read. Delayed renewal of their applications carries risks for San Diego-area businesses.

"Every day a DACA renewal sits in a backlog is a day a San Diego business risks losing one of its own employees," said Chris Cate, president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. "After more than a decade of temporary protections, it's time for Congress to deliver a permanent, bipartisan solution that gives Dreamers the stability they deserve and gives San Diego employers the certainty they need."

DACA must be renewed every two years, and work authorizations cannot be renewed until DACA status is renewed.

"Delays in processing DACA renewals are inexcusable and negligent," said Dr. Arcela Nunez-Alvarez, cofounder and director of Universidad Popular. "These delays expose applicants to unnecessary suffering, including loss of work authorization, income, health coverage, and educational opportunities, and most importantly, loss of immigration protection. The delays create an adverse domino effect, increasing vulnerability for applicants and their families."

In 2017, during his first administration, President Donald Trump and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions attempted to repeal DACA, only to be thwarted in a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, which found the repeal efforts "arbitrary and capricious."

President Joe Biden promised to reinstate the program in 2020, only to be challenged by nine states and paused by federal Judge Andrew Hanan. Hanan's ruling prevents new DACA applications, but allows those already in the system to keep their status.

Finally, in Trump's second term, his DHS urged DACA recipients to "self-deport" and authorized Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to make hundreds of arrests of those attempting to renew their status.

"For 18 months, this administration's chaotic, capricious, and arbitrary approach to immigration enforcement has been fundamentally about sowing fear and disrupting our communities," said Carol Kim, executive secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council. "It also disrupts the ability of anyone to do business and reliably work, not just the workers who are targeted, but every working person whose specific tasks or projects are derailed by disappearing co-workers, disappearing funding, and disappearing basic government functions. Every American who expects that work to come through pays the price, too."

San Diego County public health officials Tuesday were investigating an outbreak of Salmonella linked to Ramona Family Naturals Market, with 13 confirmed and probable cases since June 21.

According to the county, those who became ill range in age from 27 to 60, and four people were hospitalized. Investigators believe the outbreak is connected to mayonnaise made with raw, unpasteurized eggs.

The market's owner has been working with the county's Environmental Health and Quality and Public Health Services and has stopped using raw, unpasteurized eggs in all the deli's food products. Raw eggs carry risk of Salmonella, but this strain is not related to the Salmonella outbreak linked to shell eggs in the Midwest.

Salmonella infection, or salmonellosis, can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea that might have blood or mucous, abdominal cramps and fever. Symptoms typically begin 12 to 72 hours after eating contaminated food and can last four to seven days. Most people recover without treatment.

Those at higher risk for complications include children younger than 5 years, adults 65 years and older, and those who are immunocompromised.

The county urges people who ate food purchased at Ramona Family Naturals Market or its deli and develop symptoms to contact their healthcare provider.

Anyone who is still ill or has recovered after dining at Ramona Family Naturals Market can report their illness to County Department of Environmental Health Quality by calling 858-505-6814, completing a form or emailing it to fhdepi@sdcounty.ca.gov.

But new public art on San Ysidro's Willow Road footbridge also offers some surprising functional advantages.

"It is helping preserve the pavement. The materials can help also reduce ground temperatures because of the reflectivity. We've also piloted a glow-in-the-dark treatment to make the space more vibrant at night," said Nick Buenviaje, Caltrans' Government and Community Affairs manager.

Caltrans partnered with a San Ysidro nonprofit art space on the project.

"It is a very important bridge to this community. We knew that. There's a lot of history along this bridge," Buenviaje said.

An elementary school on one side means a regular flow of kids crossing to get to and from school. The nearby library, transit center and small businesses also bring a lot of foot traffic.

"People cross to get their groceries and cross back. There's park spaces on both sides, so it's a pretty heavily used pedestrian bridge," he said.

BLK Box Gallery was co-founded six years ago by brothers Elbert and Ernesto Gonzalez. Elbert Gonzalez said their design for the bridge was inspired by alebrijes — brightly colored, fantastical creatures in Mexican folk art.

"It's a big part of our culture. It's a spirit animal that's like a protector. It's a guide. I think that's very big in our community as far as having that — to be able to reference and get the unity that we need," Gonzalez said.

The gallery and Caltrans' partnership is called "De Colores," or "made of colors." A geometric pattern spans the length of the bridge, painted in five bright colors. Some sections are formulated to glow in the dark.

While Elbert Gonzalez has worked on other public art projects before, this type of paint is new to him.

"I've been working on some (murals) here, but never with the material that they used. I was pretty excited to find out that they had the glow-in-the-dark paint," Gonzalez said.

The glowing sections are a pale yellow-green color similar to the glow-in-the-dark stars that decorate many childhood bedroom ceilings.

"It's actually these greenish ones that absorb the sun throughout the day and then at night illuminate," Buenviaje said. "It has an added product to it. But they do kind of a base layer, the glow treatment, then a protective coat."

And much like our childhood glow-in-the-dark stickers and toys —

"You can even tell the difference between a sunny day and a cloudy day in terms of how much it glows," he added.

Along the path, a series of stenciled silhouettes depict miniature scenes of neighborhood life and history — children hitting piñatas, running to school and a family planting a tree.

"This one's one of my favorites. This kind of represents the agricultural history of San Ysidro from the early 1900s. There was the Little Landers Colony, you know, kind of the thought that all the family needed to survive was kind of a strong community and a little plot of land," Buenviaje said.

Each silhouette has a specific historical significance — but Buenviaje says families can now find their own meaning on the bridge.

"There's still to this day along the Tijuana River Valley, you have a lot of small family farms, and it's also the largest community garden in the county, in San Diego, along the river valley," he said.

Buenviaje said the silhouette of kids walking to school is a nod to community activism after school bus routes were cut.

Pavement treatments like this mural can extend the life of the pavement — and they can also reduce ground temperature

"Just looking at solar reflectivity, and how the products could — rather than absorb — reflect heat. And in that way, we look at what we call urban heat islands. And so this was a space where because of the pedestrian traffic, we thought it was worth a try to reduce the ground temperatures here," Buenviaje said.

The brightness of the paint livens up the bridge at night, he said. But it's the sense of ownership and pride that he hopes the community feels that will ultimately make the bridge safer.

"There are studies showing that when you beautify an area, it decreases vandalism, decreases littering. And we saw studies of how it can increase active transportation and walkability within a neighborhood," he said.

A few blocks away, crowds of young people gather at BLK Box for an all-ages metal show.

Much like the bridge mural, the work at BLK Box is about connecting the community, making existing spaces more vibrant while providing a safe outlet for art and creativity.

"I think the community has shown us that by having this space, they're not writing on the walls. We've kept it in here. So that's great, just hearing back from the immediate community that they're not getting written on anymore," Ernesto Gonzalez said.

BLK Box was founded to meet a real need: community events, live music and visual art — for everyone.

"It's a community center for everybody to enjoy. To be able to just fly with their idea, their passion. There's a lot of people that don't get the doors opened because they don't have any connections to a venue or to somebody that has the potential to open those doors," Elbert Gonzalez said. "So I'm just glad to be able to have that door open for them, because I wish I had that when I was growing up at that age."

The gallery celebrates its six-year anniversary on Thursday, with music, art, food and festivities from 3 p.m. to midnight.

Despite recent arts funding challenges, Gonzalez hopes that in another six years — and beyond — the work continues.

"Just to be here, to be around, to be accessible, to just have the doors open and the lights on," he said. "I think we just need to get more of the arts, music and culture integrated into the community, and will help shape the youth. It's proven in statistics as far as the more that we push that into our community, the less crime rate, less violent rates."

El mismo día en que The New York Times publicó su investigación sobre los supuestos abusos sexuales del líder sindical César Chávez, el profesor del Bakersfield College Oliver Rosales tenía previsto impartir su clase de Historia de los Chicanos en el Suroeste. Su conferencia, curiosamente, versaba sobre el movimiento de los trabajadores agrícolas.

Pero ese día de marzo, cambió la clase sobre la huelga de la uva de Delano por la investigación del Times , que incluía el testimonio de Dolores Huerta, cofundadora de los Trabajadores Agrícolas Unidos (UFW), quien reveló que Chávez la violó en dos ocasiones. La investigación del Times también reveló un patrón de abuso sexual de Chávez hacia mujeres y niñas que formaban parte de la UFW.

“Algunos estudiantes usaron palabras como ‘conmoción’, ‘devastador’, ‘desgarrador’, ‘conmovedor’”, dijo Rosales. “Me alegró que sucediera en ese momento, con los estudiantes y en ese momento. No querría estar en ningún otro lugar del mundo cuando se dio a conocer la noticia”.

Rosales, historiador que ha estudiado y enseñado sobre el movimiento de los trabajadores agrícolas durante años, se mostró igualmente consternado, al igual que muchos otros académicos. Ahora, el profesorado universitario de toda California está evaluando los enfoques de investigación y enseñanza que adoptarán en relación con los movimientos de los trabajadores agrícolas de California.

“Participé en una conversación por mensaje de texto con varios profesores de todo el país, y todos estábamos conmocionados, porque ningún historiador sabía nada de esto”, dijo Rosales. “Sin duda, esto se siente como una segunda muerte social”.

Chávez falleció a los 66 años en 1993, dejando un legado que ha cobrado gran relevancia en la historia de California. Más de 130 espacios públicos y monumentos llevan su nombre en todo el país. En California, más de 65 calles, escuelas y parques llevan su nombre. Desde el año 2000, el estado reconoce su cumpleaños como día festivo estatal.

Las instituciones de educación superior respondieron de inmediato a las acusaciones contra Chávez cambiando el nombre y retirando los monumentos públicos conmemorativos. Ahora, los profesores de California están reflexionando sobre lo que significa enseñar e investigar figuras como Chávez y buscando maneras de ampliar la historia de los trabajadores agrícolas más allá de un solo líder.

Cómo reaccionaron inicialmente las escuelas

En marzo, los legisladores estatales cambiaron rápidamente el nombre del Día de César Chávez a Día de los Trabajadores Agrícolas. Las universidades de California también cambiaron rápidamente el nombre o retiraron los monumentos y edificios que conmemoraban a Chávez.

Tanto en Fresno State como en Cal State San Marcos, las estatuas de Chávez fueron cubiertas y retiradas a los dos días de la publicación del artículo en The Times.

En el San Joaquin Delta College, un relieve de cerámica y una placa en memoria de Chávez fueron reemplazados por un mural en honor a los trabajadores agrícolas, pintado por estudiantes del Delta College. La UC Berkeley eliminó el nombre de Chávez de un centro estudiantil. El departamento de Estudios Chicanos de la UCLA eliminó el nombre de Chávez de su denominación.

Si bien algunos sugirieron reemplazar el nombre de Chávez por el de Huerta, los profesores abogan por un enfoque más deliberado que conmemore al colectivo en lugar de a un solo líder.

“Si surge el nombre de Dolores Huerta, quiero que sea en función de sus propios logros y méritos, no en función de la reacción a las acusaciones contra César Chávez”, dijo Lorena Oropeza, profesora de Estudios Chicanos y Latinos en la UC Berkeley.

Los campus universitarios también están lidiando con cambios en los planes de estudio relacionados con Chávez. En Bakersfield College, algunos profesores abogaron por la eliminación inmediata del Certificado de Liderazgo César Chávez, un programa que enseña a los estudiantes sobre la organización comunitaria a través de la historia del legado de Chávez en el movimiento de trabajadores agrícolas en el sur del Valle de San Joaquín.

Rosales, creador del programa de certificación, afirmó que cualquier cambio en el plan de estudios debe ser analizado y meditado detenidamente, en lugar de simplemente eliminarlo. Si bien ningún profesor ha presentado aún una moción ante el Senado Académico para realizar cambios, indicó que tanto él como sus colegas del departamento apoyan cualquier cambio de nombre que pase por el proceso del Senado.

“Si analizamos el plan de estudios, vemos que es justo lo que necesitamos, porque básicamente amplía la historia más allá de la UFW”, dijo Rosales.

Una crítica histórica en los estudios étnicos

En los libros de historia, un momento clave en el legado de Chávez es la huelga de la uva de Delano de 1965, cuando los trabajadores se declararon en huelga durante cinco años exigiendo salarios justos y mejores condiciones laborales. Lo que a menudo se omite es que Larry Itliong y Philip Vera Cruz, líderes sindicales filipino-estadounidenses, iniciaron la huelga. El Comité Organizador de Trabajadores Agrícolas, liderado por Itliong, y la Asociación Nacional de Trabajadores Agrícolas, liderada por Chávez, se fusionaron para formar la Unión de Trabajadores Agrícolas. Su labor organizativa culminó en un boicot nacional a la uva y una victoria.

Disciplinas como los estudios étnicos han explorado durante mucho tiempo la naturaleza compleja y a menudo contradictoria de los líderes del movimiento obrero. Los investigadores han analizado la postura antiinmigrante de Chávez y han estudiado el movimiento de los trabajadores agrícolas a través de testimonios orales de trabajadores y familias.

En la Universidad de California en Berkeley, Oropeza investiga los movimientos pacifistas y por la justicia racial de la década de 1960. En esta década, el movimiento de los trabajadores agrícolas formó parte del creciente movimiento chicano, que también abarcó protestas en los campus universitarios en defensa de los estudios étnicos, la recuperación de tierras y los derechos civiles. Líderes como Chávez se convirtieron en figuras clave del movimiento chicano.

Uno de los líderes que Oropeza ha investigado es Reies López Tijerina, un líder chicano de Texas que encabezó un importante movimiento por la concesión de tierras en el sur de Estados Unidos en la década de 1960 para recuperar las tierras ancestrales cedidas tras la guerra entre México y Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, la investigación de Oropeza también reveló cómo sometió a su familia a abusos.

Como líder de la Alianza Federal de Mercedes, o Alianza Federal de Concesiones de Tierras, Tijerina encabezó protestas pacíficas en Albuquerque y Santa Fe y ocupó el Anfiteatro Echo, al que rebautizó como “República de San Joaquín del Río Chama”. Este acto resultó en el arresto de miembros de La Alianza.

En particular, Tijerina y miembros de La Alianza lideraron una incursión armada en un juzgado de Tierra Amarilla, Nuevo México, para realizar un arresto ciudadano del fiscal de distrito local, acusándolo de negarles a los activistas sus derechos civiles. Tijerina fue arrestado tras la incursión, lo que atrajo la atención nacional hacia los movimientos por los derechos civiles y chicanos.

El libro de Oropeza, «El rey del adobe: Reies López Tijerina, profeta perdido del movimiento chicano», se publicó en 2019. En él, la autora analiza el legado de Tijerina en la revitalización del movimiento por la concesión de tierras, así como la forma en que ejerció un control patriarcal durante su liderazgo. Su investigación se basa en documentos de archivo e historias orales, incluyendo entrevistas con la primera esposa y la hija mayor de Tijerina, quienes describieron patrones de abuso físico y sexual. Tijerina falleció a los 88 años en 2015.

“¿Cómo se puede conciliar a esta persona que era absolutamente brillante al criticar la expansión estadounidense y sus consecuencias para los hispanohablantes en el nuevo suroeste de Estados Unidos, pero que era absolutamente reprobable en el trato que daba a su familia?”, preguntó Oropeza. En su libro, examina “ambas realidades” y utiliza el género para analizar su estilo de liderazgo.

Oropeza ha investigado a fondo el liderazgo de Chávez en el movimiento de los trabajadores agrícolas. Recuerda imágenes impactantes de él, como cuando ayunó para visibilizar la lucha de los trabajadores agrícolas y cómo convirtió la cultura en un recurso político, como cuando peregrinó de Delano a Sacramento durante la Cuaresma junto a ellos. Muchos se referían a Chávez como “El Santo” o “el Santo del Movimiento”, afirmó Oropeza.

Para procesar las acusaciones contra Chávez, Oropeza se apoya tanto en su propia investigación como en las críticas que se hacen a Chávez en el terreno. La biografía de Chávez escrita por Miriam Pawel, “Las cruzadas de César Chávez”, publicada en 2014, narra una historia crítica del personaje, incluyendo su postura antiinmigrante, su poder autocrático sobre el sindicato y cómo socavó otros movimientos obreros.

“Llevo ya doce años pensando en ‘¿Cómo se escribe sobre personas complejas, personas que pueden actuar de maneras reprobables pero que también pueden hacer grandes cosas?’”, dijo Oropeza.

De cara al futuro del estudio de los movimientos chicanos y de los trabajadores agrícolas, Oropeza cree que cualquier estudio debe conciliar diversas realidades en un intento por acercarse lo más posible a la verdad, por muy complicada que sea.

“Para mí, esto es solo un recordatorio de que este empeño en el que estamos involucrados como académicos… es imperfecto”, dijo Oropeza. “Siempre van a aproximarse a ‘¿Cuál es la verdad?’. ¿Existe una verdad única? Se acercan cada vez más, pero nunca llegan a serlo del todo”.

Nuevos y continuos enfoques en la enseñanza

Alina Méndez, profesora de estudios chicanos y latinoamericanos en la Universidad Estatal de Fresno, ha experimentado de primera mano la conexión entre lo personal y lo político, ya que sus padres eran trabajadores agrícolas. Durante una clase sobre el movimiento de los trabajadores agrícolas, al hablar con sus alumnos sobre las acusaciones contra Chávez, les preguntó si debían seguir hablando de él y, de ser así, cómo.

“Como académica, obviamente, aprendí y enseño esta historia”, dijo Méndez. “Pero como hija de trabajadores agrícolas, crecí honrando la memoria, el legado de César Chávez”.

En su clase, llegaron al consenso de que debían seguir aprendiendo sobre Chávez al mismo tiempo que le exigían responsabilidades, “con la esperanza de que este (abuso de poder) no vuelva a ocurrir (de nuevo)”, recordó.

“Puedo percibir claramente este dolor colectivo, esta decepción colectiva, esta especie de cuestionamiento: ‘Si César Chávez ya no es nuestro héroe, ¿a quién admiramos?’”, dijo Méndez. “Por eso he insistido en que miremos a nuestras comunidades locales. Miremos a nuestro alrededor y veamos a otras personas que sacrificaron mucho tiempo, muchos recursos y mucho esfuerzo para que esos logros fueran posibles”.

Méndez está cambiando su enfoque para enseñar sobre los movimientos de trabajadores agrícolas, centrándose en los líderes y las historias locales. Ha estado en conversaciones con Arte Américas, un centro artístico y cultural latinoamericano con sede en Fresno, para continuar recopilando archivos y entrevistas con trabajadores de todo el Valle Central.

“En muchos sentidos, obviamente, mi enseñanza está cambiando”, dijo Méndez. “Como historiadores, creo que cada vez comprendemos más la importancia de centrarnos en lo colectivo en lugar de en el líder individual”.

El profesorado afirma que las disciplinas de estudios étnicos e historia serán esenciales para el futuro de la enseñanza sobre la historia de los trabajadores agrícolas. Sostienen que los investigadores deberían centrarse ahora en recopilar historias orales narradas por los propios trabajadores, en lugar de permitir que las voces dominantes narren sus relatos en nombre del movimiento.

“Si hay alguien que puede ayudarnos a comprender las complejidades que rodean la raza en Estados Unidos, son los estudios étnicos”, dijo Oropeza. “Este es un ámbito donde los especialistas en estudios étnicos podrán brillar”.

Rosales expresó su esperanza de que este momento pueda allanar el camino para investigaciones que destaquen las contribuciones de más comunidades en el movimiento de trabajadores agrícolas, incluidos los estadounidenses de origen árabe y los estadounidenses del sudeste asiático.

“Creo que el legado del movimiento de los trabajadores agrícolas permanece intacto, pero se necesitará un trabajo minucioso por parte de maestros, académicos e historiadores para garantizar que el currículo se diversifique más allá de Chávez”, dijo Rosales.

Khadeejah Khan colabora con College Journalism Network, una iniciativa conjunta de CalMatters y estudiantes de periodismo de toda California. La cobertura de CalMatters sobre educación superior cuenta con el apoyo de una beca de la College Futures Foundation.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

A new California Supreme Court ruling on retirement pay for public employees centered on a small amount of money — just one week’s salary for a retired attorney — but it had the potential to be a much costlier decision for government agencies and taxpayers.

The question: How much accrued vacation time can retiring public employees cash out at the end of their careers in ways that boost their pensions? Former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown took aim at that perk, among others, in his 2013 pension reform law, but it was unsettled in courts until now.

The California Supreme Court’s answer: Under Brown’s law, employees can count toward their pension formula whatever amount of vacation their contract allows them to cash out in a single calendar year.

That sounds simple, but some California government workers end their careers with two months or more worth of accrued vacation time — enough to cash out in increments over several years and increase their retirement pension by hundreds of dollars a month.

The case that reached the state Supreme Court turned on retired Ventura County Counsel Leroy Smith, who designated October 2019 to October 2020 as his final year of civil service and cashed out 240 hours of accrued time off over that period.

His contract allowed him to cash out only 200 hours a year and his pension plan, the Ventura County Employees’ Retirement System, would not count the extra 40 hours toward his retirement formula.

Smith and other retired Ventura County employees argued Brown’s law did not specify that the hours had to be in a single calendar year, and they should have been able to count leave cashed out over any 12-month period.

A state appeals court ruled against them two years ago. Two public safety unions appealed that decision, bringing the case to the high court. They argued that Brown’s pension law does not refer to a calendar year when it discusses cashouts.

“If the Legislature intended to restrict annual leave cashouts to a calendar year, it would have used the term 'calendar year' instead of 'each 12-month period,'" attorneys for Ventura County attorneys and sheriff’s deputies wrote in a briefing to the court.

But the Supreme Court found otherwise, pointing to what justices described as the common meaning of a 12-month period and the broader context of what Brown and lawmakers were trying to accomplish when they passed the pension reform law.

At the time, California’s major pension funds were recovering from two successive blows — first the dot-com bust and then the Great Recession. The law Brown signed trimmed benefits, compelled employees to work longer to earn a full retirement and required them to kick in more money from their paychecks to fund their pensions.

The Supreme Court ruling conceded that Smith wanted just 40 additional hours to count toward his pension, but the justices noted that other employees could go much further if California allowed workers to “straddle” a calendar year with vacation cashouts. They could effectively double the pensionable cashout if they timed it correctly.

The justices wrote that it would be “perhaps not so inconceivable as to rank as absurd” to think the Legislature intended for that kind of pension boost in the pension reform law.

The new decision applies to workers and retirees enrolled in California’s county-run pension plans. They operate outside of the statewide pension funds, which are the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers Retirement System.

A group of county pension funds wrote a brief to the court urging judges to limit pensionable cashouts to a single calendar rather than a movable 12-month period. They wrote it would be expensive for them to revise retiree benefits if the rules change.

“There is no reason to cause this confusion and undue burden to the (county retirement) systems,” they wrote.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

A federal award of nearly $12 million will allow the city of San Diego to begin a stormwater project along Streamview Drive in the Oak Park neighborhood, city leaders announced Monday.

The $11.98 million comes from the HUD Community Development Block Grant - Disaster Recovery program and impacts an area hit by flooding during the January 2024 storms. The Streamview Drive Green Infrastructure Project is intended to "improve water quality, reduce flood risk and bring modern infrastructure upgrades to the Chollas Creek watershed," according to a city statement.

"Securing nearly $12 million in federal funding means we can make critical infrastructure improvements that will improve the quality of life for residents in Oak Park," Mayor Todd Gloria said. "This investment will improve water quality, reduce flood risk, and modernize aging infrastructure in the Chollas Creek watershed. It's another example of how we're bringing resources home to build a cleaner, safer, and more resilient San Diego."

Hundreds of San Diegans were displaced or otherwise negatively impacted by flooding along Chollas Creek in that 2024 weather event, many of whom subsequently sued the city. Following the storms, Gloria's office reached out to then-President Joe Biden's office to secure a disaster declaration making the city eligible for the grant funds.

Currently, stormwater flows through Oak Park into pipes leading to Chollas Creek and eventually to the ocean. The Streamview Drive project will install an underground treatment feature to help filter out trash and pollution before the water reaches Chollas Creek.

"This funding is a big win for the residents of our district," said San Diego City Councilman Henry L. Foster III, who represents the area. "Streamview Drive has been overdue for infrastructure upgrades, and this project will improve the quality of life for the community.

I'm proud to see this investment moving forward and grateful to our state partners for supporting this critical project."

The project will represent the city's first underground multi-use treatment vault. Once completed, the infrastructure system will treat stormwater runoff from a 285-acre drainage area in the neighborhood.

"The Streamview Drive Green Infrastructure Project will help filter pollutants out of stormwater runoff before it reaches Chollas Creek," said the city's Stormwater Director Todd Snyder. "The project aims to improve water quality in Chollas Creek through infrastructure upgrades and modernization. It's a great example of how the city is using state partnerships to build a more sustainable future."

Construction is scheduled to begin next year and be completed in 2029.

People without housing are particularly vulnerable when temperatures rise, as they did over the weekend. That’s why homeless outreach workers across the county are working to provide people with the resources they need.

Father Joe’s Villages is one of those local homeless service providers.

“Both our street health team and our outreach team are walking out with water but they're also walking out with hats, with sunscreens, sunglasses, slippers,” said Father Joe’s Chief Strategy Officer Joshua Bohannan. “If somebody doesn't have shoes, that's really serious on that asphalt.”

A heat advisory in coastal San Diego County and an extreme heat warning in the deserts are in effect until Monday night at 8 p.m. Temperatures rose to around 110 degrees in some areas.

Bohannan said that the tools most people have to avoid this intense heat, such as access to running water, showers, and air conditioning, aren’t readily accessible to unhoused people.

He said seniors experiencing homelessness are especially at risk of heatstroke. And a recent report from the Regional Task Force on Homelessness found that more local seniors are staying homeless for longer. That’s why Bohannan said Father Joe’s teams are looking carefully for people who fall into this category.

Outreach teams also advise people to go to “cool zones” that the City and County of San Diego offer during periods of extreme heat. They include all county libraries and some recreation centers.

Unlike inclement weather shelters that open during extreme rain and cold during the winter, specifically for people experiencing homelessness, summer cool zones are open to the general public.

During the winter, Bohannan said inclement weather shelters mitigate the cold at night, whereas cool zones in the summer operate only in the day to prevent heat-related emergencies during peak sunlight. Which is why he thinks they fill essentially the same need.

But cool zones often have more restrictions because they’re in public places, including what people can and can’t bring in. Jayna Lee, Associate Director of Programs at the homeless provider PATH, said that creates a barrier to unhoused people.

“A lot of people have their bikes, they have their wagons, and so even if we do take them with all their belongings to the library, there may be some rules that say you have to keep it outside,” Lee said. “But that's somebody's life all in their little wagon.”

Lee said outreach workers at PATH will offer to drive unhoused people to the cool zones during the day, but then the people have no way of getting back to where they’re staying.

She said many of their clients worry about their things being stolen from their sleeping sites while they’re gone. Lee also said people can feel uncomfortable at the cool zones because they’re open to the general public.

“That's not just to go to the cooling sites but to go to any appointments,” Lee said. “If you don't feel your best, if you don't look your best, it's kind of hard to focus on the goal of going in and just doing something simple. You're worried about people looking at you, making judgments.”

Lee said she thinks it would be a good idea to hire more outreach workers and station them at the cool zones to talk with people about getting housed. She thinks that would be a motivator for more people experiencing homelessness to use the cool zones.

High temperatures are forecast to resume later this week.

Incarcerated firefighters are a critical part of California’s wildfire strategy, making up nearly half of emergency response hours during last year’s wildfire season.

California prison officials run dozens of conservation or “fire” camps, which provide participants with training and give them a chance to earn some money, as well as time off their sentences.

But after being released, many of these formerly-incarcerated firefighters may face difficulties landing a job, despite having experience on the fire line.

A new bill at the State Capitol, AB 2483, aims to make that transition easier.

If passed, California would create a pathway to provide an official certification for those that receive firefighter training while incarcerated. It would also provide a hiring preference with Cal Fire for formerly-incarcerated people applying for a Fire Fighter 1 Classification.

AB 2483 is based on a similar bill that failed last year in the legislature, which included a hiring quota within the agency.

Royal Ramey is a former incarcerated firefighter, and the co-founder of the nonprofit Forestry and Firefighting Recruitment Program. The organization provides career support to formerly incarcerated firefighters and supports the new bill.

Ramey spoke with Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez about what this pathway to employment would mean for incarcerated firefighters looking for a career upon release.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Interview highlights

You spent two seasons as an incarcerated firefighter, and then pursued firefighting as a professional career. What drew you to this line of work?

Honestly, when I was in fire camp, I fell in love with it. I wanted to pursue it as a career. Obviously the hard work, the physical ability, the understanding of fire behavior, cutting hand lines, doing all those types of different things, it was challenging. But as you continue to do it, and you see those signs that say “thank you firefighters” when you’re coming back from a shift; I was wearing orange, but I felt like I was actually a firefighter.

I was a young man at the time so being out in the woods, feeling like a hero, and knowing that I’m doing something not only just for myself, but also for the community, really made it that much more special. And I felt I had purpose and value. That was one of the reasons why we started the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, because we knew [there were] other people coming home that felt the same way.

I wanted someone to show me how I can get the right certifications, apply to the right jobs, understand the hiring process. The blueprint didn't really exist for me when I was coming home, so I wanted to be able to provide that opportunity for the other folks. In our program we actually provide a paid training stipend. We give them industry recognized certifications, help them with their physical fitness, career preparedness. We also have that supportive services piece, and a job placement as well.

Do you have an idea of how many incarcerated firefighters there are in California?

I remember when I was in fire camp it was close to 9,000 incarcerated firefighters. That was almost a third of the workforce at that time. But now I know the numbers have dwindled down because of a lot of different laws; I believe it’s a little under 2,000 incarcerated firefighters.

They’re still a nice percentage of the force, but one of the most important pieces is that California needs wildland hand crews. That’s where I think Cal Fire is really trying to hire more firefighters to fill that need, because we relied on incarcerated firefighters since the 1940s. We're definitely trying to help spearhead that, being able to help folks transition not only just with Cal Fire but the federal fire agencies as well.

When you completed your sentence and wanted to get a job as a firefighter, what challenges did you face? 

The biggest challenge for me was just understanding the hiring process; every agency has their different requirements. How do I put this experience that I had in fire camp on a resume? Also, when I came home I was on parole, so I had to worry about parole restrictions. Where can I travel, where can I go? Even transportation, being able to have money for a car, because what people don’t realize is that reliable transportation going to these stations is very important. There’s a lot of fire stations in rural areas, especially when you work with the Forest Service and Cal Fire.

And then ultimately though, you’re competing against folks that have their EMT, their Firefighter 1 Academy [certifications.] Another big challenge, to be transparent, is that the fire service has its own culture. Understanding the chain of command, the structure and the expectations, that’s one of the other systems that I really had to understand and learn. When I grew up I lived in an urban community, so being around different people was definitely a challenge.

The fire service is not a 9-to-5, it's a lifestyle. I had to really tell myself that I’m not just the average person. I have to hold myself with integrity, duty, respect, in all different aspects of my life.

What are some of the big misconceptions that you think people have about formerly incarcerated firefighters? What would you like to clear up?

Sometimes people start with fear or assumptions about formerly incarcerated people just in general, instead of looking at their training. Obviously, when you talk about folks that've been formerly incarcerated from fire camp — there’s so many different people that have so many different skills.

I don’t think people were born to be like, “I want to be incarcerated. I want to commit crimes and be a nuisance to society.” It’s so many different things that you don't have control over. We talk about “nature versus nurture,” it’s a lot of how things have happened or shaped peoples’ upbringing.

California spends nearly $128,000 per year on average to incarcerate one person. We’re focusing on locking folks up, but what is the rehabilitation piece? Having access to stable jobs matters when they come home. What are we doing on that grand level? They're human, people make mistakes, and people can change — I have.

Let’s dive into the new legislation, which would provide incarcerated firefighters with official certification and a pathway to a job at Cal Fire. Why is this bill important now? 

AB 2483 will help make sure that folks leave with proof of training and education that they completed. [The hiring preference] is a portion of it, but it doesn't guarantee a personal job. People should have to meet those qualifications to compete for this position; it simply means they wouldn’t have to start from zero.

Acknowledging all of the work they have done, it counts for something. This bill also gives people hope; they know that they have some type of clear pathway. When I was in prison, you go to camp. Some people get their time off, some people are making a dollar an hour, which was one of the highest-paid positions in CDCR. But for the people that were like, “I want to utilize the knowledge, skills and abilities I accumulated when I [was] in fire camp,” to be able to take this home and do this at a professional level… we're always in dire need for firefighters. You got people that actually have the experience, why not?

I think the bill also brings together workforce development, public safety and climate resiliency. When you look at California, [incarcerated] folks are receiving the training, obviously working on fires. We know that it's a lot of people. If you can convert that to a person that is with a federal [or] state state agency fighting fire, they have an income. They’re contributing to society, they’re a taxpayer, and they’re reversing that rat race and putting money in from prisons.

A version of this bill was attempted last year. It would have included a hiring quota at Cal Fire but failed in the legislature. What has the response been like to this new bill? 

People [are] always apprehensive, obviously, when you talk about incarcerated people. I think a lot of the people that we were having conversations with, they evaluated some of those challenges. I think the quota was one of the biggest pieces because it put Cal Fire at a real tough spot to make sure that they got enough incarcerated people to even apply, and be able to get those spots.

But to be transparent: bills do not move forward just because people agree with the idea. They have to go through committees, fiscal review and decisions about how much that may cost as well. It has to compete with different state priorities. So workforce development, climate resiliency can obviously receive support from both sides; I think it can become more difficult when conversations include the criminal justice and public safety piece.

Our role is to keep educating decision-makers, sharing real stories, and just showing that second chances and public safety go hand-in-hand. Ultimately, it’s about the community. It's about making sure that everybody is safe, but also [so] people have opportunity as well.

California has made several changes over the years to improve the conditions and opportunities for incarcerated firefighters, from increasing the minimum wage last year to making it easier for their cases and sentences to get a second look or expungement. What kind of impact has all this legislation had, is it meaningful?

Definitely. FFRP, we focus mainly on when folks are released. Some of the stuff that we have supported, we definitely vocalized, but we know that incarcerated firefighters perform important and dangerous work.

We talked about the pay, that’s definitely one of the big conversations. But we also talk about training, safety, rehabilitation, other opportunities that people have when they come home. [That’s] definitely helped out a lot of folks, especially with the expungement piece. [It’s] been really uplifting, but we still got some work to do for sure.

We’re excited about all the other things that are happening, but we really want to focus on what we can do when folks come home after the fact. That’s where I think the major impact can happen. When they’re released and have no direction, that’s where challenges come in, when folks can go back to prison and the recidivism rate goes up. That’s a piece I really want to talk to all of the senators and assemblymembers about.

Alarming trends in teen mental health and increased social media use led California to pass a new wave of laws to protect kids online.

The state enacted protections to prevent children’s data from being sold, to give kids an opportunity to delete what they post, and to require businesses that target children to manage potential risks. Future legislation could ban social media altogether for many teens.

Some of those regulations face legal challenges, but together, the laws amount to some of the strictest privacy safeguards for children in the United States.

California’s laws are considered stronger than the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which is geared toward protecting children’s privacy. Under that law, website operators must obtain parental permission before collecting information on kids under 13 if their site is targeted toward, or knowingly collects information about children.

California’s laws expand the ages protected and place further restrictions on product design. To some extent, California sets childrens’ privacy policy for the entire country, since companies may choose to provide California’s more stringent protections to children nationwide rather than carve out protections just for the most populous U.S. state.

But despite policies that are extensive when compared to the rest of the country, California’s regulations still lag well behind those of other countries. As California passed various child privacy laws, countries like Brazil passed comprehensive legislation that overlaps with some California policies, while going even further.

Experts say the United States and California face unique hurdles in passing children’s privacy laws that other countries don’t. Among those are First Amendment challenges, different conceptions of privacy, and — maybe most importantly — a tech industry that sees strict privacy laws as an existential threat to its future.

A child privacy push

California has led the way nationally for a decade on protecting kids online, and more recently has picked up more steam.

“California, everything there is changing and changing fairly dramatically within the last just four years,” said Ed Howard, Senior Policy Advocate for the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego.

Like the federal law, the California Consumer Privacy Act, passed in 2018, requires companies to obtain parental permission to collect data on kids under13. But it also protects teens between 13 and 16 by forcing companies to make them consent before their data can be gathered.

In 2022, the Legislature enacted the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. That law requires companies to estimate ages, then ensure they provide, by default, strict privacy protections for underage users. The law also limits the use of so-called “dark patterns,” which provide an illusion of choice for users while steering their behavior in certain directions.

“If there’s a product that’s likely to be accessed by children, it has to be, by design and by default, safe for them,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who worked on that legislation.

Wicks also authored a measure that next year will require companies to include a “signal” system that will tell businesses a device user’s approximate age. The law would be among the strictest in the country, although a series of legal challenges by the tech industry have left it partly defanged.

Another law, the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act of 2024, bans social media companies from showing minors “addictive” feeds without parental consent and limits the hours when companies can send notifications to teens. The law, which goes into effect in 2027, has already survived legal challenges.

Bills now before the Legislature would ban kids under 16 from “addictive” social media entirely, in a step that has earned the ire of some online privacy groups over fear it would end online anonymity by requiring age verification at sign-up.

More recently, the state has begun regulating artificial intelligence, passing a law to impose mental health safeguards on chatbots. That legislation was passed in response to a series of troubling incidents, including the death of California teenager Adam Raine, who talked about suicide with ChatGPT for months before eventually taking his own life. The death is just one in a series of several incidents involving teens that have alarmed legislators.

Raine’s mother, Maria, recently testified in front of Senate Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protection Committee, calling for stricter protections. ChatGPT, she said, was “a homework helper [that] turned into a confidant, then a suicide coach.”

Under a law enacted last year, AI chatbots are required to disclose that they are not real people and companies must take reasonable steps to prevent children from seeing graphic content.

The Legislature is considering bills to further govern how chatbots can interact with kids online. Those would require AI companies to make annual risk assessments on potential mental health harms and create controls that let parents limit how kids interact with bots.

The flurry of legislation is a marked contrast to the federal picture, as Congress has repeatedly failed to agree on terms for national laws.

This session, lawmakers are considering the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, which would expand several privacy laws. Among them would be applying COPPA protections to everyone under 18 and prohibiting targeting online ads toward children and teens.

But the act faces criticism from child safety advocates for not forcing strong enough legal obligations on tech companies, and from civil rights organizations over free speech concerns. The act may be doomed as the House and Senate argue over its provisions.

International, comprehensive

For years, advocates have pointed to research linking teens’ mental health to social media use in arguing for stronger protections. A substantial proportion of teens say social media has damaged their mental health, and heavy social media use is linked to increased risk of anxiety and depression.

Recently, Meta and YouTube were found liable in a landmark lawsuit accusing them of knowingly creating platforms with features that were addictive and harmful to children and teens. That suit argued that internal documents showed how the company was aware of the damage their services could do, but allowed kids to use them anyway.

Other countries have taken a more comprehensive route than the United States, passing packages of laws specifically meant to cover children’s data and social media use. “I look at what’s happening in the U.K., I look at what’s happening in Australia,” said Wicks, who said she’s recently met with British and Greek policymakers about children’s privacy issues.

“We steal good ideas when we see them from other places,” she said, saying the Age-Appropriate Design Code Act was “wholesale borrowed from the UK.”

In Brazil, the ECA Digital comprehensive children’s privacy act became law this year despite tech industry lobbying.

The act forbids companies from targeting ads to children based on their online behavior. It also requires parental supervision tools and defaults to the most protective privacy settings for kids. It also bans potentially addictive features like autoplay and infinite scroll for kids.

Some legal experts see how provisions of that law and others could be imported to the United States, possibly through a state like California.

Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat, a policy advisor on technology and law at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, pointed out that there’s already some consistencies between regulations in Brazil and California.

“I think there’s quite a bit of overlap, but where they diverge is mostly because of specific constitutional features of the U.S. legal system,” she said. The First Amendment has often been used in legal challenges brought by the tech industry against laws limiting what content their algorithms show.

Olaizola Rosenblat, who has studied global privacy laws, said provisions in the ECA Digital, like a requirement that social media sites offer parental supervision tools, could be imported to the U.S., too. Those tools allow parents to control features and content their kids see, including by setting limits on messaging, screen time, automatic playback, and rewards. She points out that California has also passed provisions like privacy-by-default settings for child users and limits on advertising.

International laws can often go further in placing limits on the content that minors might see because the countries don’t have the same guaranteed speech rights. “They’re able to regulate that in a way that I don’t think the U.S. can under the First Amendment,” she said.

Texas Tech University researcher Marina Petric said this amounts to “First Amendment fundamentalism.”

“The U.S. narrative has been embedded into the architecture of digital platforms as though it were a universal standard,” she said. “Those who reject this premise are portrayed as supporters of censorship. But freedom of expression defined by one side and applied only to some is not freedom of expression — it is a tool of power.”

Ultimately, there are ways to take pieces of international laws and import them, Olaizola Rosenblat said. There are at least parts of laws like the ECA Digital that are compatible with legal rights in the U.S.

Howard adds that the structure of the U.S. government makes it easier to pass individual laws than major packages all at once. He also points out that privacy issues are constantly evolving, and slow-moving bodies like Congress have trouble keeping up.

But both Howard and Olaizola Rosenblat believe the major barrier to a stricter children’s privacy law is a single issue: the influence of tech industry cash.

“The thing that is by a wide margin, the biggest reason, is the power of money in our system and the fact that our system is uniquely vulnerable to the power of that money,” Howard said.

In 2025, tech companies pushing for fewer regulations on AI and cryptocurrency poured more than $39 million into political spending and lobbying, according to a CalMatters analysis. The companies say the money goes toward supporting candidates that protect their industry, but critics say the companies are exerting undue influence.

As part of its spending, Meta gave $150,000 to the California Democratic Party and $20 million to a new political committee. While lawmakers questioned how best to regulate AI last year, the company spent far more than any other previous year. Meta said the money was “to help elect state political candidates in California — no matter their party affiliation — that support and defend the American tech industry.”

That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Tech companies spend tens of millions more every year lobbying Congress.

“I think the main problem is the tech lobby, which is very successful in the U.S. and maybe not as successful in other jurisdictions like Brazil,” Olaizola Rosenblat said. “Because they know that the most threatening thing to them would be a federal law in the U.S.”

While other countries get lobbied, the U.S. is a uniquely gigantic market, and California is the tech industry’s home base. Tech giants are willing to push back hard against laws that threaten their business model in the country, and that includes for laws aimed at protecting kids.

“When it comes to privacy, every business has a financial stake in there being very little privacy,” Howard said.

The same day The New York Times published its investigation of labor rights leader César Chávez’s alleged actions of sexual abuse, Bakersfield College professor Oliver Rosales was scheduled to teach his class, History of Chicanos in the Southwest. His planned lecture happened to be on the farmworker movement.

But on that day in March, he swapped out a reading on the Delano Grape Strike for The Times investigation, including a testimony by Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, who revealed that Chávez raped her on two seperate occasions. The Times investigation also revealed a pattern of Chávez sexually abusing women and girls who were a part of the UFW.

“Some students used words like ‘shock,’ ‘devastating,’ ‘gut wrenching,’ ‘soul shaking,’” Rosales said. “I was glad that it’d be in that moment with students at that time. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world, if you will, when that story broke.”

As a historian who has studied and taught about the farmworker movement for years, Rosales, along with many other scholars, was just as shocked. Now, college faculty across California are evaluating the research and teaching approaches they will take when it comes to California’s farmworker movements.

“I was in a text chain with different professors from across the country, and we were just in shock, because no historian knew about this,” Rosales said. “This definitely feels like a second, social death.”

Chávez died at the age of 66 in 1993, leaving a legacy that has grown in California history. Over 130 public spaces and monuments have been named after Chávez nationally. In California, over 65 streets, schools and parks carried his name. Since 2000, the state recognized his birthday as a state holiday.

Higher education institutions immediately responded to the allegations against Chávez by renaming and removing public markers. Now California faculty are navigating what it means to teach and research figures like Chávez and finding ways to broaden farmworker history beyond one leader.

How schools initially reacted 

State lawmakers swiftly renamed César Chávez Day to Farmworkers Day in March. California universities also quickly renamed or removed monuments and buildings commemorating Chávez.

At both Fresno State and Cal State San Marcos, statues of Chávez were covered and removed within two days of The Times story publishing.

At San Joaquin Delta College, a ceramic relief and plaque memorializing Chávez was replaced with a mural honoring farmworkers painted by Delta College students. UC Berkeley removed Chávez’s name from a student center. UCLA’s department of Chicano Studies removed Chávez from its name.

While some suggested replacing Chávez’s name with Huerta’s, faculty are instead advocating for an approach that is more deliberate, and can commemorate the collective rather than one leader.

“If Dolores Huerta’s name comes up, I want it to go up based on her own achievements and merits, not based on reaction to allegations against César Chávez,” said Lorena Oropeza, professor of Chicanx Latinx Studies at UC Berkeley.

Campuses are also grappling with changes to curriculum involving Chávez. At Bakersfield College, some faculty advocated for the immediate elimination of the César Chávez Leadership Certificate, a program that teaches students about community organizing through the history of Chávez’s legacy in the farmworker movement in the southern San Joaquin Valley.

Rosales, who created the certificate program, said that any changes to curriculum should be deliberated and thought through, rather than just removed. While no faculty has yet made a motion to the Academic Senate for changes, he said he and department colleagues support any name change going through the senate process.

“If you actually look at the curriculum, it’s exactly the curriculum that we need, because it basically broadens the history beyond the UFW,” Rosales said.

A historical critique in ethnic studies

In history books, a key moment in Chávez’s legacy is the 1965 Delano Grape Strike, when workers went on a five-year-long strike demanding fair pay and better working conditions. What is often left untold is that Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz, who were Filipino-American labor leaders, initiated the strike. The Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, led by Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association, led by Chávez, merged to form the United Farm Workers. Their organizing resulted in a national grape boycott and victory.

Disciplines like ethnic studies have long explored the complex and often contradictory nature of labor movement leaders. Scholars have examined Chávez’s anti-immigrant stance and studied the farmworkers’ movement through oral histories from workers and families.

At UC Berkeley, Oropeza researches antiwar and racial justice movements of the 1960s. In this decade, the farmworker movement was a part of the growing Chicano movement, which also encompassed college campus protests advocating for ethnic studies, land reclamation, and civil rights. Leaders like Chávez became major figures in the Chicano movement.

One of the leaders Oropeza has researched is Reies López Tijerina, a Chicano leader from Texas who led a major land grant movement in the American South in the 1960s to reclaim ancestral lands given away after the Mexican-American War. However, Oropeza’s research also revealed how he subjected his family to abuse.

As the leader of the Alianza Federal de Mercedes, or Federal Alliance of Land Grants, Tijerina led peaceful protests in Albuquerque and Santa Fe and occupied the Echo Amphitheater, renaming it the “Republic of San Joaquin del Rio Chama.” That act resulted in the arrests of La Alianza members.

Most notably, Tijerina and La Alianza members led an armed raid of a courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, to perform a citizen’s arrest of the local district attorney, accusing him of denying the activists their civil rights. Tijerina was arrested following the raid, leading to national attention for the civil rights and Chicano movements.

Oropeza’s book, “The King of Adobe: Reies López Tijerina, Lost Prophet of the Chicano Movement,” was published in 2019. She traces Tijerina’s legacy in revitalizing the land grant movement, but also how he exerted patriarchal control in his leadership. Her research relies on archival records and oral histories, including interviews with Tijerina’s first wife and eldest daughter, who described patterns of physical and sexual abuse. Tijerina died at the age of 88 in 2015.

“How do you hold together this person who was absolutely brilliant when it came to criticizing U.S. expansion and what it meant for Spanish speakers on the ground in the new American Southwest, but was absolutely reprehensible in how he treated his family?” Oropeza said. In her book, she examines “both of those truths” and used gender to analyze the style of his leadership.

Oropeza has researched Chávez’s leadership in the farmworker movement extensively. She recalls “powerful images” of him, such as how he fasted to call attention to the struggle of farmworkers and how he turned culture into a political resource, like when he went on a pilgrimage from Delano to Sacramento during lent with the farmworkers. Many have referred to Chávez as “El Santo” or “the Saint of the Movement,” Oropeza said.

Now, to process the news of the allegations against Chávez, Oropeza is leaning on both her own research and ongoing critiques of Chávez in the field. Miriam Pawel’s biography of Chávez, “The Crusades of César Chávez,” published in 2014, narrates a critical history of the man, including his anti-immigrant stance, autocratic power over the union, and how he undermined other labor movements.

“I have already spent 12 years thinking about ‘How do you write about people who are complex, people who can act in reprehensible ways who can also do great things?’” Oropeza said.

Looking toward the future of studying the Chicano and farmworker movements, Oropeza believes that any study must reconcile various realities in an attempt to get as close as possible to the truth, no matter how complicated.

“To me, this is just a reminder that this endeavor we are engaged in as academics … it is imperfect,” Oropeza said. “They’re always going to approximate ‘What is the truth?’ Is there a singular truth? It gets closer and closer and closer, but never quite gets there.”

New and continued approaches in teaching 

Alina Mendez, a professor of Chicano and Latin American studies at Fresno State, has experienced what it means for the personal and political to be connected as her parents were farmworkers. When she talked about the allegations against Chávez with her students during a lecture about the farmworker movement, she asked them whether they should continue talking about Chávez and, if so, how.

“As a scholar, obviously, I learned and teach this history,” Mendez said. “But as a daughter of farmworkers, I grew up honoring the memory, the legacy of César Chávez.”

Her classroom came to a consensus that they should continue learning about Chávez while holding him accountable, “with the hopes that this (abuse of power) doesn’t happen (again),” she recalled.

“I can very much see that there’s this collective grief, collective disappointment, a kind of questioning of ‘If César Chávez is no longer our hero, then who do we look up to?’” Mendez said. “That’s why I’ve been insisting that (we) look at our local communities. Let’s look around us and see other people who very much sacrificed a lot of time, a lot of resources, a lot of sweat, to make those successes possible.”

Mendez is changing her approach to teaching farmworker movements to focus on local leaders and histories. She has been in conversation with Arte Américas, a Fresno-based Latinx art and cultural center, to continue collecting archives and interviews with workers across the Central Valley.

“In many ways, obviously, my teaching is changing,” Mendez said. “As historians, I think we’re understanding more and more the importance of focusing on the collective rather than the individual leader.”

Faculty say the disciplines of ethnic studies and history will be essential to the future of teaching about farmworker history. They say scholars should focus now on collecting oral histories narrated by workers themselves, rather than letting dominant voices narrate their stories for the movement.

“If anyone can help us figure out how to deal with complexities around race in the United States, it’s ethnic studies,” Oropeza said. “This is a place where ethnic studies scholars will shine.”

Rosales said he hopes this moment can pave the way for research that highlights the contributions of more communities in the farm labor movement, including Arab Americans and Southeast Asian Americans.

“I think that the farmworker movement’s legacy is intact, but it’s going to take, you know, careful work by teachers, scholars, historians, to ensure that the curriculum is diversified beyond Chávez,” Rosales said.

Khadeejah Khan is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

Scattered amongst the quiet streets and houses with big yards are a number of duplexes, granny flats and small apartment buildings. Most were built a century ago, when the neighborhood was served by the city's electric streetcar network.

"They really add up to providing a lot of housing in a small space, which makes it a much better neighborhood than something that's sprawled out all over the place," said Mike Stepner, a resident of Mission Hills and retiree who worked in the San Diego City Planning Department for 27 years.

Until recently, much of the neighborhood's small-scale multifamily housing would have been illegal to build. That's because in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, San Diego downzoned huge swaths of its urban core, effectively banning apartments in some of the city's most walkable neighborhoods.

Downzoning is a city planning term that describes when a government changes a neighborhood's land use regulations to allow for less housing. The practice took off in San Diego after 1967 — the year the city adopted its first general plan.

Leaders at the time said the general plan would combat urban sprawl and encourage more compact development. In reality, the plan kicked off decades of downzoning that dramatically reduced the city's ability to grow.

Neighborhoods that were downzoned include Mission Hills, Middletown, Hillcrest, North Park, Midway, Clairemont, College Area, La Jolla and Pacific Beach.

San Diego City Planning Director Heidi VonBlum said the era of downzoning was a fateful mistake that pushed growth further into the suburbs, lengthening commute times and blocking the construction of lower-cost housing options.

"When you have lower density, the price of housing is inherently higher," VonBlum said. "The higher the density, the more affordable the housing can be. And so if it were not but for the downzoning, we'd probably be in a very different situation than we are today in terms of housing affordability."

San Diego's first zoning ordinance was adopted in 1923. Stepner said early zoning was fairly simple and permissive. He recalls a colleague carrying around a roughly 30-page booklet that contained all the regulations for the city's four distinct zones.

Today, the city has dozens of zones spanning hundreds of pages in the Land Development Code. Stepner said the city began to use zoning to try and solve every minute neighborhood issue. He often found the regulations excessive — sometimes even absurd.

"I remember a discussion about whether a yogurt shop is the same as an ice cream shop," Stepner said. "What the hell difference is it? It makes no difference!"

While downzoning was sometimes used to protect San Diego's canyons and preserve open space, news coverage at the time suggests it was more often motivated by a desire among incumbent homeowners to preserve "community character."

That phrase can be used as a dog whistle, said Richard Rothstein, a historian and author of the book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. As courts and lawmakers began to outlaw explicitly racist housing discrimination, zoning emerged as a more subtle tool to segregate neighborhoods by race and class.

"Preserving community character is a code word for keeping out non-white people," Rothstein said. "You can't prove it just by the phrase 'community character,' but frequently when you go into the … city council meetings where this is being debated, people do make racially explicit comments that explain what 'community character' means."

VonBlum said as the city works to reverse decades of downzoning and allow higher density housing near jobs and public transit, it is also working to include populations that were historically excluded from planning processes.

"We may hear from decades ago the community wanted no change, no additional housing, they wanted large lot sizes," VonBlum said. "We may not have heard from the workers that were working in the community, that were commuting in for an hour and really would love the opportunity to live on a smaller lot size, in a smaller house."

While San Diego has been reversing some of the downzoning from the last century, it has not made significant changes to the city's single-family neighborhoods. But that could change later this year, as Mayor Todd Gloria prepares an initiative to allow more townhomes and smaller lot sizes throughout the city.

When announcing the "Neighborhood Homes For All of Us" initiative last December, Gloria said its goal was to create a wider range of housing options for people of all income levels.

"We must create more opportunities for residents who are stuck between the rising cost of single-family homes and the limited options in today's market," Gloria said. "'Neighborhood Homes For All of Us' gives us a chance to do just that."

Stacie Watkins cheers them on, wearing a jersey that says “Black Skate SD.”

Watkins started roller-skating during the 2020 COVID pandemic.

“I was in a really toxic relationship, so I wanted to, you know, heal from childhood trauma. So one of the things I went back to was roller skating, because I used to do it as a young child,” she said.

Watkins wanted private lessons, but couldn’t find a Black instructor. She said that was important for her because roller-skating culture is Black culture.

Roller skating rinks began dotting the American landscape during the middle of the 20th Century, and by the 1960s it was a cultural phenomenon. But Black people were often banned from the rinks. When they were allowed in, it was typically for Black-only “Rhythm Nights” or “Soul Nights.”

This racism forced them out of buildings and onto the streets, where they developed their own culture and styles of skating: “NY/NJ style” with its house music influences, intricate footwork and figure-eight formations; the smooth slides and transitions of “Detroit Style”; the swagger and bounce of “Atlanta Style”; the competitive rhythms of “Cleveland Freestyle” and “Jam Style,” and “JB style” out of Chicago.

“You can think about James Brown and how he moved, how he slided all over the floor, the jazz movements,” Watkins explained.

Roller-skating even played a part in the historic March on Washington in August 1963. A 27-year-old named Ledger Smith skated 700 miles from Chicago to the nation's capital wearing a sash that read: “Freedom.” A contingent with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People drove behind him with spare skates, protecting him through the 10-day journey.

Watkins wanted to continue this legacy, so she became the Black instructor she couldn’t find. She started Black Skate San Diego in 2021 with just three skaters in Southeastern San Diego's Lomita Park.

She said they have faced pushback, especially to the name. One Facebook commenter asked: “Why isn’t there a White Skate San Diego?” Another person warned her if she kept the name, nobody would support her.

“Black Skate San Diego can kind of offend a lot of people, because when you hear the word ‘Black,’ you think, ‘Oh, OK. Like, we're not invited. We can't come,’” she said.

Though Black skate culture was birthed from rejection from white spaces, this group isn’t returning that discrimination. At Black Skate San Diego, the circling mass of skaters is a kaleidoscope of skin colors, ages and abilities.

Access is part of their mission. They teach for free, and have spare gear on hand for anyone who can’t afford it.

The group flourished — the three skaters grew to about 50. They formed an LLC in 2025.

Watkins’ next goal is to invest in flooring for a pop-up skating rink.

"So we can pull up in, you know, the inner city of Black people to pull up wherever we want to and just show people those moves, show people our culture,” she said.

Now, they typically gather Tuesdays at Liberty Station and Sundays at Sunset View Park.

She encourages everyone to pull up.

Downtown San Diego was still bustling with Comic-Con activity on Monday.

Now that the massive pop-culture convention is over, what went up must come down. Crews were tearing down building wraps, dismantling activations and packing up props.

“We had tons of fun,” Cindy Valladres said. For her and her husband, Hadrian Valladares, Comic-Con and the Gaslamp Quarter lived up to expectations.

“Going to Comic-Con and then coming down, grabbing lunch and dinner at all the restaurants here in Gaslamp and everything was great,” Cindy Valladres said.

Restaurants and bars downtown were packed throughout the weekend and busier than in recent years, according to Michael Trimble, the executive director of the Gaslamp Quarter Association.

“It's been a real positive thing," he said. "We've also seen a lot of more Hollywood A-list stars coming to Comic-Con this year, which we didn't have last year, which increases the wow factor. And people want to come.”

This year, the iconic Gaslamp sign over Fifth Avenue was temporarily transformed with branding for “Avengers: Doomsday.” Something Trimble said had never been done before. It was a collective effort between the city, the association and the film’s marketing agency, he said.

“I think they want to do and give fan service to people coming down," he said. "So there's something that they won't forget.”

It was a memorable experience for David and Becky Ashcraft.

“We saw the whole cast of ‘Super Troopers’ right down the street," David Ashcraft said. "(They) were doing interviews out front of one of the activations.”

They said they didn't want to leave San Diego and return to Fort Worth, Texas.

More than 135,000 people attended Comic-Con, bringing in an estimated $160 million to the local economy. More than $9 million of that was in downtown San Diego alone.

“That's pretty accurate," Trimble said. "You know, it's hard to put a number on it this early.”

Although Comic-Con is staying in San Diego through 2030, he said the association will take a few months to regroup before beginning preparations for next year’s convention.

But the Ashcrafts have already made their own plans.

“I look forward to coming back," David Ashcraft said.

"We’ll definitely be back next year,” Becky Ashcraft said.

And they’ll be ready to spend more money at local businesses.

Dangerously hot conditions are in the forecast for eastern San Diego County until at least 8 p.m. Monday, with temperatures in the mid-to-upper 90s in the mountains and up to 115 in the local deserts, forecasters said Monday.

"Hot temperatures may cause heat illnesses," the NWS said. "Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors."

A heat risk warning was in effect until at least Monday night, as elevated low temperatures will limit overnight relief from the heat, the NWS said.

For coastal and inland valley areas — where temperatures are expected to climb to the mid-80s for the mesas with lows in the upper 60s to low 70s — a less urgent heat advisory was in effect over the same period. Inland valleys were expected to reach the upper 90s this week.

Monday and Tuesday should see a few degrees of cooling, but more temperature-raising high pressure likely will return at the end of the week, forecasters said.

People were reminded to never leave children or pets in a parked vehicle for even a minute on hot days, as inside temperatures can rapidly reach deadly levels.

Tropical Storm Genevieve has strengthened into a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Mexico. It is forecast to pick up even more steam and become a major hurricane in the coming days but stay well out to sea on a course roughly parallel to the shore.

Genevieve had maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph), making it a Category 1 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. A major hurricane is Category 3 or higher.

Genevieve's center was located about 500 miles (810 kilometers) south-southwest of Manzanillo, and it was headed west-northwest at 17 mph (28 kph).

No coastal watches or warnings were in effect, but the hurricane center said swells from the storm — likely causing “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” — were affecting parts of Mexico's southwestern coast on the weekend and would likely hit southern parts of the Baja California Peninsula on Sunday night or Monday.

Farther west in the Pacific, meanwhile, Hurricane Fausto weakened to a Category 1 storm as it continued on a projected path in the general direction of the Hawaiian Islands.

Forecasters said it was expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm in the coming days, but warned that it could still generate dangerous surf and said “interests in the Hawaiian Islands should monitor” its progress.

Fausto had maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph); was located about 995 miles (1,600 kilometers) east of Hilo; and was moving west at 13 mph (20 kph).

Nearly 150,000 California voters had their mail-in ballots rejected for the state's June primary, a spike from recent elections even as the state attempts to make voting easier with the goal of boosting participation and counting every ballot.

California has become notorious for its ponderously slow vote counts that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple changes over the years that were intended to increase turnout but have done little to achieve that. Among the changes: Every voter receives a mail-in ballot that can arrive at an election office seven days late and still be counted, provided the envelope is postmarked by Election Day.

Yet even with that generous weeklong window, the primary driver of the higher rejection numbers is late-arriving ballots, according to data compiled by the secretary of state's office. Voting experts suspect the main problem is postmarks on ballots that came after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted. The culprit could be U.S. Postal Service changes that might affect the timing of when postmarks are applied.

Late-arriving ballots drove the rejections

According to state data, 148,241 mail ballots were rejected in the June election, or a rate of 1.73% of all mail ballots.

In raw numbers, that's up from the 2024 primary, when 108,982 mail ballots were rejected, or a 1.56% rate. In 2022, 105,818 mail ballots were voided during the primary, or a rate similar to 2024.

Lateness accounted for 93,479 rejected ballots in June, by far the largest category for disqualifying a ballot. That was up from about 70,000 in the 2022 primary and about 76,000 in the 2024 primary, though turnout in those elections was smaller compared to last June.

Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said the jump in rejected ballots because of lateness is a major concern that — along with postal procedures — might also be connected to a late surge in ballots in June. Many voters waited until the final days to make a decision in a wide-open and chaotic race for governor.

“Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,” Alexander wrote in an email.

Rejection rates have fluctuated over time, but the growing number of those set aside for lateness compared to recent elections “does really demand the question why this is happening,” said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, a nonpartisan research group.

Lawmakers concerned about USPS postmark changes

In January, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators sent a letter to the U.S. Postal Service, alarmed that mail-processing changes might affect postmark dates for mail-in ballots during an election year that will determine control of Congress.

Updated agency policy says postmarks might not indicate the first day the Postal Service received the mail, but rather the day it was handled in one of its processing centers. Those centers are increasingly likely to be further away from certain communities because of recent consolidations within the Postal Service, which could further delay postmarks.

On Thursday, two Wisconsin Democrats, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Gov. Tony Evers, called on the Postal Service to address delays that caused hundreds of ballots to arrive after Election Day in the state in April. In June, a federal judge halted President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.

Earlier this year, California election officials urged voters to send their mail ballots early, warning that Postal Service changes could lead to slower mail service.

In California, the highest mail ballot rejection rate in June — 3.52%Merced County, also in the Central Valley, which both notc — was in Tulare County, in the agriculture-heavy Central Valley. It was followed by Alpine County, south of Lake Tahoe, and hed a 3.36% rejection rate.

Mismatched signatures and multiple ballots in an envelope

Nearly 44,000 ballots were set aside because the voter’s signature didn't match the one on record with county officials. Over 8,300 ballots were rejected because there was no signature on the returned ballot envelope.

In 743 cases, the voter had already cast a ballot, so the mail ballot was voided. Other reasons for rejection included a ballot being missing from the return envelope, or multiple ballots were sent back in a single envelope.

The data didn’t break down the uncounted ballots by party registration.

Florida, Texas and other large population states quickly wrap up vote counting, while California is a national laggard.

After the June primary, President Donald Trump seized on California’s reputation as the national slowpoke in vote counting to renew his long-standing criticism of the state’s elections, while the Republican’s Department of Justice launched an investigation into Los Angeles County’s elections.

There is no indication of any widespread problems with mail voting, which has gained in popularity among Democrats and Republicans alike. A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that the number of cases of mail voting fraud was minuscule — about four cases per 10 million mail ballots.

California prisons are increasingly relying on an unusual fire alarm system: humans.

Between 2020 and 2025, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has spent nearly $50 million on “fire watch” staffing costs. In recent years, prison employees have spent roughly 270,000 hours monitoring for smoke or fire.

They patrol prisons and visually inspect different areas during their shifts, according to job postings reviewed by CalMatters.

That’s because the majority of California’s 31 prisons have deficient fire alarm systems and it would cost $1.5 billion to replace them all, according to the department’s annual report submitted in January.

In the face of outdated, malfunctioning and inoperable fire alarm systems, the Office of the State Fire Marshal ordered the department to run fire watch coverage until it repairs or replaces its fire alarm systems.

“This process has come at a significant expense to the department in staff costs for fire watch coverage,” corrections officials wrote in a recent $15.2 million budget request to support next year’s coverage.

It’s a drop in the bucket for the department’s $14.6 billion budget, but costs continue to balloon.

The department in June said it was on track to spend roughly $40 million for last year’s fire watch coverage, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. That’s roughly $25 million over its budgeted authority, the office said.

Replacing a single prison’s fire alarm system costs between $3 million and $87 million, according to estimates in the system’s facilities master plan.

Caitlin O’Neil, who monitors the corrections budget as a principal fiscal and policy analyst at the Legislative Analyst’s Office, said the department has historically used correctional officers for fire coverage because the assignment requires keys and access to move about the prison freely. Their fire watch hours are typically coded to overtime.

The base pay for an experienced correctional officer is $9,647 a month, according to a 2024 salary survey.

But O’Neil said the department is exploring whether it can achieve fire watch coverage with a lower cost job classification — recognizing that correctional officers have more capabilities than just looking for fires. According to O’Neil, the department is piloting a fire watch program at Solano State Prison. There, fire watch positions are classified as an “office assistant” and report to a correctional sergeant.

The pay for that position tops out at $4,357 a month, according to a job ad.

Royal Ramey, a formerly incarcerated firefighter who co-founded the nonprofit organization Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, said fire safety inside correctional institutions is non-negotiable.

“People who are incarcerated, as well as the staff inside these facilities deserve reliable systems and strong emergency protections that keep everyone safe,” he said. “In situations involving fire emergency response, there can be no gaps in protection. But the priority must also remain protecting lives while continuing to advance permanent and reliable infrastructure solutions.”

But Matt Cate, who was California’s corrections secretary under former Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, said he was skeptical about the spending because people are paid to stand around and look for a problem that doesn’t exist.

“Large-scale fires in prisons are extremely rare because prisons are made of concrete and steel,” he said. “There’s a fire department attached to each prison and there are people throughout the prison who are there all the time. It’s staffed 24-7.”

According to Cate, the state has “very strict” regulations to manage fire risk in prisons. He said that puts the department in a position of either upgrading its fire alarm systems for hundreds of millions of dollars or requesting incremental cash each year to meet those regulations.

“It’s a little like deciding, do we buy the house or do we rent?” he said. “It’s ultimately the governor’s office and the Legislature who have to decide how much to invest versus how much to plug the problem through adding additional staff.”

Kristen Cowan, who studies the impacts of extreme weather disasters in prisons and jails as an assistant professor at the University of Buffalo, said she did not know it was legal for prisons to have inoperable fire alarm systems.

“This is baseline disaster preparedness,” she said. “It’s certainly concerning to know that that (technology) is missing. It makes you wonder what else is missing in the facilities.”

Cowan said the department’s reliance on fire watch positions in lieu of up-to-date technology could create big delays in fire detection, risking more injuries, deaths, and detrimental health impacts from smoke exposure.

“We wouldn’t let anyone else live in a place that doesn’t have a smoke detector,” she said.

Susan Bustamante isn’t giving up.

The formerly incarcerated 71-year-old woman has repeatedly made the long trip from Orange County to Sacramento to urge lawmakers to pass legislation she believes would help her fellow domestic abuse victims facing criminal charges.

Each time, lawmakers seemed supportive — and then killed her bill in secret.

She hopes the fourth year in a row will be different.

Bustamante is again pushing for a measure, which police and prosecutors oppose, that would allow survivors of human trafficking and intimate partner or sexual violence to cite their abuse as a legal defense when facing charges for violent crimes, with the exception of most murder cases.

Those already convicted could also petition a judge to vacate their convictions. If the judge approves, their arrests and convictions would be treated as though they never happened. Their case files would be sealed and destroyed. Any fines and unpaid restitution to victims would be waived.

“I’m willing to fight for those who are not in the position that I am right now to be able to open my mouth and … fight for this,” she told CalMatters in an interview on Friday.

In 1987, Bustamante was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors alleged she hired her brother to kill her husband, Steven Bustamante, and helped dispose of his body for a $100,000 life insurance payout she split with her sibling.

Bustamante said she wasn’t allowed to tell jurors in her two-day trial about how her husband beat her and repeatedly threatened to kill her. She said she only asked her brother for help.

“The idea that he would kill Steven never occurred to me,” she told lawmakers last month. “Later, he called me to say that Steven was dead. He threatened to call the police and say I planned it. He blackmailed me for Steven’s insurance. I was afraid of having my daughters taken from me, so I gave in.”

Former California Gov. Jerry Brown commuted Bustamante’s sentence in 2017 after learning her story and reviewing her spotless prison record. Bustamante was freed the next year after three decades behind bars.

Bustamante said she would not qualify to have her case vacated under the measure.

California law already allows defendants to cite abuse they experienced and call in expert witnesses who can explain how their suffering affected their behavior. Judges also can factor in a defendant’s history with human trafficking and domestic violence during sentencing. This bill takes it further by allowing them to cite their abuse as a legal defense when charged with a violent crime.

California law also allows those charged with or convicted of nonviolent offenses to petition courts for similar legal relief.

Appropriations committees kill bills

In the years since her release, Bustamante got involved with nonprofits that help people such as her navigate their past abuse and incarceration as they seek to reintegrate into life outside of prison.

Bustamante first testified before the Legislature about the need for the bill in 2023.

Since then, each year at least one of the Legislature’s two public safety committees approved similar legislation before an appropriations committee killed it.

Twice a year, the Legislature’s two appropriations committees meet to quickly and with no debate kill hundreds of bills.

As CalMatters has reported, powerful special interest groups, the governor’s office and state agencies secretly lobby the committees to kill bills. Legislative leaders also use the committees to kill politically touchy measures that lawmakers prefer not to go on record voting against in public hearings.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to hear Oakland Democratic Assemblymember Mia Bonta’s abuse bill next month.

Riverside Democratic Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, the new chairperson of the Senate Appropriations Committee, declined to comment through a spokesperson.

Why DAs and police oppose

Law enforcement officials fear Bonta’s Assembly Bill 910 would allow violent criminals, including rapists, kidnappers and child molesters, to burden California’s backlogged judiciary system with a rash of petitions to vacate their convictions.

They say it’s an especially troubling example of how progressive Democrats keep trying to water down penalties for dangerous criminals, with little thought to their victims.

“To basically allow them to walk away from a violent crime in terms of accountability is just absurd policy,” said Greg Totten, a former Ventura County district attorney who heads the state’s DA association.

Totten noted that defendants already have the right to argue they were abused or trafficked during sentencing hearings.

Bonta didn’t return an interview request, but she told the Senate Public Safety Committee last month that “AB 910 is a second chance bill, a dignity bill.”

“Survivors should not spend their lives paying for abuse they endured,” she said.

At least 17 organizations, including ACLU California Action and the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, support the bill, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.

Supporters argue hardly anyone convicted of violent crimes actually would qualify under the proposed new law.

For the few who do, advocates say it would be much cheaper to allow abuse victims to reintegrate into society without their felony convictions being used against them as they look for jobs, housing and other support.

“If even one person is granted relief under this bill, it will pay for itself,” said Leigh LaChapelle, director of policy and advocacy at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking.

Federal wildlife authorities are investigating after a video appeared to show a person kicking a protected sea lion at a beach in California.

A spokesperson for the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed an ongoing investigation into the incident but declined to provide additional details Sunday.

The video appears to show a person throwing kicks at the sea lion at La Jolla Cove in San Diego as at least one other person can be heard laughing in the background. The person follows the sea lion, throwing more kicks at the animal as it tries to scoot away before the video ends.

“NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Law Enforcement is investigating reports of a video on social media that shows an interaction between an individual and sea lion, allegedly in La Jolla Cove,” a spokesperson for the agency said. “In the video, the individual appears to be kicking the sea lion. This is an ongoing investigation, and we cannot provide further details at this time.”

The person in the video has not been publicly identified.

Sea lions are federally protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s guidelines say that people should stay at least 50 feet (15 meters) away from sea lions, seals and other species protected by the act.

“This disgusting act of animal cruelty is unacceptable,” San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said in a post on X. He acknowledged the federal investigation and said he has directed local law enforcement to review the footage.

Candy Land Café is hard to miss on the corner of Pacific Highway and Hawthorn Street in Little Italy. The art deco facade is painted in the bright pink, yellow, orange and blue colors of the iconic Hasbro board game.

Oversized candy-themed decorations, cupcakes and lollipops transform Hilton’s Bayside Kitchen restaurant into a life-size replica of the Hasbro board game. The experience is complete with the famous colorful squares that wind throughout the restaurant and lead Candy Land fans to an outdoor patio. The trail ends, just like the board game, with a larger-than-life castle, complete with gigantic cupcakes and gumdrops.

Candy Land Café supervisor Ian Osuna said the giant candy-themed props are popular with cafe visitors for taking pictures and reminiscing about childhood memories of playing the game. The cafe’s menu features American comfort food with a whimsical twist.

Allison Wilson, from Ladson, South Carolina, is visiting San Diego for Comic Con with her daughter, Madeline.

“I love the lemonade we had! It came with a piece of cotton candy, and you stick it in and you swirl it around, and it changes the color of the drink. So, mine turned out pink, and I believe hers turned out orange,” Wilson said. Madeline showed off her hand-decorated gingerbread man, she named Wilson, and then bit the leg off.

Osuna said the food is meant to inspire nostalgia with classic American fare like smash burgers, curly fries, colorful grilled cheese and tomato soup, and an expansive dessert menu filled with interactive candy-themed treats like make-your-own ice cream flights.

Right in front of the merchandise and candy store, visitors can also utilize a free candy-themed photo booth, where the photos can be sent to their phones. The store has a variety of different candies available to buy, as well as stacks of the iconic Candy Land board game and Candy Land-themed T-shirts.

The pop-up experience is hosted by Bucket Listers in partnership with Hasbro and will be running until Oct. 4. Candy lovers can purchase tickets online or in person at the cafe. Each ticket includes a 90-minute dining experience, with $10 discounts on food and $5 dollar discounts on merchandise.

Scientists at Comic-Con are joining forces to create Mission Control, an immersive STEAM experience and activity space at the Marriott Hotel.

STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, art, and math, and there's no better place to find the intersection of all those fields than Comic-Con.

"Comic-Con is a fantastic platform to talk about these things because there are a lot of people who are in various media pop culture fandoms, and they are so curious to learn more already. And so we could come in and talk about the real life science," said herpetologist Earyn McGee.

Mission Control is the first immersive STEAM experience at Comic-Con. Sam Wynns is a conservation biologist and an If/Then Ambassador who helped launch it.

"We're really excited," Wynns said. "We have 65 scientists and engineers here to engage people in thematic science activities. We're in the Del Mar Room of the Marriott Hotel, which is in the South Tower. It's basically fun STEAM activities for all ages."

Data scientist Kay Savage added, "We are all part of If/Then, a group that is focused on promoting the next generation of scientists, especially promoting women in science, people of color in science, and getting a new breath of fresh air and creativity in the next group of leadership. It's the most creative expression of how to have science play with passions, which is what science is all about."

Thousands of people braved the crowds, heat and traffic on Friday for the massive pop-culture event.

With all the cosplay, collectibles and action-figures, people tend to think of Comic-Con International as a playground for adults embracing their inner child. But at its heart, Comic-Con is still a place where kids can discover the magic of comics, characters and imagination for the first time.

“Giant Snorlax!” Ashton Cullen, sitting on top of his father’s shoulders, excitedly yelled.

This is the 5-year-old’s first time at Comic-Con. He is visiting from Los Angeles with his mom, dad and his 3-year-old brother.

“On the way, I got a new Pokémon. And that Pokémon is this,” he said, showing off the latest Pokémon he caught on the game “Pokémon Go.”

Cullen is obsessed with Pokémon, and every turn brings something new to discover.

“Giant Charmander!” he said.

His dad, Jeremy Cullen, said they visited the outdoor activations last year. This year, they decided it was finally time to experience Comic-Con from the inside.

“You know, see the atmosphere and everyone dressed up in their costumes,” Jeremy Cullen said.

“And just for the cosplays,” Jennifer Cullen, his wife, said. “We want to see the cosplayers. We’re not in the area. We can’t spend money on it, but we think it’s cool.”

There were plenty of cosplayers, from Cyclops to a family dressed as the Powerpuff Girls to the Bat-family.

“Girl Robin,” Layla Boren said, describing her costume. She has been coming to Comic-Con with her parents for the past three years.

Her parents, of course, have been coming for much longer.

“This is our eighth year, I think,” Heather Boren said. She said Comic-Con feels different with a kid in tow. Before, it was the panels and Hall H. Now, it’s about creating memories together.

“One time she came across like a Dalek robot or an R2-D2, and that just blew her mind,” Heather Boren said. “She loved that. And sometimes it’s just roaming the hall, like running around.”

Having a kid in tow at Comic-Con is tough, but parents say it’s worth it to see the excitement on their kids’ faces.

“I’m not gonna lie, it is a lot of work,” said Will Hui, who was attending with his wife and two sons. “(But) it’s fun, it’s rewarding. You get to watch them like getting excited, but yeah, you’re gonna do less than before.”

Of course, when the children get older, that’s when it’s really fun because these parents get to share their passion with them. After all, that’s what Comic-Con is all about: sharing these experiences with a community of fans.

Nicole Jalandoni stood in the staggered line that ran through Artists’ Alley on Thursday, patiently waiting to buy fan art created by San Diego artist Patrick Ballesteros.

While in line, she looked over laminated images of his designs, displayed like a restaurant menu featuring Ballesteros’ signature stickers, prints, patches and more.

She’d followed his work for years, but this was the first time she had braved the line.

“And how long have you been waiting so far?” I asked.

“So far, I have no idea,” Jalandoni replied. “I've just been locked in looking at this,” she said, referring to the menu. “But probably like 15 to 20 minutes.”

But she doesn’t mind the wait. Ballesteros’ art resonates with her personally.

“It's very nostalgic,” Jalandoni said. “A lot of these are like my favorite animes since I was growing up and then the puns. They're funny, if you get it.”

Ballesteros is known near and far for his unique illustrations that blend pop culture, comics and Filipino culture. And in recent years, he’s not alone in this culturally rooted approach to fan art.

Stickers, prints, clothing and bookmarks that reimagine beloved characters can be found throughout Artists’ Alley and the Small Press section.

On the opposite side of the convention floor, illustrator Genevieve Santos draws a crowd of her own to her stationery company, Le Petit Elefant. She has a flock of followers who purchase her designs that integrate her Filipino identity and BTS fandom.

And this year, Santos’ and Ballesteros’ booths share something in common: a vivid print they created together called “Close-Open, Close-Open.” Ballesteros came up with the idea to honor a phrase many people in the Filipino community hear from elders growing up.

“That's what they say to you when you're a baby,” Ballesteros said. “But also the double meaning is the close-open of the sticks.”

The bamboo sticks he’s referring to play a major role in the traditional, precolonial Filipino dance tinikling, which involves at least two people tapping bamboo poles on the ground and clapping them together while one or more dancers step in and out between the poles. Beloved animated characters like Baymax from “Big Hero 6” dance and jump as the sticks underfoot tap out a rhythm.

There’s another connection to Filipino culture through the sari-sari store, a neighborhood shop that is a signature design from Santos. Sari-sari stores typically sell everyday household items, snacks, fruit and drinks. She sees fan art as a unique way for people to connect with characters.

“I love fan art because people kind of imbue their own personal stories with like these beloved well-known characters,” Santos said. “I think that's why people really love fan art. Being able to see their favorite characters like Totoro or even just like an elephant playing like tinikling is kind of special.”

Stephen Yapit bought the print for his wife at Santos’ booth. Yapit is drawn to the representation of Filipino culture he has seen grow at the convention.

“Specifically for Filipinos, it's definitely worth us here representing for our community, and it's fun seeing everyone's art, everyone's creative processes,” Yapit said.

Ballesteros said Filipino animators have played an important role in the animation industry throughout history, but they haven’t always received recognition. Santos and Ballesteros feel the Filipino community and culture are having a moment right now at Comic-Con and beyond.

Ballesteros pointed to the upcoming DreamWorks film “Forgotten Island,” which draws inspiration from Filipino folklore and features a star-studded Filipino voice cast.

Santos also noted that ube-flavored drinks and treats have become more common at major chains like Starbucks.

“People are becoming not necessarily aware of it, but more accustomed to it,” Ballesteros said. “That gateway to come into the culture is through food and through entertainment and stuff like that. But I think it's only going to get bigger.”

Santos said the representation of Filipino artists and designs marks a big shift.

“I have a lot of friends now who are Filipino artists, who are leaning into it and it's so wonderful to see just more representation, more voices,” Santos said.

Ballesteros and Santos say this collaboration won't be the last. Both intend to continue creating pieces that connect and celebrate their community.

For most of his life, Connor Dalby of Oceanside couldn't walk.

As a baby, he spent much of his time in hospitals, hooked up to machines while doctors tried to figure out what was happening to him.

His mother, Kelly Del Real, remembers those early years as a constant cycle of seizures.

"It was around the clock. So 50 to 100 seizures a day, all day, all night."

Dalby was eventually diagnosed, when he was almost 5, with a rare genetic form of epilepsy caused by a mutation in the SCN2A gene.

The condition is known as SCN2A-related developmental epileptic encephalopathy, or DEE.

It's part of a group of rare disorders in which seizures are just one piece of the puzzle. The abnormal brain activity can also interfere with development, movement, communication and everyday functioning.

Dalby's family tried medication after medication.

"He's trialed over 12 or 13 different anti-seizure medications," Del Real said. “And nothing really helped very much."

By the time he was 14, he still couldn't walk on his own. He relied on a stroller or wheelchair to get around.

There was no genetic therapy available that could target the specific mutation causing his disease.

Dalby's mutation is particularly complicated, said Dr. Olivia Kim-McManus, a UC San Diego neurologist who treated him at Rady Children's Hospital.

"He carries a more complex variant that requires an allele-selective approach because he has both seizures and autism," she said.

So Kim-McManus and her team took a different approach.

They worked with n-Lorem Foundation, a nonprofit that develops personalized medicines for people with ultra-rare genetic diseases, to create a treatment designed specifically for his mutation.

Unlike medications that treat the symptoms of a disease, this personalized treatment was designed to target the specific genetic mutation causing his condition. She said the hope is that by targeting the underlying genetic problem, the treatment can change how the disease affects him.

Dalby received his first dose at 14.

The treatment was administered at Rady Children's Hospital through the spinal fluid, and Dalby has continued receiving doses as researchers monitor his progress.

The treatment is still investigational, but his family was willing to try.

"We're going to give it a shot. There wasn't a doubt in my mind," Del Real said.

Then, about four months after his first dose, something happened that his mom had never seen before.

"He started trying to take steps unassisted. So the first time in his entire life," she said.

Today, Dalby can walk about 50 or 60 steps on his own, his mom said. He's sleeping better. His behavior has improved. And his seizures have been reduced by 90 percent.

"It's totally changed our quality of life,” she said. “And given him certain skills and a level of independence that he did not have before."

Dalby is 17 now. And he's finally getting to do something he hasn't really had the chance to do before. Be a teenager.

“I got to take him on his first roller coaster. It was the best moment ever,” Del Real said. “Just something that we never thought he would be able to handle.”

The research documenting his treatment and progress was published in the journal Nature Medicine this month.

For Kim-McManus, Connor's case raises a much bigger question about the future of medicine.

Could doctors develop treatments tailored to the specific genetic mutations causing rare diseases, even when there is no existing therapy?

Kim-McManus said the answer is still being worked out.

Bringing personalized genetic medicines to more patients will require research and funding.

But Dalby's case offers a glimpse of what that future might look like.

"It's hard to deny what we were seeing at the beginning,” Kim-McManus said. “So that was very exciting and hopeful."

Dalby's mom says her son is already helping pave the way.

"He was the first human ever to be treated with this molecule,” she said. “I tell him all the time how many families and kids that he's helping."

She said the hope is that what researchers learned from treating one child could eventually help many more.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

San Diego’s art scene is one of most vibrant in the country, but its luster is dimming, as public funding dries up and artists’ pay falls behind the curve amid soaring housing costs and inflation.

The San Diego region is among the top 10 percent nationwide, based on the number of artists and cultural organizations, total dollars spent on the arts, and government funding, according to an analysis of community arts vibrancy by Southern Methodist University in Texas.

The region boasts cultural campuses such as Balboa Park, the Jacobs Music Center, and California Center for the Arts, Escondido. Plus, scores of galleries, performance spaces and concert venues add up to a robust art scene.

But San Diego’s status has ticked down since 2022, from the 95th percentile to 90th percentile nationwide. Still good, but not a promising trend.

That downturn is happening as federal and local governments slash arts funding, and as wages for artists and cultural workers lag behind the region’s high cost of living.

“We see that big cities in general are really challenging places for arts and cultural organizations right now, with rising rents and inflation,” said Jen Benoit-Bryan, a professor of arts management and executive director of the SMU DataArts research center.

A separate report on local arts nonprofits by the University of San Diego found that a third of arts organizations reported weak financial health this year, and more than half dipped into their reserves to make ends meet.

That squeeze has led to high-profile fights over public art spending. In April, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria proposed zeroing out city arts funding in this year’s budget. Artists and activists erupted in protest. The city council eventually added back part of that, and the Prebys Foundation committed $3 million to make up the gap, but there was still a net loss.

“We know San Diego is an arts-rich community, and arts and culture is very much a part of our fabric and our economic vitality,” said Christine Martinez, manager of Arts + Culture San Diego, a coalition of 150 organizations. “But looking at the report and seeing a slight decline over the last few years in our vibrancy is not a surprise.”

Her organization is proposing to dedicate a portion of local hotel taxes to arts funding. The county has stepped up with $2 million in new arts funding. And independent artists are devising ways to help themselves, and each other.

Where San Diego ranks

Researchers at Southern Methodist University have been collecting and analyzing how communities support and invest in the arts for about a decade, Benoit-Bryan said.

To compare communities, they pull IRS data to count the number of independent artists and cultural employees, arts organizations, and entertainment firms.

That’s combined with “arts dollars,” meaning the revenue, contributions, expenditures and compensation for those organizations. And they look at the number of state and federal arts grants, and their total dollar figures.

This year San Diego ranks 91st for arts vibrancy out of 985 areas analyzed in the Southern Methodist University study, placing it in the top 100 areas studied, which range from smaller cities to metropolitan areas.

Other California cities placed even higher; Los Angeles placed 12th, while San Francisco came in second. The study ranked California as the eighth highest state for arts activities and support.

New York, a global leader in arts and media, ranked number one for the third year in a row, “reaffirming its position as the nation’s cultural powerhouse,” the DataArts report stated. Other northeastern states known for strong social support spending, including New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, were the next highest. Minnesota, Illinois and Maryland ranked just above California.

“Not surprisingly, there's strong correlations between the wealth of a community and the arts vibrancy rankings,” Benoit-Bryan said.

Researchers group areas into clusters of peer cities: areas of similar size, demographic characteristics and rankings. San Diego is grouped with Denver, Atlanta, Miami and Houston, all of which fall in the 87th to 94th percentiles for arts vibrancy, according to the study.

Of those cities, only Atlanta improved its status in recent years. The rest, including San Diego, declined.

Near the top, but slipping

San Diego’s for-profit arts sector remains strong, Benoit-Bryan said. But public investment in the arts is waning.

The number of arts and culture organizations per capita across San Diego and its peer cities is consistently declining, she said. In San Diego, the number of employees in the cultural workforce is also falling. That’s possibly because they can’t afford to keep their jobs.

“We see that the compensation levels for the kind of workers in non-profit cultural organizations are also lower than peers and have been declining over the last few years,” she said. “And federal dollars that are flowing into cultural organizations in San Diego are again lower than peers and in decline.”

The University of San Diego study found similar results. Nonprofits of all types are facing financial pressure, she said, with 80% of nonprofit leaders reporting a drop in funding from government foundations, individual donors and corporate sponsors, said Tess Tinkler, director of research for the university’s Nonprofit Institute.

For art nonprofits in particular, employee wages have flattened out. “When we looked at wage gaps for arts organizations they're experiencing just no growth in wages over many years. And that is worse than other nonprofits.”

Adjusting for inflation, arts employees’ wages have not grown over the past 13 years, and have actually dropped in real dollars since 2012, Tinkler said. Meanwhile, they face rising costs for necessities such as gas and housing; San Diego consistently ranks as one of the most expensive home markets in the country.

Healthcare costs are another sticking point for arts employers, said Jessica Hanson York, executive director of the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park

“We are still able to cover the cost of healthcare for our employees, but we are stretched to the maximum to keep up,” she said.

How to turn the tide?

Arts and culture programs might seem to fall into the nice-to-have spending category, but arts advocates say they’re bellwethers for community well-being.

The University of San Diego report cited research showing that involvement with the arts increases social connection, reduces anxiety and depression, and helps with youth development and academic accomplishment.

The university’s surveys found that nearly half of San Diegans said they benefited from arts and culture nonprofits, and three-quarters believe nonprofits play a key role in supporting the arts. Arts advocates also point out that cultural offerings help San Diego maintain its tourist trade, and spur local economic growth.

“When we have a loss of this kind of arts funding, it really does affect the community's quality of life,” Tinkler said.

Some artists say the unpredictable nature of public and philanthropic funding has made them look elsewhere for nontraditional financial resources.

“You might have people who don’t trust nonprofits or that whole world,” said Ramel Wallace, founder and CEO of the organization the Holyfield, which supports storytelling, music and education. “So they’re looking for alternative ways to raise capital.”

Solutions lean toward what he called new economy or social justice financing mechanisms: mutual aid, co-ops or lending circles, in which members contribute to a shared pot of money and then distribute it on a rotating basis.

That system can be used to help fund the cost of art projects, but more importantly he said, it can support day-to-day needs for artists struggling with housing costs, medical bills or other expenses.

JerVae Anthony, a musician, performing artist and painter from South San Diego, said she is creating what she calls a solidarity fund to link artists together for technical, professional and financial support.

“I’m trying to build a program that seeks to use mutual aid and peer support to fill in those gaps, because some of us do require additional support, and it’s really important to make art-making accessible for all folks,” she said.

For instance, she has tapped that network to connect with hosts in other parts of the country, who open their homes to other artists who want to travel and make art in new places.

Sometimes an artist with a particular skill - say Adobe Photoshop - will offer a Zoom training to bring colleagues up to speed on that program. Other times the organization offers basic material support to fellow artists: a month’s rent, a load of groceries or a mobility device.

Paying for it involves a patchwork of grassroots and traditional fundraising, including grant-writing, crowdfunding, and a partnership with a North Carolina church, Anthony said.

“It’s an important skill, and I think networks are going to be how we get through these hard times.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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A windowless warehouse on the outskirts of Davis shelters pieces of California’s forests.

Icy air swirls and fogs around 42,000 pounds of seeds — the past and the future of these trees, frozen in cardboard boxes. It smells like the woods on a snowy day.

“This is like the mother ship of forestry in California right here,” said Stewart McMorrow, staff chief for wildfire resilience at Cal Fire, standing outside the heavy metal door of the state seed bank at Cal Fire’s Lewis A. Moran Reforestation Center in Davis.

Private landowners especially rely on these seeds — some now more than a half-century old — to reforest property destroyed by wildfire.

At the pace California is burning, it’s nowhere near enough.

Climate change and more than a century of overzealous fire suppression are now fueling wildfires so severe that they’re wiping out the very forests that need fire to thrive — leaving iconic landscapes at risk of turning into brush and scrub, permanently.

Over the past quarter century, high-severity wildfires have burned 2.3 million acres of California’s forestland so completely that the trees are unlikely to return on their own — according to a working draft of the state’s new reforestation strategy obtained by CalMatters.

California is counting on these forests to store carbon, protect water supplies, clean the air, and shelter wildlife. By 2071, one recent analysis reports, half of California’s forest area could be gone.

“Reforestation,” said Malcolm North, a scientist with the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, “is pretty damn important.”

Yet to replant even a quarter of the privately owned forestlands in the state, California would need to increase seed bank capacity by roughly 300%, according to Cal Fire — which means more seeds, more people, more space. And that wouldn’t solve the problem on federal land, which accounts for more than half the forests in the state and most of the lands that need replanting.

CalMatters reviewed a working draft of California’s reforestation strategy; the USDA California Climate Hub is developing it with state and federal agencies, the conservation non-profit American Forests, and the Governor’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force.

But both Sacramento and Washington have spent decades letting the money and staff needed to grow back California’s forests wither.

“We need to focus on reforestation as an emergency, as a state,” McMorrow said. “We are slowly losing our forestland, and we’re not catching up.”

Bleeding the federal workforce

Timber harvests once paid for much of the U.S. Forest Service’s efforts to replant trees.

But as new laws tightened endangered species and other public lands protections, logging in national forests declined. Severe wildfires also increased.

The combination devoured the Forest Service’s resources, and people: from 1998 to 2015, non-fire staff tasked with managing National Forest System lands decreased by 39%, according to a 2015 report.

With ever-increasing demands, a 2022 Forest Service document warned, there is a “critical need” to increase the number of staff “substantially dedicated” to reforestation.

Congress and the Biden Administration unstoppered additional money for a reforestation trust fund in 2021, a move championed by the conservation non-profit American Forests. Just a few years later, the Forest Service reported that it had replanted roughly 285,000 acres nationwide — the highest yearly total in more than a quarter century.

But the need still dwarfs action, and federally-directed work is lengthy and intense. Crews must clear dead and dying trees quickly to reduce the danger to people and the chance of reburns, a Forest Service spokesperson said. Finding seeds and growing seedlings can take a year or two, even before planting.

The federal government’s capacity to replant forests eroded away over time, and it will take time to rebuild it, said Solomon Dobrowski, a professor of landscape ecology at the University of Montana. Dobrowski’s research found that the reforestation gap spans millions of acres across the West and is likely to double or even triple in the coming decades.

“You don’t turn that ship around on a dime,” Dobrowski said.

Instead, the Trump administration cut the Forest Service significantly. The agency lost 20% of its staff last year.

“It just makes me cry at night … it’s basically a child swinging a wrecking ball,” said Hugh Safford, a forest and fire ecologist with the UC Davis Environmental Science and Policy Department and a former regional ecologist for the Forest Service. “Morale is down, capacity already was really minimal.”

And California keeps burning.

A widening gap

The loss of forests “is one of the least-known impacts of climate change and megafires,” said wildfire task force director Patrick Wright.

The draft strategy for California obtained by CalMatters comes with no dedicated funding. The goal, Wright said, is to put every agency and organization trying to replant California’s scorched forests on the same page.

The strategy calls for streamlining planning, prioritizing projects tackling critical human safety concerns and ecosystem issues like water supply, and increasing the supply of seeds, seedlings and workers.

It urges land managers to avoid adding more fuel to the fires, and recommends replanting at lower densities and with more natural spacing instead of the classic, closely-packed “pines in lines” grid. Scientists have linked high-density plantings to high-severity fires.

The most startling pieces, though, come from the draft strategy’s look at the current landscape. California would need to scale up reforestation by 35% annually to meet the state’s existing post-fire replanting goals, which start at 280,000 acres per year in 2030. The increase would take “significant funds,” the report said, because reforestation can cost up to $6,400 an acre.

But the current pace is lagging. Statewide, land managers have replanted roughly 254,000 acres of severely burned forest since 2020 — or around 16% of the area stripped of forest cover by high severity fires between 2020 and 2024 alone. The number is just 8% on federal lands, outside of wilderness areas.

Safford said the numbers are actually even more dire: Factoring in both wilderness areas and excluding forests likely to regrow on their own, his recent study reports that the U.S. Forest Service replanted just 1.2% of the agency’s California lands that wildfire denuded between 2016 and 2023.

It wasn’t always like this, said Safford. The Forest Service’s replanting efforts mostly kept pace with wildfires until around 2006.

“And then,” Safford said, “it just falls to shit.”

‘Nowhere near prepared’

For all the vitriol between Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump over the care and raking of California’s forests, state and federal money — and people — often intersect on the landscape.

On California’s end, Cal Fire funds and conducts research, and provides grants for forest restoration on private, state and even federal land. Cal Fire also runs the reforestation center in Davis, where flats of glossy young conifers are gently misted with water in the summer heat.

McMorrow — tall and crisp in his navy Cal Fire uniform — can’t help but dig his hands into the dirt to pull out weeds tangling with the seedlings.

One of the most challenging chokepoints, McMorrow said, is finding the right seeds to grow these seedlings — getting climbers to the right spot, at the right time, to pluck ripe cones from the treetops.

“Believe me, I do it,” said McMorrow, who created a tree-climbing program at Cal Fire. “We are trying to meet the demand that’s in front of us, and it’s crushing.”

Yet the money for Cal Fire’s efforts — cobbled together from the state budget, federal grants and other one-time funds — represents a relatively small and ever-changing fraction of Cal Fire’s multibillion-dollar budget.

The nursery in Davis shut down in the early 2000s, a casualty of across-the-board state budget cuts. Though the seed bank freezer stayed on, the reforestation center didn’t fully reopen until after the Legislature in 2017 tapped a 2012 fee on wood products to bring it back online.

Scaling up and upgrading the facility now carries an estimated $26.2 million price tag; this year’s state budget included about $1.2 million to fund preliminary planning.

Meanwhile, other funding is on the line. California’s climate regulators — chaired by Newsom appointee Lauren Sanchez — voted in May to overhaul a key climate program  in ways that could substantially reduce, or even eliminate, up to $200 million a year for wildfire resilience. Grants for reforestation are among the many competing priorities for this funding.

While the Proposition 4 climate bond includes $1.5 billion for wildfire and forest resilience, state leaders are spending down the bond quickly.

“The truth of the matter is that California is probably, infrastructurally speaking, in a better place than any other western state,” Safford said.

“What that tells you is how piss-poor the capacity is in general in the Western U.S., because California is nowhere near prepared for the scale of this.”

Cone hunting

On the banks of Jenkinson Lake in the Sierra Nevada foothills, Stella Krone and Elyse Wohlenberg wrestled with a slingshot that towered over the two of them. It took their combined strength to slot the bungee into position, then Wohlenberg stepped back.

“All clear?” Krone asked, kneeling in a clearing and pointing the slingshot at a Douglas fir 50 yards away. “Firing!”

Krone, Wohlenberg, and dozens of other hard-hatted people were there, crunching over conifer needles, for Cone Camp — a training program led by American Forests with support from Cal Fire and the Forest Service.

The campers — some forestry professionals, some interested laypeople — peeled off with oversized slingshots and souped-up potato guns to learn how to knock cones loose from tree branches. That’s how they check the cones for ripeness and viability, before sending someone up the tree to collect them for a seed bank.

The problem was, there were hardly any. Last year’s dry cones rattled to the forest floor as Krone and another camper jiggled the rope they’d shot into the canopy.

“So far, not a great cone year,” said Leana Weissberg, American Forests’ California director.

In the clearing, the instructor asked whether the group was ready to try again.

“Let’s go,” Krone said. “We’re cone hunters for a reason.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The Avengers appear set to return to Hall H as Marvel Studios uses Comic-Con International to build hype for the December release of “Avengers: Doomsday” — and chart a path forward as audience interest in superhero films has waned.

That panel on Saturday is the most-anticipated hour of the nation’s biggest pop culture convention, which opens in San Diego on Wednesday evening. Early bird shoppers can snag exclusive collectibles like a $25 “KPop Demon Hunters”-themed Hot Wheels Porsche 911 and $60 “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” customizable Funko figure set.

More than 120,000 people are expected at the four-day expo, which began in 1970 with a gathering of several hundred sci-fi and comics fans and an in-person appearance from Marvel icon Jack Kirby.

What to expect at Comic-Con 2026

Comic-Con has grown to include cosplay contests, autograph booths, obstacle courses, concerts and panels covering everything from video games — new titles feature Wolverine and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — to movie poster art and fencing. (Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden and “Ghosts” actor Asher Grodman will discuss “Hollywood’s Love Affair With Fencing” on Thursday.)

DC Studios, which like Marvel sat out last year’s Comic-Con because the publicity campaign timing wasn’t right, will showcase its HBO “Lanterns” series with a “training headquarters” activation in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter and a Friday panel featuring stars Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler.

Environmental groups are demanding the resignation of the Board of Environmental Safety’s newest member, Rhys Williams, because of his work as a lobbyist for a firm that represents clients that handle toxic materials.

The board decides appeals involving hazardous waste facilities permitted by the Department of Toxic Substances Control. Lawmakers created the board in 2021 to strengthen oversight of the department, increase transparency, and give communities disproportionately burdened by hazardous waste a stronger voice.

Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Williams in January. Until recently Williams served as Newsom’s deputy chief of staff. In a letter addressed to Williams and copied to the board and the department, environmental groups expressed concerns with Williams’ work for a lobbying firm, Axiom Advisors. Axiom’s client list includes Clean Harbors, a hazardous waste management company, and GKN Aerospace, the company at the center of a chemical incident that prompted an evacuation order for thousands of Orange County residents in May.

Williams did not immediately respond to CalMatters’ requests for comment. At the board’s Thursday meeting, Williams did not comment on the letter.

Williams has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and his appointment was within the bounds of the law, experts say.

According to the governor’s office, Williams has been thoroughly vetted, and his work with Axiom is not a conflict of interest because he does not take on clients with matters before the board. Williams has also agreed to recuse himself from matters involving Axiom clients.

“Rhys Williams is an exceptionally qualified public servant with years of experience helping California navigate some of its most complex infrastructure, emergency management, and environmental challenges,” Newsom spokesperson Anthony Martinez said in an email. “His appointment reflects his deep subject matter expertise, professionalism, and longstanding commitment to public service.”

Advocates say his work for the lobbying firm undermines public confidence that he can act impartially to protect communities from environmental harms.

Environmental groups “were alarmed by just the audacity of appointing somebody who is or has been tied to the toxic waste industry,” said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice. “It does not bode well for impartiality or for upholding the stated mission of the Board of Environmental Safety, which is to protect the public from toxics and promote environmental safety, not promote polluter profits.”

Questions about impartiality

According to Williams’ LinkedIn profile and lobbying disclosures on the secretary of state’s Cal-Access website, Axiom Advisors hired Williams in May, four months after his appointment to the board.

Axiom Advisors announced the hire in June on LinkedIn. “This appointment brings something very important to Axiom’s clients,” the post reads. “Rhys’ extensive experience with the agencies that can move projects forward is invaluable to companies looking to do business here.”

The firm’s client list includes GKN Aerospace, which uses the hazardous chemical methyl methacrylate to make cockpit canopies, passenger windows and other transparent aerospace materials; Clean Harbors, a company that oversees one of the state’s two hazardous waste landfills, and the California Building Industry Association, an advocacy group for developers and homebuilders.

As a lobbyist with Axiom, Williams has attended meetings between GKN and legislative staff for Senator Tom Umberg, an Orange County Democrat, who is leading a proposal to hold the company accountable and offer relief for residents, according to a source familiar with the conversations. The Department of Toxic Substances Control does not primarily regulate GKN, an aerospace manufacturer, though it may have an oversight role if the company temporarily stores or transports hazardous waste.

Williams began working for Newsom as chief of staff in the lieutenant governor’s office in 2014, and has held various roles advising Newsom on infrastructure and emergency preparedness since he became governor in 2019.

Williams was earning close to $200,000 as deputy chief of staff in the governor’s office until January 2026, when he left for the board appointment, a part-time role paying $93,135. The governor later also appointed Williams to a position on the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, which comes with a $100 per diem.

Asked in January why Williams was leaving the governor’s office, spokesperson Izzy Gardon wrote the aide had “earned his freedom :)” after more than a decade working for Newsom.

Board faces criticism 

Williams joined the five-member board, which, five years into existence, already faced sharp criticism for its questionable oversight of polluting facilities. In coming months, the board will vote on several appeals related to permits and permit modifications for some of the state’s largest hazardous waste facilities.

The board’s creation followed decades of complaints from communities and environmental advocates, who criticized the Department of Toxic Substances Control for delays in permitting facilities and for failing to protect communities from environmental harm.

The department’s handling of the decades-long Exide lead battery disaster in Los Angeles was one incident that drove reforms. Regulators determined that Exide Technologies was contaminating soil with lead and arsenic near thousands of homes over decades. The battery recycling plant operated with only a temporary permit for more than 30 years. State officials documented more than 100 violations at the plant and continued to allow it to operate.

In 2015, as part of an earlier bankruptcy, Exide agreed to permanently close the Vernon plant and pay $50 million toward cleanup. The company filed for bankruptcy again in 2020, and a federal judge approved a settlement allowing the company to abandon the site altogether – over the objection of state officials – shifting responsibility for the ongoing cleanup to the state.

Critics say the department’s slow permitting processes, and its pattern of permitting facilities with a history of violations has continued.

• Clean Harbors’ permit expired in 2006, but the company continued operating on an administrative extension for 20 years before DTSC renewed the permit last month. 
• Phibro-Tech, a hazardous waste treatment and recycling facility in Santa Fe Springs, operated on a permit that expired in 1996 for nearly 30 years until DTSC issued a renewed permit in 2025. The board will rule on appeals of the permit by the company and by environmental advocates in October. 
• Ecobat Resources, the only lead battery recycling plant west of the Rockies, operated on an administrative extension of its permit for ten years after it expired in 2015. DTSC finally issued a new permit in 2025. The board will rule on various permit appeals for the company in January. 

Phibro-Tech and Ecobat are not Axiom clients.

“The BES was supposed to be our firewall to safeguard communities,” said Matt Holmes, a co-coordinator with the California Environmental Justice Coalition, referring to the Board of Environmental Safety.

Holmes added that although the board has improved dialogue with communities, “we’ve been disappointed that the (board) really hasn’t been the firewall for toxic communities to get equal treatment from the state.” The letter asking for Williams’ resignation, he said, “was a matter of us making it clear what we expect the (board) to be.”

What does the law say?   

Legal experts said it’s neither illegal nor uncommon for state board members to also work as lobbyists. But they can run into trouble if they advocate for companies they also rule on as board members.

There’s no evidence Williams has violated specific conflict-of-interest laws: GKN Aerospace holds no hazardous waste handling or storage permits overseen by DTSC, and it’s unclear he has any connection to Clean Harbors or any other Axiom clients environmental groups have raised questions about.

Still, Williams may run afoul of the more broad common-law conflict-of-interest law, said Frank Zerunyan, a USC professor in government ethics.

“The fact that this person lobbies for a particular interest, does that make the people of California, which relies presumably on this person to be an objective commissioner or a board member for the purpose for which he is appointed, less trusting of California, or less trusting of that organization?” he said. “That is the question.”

For environmental groups, whether Williams ever votes on Clean Harbors, GKN, or other Axiom clients, is beside the point. They argue that the association alone is enough to erode public trust in his ability to rule fairly on appeals.

“For the duration of your tenure with the Board, the public may question whether your statements and activities (or lack thereof) could be consciously or subconsciously influenced by the interest of current Axiom clients, as well as the interests of potential clients Axiom may hope to attract,” the groups wrote in their letter to Williams.

Newsom appoints allies to state boards

Williams is one of more than a dozen of Newsom’s top staffers or close political operatives the governor has appointed to paid and unpaid positions on California’s sprawling collection of state boards and commissions.

Such appointments are commonplace, especially as governors prepare to leave office, and are known as comfortable landing pads for legislative staffers and political aides looking to leave full-time state service. They also give the governor continued influence over policy decisions and high-profile matters.

“It is a time-honored tradition for California governors to appoint high-ranking staff to plum positions as a ‘reward’ for working in high-pressure, 24-7 jobs in the administration,” said Sacramento Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio, who in 2003 received such an appointment to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board from outgoing Gov. Gray Davis.

Maviglio, Davis’ press secretary, spoke generally, saying it makes sense for governors to appoint staffers who are “loyal and battle-tested,” but that sometimes “appointments are made for the sake of qualifying for pension benefits.” Davis’ successor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, vowed to overhaul boards and commissions but later appointed several of his staffers to them.

Rep. Mike Levin, D-Oceanside, said an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy aims to limit congressional oversight and members’ ability to meet with detainees.

The congressman, who represents coastal North County San Diego and parts of southern Orange County, sent a new letter to ICE Acting Director David Venturella on Thursday clarifying his concerns and highlighting “significant mistruths” in Venturella’s defense of the new policy.

“... the new policy will limit the ability for members of Congress to conduct unannounced oversight visits and creates expanded barriers for productive oversight,” Levin wrote in the letter first obtained by KPBS.

Under the ICE policy memo, “Restoring Order and Integrity to Congressional Visits to Detention Facilities,” a member of Congress wishing to meet with detainees must provide two business days of advance notice and proof of a detainee’s consent to the meeting.

Rep. Levin said the 48-hour advance notice requirement negates the point of unannounced oversight visits. If members of Congress are required to provide notice of their intent to speak with a detainee, they are providing notice of the visit itself.

“We have heard in the past that when ICE knows we’re coming, or when Core Civic, who runs (The Otay Mesa detention center), knows we’re coming, that they may try to clean things up,” Rep. Levin told KPBS.

Rep. Levin and 77 other U.S. House representatives sent Venturella a letter on June 11 outlining their concerns with the internal policy.

In that letter, they raised three specific concerns: That detainees would not have access to the required forms, or the ability to submit them in a timely manner; that the 48-hour requirement to meet with detainees contradicts a court ruling confirming members’ ability to conduct unannounced oversight; and that the new policy limits members’ ability to speak broadly with detainees.

“The need for historic levels of access to facilities is a direct product of historic levels of reports regarding the mistreatment of detainees, deaths in custody, inadequate conditions within facilities, and limited or inconsistent resources for detainees,” the members of Congress wrote in their June 11 letter.

Acting Director Venturella responded in a June 29 letter defending the internal policy and rejecting the claims made in the initial letter.

“While ICE is certainly effectuating historic numbers of arrest and removals of illegal aliens from the United States … the agency continues to maintain a broad range of policies, standards, and oversight mechanisms to prevent mistreatment of detainees and detainee deaths, address inadequate facility conditions, and ensure consistent access to resources,” Venturella’s June 29 letter said.

Venturella’s letter said the new policy has “no impact on the ability of members of Congress to conduct unannounced oversight visits” and that the 48-hour requirement has been in place since 2021, under the Biden administration.

But Levin said that’s not true, and that he has spoken with detainees who signed up the day of his previous unannounced visits to speak with him.

“I've spoken with people one on one many times, but in every instance, members of Congress were given the opportunity to speak off the cuff without any pre-planning, with detainees who want to speak with us,” Levin told KPBS.

Acting Director Venturella said in his response letter that the “abuse” of sign-up sheets during unannounced visits was an unnecessary burden for ICE. “ICE has been forced to adjudicate requests by hundreds of detainees to meet with members or staff during a single visit,” Venturella said. “This is abjectly outside the scope of any law enforcement function and an improper use of taxpayer dollars.”

But Levin said detainees may be unable to access the paperwork itself that’s required to provide consent — something he said he saw firsthand when he visited a detention facility.

“They talked about the availability of forms for detainees to be able to contact their members of Congress, when in fact, I know from my own business that those forms were not available, that we had to push, that the law librarian didn't know about them,” Levin said. “We had to push for those forms (to be available).”

This inconsistent access to legal guidance and information, or the forms necessary to request meetings, is just another reason unannounced oversight visits, and the ability to speak to detainees during these visits, are so important, Levin said.

“We have been able to help a number of detainees over the last number of years to figure out how to get through the process, and, in many cases, folks who were wrongly detained were able to return to their families, return to their children,” Levin said. “And I take great pride in the work we do for all of our constituents, people who are here who are contributing positively, who are working, paying taxes, who are, you know, aspiring to be positive and productive members of our society.”

Acting Director Venturella said in his June 29 response letter that the policy “... is consistent with all applicable laws and court orders (and) better balances operational requirements to maintain safety, security, and order of our facilities with supporting legitimate congressional oversight efforts.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to KPBS that it had "supported more congressional facility visits than any year under the Biden-Harris administration" during the 2025 budget year.

"We are not stopping members of congress from meeting with illegal aliens, including many with criminal histories in ICE custody, or touring ICE facilities," DHS said. "These requests must be part of legitimate congressional oversight activities, and far too often they are just for a media act. Without proper support, such visits threaten the safety of ICE personnel, the detainees, and Members of Congress alike.”

Rep. Levin said this new policy is another part of the mass deportation agenda run by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

“In San Diego, one in every six in the service sector is an undocumented immigrant,” Levin said. “So I've asked the people at ICE, what are you going to do? Go to every restaurant, hospital, go to every farm, every business in town, and start rounding people up? And the reality is, if Stephen Miller had his way, that's exactly what would happen.”

Thursday marked another busy opening day at Comic-Con, in and around the San Diego Convention Center.

There were massive building wraps covering nearby businesses, thousands of people dressed in cosplay, and inside the convention center, dozens of exhibits and programs that draw people to the region.

It's a time for people to show off their passions and come together to find community. But all of the fanfare has a price tag.

“We’re dressed up like this because we are excited for ENHYPEN, but especially for 'Twilight,'" said Jamae Sabangan, who was cosplaying as a vampire with her partner, Steven Park. "Jamea’s a huge 'Twilight' fan, so this was kind of a crossroads between the two,” Park said.

The couple flew in from Portland, Oregon, for Comic-Con. “The hotel alone is somewhere around $300 or something a night,” Park said.

Between badges to get in, travel, lodging, cosplay and merchandise, those costs can add up quickly.

“We've budgeted this for a couple years now. We knew this is something we wanted to come to. So we didn't take it lightly. We knew everything was going to be upcharged quite a bit,” Park said.

Andrew and Diana Bentle drove in from Lompoc on the Central Coast for their first Comic-Con.

“I've probably spent $1,000 on materials. And time, probably 100 hours, I would say. It is based off of the first armor set you get in a video game — 'Witcher 3,'” Andrew Bentle said.

He said he handmade about 80% of his cosplay. It is a leather and chainmail outfit equipped with a wooden bow and foam swords.

Diana Bentle said they're turning the Comic-Con trip into an extended vacation. She estimated they're spending an additional $1,000 on badges and lodging.

“It is something we feel is really worth the money,” she said.

Local Jonathan Hilario agrees. The Spring Valley resident said he's already spent thousands just on his elaborate "Five Nights at Freddy’s" cosplay and badge.

“I would say we're currently looking at $4,500, but that could increase if I'm being honest,” Hilario said.

It’s an increase he’s planning for to buy merchandise.

“Anything from Artists' Alley. I love seeing other artists and how they make their stuff. It's genuinely inspiring,” Hilario said.

Michael Yango said he’s been making the trip down to the convention from Los Angeles for years.

“Well, the hotel room is about two grand until Sunday. I want to say I spend about $500 on food the whole time I’m here,” he said.

Yango said if he estimates on the higher side, it's probably a $4,000 affair.

He was waiting in a long line to buy limited-edition Funko bobbleheads with his friend.

“Honestly, if I get everything I want from here, I think it's like 1,000 bucks,” Yango said.

He said it's all worth every penny.

Comic-Con International announced Wednesday that the convention will remain in San Diego through at least 2030. The event has been held here since 1970.

The City of San Diego said the 2026 event is expected to attract more than 135,000 attendees during its four-day convention and generate more than $160 million in regional economic impact.

Comic-Con San Diego 2026 runs through Sunday.

Evacuations have been lifted in Ramona, where a wildfire charred about 350 acres Wednesday afternoon.

By Friday morning, the fire was 95% contained, according to Cal Fire. Firefighters were expected to continue extinguishing hot spots and build further containment throughout the day.

Cal Fire personnel, who brought the fire largely under control less than a day after it ignited, said the newly upgraded Ramona Air Attack Base opened in time to fight the Creelman Fire.

Its reconstructed tarmac and new holding bays were instrumental in the use of the air tankers, which were able to reload with retardant as fast as three minutes before returning to the fire, located southeast of the base.

“The quick turnaround allows us to just fight this fire and constantly put retardant and water on it, while our personnel on the ground are able to cut hand lines and hose lines around it,” said Cal Fire Capt. Josh Cormode. He said about 300 personnel and 16 aircraft fought the blaze.

At one point, two people were trapped by the fire, he added. But having a helicopter nearby helped in their efforts.

“We did have a successful rescue by our new S70-i Firehawk 609 here out of Ramona Air Attack Base,” said Cormode. “They successfully were able to aggressively get in there and pick up these folks and get them out of the hazardous area.”

Over on Oak Springs Drive, flames destroyed a family’s backyard porch. It belonged to Harvey and Carolyn Mendiola. They had it decked with a tiki-themed bar and hand-carved tikis.

“We had my nephew's wedding here,” said Harvey Mendiola.

Carolyn Mendiola added, “We had…renewed our vows here.”

The fire quickly charred the Ramona Mountain that peered over their home and their next-door neighbors’ houses. The flames swept over the Mendiolas’ backyard. It burned trees, trash bins, patio chairs and other belongings.

“Within seconds, not a minute, seconds, that wind picked up,” said Harvey Mendiola. This whole entire mountainside, just, like, ignited. I felt that heat. My eyes burned. It was hard to breathe.”

Cal Fire reported no injuries and one accessory dwelling unit destroyed.

As for the Mendiolas, the couple said they planned to rebuild their porch.

“This is just material,” Harvey Mendiola said. “But most importantly, you know, we have our house, and I want to give thanks to, you know, the fire department for being a big blessing to Ramona.”

She sat down with Public Matters reporter Jake Gotta this week to discuss her prognosis, how she’s handled her medical care while performing her duties on the council and running for Congress, and the importance of access to healthcare.

The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me just a little bit about your prognosis and why you decided to share this information.

Von Wilpert: So in late spring, around the end of April, early May, I received a routine letter in the mail from my health care provider. I'm a sharp patient and the letter said, Marni, it's time for your annual mammogram. And I honestly thought about putting it off, given that I was in the middle of the City Council budget season and a very competitive congressional primary.

But I'm really grateful I didn't because I went in and a few weeks after that, they called me back and said they diagnosed me with early stage breast cancer. Believe me, I was shocked. I had no idea. And it was caught on the mammogram. And ever since, it's been a journey of a lot of doctor's appointments. I've learned that.

But I'm really grateful for the care I received. I had an incredible surgeon who three weeks ago was able to remove the cancer from my body. My lymph nodes are clear. It didn't spread and we caught it so early. I don't need chemo and I am now cancer free and I'm grateful for it, but I'm happy to be able to share that good news story here.

I just realized that not every American has the same access to health care I do, and so not everyone's going to get that good news. And so that's why I decided to become public and talk about this.

And of course, that is good news and congratulations on that. Can you expand just a little more on what your thoughts and feelings were when you first heard this news and what went through your mind?

Von Wilpert: Yes. So I was completely shocked. You know, I went in for a sonogram after my mammogram. And I'm perfectly happy to talk about this because this is women's health and some men get breast cancer, but it's mainly women. You know, 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. And after the mammogram caught a potential tumor, I went in for a sonogram, which has been routine. I've done that many years.

But then the doctor stepped in and turned the lights on, and she held my hand and said, I'm so sorry to tell you this, but I'm pretty sure you have breast cancer.

And my first thought was: I don't have time for this. And I mean, how many women are juggling work and family and kids and maybe aging parents and–and how hard it is to then have to make room in your life to take time off for all of the doctor's appointments you need to do.

I have, you know, radiation oncologist. I have a surgical oncologist, a medical oncologist. I just–the amount of doctor's appointments I had to have also made me realize how lucky I was that I could take time off from work to do this.

Yeah. And, you know, tell me how you manage this while at the same time running for Congress and then also at the same time you're a city council member? I assume that's a lot to juggle. 

Von Wilpert: It was a lot to juggle. I balanced campaign events at night with doctor's appointments in the morning, and then running to City Hall for important budget hearings and votes, with then going back to the doctor, sometimes twice in a day.

And it made me think about how lucky I was, you know, I could afford my mammogram, my biopsies and my surgery without having to worry about whether it would throw me into bankruptcy. And I know that millions of Americans don't face that same security.

And so would you say that this is refocused, some of your energy, or maybe your things that you would be campaigning on when you're running for Congress?

Von Wilpert: It's made it even stronger. You know, I've always been talking about health care since day one.

One of the most beautiful things that happened when I became public about my diagnosis and how my prognosis is excellent and I haven't missed a beat, is the amount of love I received.

I was honestly quite afraid to tell people that I had a cancer diagnosis. I thought they might give up on me or tell me I wasn't good enough anymore, and instead I've been met with nothing but love. I mean, on all sides of the political spectrum, on all sides of this primary, people have come out to say, I'm a breast cancer survivor, or my mom is or my wife is, and how can we help you in the amount of care packages and an ice cream I welcome ice cream.

Deliveries that I've received has really touched my heart because sometimes in our political world, everything can feel so divided. But in a moment of crisis, we as a community came together and I felt so much love and I'm so grateful for that.

Marni, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us and tell your story. 

Von Wilpert: Thank you for allowing me to come in and share my story. And I want everyone to know if you ever get a cancer diagnosis, you are not alone.

Please reach out for help. And please know that there are so many people who want to fight to make sure that your life is saved, just like mine was.

You can’t do Comic-Con (or anything, really) on an empty stomach. KPBS has put together a quick guide to eating at Comic-Con.

1. Bring food from home

“We have food at home.”

You were probably annoyed when your parents said that, but they were right. Bringing lunch from home is still the cheapest and most convenient option.

You can bring food into the San Diego Convention Center in a backpack or purse. Just avoid oversized items like an extra-large pizza.

2. Buy food at the Convention Center

The San Diego Convention Center brings in some outside vendors every year for Comic-Con. For most events, it relies on its in-house kitchens to feed visitors at other conferences throughout the year.

Those restaurants are the same as last year — Lola 55 (Lola Tacos at the Convention Center), Biga Pizza, Auntie Anne’s/Mrs. Fields, Cali Cream and Rita's Ice.

Some vendors have new food items on the menu, and there have also been some price increases.

The full menu is available here.

“With an event like Comic-Con, space is always at a premium,” said Maren Dougherty, San Diego Convention Center executive director of marketing and communications. “I don't know that we would be able to add that many new additional vendors. But I will say that the ones that we have have proven to be very popular, and I think it is nice to have something that is an alternative to the hot dog or the nachos.”

3. Dine in the Gaslamp

If you’re OK with lines and crowds, there are lots of restaurants in the surrounding Gaslamp neighborhood.

Many restaurants and hotels are getting into the nerd spirit. For example, Maryjane’s Diner has a superhero-themed menu, and the Omni San Diego Hotel has a “The Walking Dead”-inspired taco stand.

The Unofficial Comic-Con Blog is keeping tabs on restaurant promotions in the Gaslamp and throughout the city.

4. Venture further into downtown

Going outside the Gaslamp isn’t as convenient, but you might be able to avoid some crowds.

Like their nearby Gaslamp neighbors, some other downtown spots have specials going on. For example, Asa Bakery in East Village has Totoro-shaped sweets, and Landini’s in Little Italy is doing a buy-three-slices-get-one-free deal.

The Unofficial Comic-Con Blog is also on the lookout for those deals.

5. Pick up some grab-and-go from Ralphs

Maybe not as exciting as a Totoro-shaped pastry, but Ralphs at 101 G St. is a tried-and-true option for Comic-Con vets. There are grab-and-go options like sandwiches and salads, plus lots of snacks, of course.

What do you like eating at Comic-Con? Check out the comments on our Instagram video for tips from your fellow attendees.

Man, I'm kind of hungry now …

Comic-Con is arguably the biggest annual event hosted in San Diego. With organizers expecting more than 135,000 attendees in downtown San Diego, the event remains a major economic driver.

UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management finance professor Allan Timmermann and postdoctoral scholar Fabrizio Ghezzi are forecasting $200 million in economic activity citywide.

A model they built uses granular economic modeling to forecast hourly economic activity by neighborhood.

For Comic-Con 2026, Timmermann and Ghezzi predict the Gaslamp will have the strongest economic activity of any neighborhood.

While noon appears to be the peak time for economic activity in many neighborhoods, the Gaslamp is expected to remain economically active throughout the day and night.

Timmermann and Ghezzi predict about $40 million in economic activity for the Gaslamp.

Other areas the model identified were Mission Valley and La Jolla — Mission Valley because of its many hotels, and La Jolla because of its hotels, restaurants and bars.

Ghezzi said the model represents active, frontier research but has not yet been peer-reviewed.

“One good analogy to understand our scope is with medicine,” Ghezzi wrote in an email. “Right now, economic analysis looks at aggregates, which is equivalent to asking, 'How is your overall health?' What we try to do is to go one level deeper and focus on questions such as, 'How is your stomach?' or 'How are your legs?' Being able to answer economic questions at these levels will allow us to better understand and direct economic decisions.”

Meanwhile, San Diego Convention Center officials said Comic-Con’s economic impact is expected to be about the same as last year.

“Comic-Con, as an event, generates more than $160 million in regional impact and more than $3 million in tax revenues to the city of San Diego,” said Maren Dougherty, executive director of marketing and communications for the San Diego Convention Center.

If the convention center is expanded, Dougherty said it could have a greater economic impact on the city.

“If we were to have additional space, we would be able to layer events more so that while one event is actively moving in or moving out, we can host another event during that time,” Dougherty said.

After a lengthy court battle, the city of San Diego can now collect the increased hotel tax revenue from Measure C, which voters passed in 2020.

The measure was originally intended to help infrastructure projects, including a convention center expansion. No expansion efforts have been completed before this year’s Comic-Con.

Over 700 pints of blood were collected on the first day of the 50th Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive at Comic-Con International, kicking off a five-day effort to gather thousands of pints for summer medical needs, it was announced Thursday.

The San Diego Blood Bank's long-running drive returns with a goal to collect 3,500 pints of blood over the five-day period.

The blood drive continues through Saturday, July 25, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and concludes on Sunday, July 26, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The event is located on the first floor in Grand Hall A of the Manchester Grand Hyatt, 1 Market Place, San Diego.

This year's theme is inspired by the movie release of "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," inviting convention-goers and community members to unleash their inner heroes to make a lifesaving impact. All donors will receive a limited-edition Marvel Spider-Man T-shirt and other goodies, while sizes and supplies last.

A Comic-Con badge is not required to participate. To be eligible to donate, individuals must be at least 17 years old, weigh at least 110 pounds and be in general good health. A photo ID including a date of birth is required. Appointments will be honored first, though walk-ins are welcome.

Since 1977, the Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive has been an integral part of the San Diego convention. Over the past 49 years, Comic-Con attendees, exhibitors, professionals, volunteers and staff have donated 108,420 pints of blood, impacting more than 325,000 lives.

For more information or to book an appointment, visit SanDiegoBloodBank.org/Comic-Con.

The grizzly bear on California’s flag went extinct a century ago in the Golden State. Now, a group of tribes and environmentalists is urging the Legislature to study whether it’s possible to bring them back.

Grizzlies once lived across most of California. As many as 10,000 may have roamed before the Gold Rush. They were so prevalent that when California settlers tried to form their own nation, they called it the Bear Flag Republic.

Settlers systematically exterminated the animals, and they were gone by the 1920s, leaving the smaller black bear as the only surviving bear species.

A century and 34.5 million more people later, Inglewood Democratic Sen. Laura Richardson’s Senate Bill 1305 would task the California Department of Fish and Wildlife with creating a “roadmap that evaluates whether, and under what conditions, reintroduction of the grizzly bear is feasible and advisable.”

The measure provides no funding to carry out the study, which could be provided by a future Legislature or an outside group. And even if it were funded and its recommendations acted on, it would be several years and require help from a potentially adversarial federal government before a grizzly bear’s claws ever cut tracks in California.

The proposal’s hypothetical nature has done little to ease tensions over the prospect of some day returning the continent’s second-largest land predator to the nation’s most populous state.

On one side are organizations representing rural communities, hunting organizations and ranchers.

They argue it’s preposterous to consider re-introducing aggressive 800-pound bears to California’s degraded, drought- and fire-prone landscapes. Rural areas, they say, are already overwhelmed with conflicts with mountain lions and growing black bear and wolf populations.

“I just don’t think that our California today is ready for a grizzly bear,” Republican Assemblymember Heather Hadwick told the Assembly wildlife committee last month.

Hadwick’s sprawling rural district in northeastern California has faced years of tensions over predators, especially wolves, killing livestock and frightening small towns.

Environmentalists, tribes support  

At least 40 tribes, environmentalists and animal welfare organizations support the bill, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.

They say bringing back the state’s biggest apex land predator would improve the ecosystem and right an ecological wrong from California’s past.

“I can see the ways in which my homeland has suffered from the loss of iconic species such as the grizzly, and that this loss lingers in our heart and in the attenuation of a millennia-old relationship,” Tiana Williams-Claussen, director of the Yurok Tribe’s wildlife department, told lawmakers last month. The Yurok and Tejon tribes are the bill’s cosponsors.

A 2025 study from a coalition of tribes, environmentalists and university researchers found that the Yurok lands on the north coast as well as the nearby Klamath Mountains and Trinity Alps could be suitable grizzly habitat.

The study also singled out the southern Sierra Nevada including Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia national parks as well as the Transverse mountains that span from San Bernardino County to Santa Barbara County.

It estimated the habitats could sustain between 424 to 1,713 grizzlies, though it recommends bringing in a population of 25 grizzlies to start. Grizzlies can be found in Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington.

Supporters of the proposal say grizzlies would help California’s ecosystem. The giant omnivorous bears till soil as they root up meals, helping restore conifer forests, prairies and oak savannas, easing fire danger.

Grizzlies also serve as a check on overpopulation of prey. Grizzlies could reduce California’s human conflicts with black bears since grizzlies compete for food with their smaller cousins. Grizzlies also kill and eat black bears.

“The loss of grizzlies might have been one of those contributing factors to that (black bear population) overgrowth,” Williams-Claussen said in an interview.

Grizzlies and the urban-rural divide

Supporters’ arguments have appealed to the Democrats who control the Legislature.

Only Republicans have voted against the bill, which is pending before the Assembly Appropriations Committee when the Legislature returns Aug. 3.

Richardson didn’t return an interview request for this story. The measure’s Democratic coauthors are lawmakers from Southern California representing predominantly urban districts.

This spring, one of the coauthors, Sen. Henry Stern, told the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee that a mountain lion recently attacked one of his neighbors, so he understands rural concerns about predators.

Even so, learning to coexist with them is just part of living in a beautiful state filled with wildlife, Stern said.

“We want to live in a California where — that risk — there’s some beauty in it,” said Stern, who represents the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles. “To have that element in our lives, as opposed to just sterilizing our landscapes and our nature so that nothing else could ever be a risk … I think it makes us more human to have wildness in our lives.”

Elizabeth Washoe, a Native American from Modoc County, hears that kind of talk from urban residents and rolls her eyes.

“There’s nothing I would love more than to see grizzly bears on the beach at Santa Barbara chasing rich people,” she said.

But she said that would be cruel — to the bears.

Like many in California, Washoe’s people still pay homage to grizzlies through ceremonial bear dances, but she said it’s not “ethically right to bring them back.”

She hopes lawmakers consider what life would be like for the grizzlies they’d have captured and brought to California, where they would face a landscape radically different and eight times more populated than when the bears last lived here.

“The bears don’t have any say in it,” Washoe said. “Where they’re at, they’re living a pretty good life, and we’d take them and put them here in a landscape that is so dramatically changed from what it was the last time that the bears were truly living a good life here … I understand the idea of it, but to me it feels egotistical.”

State wildlife officials wary

The California agency that would be responsible for studying grizzly bear reintroduction does not appear eager to take it on.

The Department Fish and Wildlife, which hasn’t taken an official position on the legislation, does not comment on pending bills, spokesperson Peter Tira told CalMatters this week. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office also declined to comment.

But there’s no indication the department’s position on grizzlies has changed since a former spokesperson told a reporter in 2023 that wildlife officials can barely keep up with existing predator conflicts.

“Bringing another predator into the state that we would have to manage and come up with some program to figure out what happens when the grizzly attacks a human or kills livestock does not seem feasible for us,” then-spokesperson Jordan Traverso told the Alta Journal.

The department is chronically underfunded and understaffed. A legislative analysis for this year’s bill notes that Fish and Wildlife has enough cash and staff to complete just 38% of its existing duties. The department “would be unable to absorb the demand this roadmap would have on staff time and resources” according to the analysis.

David Bess, who recently retired as its top law enforcement officer overseeing California’s game wardens, said the department is “drowning in work,” much of it trying to manage conflicts with predators already on the landscape.

“I just don’t see where the department even has the capacity to do it,” Bess said.

Trump’s grizzly proposal

Now, President Donald Trump’s administration has added a new wrinkle to the debate.

Earlier this month, the administration issued a proposed rule change that seeks to return management of grizzlies to states, despite the bears being protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Environmentalists fear Trump’s proposal would allow conservative states to begin killing grizzlies to appease ranchers and big game hunters.

The proposed federal rule wouldn’t impact California’s grizzly proposal, since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would be in charge of any reintroduction program, said Andrea Zaccardi, carnivore conservation legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, which supports Richardson’s legislation.

But having the bears in environmentally friendly states such as California could prove helpful if other states begin aggressively killing them off, she said.

“Hopefully, they would be managed more responsibly there,” said Zaccardi, whose organization has unsuccessfully petitioned the feds to return grizzly bears to California.

The American ideal of a public library was founded on the spirit of inclusion for all people. This month, the San Diego Public Library system celebrates its 144th anniversary, providing free access to community resources and, of course, millions of books.

To mark the occasion, the library’s annual Comic-Con-themed library card celebrates that spirit of inclusion — with space aliens.

This year's card was designed by Keithan Jones, founder of KID Comics and the annual Black Com!x Day. He said he wanted to honor the library's importance.

"What I tried to do with this design is give a feeling of everyone is welcome to the library," Jones said. “So I figure, let me put an alien family from another world going to the San Diego Library."

The card is colorful and fun, cartoonish but recognizably San Diego. Two kids and an adult hold hands as they approach the San Diego Central Library's iconic dome, pointing and smiling excitedly.

But the family happens to be blue, with antennae and bright red space boots.

"They're not from Earth, but all the same, they're welcome to the library — being the bigger message that everyone is welcome to the library without discrimination."

Each year, Comic-Con International and the San Diego Public Library partner with a local artist to create a commemorative library card and keychain tag. Past artists include Charles Glaubitz, Rachel Murray, ToshWerks, John Jennings, Sarah Wilkinson, Thomas Vineberg, Attiba Royster and Vince Alvendia.

Jones, a comics artist and leader in the local community and beyond, began creating his own comics as a child in 1982. He remembers always drawing, but said the library was where his artistic journey and education truly began.

"Now I have to reveal my age," Jones quipped. "Because the library was instrumental for me because obviously back in the '80s when I was a kid, there was no internet, no Google or anything like that. So I had to go to the library."

He recalled surrounding himself with library books and biographies of some of his favorite artists, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

"I was a weird kid. I really wanted to get better at art and I didn't have a lot of money. So, hey, let me go to the library and look at all these art books, pick all these books and sit on the floor and just skim through all of these art books all day long at the library, by myself," Jones said. "Just absorb all that stuff."

Those sessions at the library kicked off a journey of self-discovery and inspired his approach to storytelling through comics and art, he said.

"Thanks to the library because all of that information was there, free of charge," he said.

Jones also believes libraries will endure.

"I really feel that people are going to start gravitating back toward the basics, like the authenticity and physical media. Like books," he said.

Especially in an age of artificial intelligence and digital everything, everywhere, Jones said people will find libraries — and the books within them — more relevant than ever.

"You don't need a subscription model. You don't need to plug it into the wall, keep the thing on. Just put it in your hands and go to town, you know?"

Extreme heat is defined as temperatures that are much hotter and/or more humid than average for a particular location and the time of year.

It’s now the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S., according to the National Weather Service. And in the Southwestern corner of the country, San Diego County is no stranger to extreme heat. The analysis of the county’s CAP said heat is the most prevalent climate risk in San Diego — ahead of flooding or wildfire.

“We see more days above certain thresholds each year. We see longer duration of heat waves, we see warmer nighttime temperatures, which is really important for health impacts,” said Scripps Institution of Oceanography economist Tom Corringham. “If the temperatures are hot at night or humid at night, there's less time for the body to recover.”

His research focuses on understanding the economic impacts of climate change and extreme weather events.

Corringham said the largest impacts of extreme heat are increased emergency services and health care visits due to heat illness. The major impacts also include increased energy demand and costs as people try to cool down businesses and homes with air conditioning.

“Extreme heat tends to affect our more vulnerable members of our communities — older people, children, folks with pre-existing conditions tend to be hit hardest,” he said.

Then there are the trickle-down costs of extreme heat. Those include impacts on worker safety and productivity, impacts on agriculture, infrastructure and other businesses.

“When it comes to something like heat, it's invisible. It's not something that is easy to quantify, that is easy to measure. But we know it has an impact, and it affects all of us in a quiet way,” Corringham said.

School impacts

Extreme heat has significant impacts on kids.

“School performance tends to go down with extreme temperatures, especially in classrooms that don't have air conditioning or a way of cooling the space,” Corringham said.

Dr. Vi Nguyen is a full-time pediatrician in Otay Mesa. She’s also co-chair of San Diego’s American Academy of Pediatrics Climate Change and Health Committee.

Nguyen said she is treating more patients due to heat illness in recent years.

“As a community pediatrician, I see more kids come in for heat-related illnesses, whether that be dizziness and feeling dehydrated, but also just thermal burns,” Nguyen said.

The impacts at schools can be deadly too. A young boy died in Riverside County at a Lake Elsinore middle school, prompting statewide policy change.

“In August of 2023, Yahushua Robinson, a 12-year-old, and his entire middle school class was made to do PE during an excessive heat week. He unfortunately collapsed and died,” said family advocate Christina Christopher Laster.

Beginning July 1 of this year, Senate Bill 1248 took effect. It's a result of Robinson’s death. It mandates all public and charter schools to have a written, enforceable weather safety policy to protect students from heat-related risks.

San Diego County Office of Education data show five school districts in the region begin the calendar school year this month.

Sticker shock

According to a 2024 California Department of Insurance report, seven major heat events between 2013 and 2022 caused an estimated $7.7 billion overall in damages and losses across the state.

The events led to nearly 460 premature deaths, more than 5,000 hospitalizations, roughly 10,600 emergency department visits and more than 138,000 outpatient visits, according to the report.

The total social welfare losses associated with premature death from the extreme heat events range from $77 million to $2.2 billion per event.

That doesn't include the out-of-pocket expenses that patients are responsible for in nonfatal medical visits. Those numbers add up to more than $47.5 million across all extreme heat events in the outpatient setting alone.

The extreme heat waves also led to an estimated $580 million in combined damages across the seven events due to power outages. Three of the events impacted San Diego County.

The breakdown

As a general rule of thumb, temperatures are higher further inland. And communities with less access to air conditioning experience more hospitalizations from extreme heat. But this doesn't affect everyone equally.

“Just having air conditioning alone isn't enough. A lot of people, it's reported that they have air conditioning, but chose not to use it during these heat events just to save money, and that can be dangerous as well,” Corringham said.

The county report said the health and financial costs of extreme heat are more burdensome for low-income communities, people of color and people experiencing homelessness. That's because families in these households are generally less able to afford air conditioning and operating expenses, and/or they tend to live in hotter areas.

Additionally, it’s estimated that there are 220,000 San Diegans employed in heat-exposed industries, like construction, manufacturing, transportation and agriculture. Each time there’s an extreme heat day, experts said there are at least 41 minutes of lost work time for people in those industries.

Extreme heat affects more than people; it takes a toll on infrastructure too.

“There are costs to transportation networks. Rail can buckle, there can be damage to our road networks, and electric substations can be damaged,” Corringham said.

By the numbers

On average, 194 heat-related injuries and illnesses send people to the emergency room in the county every year.

New census data show nearly 26% of San Diego County homes don't have air-conditioning, which can lead to negative health outcomes.

The cost of air conditioning can vary greatly depending upon the size of a home and whether the goal is to cool a single room or the whole space. Some window and portable units cost a few hundred dollars. But getting full home, central air conditioning can cost from the low thousands to over $20,000 if there’s no existing ductwork.

Then there are the monthly costs of running the units. The smaller room-specific window and portable units may cost less than $100 per month if used wisely. Central AC in an inland community could easily push into the mid-hundreds of dollars per month for a full house.

“At the household level, folks typically spend a little under $200 a month on electricity. That can go up 10%-20% during a heatwave. So it does affect people's pocketbook(s)," Corringham said. “For people that can’t afford air conditioning, I mean that's the real danger zone.”

What can be done

At the public level:

Urban heat islands are hotter than normal areas with dense concentrations of pavement, buildings, and other infrastructure. Planting and providing tree canopy is one of the most effective methods to provide some relief.

“In highly developed areas, temperatures are even higher than in more rural areas. So if you're able to increase the urban forest, the urban tree canopy, that also brings temperatures down,” Corringham said.

Providing shade structures at places like bus stops also helps provide some relief, Corringham said. Some cities are also installing “cool pavements,” which are specially designed or treated surfaces that reflect more sunlight and absorb less heat than traditional paving materials.

San Diego's Climate Action Plan said the city aims to install the cool pavements in parking lots and in the public right-of-way.

At the personal level:

There are also now ways to track who in the county faces the most heat risk and why that is with the new San Diego Heat Risk Explorer.

Knowledge is power! Familiarize yourself with the tool to understand your neighborhood and other places in the county.

In San Diego County, there are nearly 80 Cool Zone locations, at places like libraries and senior centers, where residents can cool off in air-conditioned spaces for free. People who need a free ride to the site can call 211.

How are locals adapting:

Those eligible can take advantage of weatherization programs for low-income households. Those are government and utility-funded initiatives that provide free or low-cost energy-efficiency upgrades to homes.

As for people considering a roof replacement sometime soon, Corringham said to consider installing a “cool roof,” which helps reflect the sun's rays. Other ways to improve energy efficiency include adding better insulation, energy-efficient windows, and solar panels for those trying to cut down on their long-term energy costs.

“At the personal level, I think the most important things are: stay hydrated, avoid hard labor or excessive effort during the hottest parts of the day, don't leave children or pets in a car, and use the air conditioning if you have it, or a fan,” Corringham said. “Keep the blinds closed during the day.”

When it comes to air conditioning, it can be expensive. For those who aren’t able to afford central AC, Corringham said there are benefits to getting a smaller unit for a single room.

“If you don't have air conditioning, you don't have central HVAC, but you're able to put in a unit for a single room, for your bedroom for example to cool things down at night — fantastic adaptation. I would certainly recommend doing that if it's possible,” he said.

For those without air conditioning in any form, or who can't afford to use it, a heat researcher offered these general tips to NPR:

• Carry a water bottle and drink plenty of fluids. It doesn't have to be just water.
• Cool off with a cold shower or by splashing water on your face and hands.
• Cover your head or neck with a white wet towel.
• Avoid going outside during the hottest parts of the day.

The County of San Diego said to watch out for signs of heat exhaustion, including: paleness, dizziness, headache, tiredness, weakness, muscle cramps, excessive sweating, nausea or vomiting and fainting.

For people feeling those symptoms, it said to move to a cool place; loosen your clothes; put cool, wet clothes on your body or take a cool bath, and to sip water. The county said to get medical help right away if you are vomiting, your symptoms get worse or last longer than an hour.

It also says to check in on neighbors, family, or friends who are at increased risk, especially if they live alone.

What's next?

Corringham said the entire world is feeling the effects of global warming. He said some in San Diego County are lucky they have a beachfront location. But much like how extreme heat affects neighborhoods and people differently, not everyone is so fortunate to access the Pacific Ocean.

“The ocean modulates the temperature to some extent, at least in the coastal parts of San Diego. We also have the inland valleys and inland deserts which can get very hot,” he said.

Corringham also said extreme heat doesn’t exist in a bubble.

“Extreme heat is one of the primary drivers of wildfire and drought. And the cost of wildfire and drought are very high and very meaningful in California,” he said.

While the climate is changing and there are ways we can adapt, he said ultimately “Intervention number one is moving away from fossil fuels and towards a green economy.”

The Lemon Grove City Council Tuesday approved new tenant protections that will make it harder for landlords to evict people without cause.

Specifically, the new ordinance more clearly defines when landlords can, or cannot, issue evictions for renovations that are considered a “substantial remodel.” These no-fault evictions have been a point of tension among landlords and tenant advocates across the county.

Mayor Alysson Snow said the city ordinance addresses ambiguity in state law regarding substantial remodels to properties. Snow and other critics said loopholes in the law have allowed corporate landlords to evict tenants, make renovations and then increase the rent.

“This is so much more (a) cost-effective approach to go ahead and just say we're going to make the rules tighter to tighten up those loopholes, to make it difficult for people to mess with our community,” Snow said.

The council first discussed a permanent ordinance in February, but didn’t have the necessary votes to draft it and pass it. So, the council passed a temporary ordinance and began soliciting community feedback.

Councilmember Yadira Altamirano was the sole dissenting vote at Tuesday’s meeting. Altamirano wanted to stick with laws already on the books.

“My concern is that additional tenant protection ordinances will eliminate organically affordable housing,” Altamirano.

Lemon Grove’s ordinance clearly states that "cosmetic improvements alone" do not constitute a “substantial remodel.”

Those improvements include, but are not limited to: "painting, decorating, flooring replacement, counter replacement, window or door replacement, removal of interior wall coverings solely for the installation of insulation and minor repairs."

Lemon Grove is following other San Diego County cities — including Chula Vista, San Diego and Imperial Beach — that have put more restrictions on no-fault evictions for substantial remodels or renovations.

The majority of public speakers at Tuesday’s meeting spoke in favor of the ordinance. Among them was Victoria Couch.

“To me, it just feels very obvious that our City Council has a duty to enact local ordinances that address this loophole,” Couch said in an interview with KPBS. “In terms of the council decision, I am glad that we now have a permanent ordinance in place to address this loophole.”

Another provision in the ordinance requires that landlords provide notices to renters about state and local tenant protections at the beginning and end of leases. The city will also develop a webpage to educate the public on the new tenant protections ordinance, and the council directed staff to explore collecting data on eviction notices in the city.

While councilmembers approved the new permanent ordinance, there weren’t the necessary votes to extend the temporary ordinance to cover the time period before the permanent ordinance goes into effect.

The permanent ordinance is scheduled for a final vote on Aug. 21. If the council approves it, the law would go into effect Sept. 20.

This means the city won’t have a local ordinance for nearly two months between August and September, which concerns Lemon Grove resident Joy Banks.

“I'm here because these ordinances are important … I don't like that there's a gap of time because people fall between the cracks so easily,” Banks said. “I've fallen between the cracks before.”

Looking at the stretch of Normal Street between University and Lincoln Avenue in Hillcrest on Wednesday still requires a bit of imagination for what it will look like when the Pride Promenade is completed.

It began as part of the Uptown Community Plan back in 1988. Now, 38 years later, the Pride Promenade is just months away from being finished.

Construction began in February of 2025 after Hillcrest Business Association Executive Director Ben Nicholls said some tough questions were answered.

“How do you build a public space with no land, no money, right? You’ve got a lot of will,” said Nicholls before leading a media preview tour of the site.

Nicholls said the will to get the Promenade done led to a unique private and public partnership, which brought the city, SANDAG and the Hillcrest business community together to fund the nearly $30 million project.

“The community and the city have sort of cobbled together this patchwork that brings a whole host of interests together that solve a lot of problems,” Nicholls said.

Many of those problems were discovered after construction began, like aging infrastructure underground.

Brittany Bailey works in Mayor Todd Gloria’s office, managing projects like the Promenade. She said crews are correcting old underground piping that didn’t connect storm drains under University Avenue to those under Normal Street. Bailey said that should solve chronic flooding problems at the site.

The underground improvements along the Promenade are now complete. The work on the adjacent portion of the storm drain system under University Avenue is still underway.

"People will say 'Yeah, the construction’s a headache,'" said Nicholls, who urged patience. "We’ve got this beautiful thing coming, so people see the light at the end of the tunnel. They see what’s coming and they’re excited about it.”

Visible features of the Promenade include a bike lane painted in Pride rainbow colors that will link existing bike lanes on University to lanes on Howard Street. More trees have gone in, bringing the total number to about 100.

There are shade structures, new lighting, sound systems throughout the promenade and a children’s playground; all in all, what Nicholls called a welcoming space for the neighborhood, and for anyone who wants the Hillcrest vibe.

“It’s kind of like if you were to take the essence of Hillcrest, what is Hillcrest — and distill it into a public plaza, this is my space. I feel safe here, I feel comfortable here. I feel energized to be here. That’s what we’re trying to create, that energy and that tone when you come here,” Nicholls said.

Officials admit the project is behind its original schedule. But they said people will see “that energy and that tone” when the Pride Promenade is complete by the end of this year.

The nearby pipe replacement is not scheduled to be complete until the end of 2027.

The Chula Vista City Council has abandoned a last-minute sprint to place a sweeping government overhaul on the November ballot that would have given councilmembers major pay raises and made them eligible for a third term.

With an early August deadline fast approaching, the council was moving swiftly to make these and other changes to the city charter. Also included were new transparency measures, like stricter disclosure rules for public contractors.

But on Tuesday, the council faced intense pushback from critics — among them, several city commissioners, a large number of residents and the city’s own Board of Ethics.

City leaders, they argued, were rushing to make major changes that could reshape San Diego County’s second-largest city for decades to come.

Former Chula Vista mayor Mary Salas called the salary increases an “outrageous proposal.” In a letter to the City Council, she said the city should have shared the amendment with the Charter Review Commission for review and asked residents for more feedback.

“To do this at a time when many in our community are struggling to make ends meet is at best tone deaf or at worst arrogance,” Salas wrote.

Ultimately, the council voted 4-1 to stop amendments from moving forward. Instead, the council sent the measure to the city’s Charter Review Commission for further analysis. Deputy Mayor Cesar Fernandez was the lone vote against.

The council also voted 4-1 to entirely scrap the proposed pay raises, which would have boosted councilmember salaries from $65,000 to $110,000. The salary for the mayor, who also sits on the council, would have gone from $161,000 to $171,000 under the proposal.

Councilmember Michael Inzunza voted against that decision.

Chula Vista Mayor John McCann joined critics at Tuesday’s meeting in forcefully opposing the charter amendments.

He pointed out that the city’s Charter Review Commission also had not gotten a chance to review the proposed changes. "There was no meaningful community outreach," McCann said. "The very group created to review charter changes did not have the opportunity to do its job.”

McCann’s salary as mayor is nearly $100,000 more than his fellow councilmembers. In addition to his current term as mayor, he has served a total of four terms on the City Council since 2002.

‘A broad and consequential measure’

Chula Vista’s charter is essentially the city’s constitution. It is the job of the Charter Review Commission to assess potential changes and make recommendations.

In this case, though, the city has moved at lightning speed.

The city unveiled the proposed amendments for the first time on July 14, just a week before Tuesday’s vote on whether to move it ahead for placement on the November ballot.

In addition to the pay raises, the measure would have also allowed the five councilmembers and the city attorney to run for a third term. The city charter currently limits elected officials to two consecutive terms.

The amendments also included a set of other provisions aimed at making the city government more transparent.

One provision would create a registry of lobbyists who get paid to try and influence government decisions in Chula Vista. Another would create new disclosure rules for contractors who receive public funds.

A third would have created two new Council committees focused on the city’s budget and government accountability.

A fourth would have created a new seven-member Ethics Commission. The commission would be appointed by the City Council, and would have the power to subpoena records and witnesses in order to investigate violations of the city’s rules on campaign spending, lobbying and gifts.

Chula Vista already has a similar body called the Board of Ethics. That board is also City Council-appointed and receives and initiates ethics complaints, but does not have subpoena power.

‘They are not bargaining chips’

The charter amendment was drafted by Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 89, an influential local construction workers’ union.

The union sent the amendment to the city in June. Last week, LIUNA lobbyist Kelvin Barrios argued the raises would make running for City Council more realistic for working-class Chula Vistans and encourage competition in elections.

“Chula Vistans should be able to run for City Council and not have to have $500,000 savings or their house paid off,” he told the City Council last week.

Barrios added that they wanted to improve government transparency and strengthen the city’s ethics investigations.

But that combination didn’t sit well with many residents who spoke on Tuesday.

Some critics drew comparisons to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ similar push to make themselves eligible for third terms. Others raised questions about LIUNA’s role in drafting major changes to the city’s constitution while simultaneously supporting some councilmembers’ campaigns.

Chula Vista resident Viridiana Word argued that ethics reforms and transparency measures should not be incentives attached to compensation packages.

“They are not bargaining chips to make other proposals more palatable,” she said.

Bobby Ray Salas, who chairs the city’s current Board of Ethics, said the Board had convened for a special meeting on Monday, just to discuss the proposed ballot measure.

Salas pointed out that the city had done little to inform the public about the amendments and give them a chance to weigh in.

“In the Board’s view, this process is inconsistent with a degree of public participation and institutional review that should accompany a comprehensive charter amendment,” he said.

Delia Dominguez Cervantes, a trustee with the Chula Vista Elementary School District, said she was open to discussing some of the changes in the future.

“I'm not saying — and I'm sure most people here are not saying — that many things you have in these charter changes might be a good thing,” Cervantes said. “What’s insulting to us is how you tried to get it done.”

Councilmembers abandon measure

When the City Council met to discuss the charter amendments on July 14, they seemed open to the sweeping changes.

Fernandez said he saw the case for granting councilmembers third terms and converting them into full-time roles with higher salaries, arguing that the changes would open doors for working-class residents and make it easier for them to accomplish long-term goals.

Councilmember Carolina Chavez asked about including two other unions representing city employees and County of San Diego employees.

Only McCann came out against the amendments.

At that meeting last week, McCann tried to send the changes back to the Charter Review Commission and the city’s Board of Ethics. Separately, he also tried to eliminate the pay raises for Councilmembers. Both motions failed.

This week, though, the discussion took a different turn.

McCann slammed the amendments and again tried to strip the salary increases from the measure. But this time, the other four Councilmembers came out against the pay raises too.

Chavez said she supported removing every provision related to the raises, stating that she never asked for a raise.

Fernandez said he stood by his argument that the current salary made it harder for working-class people to run for office. But he backed McCann’s motion to remove the raises from the measure.

Councilmember Inzunza said he was open to making their roles full-time and granting salary increases in the future. But he said he was “adamantly” against any pay raise without a corresponding increase in responsibilities.

Inzunza proposed sending the amendments back to the Charter Review Commission for analysis — like McCann had the previous week.

This time, the council approved both motions.

A wildfire that burned 347 acres near Ramona Mountain prompted evacuations Wednesday, but all evacuation orders and warnings have since been lifted as of 10:02 a.m., according to the San Diego Sheriff's Department . Containment is now at 60%.

Creelman Fire

The blaze, dubbed the Creelman Fire, erupted for unknown reasons shortly before 3 p.m. Wednesday off Creelman Lane in Ramona, south of Hanson Lane and just west of Simon County Preserve, according to Cal Fire.

The flames had blackened roughly 347 acres. "It's burning at a dangerous rate of speed and is impacting San Diego Country Estates," Cal Fire shared on X.

San Diego Sheriff's Office has advised Ramona residents to be aware of increased law enforcement.

The blaze, which was growing at a "critical" rate, led to closures of San Vicente Road at Wildcat Canyon Road and Vista Ramona Road at Old Julian Highway, according to Cal Fire.

Evacuations

All evacuation orders and warnings have been lifted, and crews will continue to mitigate hazards throughout the day.

“Right now, we’ve made incredible progress with this collaboration. It just speaks to the collaborative nature and all of the assets to protect people because this is close to where people live,” said Candace Hadley, a public information officer from the San Diego Fire Department.