When you think about where a guitar comes from ... you might not think of elephant poop.

"We use ebony for the fingerboard and the bridge on nearly every guitar that we make. And it's a wood that's been around for since the pharaohs," said Bob Taylor, founder and CEO of Taylor Guitars.

The company was founded in 1974, and is still headquartered in El Cajon.

Ebony is a hardwood prized in guitar making for its tone, damping and durability. The wood is an essential component of most acoustic guitars. It's also traditionally jet black.

On the factory floor in El Cajon, tour guide Nick Kennedy spreads out an array of guitar necks, adorned with ebony fingerboards.

"So it used to be that people would only buy ebony for musical instruments if it was as close to jet black as possible. The darker the better, right?" Kennedy said.

In 2011, Bob Taylor bought an ebony sawmill in Cameroon. It was a risky move — the mill was in serious disrepair. But what really shocked Taylor was that more than half the ebony trees cut down were wasted because the wood couldn't be sold.

"We were just having a little meeting, and I said, 'Well, how's it going?' 'Oh, not so good, sir.' 'How come?' 'Well, because it's really hard to get the high quality wood.'"

Taylor learned that throughout the industry, black wood was considered high quality. Markets had always demanded black wood.

And conventional logging methods meant loggers didn’t know if the ebony is black until they cut down the tree.

Taylor asked the millworkers how much of the wood they logged wasn't black — the so-called "high-quality" ebony. They told him anywhere from six to eight out of 10 trees were considered unsellable. Loggers would cut down the tree, determine it can't be sold, then just leave it in the forest.

  The ebony that's not black has a striped, variegated color pattern. It's actually beautiful — and otherwise identical to the black wood.

"It's all the same wood," Kennedy said. "The color of the ebony doesn't change how the instrument sounds or its structural durability."

So Taylor decided to do something radical: put that discarded wood on its nicest guitars. People kept buying them, and other guitar makers followed suit.

This simple change alone meant a more efficient ebony supply and a step toward reducing forest waste. But Taylor didn't stop there. He joined forces with UCLA biologist Tom Smith to support forest conservation and research.

The Congo Basin Institute was UCLA's first overseas affiliate, supporting scientific research and training in Africa. Smith and Taylor collaborated on a new project with the CBI to promote a sustainable ebony industry, biodiversity and reforestation in the region. The Ebony Project launched critical research alongside economic and community development.

It all started with trees.

"We wanted to plant some trees. The goal at first, he said, 'Give me a half a million dollars, and we'll plant 15,000 trees over the next two years, and we'll give you back the research,'" Taylor recalled of his early collaboration with Smith. "And it just never stopped, and that money wasn't enough. And, you know, it was harder than you might think."

They soon found that planting trees isn't as simple as throwing seeds in the ground. They needed to understand more about how the whole ecosystem supports ebony forest growth.

Eventually, they had a breakthrough. One key, they found, is elephants.

Ebony seeds that pass through an elephant's digestive system are more likely to thrive.

"It's the main seed disperser. So imagine it's a big fruit. An ebony tree is in the persimmon family. And they're sweet. So elephants eat these big things. They walk along and they poop it out. And when we find pieces of their dung out in the forest, that tree sprouts and lives because it's protected from the predators. The rats and the squirrels and the little things aren't digging through the elephant dung to get to that seed. But if it's just laying on the ground, they can," Taylor said. "So that seed has everything in it that it needs to become an ebony tree, and now it's protected by elephant dung."

As of 2025, the project had planted nearly 50,000 ebony trees — and helped local villages manage their own forests.

The effort also includes planting tens of thousands of fruit trees, like bush mango and avocado. This diversity improves forest soil health and provides food for local communities — all because of a piece of wood on a guitar.

For Taylor Guitars, ebony and elephant conservation fits right in with the company's longstanding initiatives to make guitar manufacturing more sustainable.

"An elephant and ebony go together like ebony and ivory. These are all things we want to save, the elephant, the forest, ebony, guitars, music," Taylor said. "I always like to just say we just want to live in the reality of the forest."

San Diego County voters have until 8 p.m. to cast the final ballots of the 2026 election Tuesday, and then voting officials who have had a highly unusual last few weeks will do the routine work of counting them all. It was only one week ago that the county refused a Trump administration demand to turn over private information on 1,709 local voters and to set their ballots aside.

The U.S. Department of Justice has said repeatedly that those voters are among 20,000 likely noncitizens in the state of California. The county has countered that the federal government’s list is unreliable and that following its demand would break the law.

Facing a demand and a lawsuit, California responded the same way. San Diego County is not part of that lawsuit, but the 1,709 names came from the same statewide list at issue in the suit.

The Justice Department took its case to the U.S. Supreme Court Monday following a series of federal court rulings in California’s favor. The court rejected that appeal within hours.

Here’s everything you should know as Americans head to the polls in the midterm election.

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

Californians are choosing their next governor: a longtime liberal politician pitching his government experience or a Republican first-time candidate vowing to dramatically upend Democratic power structures.

The race between Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom is one of the most consequential on the ballot. Polls for months have put Becerra ahead of Hilton by double digits, a predictable lead in a state with nearly twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans and where a Republican hasn’t won a statewide office in nearly two decades.

Hilton, a former Fox News host who has urged voters to end “16 years of one-party rule,” is banking on frustration with the state’s high cost of living to drive undecided voters, independents and even some Democrats to support a Republican for a change.

He represents the best hope in years for a GOP victory. He has raised more than $33 million to Becerra’s $38 million and is running hard on a series of ambitious promises to lower costs by slashing regulations and taxes. He portrayed Becerra as the embodiment of the California political status quo, someone who would make decisions that benefit influential special interest groups like organized labor.

“It’s the people against the machine,” he said of his campaign in a virtual town hall last week.

His message of change, promises to slash gas prices and frequent invocations of Californians moving out-of-state resonated with Brad Gerig, who voted in Roseville last week. It was the first time Gerig, 34, could recall voting for a Republican, he said. The EMT and firefighter said he wants to be able to afford to stay and raise a family in California, so he was willing to “try something different.”

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Gerig said. “I think for everybody living in this area there’s an inherent angst for a little bit better. There’s no reason it should be as expensive as it is.”

But Hilton has struggled to rid himself of the baggage from President Donald Trump’s endorsement in a state Trump lost by 20 percentage points in 2024.

Becerra has reminded voters of Hilton’s link to Trump at every turn, and cast himself as a fighter who would, like Newsom, challenge decisions in Washington such as Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign.

He has dismissed Hilton as unserious and primarily campaigned on his longtime experience representing Los Angeles in Congress and serving as state attorney general and as U.S. health secretary. Those roles have earned him a wide swath of influential liberal allies.

“Xavier Becerra has stood with us for more than 30 years,” said Tony Hoang, executive director of the LGBTQ+ rights organization Equality California, at an event in San Francisco last week.

He highlighted Becerra’s role as one of the small minority of congressmembers who voted against the anti-gay marriage Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

At the same event, Becerra touted his opposition to Trump.

“Donald Trump is on this ballot,” he said, without naming his opponent once. “We see right through you, Donald Trump. And we see through all those MAGA friends and relatives who are trying to push that agenda on us.”

Becerra’s comfortable standing is reflected in the relatively muted nature of his campaign: Becerra agreed to meet for only one debate with Hilton this fall. He has spent much of his time campaigning not for himself but against a Republican-backed voter ID measure and on behalf of other California Democrats.

The election comes at a particularly delicate time for California.

Street homelessness rose for years and only began to decline again in 2025. Wildfires have made it harder to buy homeowners insurance. Inflation, much of it attributable to Trump’s warin Iran, tariffs and immigration crackdown, have added to the already-high cost of living.

The state budget, always subject to the boom and bust of the stock market, has become particularly dependent on the fortunes of the artificial intelligence industry. Under Newsom, the state has made aggressive regulatory moves to curb the use of climate-warming fossil fuels. But despite recent polling that shows a majority of Californians support the green transition, fewer are willing to pay higher prices for energy than were a decade ago.

And the state’s liberal politics have often put it in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, which has withheld federal funds, challenged California’s environmental policies and attempted to intervene in this election.

Both candidates agree the state has become unaffordable for working families. That’s about all they agree on.

Becerra has proposed mostly incremental changes to existing state policies, such as continuing recent efforts by Newsom and lawmakers to reduce the bureaucratic hurdles to approving new housing construction.

He wants to expand state mortgage assistance programs and said he’s committed to the clean energy transition, but open to delays or tweaks to trim costs. He has not endorsed any new taxes on residents, but wants the state to assess a fee on corporations whose employees make so little they qualify for public healthcare.

Hilton, a British American who was once a close adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron, ran on a deregulatory agenda, promising to slash environmental rules and the gas tax and allow more home construction on exurban, undeveloped land.

One of his signature campaign promises was to eliminate the income tax on residents’ first $150,000 in earnings and make the income tax flat above that — amounting to an expensive tax cut for the highest earners that he’s said he would pay for with spending cuts. It’s one of his many promises that would need legislative approval, and he has not said how he would get Democrats in the Capitol to support them.

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

Eight K-12 school districts in San Diego County are asking voters this November whether they should borrow money to build and repair school buildings.

San Diego Unified is asking for a $3.5 billion bond. The Julian Union High School District is asking to borrow $9 million.

“This year, the bonds really vary widely,” said Sarah Schroeder, policy director for the San Diego County Taxpayers Association.

Some districts say they’ll use the funding to make repairs across the district. Others have more specific projects in mind, like a new gym or career training space.

“I think it's always useful to be as robust in your planning and as transparent as possible with the taxpayer, but I think it is difficult when it comes to construction,” Schroeder said. “At the end of the day, those things might – and often do shift – after a bond is passed or shift over time as costs escalate.”

Some districts, like San Diego Unified, La Mesa-Spring Valley and Santee, are framing their bond measures as extensions of existing taxes. Previous bonds are set to be paid off by the time new ones would kick in, keeping the tax rate relatively flat.

Others are trying again after failing to get voter support in previous years. The Mountain Empire School District’s bond measure failed in 2024. Since then, the district has received $4.6 million through the state’s financial hardship program to design a new high school campus.

That’s a clear signal to voters: “‘Okay, their facilities are suffering. There’s a need there,’” Schroeder said.

Since 2000, approval has required 55% of voters to vote yes. Before that, two-thirds were needed to pass.

Data from the California State Treasurer's Office shows voters’ decisions on those bonds over the last few decades. Take a look at the map to see how school bond measures have fared in San Diego County over the years.

On his couch in Hemet, California, Wally Henry watches an old TV special about him.

“In the 20th century, the sports superstar has become an American hero,” the broadcaster – his cousin, Jimi Lyons – booms out as silhouettes of football players trot out of a stadium tunnel and onto the wide expanse of a National Football League field.

Henry played wide receiver and kick returner for the Philadelphia Eagles.

“For Afro Americans, in particular, a people who have been brutalized by 200 years of institutionalized racism and the violent denial of the human rights guaranteed by the Constitution, the athlete was the most visible image of success and manhood,” Lyons continues.

The walls around Henry are covered with photos of his life, including his 1950s and ‘60s childhood in Logan Heights.

Neighborhood kids would pile onto the open grass known then as “40 Acres,” off South 30th St. and Ocean View Boulevard, and play football, baseball and run track, marking lanes and lines with whatever they could, digging holes for starting blocks.

“Sports was seen as the way out of the ghetto,” Lyons said, as images of a younger Henry flit across the screen, sporting a crop top training tee and an impressive Afro.

Surrounded by NFL giants, Henry was small — 5’8” and 170 pounds.

“Hey, this little guy he can't do nothing,” young Henry on the screen said. “Then they see me knocking down people. That's how I made the team, doing extra.”

In one incredible punt return, Henry bursts from the melee, dodging players twice his size, and zips all the way down the field for a touchdown.

At that time, sports made college possible for kids like Henry.

“We were all trying to get out of southeast San Diego. We were trying to make something of our lives. Our parents didn't have that kind of money to send us to college, so the only way we can get to college is to get a scholarship,” Henry said.

By the time Henry was in high school, the stakes were even higher. College was also one of the only ways out of the Vietnam draft.

Getting a college football scholarship is already an extraordinary feat, let alone making the NFL. Each year, out of over a million high school football players, only a few hundred do, according to the National Football Foundation.

It’s like getting struck by lightning. But Henry is very matter-of-fact about it – both the Henry on his couch now and the Henry on the screen.

“Deep down inside, I knew that this was just another test for me. I have to overcome. And I will, and I did,” his younger self said.

He credits that mentality all the way back to the Boys and Girls Club in Logan Heights.

“Having confidence in yourself to do what you can do and not be a bullsh—. You know, you can't fool yourself. I mean, and people would say, ‘Got a big head or you're cocky.’ Well, so be it. If you think you're the best and you act the best, and you are the best, you are the best. Period,” he said.

He said communities in southeastern San Diego back then were close knit. Everybody knew everybody. It was a village-wide effort to raise the kids. Employment for Black San Diegans was limited, and parents worked hard.

“Actually, we didn’t really know, you know — too young to realize that you were poor,” he said.

By the late ‘60s, like now, the area was mostly Black and Latino and low-income. It wasn’t always that way. When Lincoln High School opened in 1955, it served mostly white students.

But San Diego demographics were changing. Black families took military and defense jobs and moved west to San Diego. Redlining and freeway construction funneled growing racial minorities into the southeastern neighborhoods. And white families, out.

Willie Jones is Lincoln class of ‘65. He said he witnessed “white flight” in real time, and by the time he graduated, he could count white students on a couple of hands.

Alumni said just the visual of a lot of Black and brown people in one area drew overpolicing and stereotypes.

“The news media was bombarding society with, you know, ‘This Lincoln High School, southeast San Diego is, you know, it's a rough place to live,’” Henry said.

Even many Black families, like Henry’s, avoided Lincoln. At first, his mom sent him to San Diego High School.

But the Civil Rights movement was unfolding across the country, and Lincoln gave Black students a chance to explore their identity. It offered African American studies, and it hired the district’s first African American high school principal.

“It was a wakening time,” said Jackie Thompson, who ran track for the school then.

She said at most schools, students weren’t allowed to wear Afros. They couldn’t be themselves. It was different at Lincoln.

“We were proud of who we were,” she said. “Finally, you know, somebody saying ‘I’m Black, and I’m proud!’”

Henry said the nationwide movement sparked a decision for athletes from southeastern San Diego.

“Look, if we all went to Lincoln, we can dominate the city, you know, and then show them what this Black power is really all about, you know, in a positive way,” he recounted. “Let's change the idea of what they think about us. Period.”

Instead of running from the stigma, they’d return to prove it wrong.

Proving the city wrong

Henry said he’s one of a group of athletes who transferred home to Lincoln then.

Earl Faison, former San Diego Chargers Hall of Famer, started coaching the football team, and he brought in other ex-professionals to help.

A lot of talent packed into one school.

Henry said practices were intense, long and hot. On a talent-stacked team, everyone wanted to brag they were a starter.

Still, they were a small team in a big league. Many had to play both offense and defense against teams that could afford to switch out players. Henry said when they did lose, it was often because they “just ran out of gas.”

What they lacked in numbers they made up for with the chip on their shoulder.

“We always had something to prove, see,” Henry said. “We have to beat the team, plus the zebras.”

The zebras — the referees — were all white then, he said, and made calls that felt unfair against the minority teams.

“Basketball comes down to the final shot and you make it and you go win the game and boom! All of a sudden it was a foul or traveling, something ridiculous. Something enough to make you so angry, you want to fight,” he said.

Some of the calls felt like they were punishing them for their differences.

“You score a touchdown or interception against, say, El Cajon or something, and you do a little dance or something like that — shoo! — see a yellow flag. You know what I mean? ‘Showing out, unsportsmanlike conduct!’ S— like that. That's how we play!” he said.

Lincoln didn’t have lights for their field, so they couldn’t play their night home games at home. They had to travel and play on enemy turf.

The community showed up anyway, carpooling and hitchhiking to games all over the city.

One alumna said community groups like the San Diego Black Federation, Brown Berets and low riders would keep a presence at the games to make sure the students got home safe from the schools north of Lincoln.

“You have to be strong mentally, and you're going to have to be able to take the N-word and all the other words that come with it,” Henry said, “and still keep going and keep your head, keep your cool, you know, and try to stay focused on the gold.”

The adversity didn’t stop them, Henry said: “For Lincoln, oh well, we're used to this s—. We're still going to dominate.”

Henry thinks all that adversity created a mentality that may have been their greatest strength.

“You expect this s— to happen and we just gonna fight through it. We gonna dominate. We gonna keep it moving,” he said.

Jackie Thompson graduated Lincoln in 1972, and ran for the U.S. at the Olympics that same year.

She remembers walking into the stadium in a white pleated skirt and red blazer, overwhelmed by the beauty of all the different countries marching in and the release of white doves flooding the air. She felt the responsibility of representing southeastern San Diego.

“We always wanted to be a credit to our community and shine,” she said.

Lincoln’s track is now dedicated to her. Hers is far from the only name emblazoned on the school.

Most U.S. high schools never produce a professional athlete, but Lincoln and Morse High School, just five miles down the road, have produced numbers that stun: at least 68 NFL, MLB and NBA players between them, more in other pro leagues, and at least three Olympians. They won Super Bowls and MVP awards, Heisman trophies and gold medals. They cross decades, generations, coaches and teams.

“I mean we joke about it a lot but it must be in the water because it is true. We have exceptional athletes in southeastern San Diego,” Henry said.

‘Something in the water’

Chances are, at one time or another, most of those athletes passed through Berry’s Athletic Supply.

Today, Berry’s is off Lemon Grove and Lester Avenues. The gear on the shelves has evolved over the last 74 years they’ve been in business — safer helmets, lighter baseball bats — but in the back office, you can still find co-owner John Enright.

He’s been helping Lincoln and Morse athletes, quietly, for many decades.

“Dorothy would say she needed something for a football player or softball player. We would give it to them if they couldn't afford it,” he said. “Just wanted to help.”

By Dorothy, he means Dorothy “Dot” Robinson. She oversaw Lincoln athletics from the ‘80s through the early ‘aughts as the district’s first African American female athletic director. The old gymnasium now bears her name.

“You've got a female that's in charge of men, and the men didn't take it too well, you know. And I understood that, but I still forged ahead,” she said.

She ensured the budget stretched evenly across genders and the school’s many sports, despite inadequate facilities and equipment — like a football helmet a player brought her with a screw coming through it.

When asked what this community’s secret athletic sauce is, she didn’t hesitate.

“Love for the kids, number one. You have to care about kids at a school in order for kids to succeed or even attempt to succeed,” she said.

When Robinson describes “care,” it’s a verb. Giving students rides home from late practices. Noticing whether or not they’d eaten, or if they needed to talk after school.

“I can be in the room with you, but do I see you?” she said. “If they needed to come away from the home, stay for a while, I ask the parents, ‘Can I keep your kid for a while? I'll take care of them. Here's my phone number.’”

She said she was far from the only one.

“That’s what we had at Lincoln was the village,” she said.

That’s crucial in an area with some of the lowest household incomes in the county, she said. The teams couldn’t always afford a bus. Robinson had to build a network of parents, and those parents had to extend that network to include the people around them.

People like John Enright.

“I could call them and say, you know, ‘I have a kid that need cleats. I don't get paid for such and such a day.’ And before I could get it out, he said, ‘Send them on down.’ And I said, ‘But I don't –’ He said, ‘Send them down.’ you know, and that's the kind of community that we had. It extended beyond the physical building,” Robinson said.

She said the athletes made the whole community proud. She still gives rides to neighbors who want to go to the games.

“Am I going to ever stop? I guess not,” she said, laughing.

She’s never changed her phone number, just in case an old student calls — and they do.

Robinson, Enright, Thompson and Jones were among many alumni that filled the stands for this year’s homecoming game. Decades of community pride shone in full force.

Up in the bleachers, Wally Henry sat alone.

Lincoln alumnus Harold Allen said all those superstar athletes from southeastern San Diego — once just kids who overcame enormous odds — are largely forgotten, “ghosts in their own community.”

He’s brother to Marcus Allen and Damon Allen, both Lincoln alumni, both widely seen as two of the greatest to ever play the game of football.

He sees both pain and power in southeastern San Diego’s history, but he doesn’t see the magnitude of that power being celebrated.

“When I look back now, I say, ‘Well, how do we believe the hype that we're not good people or we're negative people because the color of our skin?’ And yet we believe what we hear from others and then we fall prey to it,” Allen said.

He’s on a mission to change that.

“I'm now 50, 60 years later, trying to highlight the good of who we are. So let's celebrate us. We don't need anybody else to celebrate us,” he said.

He started holding ceremonies honoring alumni and educating the current players on the legacy they’re now continuing.

Whether today’s athletes know it or not, they have many of the same challenges, and strengths, as alumni from a half century ago.

The legacy continues

Lincoln High School was bulldozed in 2003. Replaced with a brand new, $129 million campus – at the time the most expensive campus in the San Diego Unified School District.

They lost a lot of athletes during the four-year closure. Coaches had to rebuild legendary Lincoln teams from sparse rosters.

The school hired David Dunn to coach football, former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver and Morse High School alumnus.

Despite the new campus, he faced budget challenges.

“We're talking $400 to $500 per helmet, $300 for a good pair of shoulder pads, and uniforms, and we can't keep up with some of the other things out there. We’re losing a bunch of kids to the private schools,” Dunn said.

The San Diego Unified School District allocated $98,200 this year for all of Lincoln’s athletics programs, not including coaching stipends, according to spokesperson James Canning. Dunn estimated his team received about $12,000 of that, including travel.

He has to fundraise the rest in an area with some of the lowest household incomes in the county.

By 2024, the need was even clearer.

“The field was not safe. Everyone knew it wasn’t safe,” he said.

He could pull back the turf in places to reveal concrete directly underneath. The field began to sink in places and water started puddling up. There was a hole in the track.

He brought out over one hundred red flags and tried to mark every problem area. He ran out of flags.

He convinced the school to fix it, leaving Lincoln with no field of their own that season.

They bused to facilities willing to share a field. Left school early. Stayed up late. Squeezed odd hours of practice in whatever field time was available.

“We lost so many hours of practice time,” Dunn said.

Sometimes the buses were too small, or came late. The team would sit outside with their water bottles and uniforms and whatever equipment they could haul, waiting for buses for over an hour.

When they did get to the shared fields, they weren’t always well equipped. Many didn’t have football markings, equipment or even goalposts. They didn’t have access to a weight room or sleds.

The players had so many valid reasons to skip practice, but they didn’t take them.

“It was so, so crazy,” said Jesus “The Beast” Jimenez, a center and guard on the current team who played in 2024. “All of us were just tired. But, you know, all of them, everybody on that team, really wanted it and wanted to show everybody wrong.”

Wide receiver and cornerback Dareyen Bridges said something that echoed Lincoln alumni across the decades.

“As much as we went through, we was just playing on a chip on our shoulder because we know nobody else was doing this. So we had to go out there and win. Win every game,” he said.

It paid off. Despite all these challenges, the team went all the way to the state championship, and won.

Dunn still wonders if the team fully understands what they accomplished.

“To have none of the stuff available to you – you don’t really know how much this really meant,” he said.

He said this year’s team still doesn’t have a secondary utility field to practice on like most schools. They’re traveling farther to play harder schools, but without a bigger travel budget. And, like alumni across the decades, they still face racism.

Dunn remembers when he was a student athlete being told to not retaliate when he got called a derogatory name or even spat on.

“It's heartbreaking to have to tell my same kids, 40 years later, I’m telling them the same thing,” he said.

At a 2021 game against Cathedral High School, social media posts circulated of a student wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Catholics vs. Convicts.’ It made headlines in the news, but alumni and current students say the racism is not unusual.

Dunn said this year, another coach told the Lincoln players “you’ll definitely be working at McDonald’s in three years” and “we’re going to college and you guys will be going to jail.”

Bridges has noticed.

“They just think we grow up, like, this is hood. But I wouldn't say that. I feel like we have great kids here who take very good responsibility,” he said.

Jimenez agreed.

“People call it ghetto. But for me, I don't think it’s ghetto at all. I think everybody around here knows each other, and I think it's just like a big old family,” he said.

Dunn said that stigma is still causing enrollment challenges for the school and the football team, but like the teams of the ‘60s and ‘70s, they hold high expectations regardless – and that chip on their shoulder.

“No matter what they put in front of us, watch how we come out of this,” he tells his players. He developed a motto: “They hate to watch us win, but they have to watch us win.”

Generations of alumni cheered them on at this year’s homecoming game. Some, with remarkable pro athlete careers behind them.

More than half a century of shared struggle and power filled the stands to bear witness to their continuing legacy. A sea of Kelly green, white and black marked the undefeatable spirit of Lincoln and the surrounding communities.

Together, they watched today’s students win, 43 to 15.

“It’s always been a struggle,” Dunn said. “But it’s our struggle and it’s our story.”

San Diego County Registrar Shawn Brom said his office is expecting at least eight teams of federal election monitors to show up at local polling places on Election Day.

Nationally, there’s been an unprecedented surge in federal monitors this year, according to PBS News. In response, the Associated Press reports the Democratic Party and voting rights organizations have been mobilizing masses of their own poll watchers.

Brom said there are contingencies in place if any kind of observer tries to overstep their bounds.

“We just want to make sure that regardless of the number of election observers that are at any specific location, that they're not interfering with the voters' right to cast a ballot free from any intimidation or harassment,” he said.

Observers — federal or private — are not allowed to talk to voters or otherwise interfere in the process, according to state code.

The Trump administration in recent weeks has challenged California elections officials over alleged noncitizen voting. Judges have rejected their lawsuits.

Brom said San Diego County has received federal subpoenas and complied with the law as needed.

“So simply put there, I'm focused on the administration of the election and not focusing currently on anything else that might be happening outside of that,” he said.

Carl Luna, a political scientist at Mesa College, said the Justice Department usually deploys monitors to make sure people aren’t being denied the right to vote. He says there isn’t much modern precedent for using them to look for fraud.

Luna said the Trump administration’s pressure on local and state officials is also unusual.

“What you have seen is something of a flood the zone sort of strategy where the Department of Justice is throwing everything it can at the courts to try to get warrants, try to intimidate poll workers, threatening to arrest them,” he said.

Luna said the Trump administration could be setting the stage to challenge results after Election Day.

He said dozens of studies, including by Republican attorneys general, have failed to show the existence of widespread voter fraud.

San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl is pledging more frequent reports to the City Council when officers are called to a scene involving federal immigration agents.

The pledge was included in a memo issued on Oct. 30 — one day after City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera publicly accused Wahl of lacking transparency around the issue.

The public disagreement between the two stems from differing interpretations of the city's Due Process and Safety Ordinance. The council adopted that ordinance last year in an effort to limit cooperation between SDPD and the federal agents carrying out President Trump's immigration crackdown.

The ordinance requires the chief of police to issue written reports to the City Council within three business days anytime SDPD officers are called to a scene where federal agents are conducting immigration enforcement.

Since the ordinance took effect in May, SDPD officers have responded to incidents where federal agents were present but not conducting immigration arrests. Wahl's memo states those incidents are not covered by the Due Process and Safety Ordinance, but that SDPD would report them to the mayor and City Council going forward.

"Our goal is to ensure that elected officials have timely information about SDPD's involvement and can respond to questions from their constituents with a clear understanding of its role," Wahl said.

On Thursday, Elo-Rivera put out a press release including details of four incidents involving SDPD and federal agents. He said SDPD reported the information to his office by text message, but that the details had not yet been seen by the public.

The first incident took place on July 23 and involved Homeland Security Investigations, an agency within Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"An HSI vehicle broke down near 2500 Fairmount Avenue, and members of the public … gathered to protest," the press release states. "Someone in the crowd broke the vehicle’s windows. Approximately 15 SDPD officers responded to a crowd of about 30, allowing the protest while keeping people away from the vehicle to prevent further vandalism."

SDPD spokesperson Ashley Bailey said such an incident would not be covered by the Due Process and Safety Ordinance because the HSI agents were with a disabled vehicle and not actively conducting immigration enforcement.

Bailey added that SDPD has notified councilmembers of such incidents, and that those communications have been made available to the public upon request.

"SDPD has been open to modifying the process for how we fulfill the requirements of the ordinance," Bailey told KPBS in an e-mail "The department has provided all required notifications under the ordinance, as well as additional instances to the council that are not required."

Elo-Rivera said anytime the public sees SDPD officers at a scene with federal agents, they might assume incorrectly that the two sides are working together. Promptly sharing details of those incidents with the public — not just the City Council — can help dispel misinformation and build trust in the police, he added.

"I don't think we can have safety without trust, and trust requires transparency," Elo-Rivera said. "What has not happened is any communication with the public about under what circumstances SDPD was showing up, what they did when they were there, how long they were there, et cetera."

On the eve of Election Day, authorities evacuated the San Diego County Registrar of Voters office in Kearny Mesa today and shut down nearby traffic lanes due to the discovery of an abandoned suitcase in the lobby of the complex.

The presence of the potentially suspicious satchel at the government complex in the 5600 block of Overland Avenue was reported at about 1:45 p.m. Monday, according to the San Diego Police Department.

A sheriff's bomb squad was called in to determine the contents of the satchel and remove it from the premises, Sgt. David Rodriguez said.

Within two and a half hours, the evacuation order had been lifted and the affected streets reopened, the sergeant said.

It was not immediately clear what the suitcase contained or whether it had posed any sort of hazard.

December Nights will return to Balboa Park for its 49th year on the first weekend of December, ushering in two days of California's largest free holiday festival with platinum-selling recording artist Clay Aiken.

The former "American Idol" runner-up will headline this year's entertainment with a holiday performance featuring classic Christmas tunes alongside music from his latest album, "Rewind." Aiken will perform on the Organ Pavilion stage on Saturday, Dec. 5, at 7:25 p.m.

December Nights will be held Friday, Dec. 4, from 4-10 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 5, from noon-10 p.m. The city estimates that he event will attract 350,000 people over the two days.

"December Nights represents the best of San Diego — a community that comes together to celebrate our diversity, share our traditions and create experiences everyone can enjoy," Mayor Todd Gloria said. "For nearly 50 years, this event has been made possible through the partnership of our city employees, local businesses, cultural institutions, public-private partnerships and community organizations. Together, we're able to welcome hundreds of thousands of people to Balboa Park for a free celebration that might otherwise be out of reach for many families. It's a reminder of what we can accomplish when we work together to make San Diego a place where everyone belongs."

Over the December weekend, Balboa Park will transform into a "winter- inspired wonderland" featuring more than 1,600 performers in 70 performance groups across five entertainment stages. More than 200 food and retail booths will offer food and other goods for sale, and Balboa Park museums will be open to the public for free during evening hours, according to the city.

Visitors can use the free December Nights shuttle service to avoid traffic and limited parking in Balboa Park. Free shuttles will operate from City College at 16th Avenue and B Street, downtown at Third Avenue and A Street, and Little Italy at Beech Street and Kettner Boulevard, with drop-off and pickup at Sixth Avenue and Laurel Street in Balboa Park.

The holiday festival will begin Friday with the annual tree-lighting ceremony at 6 p.m. on the Spreckels Organ Pavilion stage. The ceremony will be led by City Council President Joe LaCava, along with emcees from KUSI News, FOX 5 San Diego and the city's leadership team.

"December Nights is a beloved San Diego tradition, and it is a unique opportunity for all of us to come together to kick off the holiday season," LaCava said. "I want to thank the dedicated city employees, cultural organizations, vendors, sponsors and every San Diegan who helps make this celebration possible year after year."

The member nations of the House of Pacific Relations International Cottages will host open houses with food and cultural offerings. San Diego Community Power will offer free Ferris wheel rides, the San Diego Museum of Art will present an art show and Disney will host family-friendly activities.

Craft projects, food trucks, a half-pipe skateboarding demonstration and visits with Santa Claus will also be part of the event.

"As we celebrate the 49th year of December Nights, this event remains one of the biggest holiday festivals on the West Coast," said Christina Chadwick, executive director of San Diego's Special Events and Filming Office. "Our team has worked thoughtfully to honor the traditions San Diegans cherish while introducing new experiences that ensure there's something special for everyone to enjoy."

The city asks attendees to take public transit or shared vehicles, leave non-service animals at home and keep a close eye on children, valuables and their surroundings.

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

Colleges and universities will soon have to make it easier for students to request more financial aid, as well as be more transparent about how they estimate the cost of attendance.

A new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September requires colleges and universities to clearly display how students can request additional financial aid if they believe their awarded amount does not sufficiently cover their costs. Institutions must also publish how they calculate their costs of attendance, which is used to determine how much financial aid students receive.

Authored by Democratic Assemblymembers Celeste Rodriguez of the San Fernando Valley and Marc Berman of Menlo Park, Assembly Bill 2251 requires schools to implement the changes by the fall of 2027.

Existing law already requires campuses to publish cost estimates, which not only include tuition and fees, but also housing, transportation, food and other likely expenses. With the new requirements, advocates say that students will now have an easier time finding what to do when their costs exceed those estimates.

“California has a really strong record of looking at new ways to improve college affordability and AB 2251 is yet another example,” said Laura Szabo-Kubitz, senior policy advisor at The Institute of College Access and Success, an organization that advocates for college affordability. “It’s a step towards other advocacy efforts to bridge the affordability gap.”

Students can appeal their financial aid award

Junely Merwin, now a consultant for The Foster Youth Pre-College Collective, received a full-ride scholarship to attend Cal State Fullerton in 2015. But as a former foster youth and young mother, she needed additional aid to help cover childcare costs.

“My money really went down the drain to child care and just how expensive it was,” Merwin said. “Even with the full-ride scholarship, it was not enough.”

Seeking more financial support, Merwin came across her school’s process to revise her cost of attendance. However, the website was unclear and, when she reached out to the financial aid office with questions, she was passed along to multiple staff members.

After she was finally able to complete an appeal process, Merwin’s cost of attendance was adjusted to include her childcare expenses. This allowed her to accept more scholarship funds.

Over half of colleges and universities statewide use estimates that are lower than what students actually pay to attend college, with some underestimating it by over $10,000, according to 2024 research from John Burton Advocates for Youth, the lead sponsor of the law. The California organization advocates for unhoused and foster youth.

Students cannot receive more financial aid – including loans, grants and some scholarships – than the estimated cost of attendance calculated by the campus. This can lead them to work excessive hours and take fewer classes to make up the difference, according to research from The Institute for College Access and Success.

When students’ costs exceed those calculated by their college, they can apply for a cost of attendance adjustment. But students often don’t know that is an option.

According to a March report from John Burton Advocates for Youth, almost half of colleges statewide fail to adequately inform students of the resources and options available to them when applying for aid adjustments.

Those adjustments can be especially helpful to low-income students and former foster youth, who often receive the maximum amount of aid but still need more, said the organization’s director of education, Jessica Petrass. Because of this, students often have to turn down additional aid they would otherwise be eligible for.

Representatives of campus programs that provide support for foster youth across the state’s three higher education systems do not find cost adjustment processes to be accessible, concluded a report by the John Burton youth advocacy organization. A majority of those surveyed said information on campus websites is insufficient and unclear.

“That is why I see AB 2251 as both a transparency and student access issue, because it is not enough to simply have a policy in place,” Merwin said. “Information needs to be communicated clearly, consistently, in a way that students can actually understand and use.”

Colleges must clearly explain adjustment process

Colleges vary greatly in how and where they explain how to request an adjustment to the cost of attendance and financial aid limit. While some schools plainly detail costs on their websites, others lead students through a maze of weblinks and documents.

Under the new law, campuses must publish clear details on how a student can submit an adjustment request, how long it might take and who they might need to speak to. This information will need to appear on the same page as the school’s cost of attendance details.

Jackie Cordero, a first-generation college student who attends UC Santa Cruz, is currently going through the process of requesting an adjustment to her cost of attendance. Cordero chose UC Santa Cruz because of the generous financial aid package she was offered. But after her father was injured and could no longer work, she was left to figure out how to pay for the expenses her financial aid didn’t cover.

Through her own research, and by contacting the financial aid office herself, she found that requesting more financial aid was an option. But it has not been easy. Cordero said that the documents her school asked for — detailing her father’s work termination and her mother’s income — didn’t exist in physical form. She’s struggled to supplement that paperwork, and instead has had to write letters detailing her family’s finances.

“There should probably be a little bit more help towards people who want to do a cost of attendance (adjustment),” she said. “I still am a little confused about the process and approaching (the financial aid office) can be a little difficult.”

Under federal law, students are not required to submit documentation for cost of attendance adjustments, but colleges almost always request them before granting additional awards.

Colleges vary on cost calculation sources

Across all three public higher education systems, staff at John Burton Advocates for Youth found that 83% of campuses do not reveal the breakdown of the total cost of each expense category – such as housing and transportation – on their websites. This information allows students to have a clearer understanding of whether their expenses exceed the calculated costs and if they might be eligible for a cost of attendance adjustment.

“At the end of the day, these budgets are an estimate … You’re doing your best guess to get the best average to represent every student’s unique circumstance,” Petrass said.

Most campuses do not cite the data sources behind their estimates. Only 17% of UCs, 26% of Cal States and 22% of community colleges explain how they come up with these estimates, according to the youth advocacy organization.

Each system calculates costs differently. UC schools use a survey conducted by its Office of the President. Cal State campuses and community colleges use a mix of data, including from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and survey estimates from the California Student Aid Commission.

What the new law doesn’t do

While the law guarantees a new standard of transparency for financial aid, it does not provide any new financial aid funding, nor does it guarantee that any student’s cost of attendance adjustments will be approved.

The California Student Aid Commission estimates the state may spend anywhere from $805,000 to $2.3 million more on Cal Grant awards due to adjustment applications that wouldn’t have otherwise been submitted. That assumes a 3% to 5% increase in the number of adjustments approved annually, according to the commission.

Even if a student’s appeal for a financial aid increase is accepted, many campus financial aid websites say additional aid typically comes in the form of loans. The law will also not change the often-complicated cost adjustment process, or the way colleges estimate their cost of attendance.

“I think there are still areas in which California could continue to change policy to better strengthen this process,” Petrass said. “I think there’s opportunities to look at reducing documentation requirements for students as well to, again, just make it a more seamless process that aligns with the minimum federal requirements.”

Mariam Farag and Max Guerra are contributors 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.

The group of 14 singles gathered at à la Jolla eatery on a midsummer's eve — well dressed, coiffed and perfumed. They were looking to make new connections.

But they all lacked one big thing – their phones.

The Ember Supper Club is a "dining experiential event series" founded by friends Marie McGovern and Gracie Alzate. They established it in 2024 as a way to network or meet people away from dating apps.

“We were really honing in on that idea of community, people meeting each other, good food, good drinks, great ambience,” McGovern said, who has a background in event planning and marketing. “I wanted to find some sort of way to meet people in-person that wasn’t on a dating app, and I was kind of over that whole (online dating) scene.”

In an age where so much is done on an app – making friends, finding romance or community – many are finding the online chatter overwhelming and are stepping away from their phones and searching for connections IRL.

McGovern and her guests are not the only ones who are looking for that in-person connection, romantic or not.

Gen Z and younger millennials appear to be asking for a different balance beyond relationships found on social media. A 2025 survey conducted by The Harris Poll for Quad found 81% of Gen Z adults and 78% of millennials often wished they could disconnect from digital devices more easily.

They are craving what UC San Diego computational social neuroscience researcher Eshin Jolly called "social nourishment.”

“The need to belong, the need to feel connected, is not getting satisfied,” Jolly said. “But in-person, like, that’s where I have the opportunity to do that."

For Jolly, social nourishment comes from the rich information we exchange when we interact face to face – the words we say, our expressions and the small signals that help us understand one another.

Americans spend an average of six hours a day on digital media, according to the U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on Social Connection and Community. One in three U.S. adults said they're online "almost constantly." Among teenagers, that figure has doubled since 2015.

“People want to feel something genuine with some people,” Jolly said. “They're missing that. And it turns out that you can get that in a short kind of genuine amount of time because you get all of this rich information and you kind of figure it out.”

An old-school jam session

People are also looking for IRL experiences that don’t necessarily have to be geared toward one-on-one connections, but can be groups of people with shared interests – basically your grandparents’ version of Reddit threads.

In May, Future Is Color held a listening room experience at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, where people sat and listened to vinyl records in a living-room setting. A crowd bobbed their heads as Fela Kuti’s Afrobeats created an in-sync environment, allowing participants to talk about the music, the artist and their personal experiences listening to them.

Future is Color founder Erwin Hines calls it a form of cultural liberation.

“What music does is it connects us with everybody else that's in that same room because we're having this unified and collective experience of attention being focused on the same thing,” Hines said.

“Music has always been a way for Black Americans to hold our stories, carry our stories and give our stories to the next generation,” he said. “And oftentimes those stories contained coded resistance and coded liberation, or like, this is how we liberate ourselves, this is how we understand ourselves, this is how we tap deeper into knowledge of self.”

For attendees, that shared experience often creates a sense of belonging.

“I was really looking for a space to pause,” one attendee in the listening room said. “I really feel like now, we're constantly moving and not really having conversations around music and culture. And I just love the idea of a phoneless space where people were really thinking about music, listening deeply.”

This isn't necessarily a movement away from technology. Many of these gatherings are organized and discovered through the same phones people are trying to step away from. It's about being more conscious of what our devices can provide – and recognizing what they can't.

“We're like, ‘ah, we're not getting what we need.’ And so some number of us are trying to do something differently to nourish the need first,” Jolly said. “And then have social technology play a different role in their lives.”

"We are in San Diego" is one of the first lines of dialogue in "You Can See Everything," which has already become one of the biggest documentary box-office hits of all time.

The film, directed by Nathan Fielder ("Nathan for You," "The Rehearsal") and Lance Oppenheim ("Some Kind of Heaven," "Primetime"), chronicles the 34 days before Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes began serving her 11-year prison sentence in May 2023. Holmes and her partner, 34-year-old Billy Evans, invited the filmmakers and their small crew to document their lives with their two young children at their rented beach house in Del Mar. Much of the film's first half unfolds during a cloudy April by the ocean in San Diego.

Holmes grew up in Houston, but Evans — who many viewers interpret as the movie's antagonist — has deep roots in San Diego. He comes from a family that has helped shape the city's hospitality industry for more than 70 years.

Billy Evans' influential San Diego family 

The family owns Evans Hotels, a luxury hotel company that includes the Bahia Resort Hotel and Catamaran Resort Hotel and Spa in Mission Bay, as well as The Lodge at Torrey Pines in La Jolla.

Evans' grandparents, William and Anne Evans, founded Evans Hotels in 1953. Their first property, the Bahia Resort Hotel, became the first commercial hotel lessee on Mission Bay, according to the company's history. At the time, the bay was still largely undeveloped marshland.

Over the decades, Evans Hotels expanded, and Billy's father, Bill Evans, became a powerful figure locally. In 2012, Voice of San Diego called Bill Evans a "man of influence," highlighting the many regional boards he sat on, his close relationships with local politicians and his family's frequent donations to various political campaigns.

In 2012, Bill Evans secured a new 40-year lease agreement from the city for his Mission Bay resort, in a deal that Voice of San Diego described at the time as "peculiar for several reasons." The deal was rushed through City Council to take advantage of low interest rates, did not require immediate redevelopment of the property and included a provision allowing for a 50-year lease if a major redevelopment project was approved.

Bill Evans opposed a plan to expand the Convention Center in 2011, which would have imposed a tax increase on his hotel guests. In 2016, Evans Hotels was among a small group of locally owned hotel companies targeted for a boycott by a coalition of San Diego Chargers advocates. The group argued that the hotel industry had been influential in blocking the hotel tax increases needed to fund the new stadium.

In 2018, Evans Hotels filed a lawsuit alleging that local unions were using "sham" environmental and land-use issues as leverage against public lease agreements, according to Voice of San Diego. The legal battle dragged on for years and stemmed in part from Evans Hotels' attempt to build a hotel at Sea World. Bill Evans alleged that union opposition derailed the project.

Around the time of the movie's release, Evans Hotels provided a statement saying: "Billy Evans does not work for Evans Hotels, holds no ownership in the company, and is not in any way involved in the business."

Who is Billy Evans? 

Billy Evans attended Francis Parker School, a private school in San Diego, before going to MIT, where he earned a degree in economics. After graduating, he attempted to launch a concierge medical services startup. After that failed, he worked at LinkedIn and a self-driving car startup called Luminar Technologies, according to WIRED.

Evans met Holmes in 2017 in San Francisco, and the two started dating right around the time Holmes was indicted by a federal grand jury, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In a memorable scene in the film, also featured in the trailer, Evans tells Fielder that he fell in love with Holmes during their very first conversation. Fielder asks whether he was worried that Holmes was “scamming” him. Billy says, “100%, but what did she have to gain from me?” Fielder replies, “Well, isn’t your family rich?”

Holmes told People that she believes Evans' family was initially skeptical about their relationship. However, the family ultimately supported Holmes during her trial. Evans’ mother wrote a letter to the judge in support of Holmes before her sentencing. And, according to NPR, Evans’ father attended Holmes' trial under an assumed name, introducing himself to reporters as “Hanson,” a concerned citizen who fixed up old cars for a living. He also told reporters he believed Holmes' treatment by the media had been unfair.

The couple got engaged in 2018. Although Evans refers to Holmes as his wife, she confirmed in a 2025 interview with People that they are not legally married.

Holmes and former Theranos executive Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani were ordered to pay more than $450 million in restitution following their convictions for fraud. Balwani and Holmes were in a romantic relationship for more than 10 years while they worked together at Theranos. "You Can See Everything" appears to show Holmes and her current partner, Evans, working together on another ambitious medical-testing venture.

Billy Evans' latest venture 

In May 2025, The New York Times reported that Evans was raising money for a new startup called Haemanthus that promised to develop "a radically new approach to health testing." In a post on X, the company explained that it was using lasers and AI to improve on technology for testing for diseases like cancer and Parkinson's, making it "Faster. Smaller. Accessible." The company also said, "This is not Theranos 2.0."

Viewers may remember a scene from "You Can See Everything," filmed in 2023, where Evans described his new venture to Fielder as an attempt to "put the band back together and do it all again." In response, Fielder asks, "Theranos 2.0?" and Evans says, "Yeah."

Haemanthus says that Holmes "has zero involvement with the company." Although the film clearly depicts Holmes and Evans collaborating on a business project and making calls to investors, it is unclear whether that project is connected to Haemanthus. The company was incorporated in 2024, according to Benzinga via Yahoo Finance. As of 2025, Haemanthus had reportedly raised $20 million, according to The Guardian. It has not yet released a product.

What does Billy Evans think of 'You Can See Everything'?

Appearing as a guest on the All-In podcast last month, Evans said the idea behind doing the documentary was to counter the narrative about Holmes that had solidified over the past decade and "to have people see who she is."

Asked if he thinks the movie achieved that goal, Evans said, "I haven't seen it yet. I mean, I might think this is the dumbest thing I've ever done."

The burn permit suspension in San Diego County is being lifted effective at 8 a.m. Monday.

San Diego County Fire Chief Tony Mecham formally canceled the suspension, advising residents and property owners who hold current, valid agricultural and residential burn permits that they may resume burning on permissible burn days. Permissible burning hours will run 8 a.m. to sunset, according to Cal Fire.

Fire officials said while permits are required for all agricultural and residential burning, agricultural burns must be inspected by Cal Fire prior to ignition, and inspections may also be required for residential burns. Individuals can verify local inspection requirements by contacting their neighborhood Cal Fire station.

Officials urged caution during debris or agricultural burns, stressing that participants must follow all safety guidelines and maintain absolute control over the fire at all times. Authorities noted that individuals can face civil and/or criminal liability if a fire spreads to another property.

Residents wishing to burn must verify it is a permissive burn day prior to burning and record their intention to burn by contacting their local Cal Fire station, Cal Fire stated.

Fire officials emphasized that safe residential pile burning of forest residue is a vital tool for reducing fire hazards. During this same window of opportunity, state, federal, and local land management and fire agencies will conduct prescribed burns to improve forest health and resiliency on both private and public lands, according to Cal Fire.

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It happens in close races in almost every major election. Early California returns show Republicans winning or at least faring better than expected. Then, as votes are counted over the following days, the tallies shift in Democrats’ favor.

This “blue shift” or “red mirage” isn’t a result of California Democrats “finding votes” or rigging elections, as President Donald Trump and his supporters have repeatedly claimed.

Trump and his allies in the federal government are already laying the groundwork for questioning the election results as they embark on an unprecedented attack on California’s elections, setting up what could be a showdown over the fundamentals of American democracy.

Experts urge you not to be fooled by their claims of “rigged” elections based on early returns.

The shifts in early tallies, experts say, are merely the result of when and how Democrats and Republicans tend to vote and the length of time it takes California election officials to count millions of ballots.

Examples of the ‘blue shift’ and ‘red mirage’

The phenomenon has been described since at least 2013, but the terms gained traction around the contentious 2020 elections.

Six years ago, election night returns showed Trump leading Joe Biden in several key states, but as counties nationwide counted ballots over the coming days, Biden ended up winning in the states that put him over the top in the Electoral College.

In the final weeks of his first term, Trump made claims, which have been repeatedly debunked, that the race was stolen from him. Thousands of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in the deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

California has seen its own red mirages in congressional and local races over the years. In 2018, for instance, four Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives appeared to be ahead on election night, but ended up losing to their Democratic opponents by the time all votes were counted.

In the primary this June, Spencer Pratt, a Republican former reality TV star, appeared to be beating progressive Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman in early returns in the race for LA mayor. Raman ended up pulling ahead and advanced to the general election to face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.

The shift led Trump to call the results “rigged” and others on the MAGA right to declare Democratic shenanigans were at work.

Experts and elections officials say you shouldn’t believe such claims.

Why vote counts shift

First, let’s state the obvious: California is the most populous state. There are 23 million registered voters in California; that’s more voters than the entire populations of the 16 least-populated states combined.

Los Angeles County — the most populated in the country — alone has nearly 6 million registered voters.

There are also lots of Republicans in California, even though Democrats greatly outnumber them.

Want to blow some minds at your next cocktail party? Ask your friends to name which county in the U.S. had the most Trump voters, by raw numbers, in the 2020 election. The answer: deep-blue Los Angeles County, where Biden overwhelmingly won.

So how does that translate into a red mirage?

In the June LA mayor’s race, the city’s Republicans turned their ballots in earlier than Democrats did.

There was so much last-minute uncertainty over the crowded field of Democratic gubernatorial candidates who appeared on the same ballot that many liberal voters waited an especially long time to return them.

That meant more Republican votes were reported in the first wave of election returns, a red mirage that disappeared as Democratic votes were fully tabulated.

That could very well happen in the various partisan races on the ballot in California, including those that could determine which party controls Congress.

And, as usual, the rest of the country may end up waiting weeks for California’s results to get an answer.

Yes, California takes a long time to count votes

There’s no getting around it: California’s vote counting process is slow, and that gives more time for doubts about the election results to fester.

“It is undermining voter confidence. It’s opening the door to election mis- and disinformation,” Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said in a briefing last week. “It’s leading to threats and criticism of our election staff. …. And it shortens the time required for an orderly transition of power.”

But there are reasons why California counts so slowly.

During the pandemic, California began mailing every registered voter a ballot. Mail-in ballots require far more time to process than in-person ballots. Many voters also hang on to their ballots until Election Day.

Adding to the counting delays, California gives voters a seven-day grace period for ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive and get counted.

California also has the longest period in the country to “cure” ballots that come in with problems such as mismatched signatures that require election officials to contact voters to fix them. This year, voters have until the day before Thanksgiving to cure their ballots, Alexander said.

The state only requires counties to count ballots for at least six hours a day, and they’re not required to count on weekends or holidays.

Alexander said many counties go beyond that, but it’s up to each election office. The decision is often dependent on whether the county has enough election workers, can pay them over time and has space for them to work, all of which depend on local budgets.

Recent changes to California law aim to speed up the count, and lawmakers this year provided $29 million for counties to buy more ballot-counting machines or hire more workers. Still, Alexander said some close races could remain undecided for weeks. Counties have 30 days to officially certify the results.

Ben Gips of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to fighting authoritarianism, urged California voters not to be misled by those who would use such delays to sow doubt about an election that is working as intended, if slowly.

“These delays really can add fuel to that strategy, and it can make it much easier to do that deception,” Gips said.

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

Itzel Islas fell in love with the axolotl, a salamander native to Mexico, when she saw an illustration on Instagram. Later, she saw the animals in their natural habitat for the first time.

“They truly are so magical. They can regenerate body parts, including their heart, including parts of their brain,” Islas said. “I think that is so wonderful and mindboggling.

But axolotls are critically endangered. That’s why Birch Aquarium partnered with Islas on its new exhibition, The Axolotl's Garden.

“I know people are keeping them now in labs and other places, but they need to be at their home of Xochimilco,” Islas said. “And there needs to be a lot of resources put into that in order to help them stay there.”

Islas describes her art as playful and colorful. Working with Birch Aquarium was a natural fit.

“We worked with some pinks, which was perfect for the pink axolotl. There were some grays that were perfect for the black axolotl, and then the greens and the browns and the yellows to demonstrate the colors in Xochimilco and their environment. It was perfect,” Islas said.

Islas said she never imagined her art would end up in an aquarium.

“The fact that I can have my illustrations in San Diego, which is where I grew up, and where I live, and then to tie in with an axolotl, which is a Mexican creature that I love. It's just feels so full circle to me and it's such a wonderful opportunity. I am just very grateful,” Islas said.

Another local artist, Maricruz Alvarado, contributed two ofrendas, or altars. One honors deceased pets. The other highlights endangered animals, including the axolotl and the sea turtle.

Alvarado draws on the Mexican tradition of alebrijes, brightly colored figures that combine real and fantastical animals.

“Well they were made of papier-mâché. Each one was made by hand and painted by hand, too, with the help of the community. So for me, it's very important, whenever I create any kind of art, to be able to include the community,” Alvarado said in Spanish.

She also wants her art to remind people why conservation matters.

“It’s important because everything that exists in the world, from the animals to the plants, every one of the things that exist in the world is important for our own survival,” Alvarado said.

Alvarado said art can do more than inspire. It can also raise awareness.

“Whenever someone creates, it’s important, but you also have to create awareness with your creations for people to be able to hear your message,” Alvarado said.

The Axolotl’s Garden is on view at Birch Aquarium.

The election is just a few days away, on Tuesday, Nov. 3, so we're going to give you the rundown on some of the biggest races on the ballot and recap what's happened so far, and why these races matter.

Read on for a quick catch-up on five key races ranging from governor to county supervisor.

If you haven't voted yet, visit the KPBS Voter Hub for more election explainers, voting information and a helpful video breakdown on everything on the local ballot.

Editor's Note: The author of this story, Alexandra Bacaj, is a member of the KPBS Communications and Marketing team. This piece was assigned and edited by KPBS news staff. The KPBS news operation maintains strict editorial independence from KPBS executives and all non-news departments.

Most people have probably encountered it while surfing the web. But they’ve likely never seen it.

It's a computer programming language called Hypertext Preprocessor, or PHP. And it is the back end software that supports nearly 70% of the world’s websites. 

Now, a security researcher has discovered major flaws in the programming language using advanced OpenAI artificial intelligence models. The discovery may put PHP-powered website owners at risk of getting hacked.

“Everyone's at risk because if an attacker is able to exploit this flaw and get into a website, they can then take people's credentials from the website and try to log in to other websites and steal their data or purchase things they're not supposed to do,” said Nikolas Behar, a cybersecurity professor at the University of San Diego.

The flaw is known as PHP2Shell and includes two bugs that hackers can take advantage of. It was found by a researcher at Cailf, a cybersecurity company dedicated to testing frontier AI to detect vulnerabilities in open-source software.

Behar refers to PHP as the scaffolding that helps support websites behind the scenes. It is commonly used on popular website platforms such as WordPress and Wikipedia. However, it operates on the back end of the websites.

WordPress users may be among the most at risk. People who use WordPress to run their businesses might not be aware that PHP is underpinning the site.

Its prevalence only amplifies the security risks that come with the bugs.

“It's a big deal because PHP underpins a lot of servers that run websites on the internet. And most people don't realize that that's happening,” Behar said. “And most people have never heard of PHP. So they don't really grasp how widespread or serious this issue actually is.”

Attackers can exploit these weaknesses. For example, they could potentially gain unauthorized access to computers and operate them remotely. That leaves sites vulnerable to getting its data stolen, in addition to a host of other issues.

“They (hackers) can use it to do things like mine crypto or launch more attacks, or they can use it as part of a denial-of-service attack, which is when attackers flood a particular system with so much traffic that it gets overwhelmed and goes offline,” Behar said.

Many government agencies around the world temporarily took websites offline while cybersecurity experts could work out a solution. In the event of a cybersecurity vulnerability, defenders can create digital “patches” to remedy the bug.

They work similarly to updates. However, applying patches is more complicated than simply tapping “install” like users might be familiar with on an iPhone or computer update. It requires expertise with the back end of a website.

“The thing that probably concerns me the most is the internet of things devices that are running PHP and do not have a good way or a way at all to update them,” Behar said. “So those will remain vulnerable until they are replaced or taken offline.”

PHP released a digital “patch” to fix the bugs. But Behar suspects that the average person’s website is likely left unpatched. That’s because not just anyone can apply the fix. If someone suspects their website uses PHP, they need to reach out to the website operator

“It's really important to reach out to those providers and get an answer on what they’re doing about it (the PHP flaw), because those are the people that are supposed to be patching and making sure that their systems are secure,” Behar said.

It’s common practice for businesses to hire a third party to run a website or host IT services for them. To fix the PHP flaw, website operators who work for these providers must apply the patch from the back end of the website.

Few explorations of the PHP flaw have been reported thus far. But publicly announcing patches could lead to problematic outcomes.

While AI is finding these flaws faster than ever before, it also is providing hackers with a sort of dropped pin on where to find weaknesses. That means defenders trying to patch websites have a shorter window to resolve the problem.

“So the vulnerabilities are being discovered faster, and they're also being exploited faster. We have less notice for the defenders that the vulnerabilities are out there and a smaller amount of time before the vulnerabilities start to get exploited,” Behar said.

As frontier AI models continue to advance, this cyber footrace is anticipated to intensify. Behar emphasizes that website owners should exercise caution about their sites, even if they are unsure its using PHP.

"Call your website a person, call your IT person, call your nerd person and ask them, 'hey, does this PHP vulnerability affect any of the systems that you're maintaining for me, and what are you doing to patch it? And when will they be patched by?'" Behar said.

Website owners may want to consider a temporary shutdown of sites if they cannot find a way to patch their sites. The San Diego Cyber Clinic provides free cybersecurity workshops for community members looking to learn more.

If you’ve been stuck in traffic on Interstate 805 near North Park, chances are you’ve seen the quippy political signs posted on the Meade Avenue overpass.

“Tariffs and war make us poor,” or “Liar, liar, prices are higher,” are just some of the messages drivers might have seen on their way south over the last few weeks.

But have you ever wondered who’s putting the signs up?

Every Thursday for over a year, Susan has brought her bright yellow letters to the Meade Avenue bridge. We’ve agreed to use only her first name because she fears for her safety due to her activism work. She was inspired to take action after the Trump administration ramped up immigration enforcement.

“The lack of due process in sending people to other countries where they're not even from and to a prison without a trial. That was enough to kind of get me off my sofa and to do something,” Susan said.

She got the idea to do an overpass protest from Facebook after seeing posts from The Visibility Brigade, a national movement that has helped people in other U.S. cities start what they refer to as “overpass actions.”

The Visibility Brigade traces its origin to Paramus, New Jersey, where Dana Glazer started putting up messages in 2020.

“The Visibility Brigade is about creating social proof — social proof that we’re in a state of crisis,” Glazer said. “The genesis of Visibility Brigade was the frustration that I had personally with looking around and seeing everything looked normal, and it wasn’t. I wanted to find a way to disrupt that.”

Today, there are about 500 Visibility Brigades active across the country, Glazer said.

Why overpasses?

This question takes us to Paris, where the Pont de Neuf Bridge stands as a monument to French protest and resistance. It was the first bridge in Paris to accommodate pedestrians and as such served as an important meeting point for French revolutionaries.

Glanzer said The Visibility Brigade is continuing that tradition.

“We think of ourselves as building a bridge all across the country made up of a bunch of smaller bridges,” he said.

There’s also the traffic — a captive audience.

“There's no algorithm on the bridge, it doesn't suppress you. Everybody that drives by sees it,” said Sabrina Ball, who organizes three bridges in Fort Worth, Texas. “That’s the struggle, is getting a message out there online on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok … but the bridge? It’s there, they have to see it.”

In San Diego, where freeways often bisect entire neighborhoods, overpasses are also places to connect.

Heather Aboroa has been attending the I-805 protest since it began. She said she’s connected with the other people that come out to the protest.

“What I get out of this is a lot of camaraderie,” Aboroa said. “These people are my friends and we’ve done a couple of events where we get people from different groups together for, you know, carne asada … so, we’ve formed networks.”

The message

Ahead of the midterm elections on Nov. 3, Susan is especially interested in reaching voters, but she’s also being realistic about expectations.

“I don't think I'm going to flip a diehard MAGA or Trump voter, and I know that people who are already Democrats — you know, they honk and they wave and they have a good time,” Susan said. “Really my audience is those voters that normally don't turn out. Especially midterms, but just in general. They don't follow politics, right? They don't think it affects them. And I'm trying to point out that yes, it does.”

That’s also the approach nationally, Glazer said.

“We're not trying to antagonize people. We're trying to remind people of their civic responsibility, especially come November, and to get them to do more,” he said.

How does the Visibility Brigade do that in as few letters as possible?

“We do a lot of messaging research,” Susan said.

There’s a Signal chat with all the organizers across the country. People will throw out ideas. There’s a lot of collaboration, Susan added.

“It’s nice to have that,” she said. “I mean, there are a couple hundred people in that group. Majority rules, and I take what they have to say seriously.”

But the letters are only one part of the message Susan and the other Visibility Brigade members hope to convey.

Ramona Konar, who brings her own sign to the Meade Avenue Bridge every week, said showing up is just as important.

“I hope people will be encouraged when they see us and do whatever they can to let their views be known, and to vote,” she said.

KPBS reached out to a San Diego County Republican Party official to see if they know of any similar demonstrations advocating for Republican causes and to get their reaction to The Visibility Brigade. They did not get back to us.

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

California voters considering Proposition 45 will decide the fate of a sweeping infrastructure measure that opponents warn could render the state’s brand-new data center laws virtually toothless.

That would make it far easier for developers to force unwanted facilities into local communities, potentially undermining a growing wave of bans, moratoriums, and anti-data-center resolutions at the city and county level.

Data center backers insist the ballot measure will do nothing for them — even as some data center beneficiaries are spending big backing Prop. 45.

Supporters have framed Prop. 45 as a tool to accelerate critical infrastructure projects, like housing and schools, and the measure does not directly name data centers among the sorts of projects it considers critical. But some legal scholars and environmental advocates say that the proposition’s technical language creates a loophole. By expediting environmental reviews under the California Environmental Quality Act for broad categories of projects — including broadband internet facilities and any additional infrastructure required to get them up and running — the measure could quietly allow data centers to bypass recent state safeguards and local scrutiny.

Julia Stein, a legal scholar and deputy director at UCLA School of Law's Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, warns that the measure acts as a "blunt force instrument when it comes to streamlining" because of how wide its secondary umbrella extends.

"What Prop. 45 does is designate an entire class of projects that would be subject to streamlining, and then it also says that projects ancillary to those projects — so something that you might need to do in the course of the development of the project that's exempted itself — would fall within that same streamlining bubble," Stein said.

Telecommunications projects are explicitly streamlined under the proposition, "and there's an argument that the development of data centers might be necessary for projects like that,” Stein added.

Other projects, like high-speed rail, are explicitly excluded from streamlining under the proposition — but data centers are not on that list, either. Stein and three other environmental law scholars told CalMatters that this opens the door for legal challenges.

“The fact that they excluded some projects but have not expressly excluded data centers, a court would probably actually interpret that not as an unintentional oversight, but rather as intent to include data centers in the initiative,” said Matt McKerley, an attorney with Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger.

Further, opponents argue that the proposition’s language, which includes a clause that it would supersede other related laws, would override measures like the recently-passed Senate Bill 887, which made it harder to fast-track environmental review for data centers.

Industry representatives say these objections to Prop. 45 are misplaced. The Data Center Coalition, an industry group supporting Prop. 45, insists their facilities fall outside the initiative's scope, which focuses largely on housing development ad other infrastructure like roads and bridges.

“The Data Center Coalition has reviewed Proposition 45 and concluded that data centers are not eligible for Prop. 45’s streamlining, nor are they a covered entity under any part of the measure,” said Khara Boender, the coalition’s Director of Government Affairs—West.

Industry representatives also point to a recent legal opinion memo from California’s Office of Legislative Counsel, which provides legal services to members of the Legislature. The memo argues that Prop. 45's statutory definitions do not apply to data centers.

Amelia Matier, from the Yes on 45 campaign, echoed that take, saying, “Data centers are not included in Prop 45.” She added: “The defenders of California's unaffordable status quo are desperate to distract voters with lies because they cannot defend the costly delays and red tape driving up prices for working families.”

Opponents of the measure include the California Labor Federation, Western Center on Law & Poverty, and various environmental advocacy groups that have spent more than $31 million dollars pushing back against the measure.

Despite maintaining that data centers fall outside the proposition’s reach, tech and utility interests benefiting from California's computing boom are putting massive financial weight behind its passage. Proponents have poured over $40 million into the Yes on Prop. 45 campaign, including $3.05 million from utility giant PG&E and $500,000 from warehouse and data center developer Prologis — a cash influx that opponents argue reveals who truly expects to profit if the measure passes.

The debate over Prop. 45’s data center impact comes at a pivotal moment in California’s AI infrastructure boom. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed seven landmark data center laws aimed at forcing operators to disclose water usage, pay for their own grid upgrades, and undergo environmental review.

Yet local communities aren't waiting for state regulations to take effect. Amid rising fears of rate hikes, grid overload, and water depletion, grassroots opposition has erupted across California. At least 26 cities and counties have proposed or passed moratoriums, bans, or strict limits aimed to stop data center development in their communities.

Nina Robertson, a deputy managing attorney in Earthjustice’s California regional office, said the ambiguity written into the ballot text would trigger immediate legal battles over local permitting authority.

“And who's going to bear the cost of that litigation?” Robertson asked. “It's going to be the local governments.”

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

Colorful marigolds and decorative cut-paper banners called "papel picado," skulls and skeletons and the early stages of altars dot La Vista Memorial Park’s rolling grassy hills and gravesites.

The scent of those marigold flowers, called cempasúchil, is what many people believe helps the spirits of the dead find their way back home.

In the coming days, many of those spirits are expected to return to this cemetery in San Diego’s Lincoln Acres neighborhood for the celebration of Día de Muertos.

It's part of an annual tradition that began at the site nearly 20 years ago.

“It started with my dad’s passing. And he's laid to rest in Tecate, Baja California. But when I came and integrated here at La Vista I thought ‘woah, I don't have his headstone here, but what I can do is have an altar for him,’” said Luisa McCarthy.

She’s co-owner of La Vista Memorial Park and Mortuary.

McCarthy is originally from Mexico City, one of the major urban areas known for its celebrations of Día de Muertos. It’s a holiday with ancient Mesoamerican and Aztec roots.

She said Día de Muertos takes place Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, with many families beginning preparations days or even weeks earlier. She encouraged people of all backgrounds to take part.

“These are the three stages of life — your youth, when you grow old and death. So that way it's not scary,” McCarthy said, gesturing to her family altar. “It's a tradition of love where we remember our loved ones with their personal mementos, we play their music, we serve them the food they liked.”

McCarthy said long before Disney and Pixar helped popularize the holiday with its iconic “Coco” film in 2017, she offered a more traditional Mexican celebration of the holiday — north of the border.

At La Vista cemetery, families have been planning their altars and will soon gather in the cemetery during the day and at night during the first two days of November.

At night it's believed the border between the physical and spirit worlds cross over, and the souls of the dead return to eat, drink, and enjoy music with loved ones.

“The cemetery lights up by its own personal light that the families bring, which is really what it's all about,” McCarthy said. “It's about decorating your resting place, building your own personal altar in your resting place and bringing food, like potluck style, and sharing it with your neighbor. This is where you'll get to know the neighbors in the afterlife, not just right now.”

Angela Riggs is a mother of a family who takes part in the custom. They celebrate her son Leo, who died when he was just 26 days old.

“In 2013 we lost our son unexpectedly to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. As you can imagine, it was devastating and tragic, completely unexpected,” Riggs said at the cemetery.

She said when Leo passed away there was nothing physical for her to do anymore. Since his death her family has built an altar at La Vista, year after year, as a means of keeping an ongoing physical connection.

Despite being half Mexican, she didn't grow up practicing the tradition.

“Being able to build an altar — to put it together, to make the seven levels that represent the ascension, to put the salt that represents the taste of what their spirits would flavor their food with, and water to quench his thirst, and the candles, and the marigolds, and the beautiful smell of copal — it was such a therapeutic way for me to continue to do something as his mother,” Riggs said.

Racquel Galicia is the matriarch of another family that takes part in the celebration at the cemetery.

“For us, the meaning of the Day of the Dead is an offering of love,” she said in Spanish.

She was born in the greater central Mexico region and raised in Tijuana during her youth. She said the festivities at La Vista aren't quite like those south of the border, but they're about as close as it gets in the U.S.

Galicia always brings food to share. That includes pan de muerto, or bread of the dead.

The sweet bread is packed with spices and symbolism — many renditions including dough that’s shaped like a cross representing human bones.

To them it's not just a custom tied to faith, it’s a way they make a living.

“My husband and my grandson are here in this cemetery,” she said in Spanish. “My husband was one of those people who — like all immigrants — arrived here with no money or anything else. However, he had the intention of starting a business, and 30 years ago, he launched Sammy’s Mexican Bakery.”

Another participant is Thomas Gallardo. He lost his father last year.

Just a few months after his passing, he and his family built an altar for the first time at the cemetery.

They went big and won an altar competition during last year’s event at La Vista. He said it’s helped the grieving process.

“It’s a beautiful thing to be able to move past things — to be able to come here without spending the whole time crying, you know,” he said in Spanish. “You just let go, and that’s that. Their time here has passed; they’re in another place now — a much, much better one.”

McCarthy said their celebration has changed in size and scope over time, but the essence of what they offer hasn’t strayed.

She will be there Nov. 1 overseeing the celebration and competitions dressed from head to toe as an elegant skeleton — a Catrina. It’s a costume reminding us that in death we are all equal in the end.

“We don't want it to become another Cinco de Mayo,” she said. “It's a tradition, a sacred tradition of Día de Muertos to remember your loved ones. You drink, but you bring them the drink. And you can share the drink with your families, whoever is around that headstone.”

McCarthy said anyone can build an altar at La Vista as long as participants sign up ahead of time. The public is welcome to come visit and explore.

The official cash-prize altar and Catrina contests take place during the afternoon on Nov. 1 — the day designated for the souls of children. Nov. 2 is when the souls of adults are honored.

She expects a couple thousand people to be there on the Nov. 1 celebrations that last into the night. That includes the park’s families, the greater community and the souls of loved ones, who can stay until midnight in the cemetery reunited together — if only for a brief moment in time.

In just a few days, Día de Muertos will come to life along the streets of Sherman Heights and surrounding communities with the annual Candlelight Procession.

The procession is one of several Día de Muertos events organized by the Sherman Heights Community Center. Staff and volunteers said these gatherings offer an important space for community members who keep the traditions alive but cannot easily travel to Mexico and other Latin American countries where the celebration has its roots.

Francisco Soto works at the community center and said all are welcome to attend.

“Everyone is invited to the procession. Anyone can participate. It doesn’t matter if you don’t live here,” Soto said.

Held on the last day of Day of the Dead celebrations on Nov. 2, the procession gives community members an opportunity to take part in the cultural tradition close to home.

Daniel Pozos, a historian and volunteer with the community center for more than 20 years, described the mood.

“There's excitement in the air,” Pozos said.“There's people waiting to see the altars, walk in community, walk with culture, and conserve the culture, right? So they feel that by showing up, they're living it.”

Residents who have homes on the route of the procession make ofrendas and display them during the event.

Some of those residents include Soto’s family who live in Sherman Heights. His family creates an outdoor altar. He said his home is known as “La casa de Chocolate,” because sometimes participants stay and his family will offer foods or drinks such as hot chocolate.

“We try to preserve the tradition as authentically as possible, within our means, since we are in a country that is not our homeland, but we are part of it,” Soto said.

Attendees walk through neighborhoods stopping at homes where they are welcomed by residents who created ofrendas as part of the event.

It begins at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park, then to the Sherman Heights Community Center, afterward to Logan Heights and ends at Chicano Park.

The origin of Día de Muertos festivities at the community center is said to go back to Señor Domingo Sandoval, a Sherman Heights resident who was known for growing cempasúchitl flowers and asked the center if he could build an ofrenda there, according to Daniela Kelly, who is the executive director of the center.

At the front of the procession you’ll find Cynthia Soto, a Sherman Heights resident, sister of Francisco Soto and a procession leader.

As a part of the walk, Soto transforms into a Catrina, which she describes as a common figure associated with Día de Muertos. On the day of the procession, she is the first to step through the route and guides all participants.

“The tradition of La Catrina began as a kind of satire of Mexican society, particularly the newer generation in Mexico. The idea is that no matter how elegant or beautiful you are, you’re still going to die,” she explained.

Also leading the way is Calpulli Mexihca, an Aztec dance group. With the ancestral sounds of conch shell trumpets, drums and more, the Aztec dancers bless the altars of the participating homes and take participants down the path.

The walk to remember loved ones who have died brings together people from different communities including residents from Tijuana as well as decorated lowrider cars and bikes, mariachi performers, university students who bring and carry their nichos (small altars), and the Fern Street Circus which included stilt-walking Catrinas last year.

Pozos notes the power of the community coming together.

"But when they see the Danza Azteca bless their homes and the people come and kind of grieve with them, then it's a community grieving," Pozos explained. "It's sharing your pain and we understand you, and we see you and we're here for support that way. And that changes everything, right? Then people start realizing, this is something sacred."

This year's procession starts at 4 p.m. on Monday Nov. 2 at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park.

They're called pretext traffic stops.

If police see a minor violation on a vehicle, like a broken tail light or tinted windows, but have suspicions that a driver is engaged in criminal activity, officers can pull them over and investigate.

Police consider these stops crucial for effective crime fighting. But research has shown that they disproportionately target Black and Latino communities.

In August the San Diego Commission on Police Practices, the city's citizen oversight board, recommended that the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) change how officers conduct these stops.

They suggested not stopping people for administrative violations, avoiding general assumptions when determining whether to pull someone over and not investigating further when there is only evidence of a minor violation.

CPP Executive Director Roger Smith said these traffic stops are inherently misleading and, in California, only lead to arrests or evidence recovery in less than 5% percent of cases.

“They're done under false pretenses, they are pretending that the purpose is one thing and the real purpose is another,” Smith said. “The public has to deal with this deception from the department on a daily basis and this deception is not necessary.”

Smith also took issue with the department’s practice of entering the field interviews with the people they pull over into the CalGang database, which departments across the state use as a clearinghouse for suspected gang activity.

This week, SDPD officials largely rejected the CPP’s recommendations, saying in a response letter that these restrictions could limit their ability to effectively address crime.

“The violations identified by the Commission are often associated with pretextual stops, but that does not mean every stop for these violations is pretextual,” the letter said. “These vehicle codes serve independent safety purposes, and a categorical prohibition would prevent officers from addressing the underlying violation, regardless of the reason for the stop.”

SDPD spokesperson Ashley Nicholes declined KPBS’s request for an interview.

Police are legally allowed to conduct these traffic stops and can investigate further if they have reasonable suspicion. According to their letter, “department procedures already require officers to have a lawful basis for a detention and limit its scope and duration.”

Locally, people in Southeast San Diego and people of color are among the most likely to be stopped by SDPD, according to civil rights attorney and Pillars of the Community Legal Director Mitchelle Woodson.

While people of color are more likely to be pulled over, Woodson said they are actually less likely to be arrested after a traffic stop than white people.

“If you talk to black and brown residents that have these kinds of interactions, they don't feel safe around the police,” Woodson said. “It's such a waste of taxpayer dollars and such a waste of police time.”

Woodson said during these stops people often don’t realize they aren’t legally required to allow a search of their vehicle.

“Having a broken tail light is not probable cause for another kind of crime,” Woodson said. “Oftentimes people feel, especially communities that are overpoliced and overcriminalized, feel that we don't have these rights or that we're not knowledgeable of how to protect those rights.”

In their response letter, SDPD said they have trainings in place that already address some of CPP’s central concerns, including racial profiling and implicit biases. According to the letter, officers receive 4 hours of racial profiling training during their time in the regional police academy, and an additional two hours of training every two years.

This isn’t enough for Woodson.

“The issue isn't just in training,” she said. “It's that there is a culture of bias and racism that's embedded in the way that police, both in San Diego and in the nation, utilize their practices.”

CPP’s recommendations came after two years of internal discussions and community meetings.

And Smith said the conversation won’t end here.

“They have a practice that they know is affecting different segments of the community differently for no good reason, for no necessary reason, but they're determined to continue with it,” he said. “That must stop.”

For 10 months, San Diego Superior Court failed to comply with a state law aimed at making court records more accessible to the public.

Assembly Bill 1524, which went into effect in January, allows members of the public to take photos of court records instead of paying to have them copied by court personnel. The local Superior Court charges 50 cents per page for photocopies — meaning the savings can be considerable.

However, until this week, the court continued to prevent people from taking photos of court records. Signs on the walls of the downtown courthouse records room stated that people caught breaking the rule would be escorted out of the building.

But after questions from KPBS recently, the court said it would issue a revised policy that complies with AB 1524.

Court spokesperson Emily Cox said she expects the updated policy will take effect by the end of the week.

“At the time this bill became effective, the Court was focused on several other priorities, including the complete changeover of our criminal case management system, a project that was in the works for several years,” Cox said in an email.

David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition, said the law is supposed to benefit both the public and the courts.

“Excessive charges are a barrier to transparency,” Loy said. He added, “It may be a significant drain on court resources for clerks to have to make a copy of every single page in a court file, particularly if it's hundreds of pages.”

The issue came to light last week when a KPBS reporter requested to view records in several criminal cases. A court employee told the reporter that photographing the documents was not allowed. When asked about AB 1524, a supervisor said the law didn’t take effect until 2027.

The court has since acknowledged its mistake.

Democratic Assemblymember Ash Kalra of San Jose, who helped author the legislation, took steps to address the issue when KPBS reached out to his office.

“Upon hearing of the incident with KPBS, my office contacted the statewide Judicial Council and they have assured us they are implementing the measure in good faith,” Kalra said in a written statement.

It’s unclear how much money San Diego County Superior Court collected this year from people who might have otherwise taken photos of court records instead of paying for photocopies.

Loy said there could be legal ramifications for the error.

“I think the court ought to be concerned about its exposure to some kind of lawsuit to recover compensation for members of the public who may have been charged unlawful fees,” he said.

San Diego County Medical Examiner’s (ME) office late Wednesday officially identified the man who died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody Saturday at the Otay Mesa Detention Center.

The name it released, Guillermo Pascual Verganza, 43, is a Guatemalan national. That was different from what ICE initially released.

In its Oct. 27 notification, ICE said his name was Roberto Jimenez Gutierrez. As of Thursday, the agency still refers to him by that name.

An ICE spokesperson said the detainee provided false information and used several aliases to mislead law enforcement.

The ME’s office said it verified his identity by running his fingerprints through the Department of Justice and California ID’s databases. It also matched that information against his Guatemalan passport.

A county spokesperson said the office also had his family positively identify him through a photo — something it typically does not do. But because of the unusual nature of this case, it took that extra step.

Salvador Sarmiento, an attorney with the National Day Laborer Network, said this was more than just a case of mistaken identity.

“At best, it's outrageous and even possibly criminal negligence,” he said. “It's a cruel and careless violation of their duty of care … but it calls into question how they're meeting their duty of care for all of the people that are in ICE custody today.”

KPBS has sent multiple email requests to ICE asking how it confirms the identity of those in its custody. The agency has yet to respond.

In ICE’s press release, it said Verganza has a criminal history, which includes selling alcohol to a minor, spousal abuse and child abuse. His family denies those allegations. But given the mismatched identity, it calls into question that long list of criminal charges.

ICE has also not responded to questions about the alleged charges.

Benjamin Prado of the American Friends Service Committee said ICE has a responsibility to positively identify anyone in the agency’s custody.

“That is the reason why (detainees are) taken downtown to the federal building. They're fingerprinted, their biometrics registered,” he said. “Now, if they have that wrong, how many other cases are there of individuals that are misidentified?”

Prado said the family has reached out asking for help with repatriating Verganza’s body to Guatemala. The Consulate General of Guatemala in Los Angeles said it is aware of the case and is working with the family.

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As the sun dipped low outside the Otay Mesa Detention Center, Pedro Rios and Adriana Jasso laid out the cempasúchil flowers carefully, the brilliant orange petals staining their fingertips.

Nearby, organizers and artists had built a ceremonial altar decorated with candles, calaveras and monarch butterflies.

“We’re breaking up the cempasúchil flower, the marigolds and creating a path,” Rios said, cradling the flowers in his arms. “To the ceremonial altar that recognizes them as human beings.”

On Wednesday evening, a little over a dozen people gathered for a vigil outside the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) facility, which sits along the southern edge of San Diego County.

Vigil participants were there to celebrate Día de Muertos, the traditional holiday with deep roots throughout Mexico and Central America — and to honor the dozens of people that ICE agents have shot or who have died in the agency’s custody this year.

The event came just days after a 43-year-old immigrant from Guatemala named Guillermo Pascual Verganza died on Saturday in a cell at Otay Mesa.

Verganza was the 60th person to die in ICE detention since President Donald Trump took office again and launched a deadly mass deportation campaign. That’s according to Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University professor who tracks deaths in ICE custody.

In a statement earlier this week, ICE said it is investigating Verganza’s death. (The agency incorrectly identified Verganza as “Roberto Jimenez Gutierrez.”)

The agency did not respond to KPBS’ questions.

San Diego County officials have demanded an independent investigation into Verganza’s death.

Wednesday’s vigil was organized by several immigrants’ rights groups, including the American Friends Service Committee, the nonprofit human rights organization where Rios and Jasso work.

Since 2020, the organization has held an annual Día de Muertos gathering outside the detention center on Oct. 28. Traditionally, that date is reserved for honoring people who have died from sudden accidents, tragic events or violence.

Jasso said they wanted to call particular attention to CoreCivic, the private prison contractor that runs day-to-day operations at Otay Mesa. It’s one of several companies that make money by detaining immigrants on behalf of the U.S. government.

“CoreCivic has the profits of billions of dollars a year from the cruelty of holding people,” Jasso said. “It is important for us to be here and to make sure that CoreCivic knows that we know — and that ICE also understands — that they are responsible for the lives.”

In a statement, a CoreCivic spokesperson said the company was deeply saddened by the loss of anyone in their care.

“Our government partners at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were notified immediately,” the company wrote. “All deaths in ICE custody are reviewed by ICE.”

Verganza is the first person that ICE has reported dying at Otay Mesa since the beginning of Trump’s second term. Two other immigrants, Huabing Xie and Luis Beltrán Yañez-Cruz, died while being held at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in neighboring Imperial County.

Jasso said ICE has tried to criminalize Verganza in its public statements.

Earlier this week, the agency alleged that he was arrested multiple times for charges including child abuse and battery against a spouse. ICE said he was also convicted for selling liquor to a minor. (Verganza’s family has denied those allegations.)

“The agency seems to make a clear effort to … present people as criminal, alien rather than human beings,” Jasso said. “We didn't hear about the fact that, from what we understand now, he was a father of five children — that he had a life, dreams and aspirations just like many other people.”

Through their vigils, she said, they hope to humanize Verganza and others who have died in ICE custody.

May, another attendee who did not share her last name, pointed out that Verganza’s death was the second in the span of just five days. Last week, 48-year-old Luis Sandoval died amid an ongoing hunger strike at a detention center in Georgia.

“We can’t become desensitized,” May said. “We can't let at least that part of our humanity be taken away.”

Another immigrants’ rights group has planned a vigil for Sunday afternoon at 1:30pm.

This story has been updated to include a comment from CoreCivic.

Father Joe's Villages broke ground Thursday on an affordable housing project being built with mass timber, an emerging building material that can offer faster construction timelines and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

The eight-story development at 16th Street and Island Avenue in the East Village will feature 124 apartments, mostly studios and one-bedrooms, as well as a community room, on-site health and wellness services and English language classes.

Mass timber is a kind of engineered wood product made by joining smaller pieces of wood together to form large structural panels and beams. A 2021 update to the International Building Code allowed mass timber in buildings up to 18 stories.

Steel and concrete require huge amounts of energy to produce, and that energy typically comes from burning fossil fuels. Trees grow with a renewable resource — sunlight — and remove carbon from the atmosphere using photosynthesis.

Jodi Rothery is CEO of Arete Development, which is building the project. She said the decision to use mass timber was not just environmental — it also shortened the construction timeline and lowered the project's per-unit development costs from $530,000 to $380,000.

"A lot of these (mass timber) components are off-site built," Rothery said. "That allows for simultaneous work to be happening both on-site and off-site, and also in the end relies on fewer people to put everything together in the field."

Joowan Lee, director of innovation at Arete Development, said advances in mass timber production and proof-of-concept projects in Northern California paved the way for the material to be used in San Diego.

Lee said Arete Development is also preparing to apply for building permits on another mass timber project at the former indoor skydiving facility at 14th Street and Imperial Avenue. That development will feature 13 stories of mass timber above five stories of concrete, he said, making it San Diego's first mass timber high-rise.

The apartments at 16th Street and Island Avenue will have rents that are affordable to households earning between 30% and 60% of the county's median income. Today, that would translate to between $918 and $1,837 per month, including utilities, for a studio apartment.

Deacon Jim Vargas, president and CEO of Father Joe's Villages, said the cost efficiencies enabled by mass timber have the potential to transform the affordable housing industry.

"When we can build for less, we can build more and faster," Vargas said. "This is a model our region can repeat."

Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, money is pouring into American politics at levels never seen before.

Here in San Diego County, millions of dollars have already been spent on races and ballot measures countywide. KPBS and Voice of San Diego pored over campaign finance filings from several different reporting agencies to compile a list of the biggest spenders and donors impacting San Diego regional politics.

Our top spenders — who spent the most on campaigns — were the California Democratic Party, the “Yes on B” campaign for Measure B, and a super PAC called California Leads. The top donors — who contributed the most to campaigns — included the Laborers International Union of North America Local 89, the California Association of Realtors, and Sharp HealthCare.

Some of the donations and spending came during the primary election. For example, the California Association of Realtors dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars opposing a failed second home tax while Sharp HealthCare funded a committee backing a successful North County ballot measure involving the company and Tri-City Healthcare District.

Our review focused on spending from 2026 to avoid incorporating races that played out in the prior year but the top donors list incorporates donations made in the lead-up to this year’s campaign to committees or candidates that are spending in 2026. We also focused solely on spending in San Diego County and didn’t review federal campaign data.

Our tallies only include spending and donations that have been reported as of the Oct. 22 filing deadline, which required reports on spending and donations made before Oct. 17. Unpaid bills were not included in spending totals. Campaigns and committees will spend more money between this date and the election date, and are not required to disclose this last period’s spending until February 2027.

KBPS used artificial intelligence tools to help build software to collect and analyze campaign filings. KPBS and Voice checked original documents to confirm dollar figures, and no data was generated by AI.

San Diego's political power players: Top spenders and donors 

Voters in a region featuring four major cities and a military facility will choose Nov. 3 between the San Marcos mayor and a Democratic Party official as the new San Diego County District 5 supervisor.

Rebecca Jones and Kyle Krahel emerged from the June primary as the top two contenders for the seat, which is being vacated by termed-out Supervisor Jim Desmond.

A Republican, Desmond is seeking the 48th Congressional District seat, along with Democrat Marni von Wilpert, a San Diego City Council member.

County government is the main provider of services, such as law enforcement and public health, for unincorporated communities.

The Board of Supervisors is considered a nonpartisan governing body, although ideological divisions have flared up at times since 2020.

Jones, a Republican, has been San Marcos' mayor since December 2018. She previously served on the City Council for 11 years.

Raised in El Cajon and Ramona, Jones' connection to San Marcos spans more than three decades.

She studied at Grossmont Community College and obtained a real estate license, according to a 2018 San Diego Union-Tribune article. Jones has served on several public agencies, including the San Diego Association of Governments.

She told City News Service by email that as a supervisor she "would demand measurable performance, cut waste and stop treating higher spending as the default solution." Jones said she wants to focus on "(bringing) down costs for families like public safety and fire protection that lowers insurance rates, practical housing that delivers the right project in the right location and rejecting unfunded mandates that raise the price of doing business."

"Families are already stretching every dollar," Jones said. "County government must do the same." Jones said the county budget has grown more than 40% over the last six years and that she would insist on an efficiency review.

As mayor of San Marcos, "I created the city's first efficiency department and identified over $1 million in savings while improving services," she said. "Before depleting reserves or asking residents for more money, we need proactive cuts (to) overlapping functions and programs that cannot show measurable results."

Jones said she does not support Measure A, which proposes changes to the county charter, including expanded term limits for supervisors.

"This is pure self-serving politics, after voters already set very clear two, four-year term limits in 2010," she said. "It also gives supervisors the unprecedented power to hire and fire key department heads, including public health and emergency leaders.

"Our hardworking county employees shouldn't be looking over their shoulder for fear of being fired because they may think differently in their personal beliefs," Jones added.

Jones also opposes Measure B, a countywide sales tax to address the Tijuana River Valley sewage crisis and boost child care and public safety funding following federal budget cuts. "This $400 million tax increase is the wrong answer at the wrong time," she said.

She added that if current county leaders found just 5% in budget savings, "that would free up more money than this tax is projected to generate."

Jones said the county's Office of Evaluation and Performance Analytics has produced no savings after five years, despite having 20 staffers and a $20 million budget. Instead, she said she would bring her city's "Leading, Efficiency, Accountability and Engagement" model to the county, "so that office actually identifies waste and improves services instead of just producing paperwork."

She said county homeless programs also need an overhaul. "Spending keeps rising, yet the Regional Task Force's own data shows more people are becoming homeless than are being housed," Jones said. "I would require outcome tracking and shift funding toward proven models that deliver results, not just activity."

Mandated treatment should be considered for homeless people dealing with addiction who repeatedly refuse help and also pose a public safety risk, Jones said.

Jones cited the San Diego Rescue Mission and East County Transitional Living Center as examples of effective programs that "combine job training, mental-health resources and clear accountability."

Krahel, who earned a government degree from Harvard University, is a deputy chief of staff to Rep. Mike Levin.

Krahel is also a former county Democratic Party chair who has not previously held elected office. The Oceanside native's campaign website lists climate, homelessness, housing and transit as key issues. Programs "that cannot show measurable results after a fixed review period should be restructured or ended," he told City News Service by email, adding that he would begin with a line-by-line audit of the $9 billion budget.

He said the audit would include unfilled county positions and duplicative or sole-source consulting contracts, adding, "Every dollar spent on overhead is a dollar not spent on a patient, a deputy or a road."

To reduce homelessness, Krahel proposes a "true regional system" with cities sharing data. He also supports using county-owned land and vacant buildings for shelters such as Safe Villages and cabin communities, paired with on-site behavioral health care, job services and public safety measures, as well as prevention efforts such as rental assistance and eviction diversion.

With affordability a major voter concern this year, Krahel said he would "sponsor permitting reform and fee reductions so more homes get built, put surplus county land toward workforce and affordable housing, and fast-track accessory dwelling units."

Krahel said he supports expanding child care through Measure B funding by partnering with local providers "so parents are not forced to choose between a paycheck and their kids."

"I would make sure every eligible family is enrolled in Medi-Cal and CalFresh, cutting the paperwork that keeps people from benefits they have earned," he added. "And I would commit to holding the line on new county fees. Government should be making life cheaper, not adding another bill."

Krahel said he supports Measure A's proposed county charter changes, but opposes the provision that would allow supervisors to serve up to three four-year terms instead of the current limit of two. Voters deserve an independent ethics commission, auditor and budget analyst, he said.

"The board should have to publicly confirm the senior county officials," he added.

Krahel said he supports Measure B, but added that "a new tax should always be a last resort, but this situation is dire."

"Washington (D.C.) is shifting costs onto the county," he added. "I will push for strict public reporting on outcomes."

Krahel said the Behavioral Health Services and Planning and Development Services departments need improvement. "Permitting takes too long and costs too much, which drives up housing costs and drives out small businesses," he said. "I would set clear review deadlines, publish processing times every quarter and create a single point of contact for projects."

Behavioral health care wait times "are too long and too many people fall through the cracks between treatment, shelter and jail," Krahel said. He added that he would push for faster access to beds and crisis care, with reporting on wait times and outcomes. He also wants more funding for medical and mental health care staffing for inmates. "People in custody are the county's responsibility, and (jail) deaths are a failure we cannot accept," he said.

He added that he supports independent oversight and demands transparent reporting, "while backing the deputies who do this work every day."

The county's largest district by area, District 5 has between 685,000 and 700,000 residents, according to recent estimates. It includes agricultural land, substantial forest land, Camp Pendleton and a portion of the coastline.

The district includes four major North County cities: Escondido, Oceanside, San Marcos and Vista. It also includes the La Jolla, Los Coyotes, Mesa Grande, Pala, Pauma/Yuima, Rincon, San Pasqual and Santa Ysabel tribal reservations, as well as numerous unincorporated communities, including Agua Caliente, Borrego Springs, Fallbrook, Lake Henshaw, Pauma Valley, Rainbow, Valley Center and Warner Springs.

Two children have died of influenza-related causes this month, prompting San Diego County public health officials to remind residents to get vaccinated.

These two pediatric deaths — in a previously healthy 11-year-old and a 6-month-old with complex medical conditions — are among 11 flu-related deaths and 516 hospitalizations reported in San Diego County this season. At the same point last year, the county recorded two deaths and 86 hospitalizations.

"As a father myself, hearing about the deaths of two children is especially difficult and underscores the importance of prevention," said County Public Health Officer Dr. Sayone Thihalolipavan. "Flu vaccines are safe, effective and the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones from serious illness."

San Diego County's weekly Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report found a sharp increase in positive influenza tests, particularly among children ages 5 to 17.

Local and national health officials recommend flu vaccinations for everyone 6 months and older. Because it takes about two weeks for the body to build immunity after vaccination, health experts encourage people to get vaccinated as soon as possible, especially those with underlying health conditions, a county statement read.

"Every day in our hospital, we see how swiftly severe infections can progress in children. Our entire care team is heartbroken by the loss of these two young lives," said Dr. Pia Pannaraj, infectious disease specialist at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego. "Keeping your child vaccinated is the single best step you can take to shield them from life-threatening illness."

Physicians offered tips on how residents can reduce the spread of influenza, including:

• Washing hands often with soap and water, and avoid their touching eyes, mouth or nose;
• Noticing symptoms, including body or muscle aches, cough, fatigue, fever, headaches, runny or stuffy nose or sore throat;
• Avoiding people who are sick whenever possible; and
• Covering coughs and sneezes.

People who are sick should stay home and keep a physical distance from others until symptoms improve and they haven't run a fever for at least 24 hours without the use of medication, according to Scripps.

When resuming normal activities, people should take additional precautions for five days, particularly around others who are at increased risk of serious illness. Scripps Health recommended that people "seek urgent medical attention for difficulty breathing, persistent chest or abdominal pain, confusion, seizures, severe weakness or dehydration or symptoms that improve and then return or worsen."

Flu vaccines are available at pharmacies, urgent cares, hospitals and health clinics. County public health clinics also offer vaccinations for people without insurance. Appointments for flu vaccines can be scheduled at the My Turn - California Vaccine Scheduling & Information Site.

While the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is no longer operating and its decommissioning is nearly complete, roughly 3.6 million pounds of spent nuclear fuel remain stored along the coastline.

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-Oceanside, released a report on the ongoing push to relocate the nuclear waste to a permanent site as rising sea levels and coastal erosion raise concerns about its current location.

Yucca Mountain in Nevada was originally slated to serve as the nation's permanent repository, but opposition from state officials and local residents halted the project. President Donald Trump officially withdrew support for the Yucca Mountain site in his first term, before the 2020 presidential election.

Because nuclear waste disposal falls under federal jurisdiction, Levin is pursuing several legislative strategies, including establishing Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses. These proposed regional hubs would handle various stages of the nuclear fuel cycle, including fabrication, enrichment and reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.

"What we're doing is inviting states to consider hosting facilities across the nuclear fuel cycle," Levin said. “They have to be willing to store the waste in order to qualify as one of these campuses.”

Levin said he is working with colleagues, the Department of Energy and other stakeholders to see what is needed to formally establish the campuses into law.

Transporting the radioactive material remains an issue as several communities object to trains moving nuclear waste through their towns. Levin said the Atlas Railcar System, a specialized, heavy-duty train car certified in 2024 to specifically to transport commercial spent nuclear fuel safely over existing rail lines, should address those concerns.

"The biggest difference is, until now, there has not been a dedicated, purpose-built, safe mechanism to transport commercial spent fuel using existing rail," Levin said. "And that's what the Atlas Rail Systems has been designed and tested and certified to do."

Southern California Edison, which owns the San Onofre plant, said the current storage facilities were built to withstand extreme environmental threats, including earthquakes and tsunamis.

"We continue to analyze to make sure that, as we look out over the decades, that we're still in a situation (where) what's here will withstand whatever is going to be coming at it," said Steven Powell, Southern California Edison’s president and CEO.

SoCal Edison experts estimate the fuel can be safely contained at the site for more than 50 years, but they acknowledge that isn't a long-term answer. Levin said permanent solutions will take time to implement.

San Diego's defense contractors are working to ensure the Pentagon's renewed enthusiasm for spending on emerging weapons technology continues to benefit local companies, and now they have a plan make it happen.

The San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC) announced the effort at a news conference Tuesday.

The EDC released a report on San Diego's defense industry that includes recommendations — a "road map" — for initiatives to maximize the region's potential capacity.

"As companies and as technologies mature, the speed with which they need to grow jobs and build factories is a moment that we're trying to meet as a region," said Nikia Clarke, the chief strategy officer of the EDC.

The issue, according to the EDC, is that even though San Diego has significant legacy military assets, other regions are starting to organize and coordinate their own marketing to attract defense manufacturers and contracts.

The moment is one in which the Pentagon has made it clear to contractors it wants to spend money and bring new systems into service quickly.

At the annual San Diego WEST defense conference in February, U.S. Department of Defense leaders told industry representatives the Pentagon had a fresh appetite for risk as far as investments in Artificial Intelligence technology.

Last week the department asked contractors for unmanned surface vessels capable of launching missiles — and it wants them fast.

The Pentagon is asking for "mature, production-ready" systems capable of being deployed to conflict areas within 120 days.

The EDC's report said San Diego ranks 10th in the U.S. in overall defense contract spending — but it's No. 1 when it comes to autonomous systems.

According to the report, the Pentagon spends about $1.5 billion on autonomous and unmanned systems contracts in San Diego — the Washington, D.C. metro area — at the No. 2 spot — receives about $700 million.

Democrats Scott Peters and Sara Jacobs attended Tuesday's announcement in San Diego.

Jacobs said it's important for local industry to be ready to meet the demands of the modern military.

"We can’t get complacent and we can’t think that these contracts and companies will always keep knocking on our door — especially when other regions are starting to compete," Jacobs said.

The defense industry represents about 20% of San Diego's economy, the report said. It also said there's significant room to grow.

The EDC and San Diego Military Advisory Council — a nonprofit that promotes military and defense interests in the region — are partnering to advance the report's recommendations.

The County of San Diego has now confirmed that the full legal name of the individual who died inside the Otay Mesa Detention Center on Oct. 24 is not the name originally released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE released a statement Tuesday on the death of a man who died in their custody last weekend.

It said in part, that the man who died was “Roberto Jimenez Gutierrez,” a 43-year-old from Guatemala.

His extended family members said on Wednesday morning his age and country of origin are correct, but insisted that's not his name.

“There is his name, Guillermo Pascual,” said his 22-year-old niece in Spanish.

KPBS spoke exclusively to her and a 24-year old nephew of the man at their home in San Diego County.

They did not want to be identified due to fear of retribution.

The relatives said their uncle’s full name is Guillermo Pascual Verganza. That name was written out on an ofrenda, or altar, in their backyard.

They set it up in his honor for Día De Muertos. It had flowers, candles and his photo among other items.

“Well, we set this up — what for? To help him rest in peace, that’s why. So that he doesn’t get lost along the way. We also need to pray for him — for what happened, for the circumstances of his death,” the nephew said.

As of 6 p.m. Wednesday evening, county of San Diego spokesperson Chuck Westerheide, Jr. confirmed that the full legal name of the individual who died in the detention center on Oct. 24 is in fact, Guillermo Pascual Verganza. Verganza is officially listed with a "z" as opposed to "s," like the family had explained to KPBS.

ICE previously identified their uncle as Jimenez Gutierrez, and said he had a criminal history including a wide variety of offenses like “selling liquor to a minor" and "arrests for battery against a spouse, violation of a court order, child abuse, disorderly conduct, providing false identification to a peace officer and being under the influence of drugs.”

The family insists these charges are not true.

“He’s not a criminal. Well, no, he’s just not capable of doing things like that,” the nephew said in Spanish. “It's a lie. Yes, it’s a lie.”

ICE arrested the man Oct 9. during enforcement operations in Escondido. That interaction was captured on video by a community activist.

In the video, the man identifies himself as "Roberto." The nephew said he’s unsure of exactly why his uncle did that.

Immigration agents detained him and transferred him to Otay Mesa Detention Center.

Just over two weeks later, on the morning of Oct. 24, ICE said facility staff found the man unresponsive in his cell.

He was pronounced deceased about an hour later.

“We really want to know how it happened — how things went down — but they haven’t said yet,” the nephew said.

According to ICE’s own reports, 29 people died in custody nationwide this year.

ICE said the man’s death is under investigation. They did not respond to KPBS’ specific questions on the individual’s identity in time for publication.

County officials said the Department of the Medical Examiner performed an autopsy Monday. Those results have not been released.

The San Diego County Registrar of Voters has refused a request from the U.S. Department of Justice to set aside the ballots of 1,709 San Diego County voters who federal officials allege are noncitizens.

A letter signed last week by San Diego U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon requested the ballots be left uncounted until the voters' citizenship status could be verified, while hinting at "legal consequences" if votes ended up cast for noncitizens.

Along with setting aside the ballots, the DOJ called for the Registrar of Voters to send over the voters' personal information such as Social Security numbers and copies of state IDs and driver licenses.

Gordon's letter sought compliance within a 48-hour period that lapsed on Sunday.

In a Tuesday letter obtained by inewsource, San Diego County responded by calling the DOJ's request "a thinly veiled voter purge and request for confidential voter information without a proper purpose."

The county's letter also contained a counter threat of potential legal action "against DOJ for its unlawful intimidation of election officials and California voters."

A spokesperson from Gordon's office declined to comment on Wednesday.

The DOJ's letter claimed the 1,709 voters were among 20,000 California voters who are suspected to be noncitizens.

The letter sent to San Diego County's election officials was one of 57 similar letters sent to every California county on Friday, save for Los Angeles County, which had already received such a letter, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The federal government is also carrying out legal action in Los Angeles federal court, where government attorneys have asked a judge to set aside the 20,000 ballots.

U.S. District Judge David Carter, who heard arguments on Tuesday from the Department of Justice and California officials, warned federal prosecutors "that it would be wise ... that any threats to state and county elected employees cease immediately."

Carter indicated he would issue a ruling Wednesday on the government's request.

A federal appeals court panel on Monday refused to consider the administration's emergency appeal of the matter until Carter rules. In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Carter.

At a rare Sunday session, the appeals panel indicated it saw serious problems with the administration's request for immediate action to separate ballots submitted by voters on a list of about 20,000 suspected noncitizens.

"It seems to me you want us to issue an injunction that is entirely inconsistent with the law the California Legislature has adopted," Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, said at the hearing. "How can we do that?"

"Congress and the California Legislature have said noncitizens can't vote. This lawsuit is about, `We don't like the way you're sorting citizens from noncitizens.' I just don't see (federal law) telling California how to do the sorting," he said.

The fossils can be tucked away in the drawers for years after their initial examination. But paleontology curators like Deméré never know what hidden treasures lie among the museum's 1.6 million artifacts.

“It's possible that there are fossils in here that are new to science but they haven’t been studied yet. And that’s why we have collections,” Deméré said.

In 1985, he remembered handling a 324 million-year-old fossil. It arrived at the museum from west Texas. At the time, the fossil was classified as an ancient crustacean, or a shelled creature such as a crab, that typically lives in aquatic environments.

The fossil was studied once or twice over the years. But it spent the majority of its four decades at the museum safely nestled in its drawer.

Until a researcher from across the world had a hunch it could be something special.

“To him he saw an insect, not a crustacean," Deméré said.

Forty years after its arrival, the relic has been identified as one of the oldest insect fossils on record. Genetics have shown that insects evolved from crustaceans. But an 80 million year gap in the fossil record smudges the evidence of how insects went from living in water to their modern form. This fossil, however, reveals there may have been an in-between phase.

“They (the researcher and his team) had this 'ah-ha' moment that it was, in their interpretation, a really early form of an insect coming out of the water,” Deméré said. “It’s kind of a missing link.”

The discovery was made by Erik Tihelka, a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge. He first encountered the specimen when flipping through pages of a second hand paleontology textbook. There, he spotted a lined drawing of the creature. But something about its crustacean label seemed off. It was enough to prompt a visit to the museum to take a closer look.

“He contacted our museum requesting research access. And so he traveled to the U.S. I think it was his first trip,” Deméré said.

Tihelka used polarized light and a microscope to examine the fossil in finer detail. He found the fossil had surprisingly insectlike features. Its head was adorned with two slender antennas. Its body was broken into three distinct sections. And located in the middle of its body, a pair of three legs designed for walking.

“If you see something with six legs, and it's on land, it's probably an insect,” said Shahan Derkarabetian, the curator of invertebrate zoology at the museum.

But the fossil also had 18 additional appendages that did not fit the criteria of modern insects. The extra legs were wide and flat — features that are better suited for slicing through water. Derkarabetian suggests the combination of the fossil’s terrestrial and aquatic adaptations may indicate it is an evolutionary bridge.

“They have these little paddled appendages they used to swim around. And so that kind of characteristic is what bridges that gap between things that swim and things that walk purely on land,” Derkarabetian said.

Tihelka and his team named the fossil Chosha praecursor, which is the Navajo or Dine name for "insect predecessor." The fossil sits inside the gap in the fossil record known as the hexapod gap. Evidence of six-legged insects is missing between 385 and 322 million years ago. But Chosha praecursor is helping to fill in the blanks.

It also reveals clues about how insects transitioned from water to land. Invertebrates must endure many morphological changes in order to survive above the surface, such as swapping gills for organs that can inhale oxygen.

“Fossils like this give us that insight into the order of events and the full morphological changes that led to the full terrestrial organism,” Derkarabetian said.

Chosha praecursor is currently on display in the Amazement in the Basement exhibit.

With next week’s election approaching and a major budget deficit on the horizon, National City’s two leading mayoral candidates sparred this week over how to patch over the city’s financial shortfall.

In a forum with KPBS’ Midday Edition Monday, City Councilmembers Marcus Bush and Jose Rodriguez debated an ongoing proposal for a new tax on local business licenses. They also discussed their plans to help residents manage rising housing costs and other expenses.

The two Democrats are in a tight race to succeed outgoing-Mayor Ron Morrison and take the helm of the small, working-class city.

Two other candidates, Jacobb Castrejon and Mitch Beauchamp, are also running for mayor this fall. Neither has reported receiving any endorsements or campaign donations.

Hanging over the race is National City’s $13 million structural deficit.

City Manager Douglas Schulze oversees daily administration of the city’s $90 million budget. Unless the city starts bringing in new revenue soon, he said they could be forced to start cutting into city-run services like the library, the swimming pool and the George H. Waters Nutrition Center.

On Monday, Rodriguez touted his past efforts to champion the proposed business license tax, which could bring in up to $7 million in new annual revenue. He criticized Bush and other city councilmembers for delaying a vote on the tax to at least 2027.

“I think what we’re asking for is nothing out of the ordinary,” Rodriguez said. “We want to make sure that we have bigger businesses… help our community.”

Bush pledged to rein in city spending and defended his vote to push back the business license tax. He said the City Council needed to engage more with local businesses and reach a compromise.

“We have hundreds of businesses here in National City, and we have to do our job and our work to listen,” Bush said.

The two councilmembers also outlined their plans for makaing housing more affordable for National City residents.

Bush said he would allow homeowners to sell ADUs separately under a state law that gives cities the power to do so. He also pledged to revive the city’s shuttered grant program to assist homebuyers with their down payments.

“We don't have that anymore because we're not spending our money efficiently,” Bush said. “So we need to address that in order to give more opportunities for home ownership.”

Rodriguez pledged to expand the city’s rent stabilization to cover apartment buildings. National City does have local rent stabilization, but it only covers mobile home parks.

“That's on one end to try to make sure that we control rent prices, and we keep the already-existing affordable [housing] affordable,” Rodriguez said.

KPBS Midday Edition host Jade Hindmon asked both candidates where they stood on increasing the minimum wage locally.

Like most cities in California, National City currently follows the state minimum wage of $16.90 per hour. Neither Rodriguez or Bush has committed to raising the minimum wage, but both said they would be open to looking at it.

During the forum, the two councilmembers accused each other of mishandling public funds in various ways.

Rodriguez accused Bush of improperly receiving money for travel from the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS), the regional public transit agency, for travel that never happened. Bush serves as National City’s representative on the MTS board.

Bush said MTS had over-reimbursed him around $1,000 and was in the process of paying that money back. Voice of San Diego has reported that amount is closer to $4,000.

Bush fired back, pointing out that two years ago Rodriguez spent $47,000 in taxpayer funds to hire a consultant he had connections with.

The consultant, Cindy Lopez, was the president of a local Democratic club and endorsed Rodriguez shortly after the contract was signed. Rodriguez later hired Lopez as an executive assistant.

In December 2024, Bush and two other City Councilmembers voted to formally reprimand Rodriguez for allegedly violating city policies.

The money Rodriguez spent came from the City Council’s individual $100,000 funds, which each councilmember has access to. Bush is now pushing to reduce or eliminate those funds amid the deficit.

Lopez is currently running for City Council against current-Councilmember Luz Molina.

“What I've done is been honest with the voters and said, ‘Look, I have made mistakes,’” Bush said Monday. “I haven't heard that from Jose.”

Rodriguez said Bush was being hypocritical but did not directly respond to his concerns.

You can listen to the full conversation on KPBS’ Midday Edition’s ‘Ballot Breakdown’ series.

🎨 Visual art

Painted Prayers: The Japanese Folk Art Tradition of Ema

A new exhibition at Mingei International Museum explores the history of the Japanese folk painting tradition of ema, or small wooden plaques shaped like houses, each representing a specific prayer or wish. This is the first time an extensive collection of ema has been exhibited in the United States. The show was curated by Meher McArthur. It's also the final weekend to see the Mingei's excellent exhibit, "To Catch a Fish," which closes Sunday.

Through April 4, 2027 | Mingei International Museum, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park | $5-$8 | MORE INFO

The AjA Project: 'Without Women, There Is No Home'

A new exhibit centers on work by Maymuna Ali about the Somali dance and poetry tradition of buraanbur. Buraanbar is performed at weddings and other celebrations. Composed primarily by women, it tells stories through music, movement and words. As the AjA Project's 2026 Inter+Regeneration Fellow, Ali has created a piece dedicated to preserving this art form through photography and art. During a series of workshops over the summer, Ali gathered members of the Somali community across generations and photographed them as they learned the tradition.

1-3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31 | Fridge Art Space, 5591 University Ave., City Heights | Free | MORE INFO

'Persistence of Vision'

At Oceanside's Techne Art Center, a new group exhibit is dedicated to artists whose work doesn't fit neatly into a single style or category. The works included play with forms of perception — from the perspectives of both the artist and the viewer. The talented slate of artists includes Kaori Fukuyama, Cat Gunn, Dave Kinsey, Eva Struble, Doreen McCarthy, Kelly Witmer, Cynthia Lin, Rachel Hellerich, Daniel Weiner, Gabrielle Berens, Kim Manfredi and David Ambrose.

1-6 p.m. Thursday - Saturday; through Dec. 12, 2026 | Techne Art Center, 1609 Ord Way, Oceanside | Free | MORE INFO

🎻 Music

Sound of Two Cities

The San Diego Symphony recently announced a collaboration with Orchestre symphonique de Montréal for a series of concerts, including a free community performance at The Rady Shell. The orchestras will perform works by Bartók, Ravel, Prokofiev and Ottorino Respighi's "Pines of Rome," one of my favorite compositions. Rafael Payare will conduct.

7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30 | The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, 222 Marina Park Way, downtown | Free | MORE INFO

Cowboy TV, KZMT (Shelbi Bennett) and Omo Cloud

Local indie rockers Cowboy TV will perform alongside KZMT, a new project by Shelbi Bennett. Bennett is known for her bands The Midnight Pine and The Havnauts, and was also an inaugural member of Baby Bushka. KZMT is her new electronic music project. Omo Cloud will also perform — and I love the band’s latest album, "Mausoleum."

8:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29 | Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., Little Italy | $13.40 | MORE INFO

🎭 Theater

'GRIM'

La Jolla Playhouse will present the world premiere of "GRIM," a musical about what happens when the Grim Reaper, after some 300,000 years of hard work, finally retires. His replacement? His teenage daughter, Diana. Lower-priced previews continue until the official opening night on Nov. 1. The run was recently extended through Dec. 6, and the best ticket availability is in late November.

Through Dec. 6 | La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Dr. | $45+ | MORE INFO

📚 Books

'The Big Bad Book of Kaiju' with Luke Dumas, Jonathan Maberry and Henry Herz

Local author extraordinaires Luke Dumas, Jonathan Maberry and Henry Herz will celebrate the release of Titan Books' new science fiction anthology, "The Big Bad Book of Kaiju," edited by Maberry and Herz. Kaiju is a Japanese word that means a strange creature or beast, and kaiju are common in stories, mythology and popular culture (hello, Godzilla). One of my favorite thriller and horror writers, Luke Dumas, has a story about a giant whale-like creature in the collection, inspired by the impact of climate change and noise pollution on blue whales. The event will take place at Encinitas rare-bookstore Artifact Books and is the ideal bookish way to spend Halloween afternoon, IMO.

2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31 | Artifact Books, 603 S. Coast Hwy. 101, Encinitas | Free | MORE INFO

💃 Dance

'Ghost Light Masquerade'

Inspired by the theatrical superstition of leaving a single lamp burning on a stage to fend off ghostly spirits and bad luck, contemporary ballet company The Rosin Box Project returns with its popular, intriguing spooky-season production, "Ghost Light Masquerade." It poses a provocative question: What if the light instead invites the spirits in? The Rosin Box Project regularly produces some of the most inventive art in San Diego, with a particular penchant for theatrical and narrative dance — its highly expressive and athletic contemporary ballet choreography tells a powerful story. And "Ghost Light Masquerade" is its tour de force. The promenade-style, immersive performance invites audience members to wander in groups through the theater space, stumbling upon performances. Color-coded masquerade masks are provided — one indicates your willingness to interact with the performers (aka "resident spirits"), while the other signals that you'd prefer to be left alone. Tickets are already sold out for some performances.

7:30 p.m. Oct. 22-25 and Oct. 28-30 | Nocturne Theatre, 3246 Imperial Ave., Logan Heights | $71.21+ | MORE INFO

San Diego Ballet: 'Experience – Día de los Muertos'

Across two nights of concerts at the San Diego Museum of Art's Copley Auditorium, San Diego Ballet will perform two of its most popular pieces, "Mambomania" and "Qué Bonito Amor." "Manbomania" blends ballet with the sounds and styling of mambo, and "Qué Bonito Amor" is informed by mariachi music. The works will be combined to commemorate Día de Muertos.

8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 30-31 | San Diego Museum of Art, 1450 El Prado, Balboa Park | $45-$65 | MORE INFO

🎭 Festivals

The Yokai Masquerade

The Japanese Friendship Garden will celebrate Halloween with a costume party inspired by the spirit realm of Japanese folklore. The event is rain or shine and includes access to the museum, where the Yokai Community Art Exhibit is on view. The masquerade includes a dance floor, games, tarot readings, desserts and more. A fire performance takes place at 8 p.m.

6-10 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31 | Japanese Friendship Garden, 2215 Pan American Rd. E., Balboa Park | $45-$60 | MORE INFO

🗓️ Bonus: Día de Muertos

KPBS has mapped out some options for celebrating Day of the Dead in San Diego this year. Check it out:

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to advance an "anti-corruption" measure that would feature a two-year ban on post-employment lobbying and restrictions on using betting platforms, such as Kalshi, for insider trading.

Based on a proposal from board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer, county staff will return Dec. 8 with a formal lobbying ban policy and first phase of prediction-market restrictions, according to her office.

Lawson-Remer unveiled the measure in August and supervisors voted for county staff to begin working on the policy.

During the summer, she cited examples of why the county needs ethical safeguards, including:

— A U.S. Army soldier being arrested for allegedly making over $400,000 on Polymarket using classified government information;

— nine Polymarket accounts reportedly making $2.4 million betting on recent U.S. military action in Iran;

— the U.S. Senate barring senators and Senate employees from participating in them;

— the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform formally investigating potential insider trading on prediction-market platforms; and

— Gov. Gavin Newsom banning state gubernatorial appointees from using confidential information to profit on prediction markets.

Also in August, a White House teleprompter operator used advance access to President Donald Trump's speeches "to make more than $100,000 betting on what the president would say," according to Lawson-Remer. "Federal regulators ordered him to forfeit his profits, pay a $65,000 penalty and stop trading for three years."

There is no county ordinance prohibiting former officials from lobbying their former offices.

"Under current state law, only a limited group of county officials face a one-year ban on paid lobbying after leaving office," according to Lawson- Remer's office.

In a statement following the Tuesday vote, Lawson-Remer said public service "should never become a private payday."

"You shouldn't be able to leave government on Friday and get paid to lobby your former coworkers on Monday," she added.

"And you shouldn't be able to use confidential information the public doesn't have to make yourself richer."

According to Lawson-Remer's office, the new policy would "cover trades through certain family accounts, require disclosure of potential conflicts and prohibit former employees from trading on matters they personally worked on for two years."

Prediction market restrictions "would ultimately cover all county employees, beginning with unclassified employees and expanding to classified employees following required labor negotiations," her office added.

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

Election officials from across California questioned the accuracy of the federal government's methodology for finding noncitizen voters after the Trump administration threatened them with criminal charges last week.

The counties on Friday were given 48 hours to commit to working with federal authorities and to segregate ballots from a list of people federal authorities claimed were likely noncitizens.

The letters said the list of names were from the same group of 20,000 people that the Trump administration flagged as noncitizens and then sued California over, demanding that state officials not count those ballots until they verify the voters’ citizenship.

State officials have questioned the accuracy of the data and have refused to comply, saying the federal government risks disenfranchising thousands of voters in an attempt to illegally meddle in state elections. On Tuesday, a federal judge appeared skeptical of the Trump administration’s legal arguments.

Meanwhile, the letters counties received last week threatened potential criminal charges for election officials who “knowingly tabulate ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens.”

Butte County Clerk-Recorder Keaton Denlay said he received one such letter and a demand to not count ballots from a list of 47 people.

“Upon inspection of the list of names, it appeared to be a print screen of a poorly formatted excel spreadsheet with missing and jumbled information,” he said in a statement.

Denlay said he reviewed the list and found that 32 of the people were not on Butte County's active voter rolls and were not sent ballots. Seven others “did not have sufficient information … to match to our voter list with confidence” since the list only contained partial names, partial addresses, no dates of birth, no drivers’ license numbers or Social Security numbers.

Six of the names belonged to people who may not be eligible to vote, but Denlay said California law requires those challenging a voter’s eligibility to have extraordinary levels of proof.

“Given the overall inaccuracy of the list provided and its lack of specificity, I believe the Department of Justice has not met that burden,” Denlay said. “There will be no further action taken at this time.”

Fresno County Registrar of Voters James Kus also received a letter, but he said he couldn't tell how many ballots federal prosecutors wanted him to segregate, since the “not particularly legible” list was a printed sheet, in small font, and “not in a format that facilitates counting or reviewing.” He said the county already follows state and federal voter registration laws.

“We will not be deviating from those legal requirements for this letter,” Kus told CalMatters in an email.

Francisco Diaz, San Benito County registrar of voters, said his office received a demand with 33 names. A preliminary review found that some on the list weren’t registered to vote.

“Hand-delivering a letter via armed federal agents with an arbitrary 48-hour deadline does not circumvent state law,” Diaz said in a statement. “We will not be intimidated by agents with guns for simply doing our jobs, nor will we be rushed into compromising confidential voter data.”

Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said he wasn’t notified of a letter alleging his county had 1,754 “likely aliens” on the voter rolls until after business hours on Friday.

That's because, he told reporters in an email, federal prosecutors had addressed and hand-delivered the letter not to Page but to Orange County Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen, who handles such documents as marriage licenses and property deeds.

On Monday, Page said federal agents delivered a correctly addressed letter to his office, along with a “data storage drive.”

Page planned to respond by the Wednesday deadline, he said.

The messy voter lists counties described fits a pattern, said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonprofit whose mission is to restore trust in the American election system.

He noted that the Department of Homeland Security recently claimed that Nevada had nearly 16,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls. DHS sent the state the names of only 185 voters. Nevada officials confirmed the voters had attested they were all U.S. citizens.

Becker said the Trump administration has been making “broad political claims made with great fanfare” only to have them “fall apart as they’re subjected to scrutiny.”

“I’m not entirely sure the DOJ wants to get into court and defend its evidentiary claims because I think they would fall apart, just as we’ve seen in other states,” said Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney.

In federal court on Tuesday, Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, insisted the federal list of 20,000 people was accurate.

“We stand by the reliability of the information,” he said. “We take our obligations and ethics very seriously.”

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

Carly Topazio is the company’s founder and the choreographer behind the show.

“There's all these different vignettes that have to do with theater superstitions and a lot of mischief,” Topazio said. “A lot of playful encounters. It's spooky but not scary.”

One of those superstitions involves a ghost light. A ghost light is a single lamp left onstage when a theater is dark, allowing staff to move around safely. Some believe it keeps spirits away. Topazio put her own spin on it.

“In our version, the ghost light actually draws spirits and goes closer to the light,” Topazio said.

She recalled a possible supernatural encounter during rehearsals for the show’s first production in 2020.

Topazio said they were practicing at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center in San Diego’s East Village neighborhood; a venue some believe is haunted. One night, she and other dancers heard noises on the floors above them. A colleague went to investigate, initially thinking a janitor was there.

“Once we wrapped that week, he actually shared that he had never found anyone,” Topazio said. “He heard footsteps that just continued to go up the stairs, and there was no one there.”

Bethany Green is a founding member of The Rosin Box Project. “It can be a lot of fun to kind of test the waters with the personalities of our guests each night and, in fact, I think that brings a lot of people back for a second show because it's always different,” Green said.

Audience members are required to wear masks in one of two colors: one signals that they’re open to interacting with the dancers, while the other indicates they prefer to just watch.

Topazio said one vignette, “Chairs,” plays on the superstition that theaters should always have a seat saved for the theater ghost. “We normally invite an audience member to sit down, and there are three dancers in this particular piece,” Topazio said. “So they spook them away, and then by the end, there is a reserved sign and it says that you need to save this seat for us, essentially.”

Green said the masks make people feel less nervous when the dancers interact with them. “I also think that having a costume piece or a prop in common with the performers really lets the audience settle into their role as not audience, as not spectators,” Green said. “So we are all part of the performance; we're all part of the storytelling.”

Many ballet dancers practice something called pantomime, using gestures and facial expressions to convey a story. Green said dancers have to get creative when performing behind masks and moving between multiple vignettes. “So you have to be really careful about your intent and your gaze and where you are steering the guests, because the context is everything,” Green said.

And you don’t have to be a ballet fan to join in.

“A lot of our guests enjoy coming in full Halloween costumes, and I think it really is just a party,” Green said. “So if you're nervous that maybe ballet isn't for you, I think a costume party probably is.”

The Rosin Box Project’s “Ghost Light Masquerade” runs on select dates through Oct. 30 at The Nocturne Theatre.

Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union to improve working conditions in the nation's fruit and vegetable fields and coined the phrase “Sí, se puede!” that became a widespread rallying cry, has died. She was 96.

Huerta's family said in a statement through her foundation that she died Wednesday at home.

She kept a busy schedule well into her 90s, marching in protests and speaking in cities across the country about race, poverty, LGBTQ+ and women’s rights on behalf of her Bakersfield, California-based foundation.

KPBS spoke with people who worked with Huerta and knew her well. Gregory Nava is an independent filmmaker working on a biopic about the civil rights icon. He said even if people are familiar with her, many have no idea of the breadth of her accomplishments.

“Dozens and dozens of laws and dozens and dozens of labor contracts that she negotiated and dozens of pesticides that they got banned. People don't realize that their movement wasn't just about the workers, it was about the earth, la Madre Tierra," Nava said.

Huerta's work was also physically dangerous to her at times. Nava shared an incident in San Francisco that was almost fatal.

“She was arrested 25 times, and she was beaten so badly by the police in San Francisco that she was declared dead," said Nava.

Huerta's roots as a school teacher stayed with her throughout her life. Dr. Mark Sanchez, the superintendent and president of Southwestern College recalled a time when she visited the campus several years ago.

“She also visited the college in 2018 and really had a deep-seated connection to the college because of our proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border in the South County of San Diego and really had an affinity for the work that we were doing here in serving our South County and binational communities," said Sanchez.

Huerta’s resolve cemented her place in history as one of the nation’s most influential labor leaders, civil rights icons and feminist activists. Her three-word Spanish-language slogan — which translates to “Yes, it can be done” — was grounded in the belief that people could affect change.

Her work over the decades earned her a number of accolades, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. When then-President Barack Obama presented the award in 2012, he praised Huerta as a tenacious leader and joked that he had stolen her slogan for his 2008 campaign.

This year, Huerta sent shockwaves through the Latino community when she revealed that she was sexually abused in the 1960s by the farmworker movement’s co-founder, César Chavez, leading to the birth of two children, a secret she kept for 60 years and long after he died.

From the early 1970s on, Huerta’s life partner was Richard Chavez, César’s brother, and together they had four kids. She also had seven children from two earlier marriages.

Huerta said she had kept silent for so long because she feared that coming forward would compromise her life’s work and unravel all the progress made for workers.

When asked during a 2026 interview with the news organization Latino USA about keeping the secret, Huerta said: “It was my personal pain, it was my personal problem and, you know, I think it was worth it because it was my cross to bear. I’ll say it that way.”

Homegrown activism

Huerta was born Dolores Clara Fernandez in 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico. Her father was a miner and union activist who went on to win a seat in the state Legislature. Her parents divorced when she was 3, and her mother took her and her brothers to California.

Immersed in a melting pot of Mexican, Filipino, African American, Japanese and Chinese working families, Huerta learned from her mother — who owned a restaurant and hotel — about independence, compassion and activism.

Huerta was a young, energetic elementary school teacher in the farm-rich San Joaquin Valley when she decided to answer another calling after growing frustrated by her students’ poor living conditions.

“I couldn’t stand seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes,” she said in a 2017 PBS Independent Lens documentary on her life. “I thought I could do more by organizing farmworkers than by trying to teach their hungry children.”

Huerta’s early work with a civil rights group in Stockton resulted in her meeting Chavez. The two wanted to focus more on the plight of farmworkers, so in 1962 they started the National Farm Workers Association, which became United Farm Workers of America a few years later. She was a key leader and negotiator for the union for years.

She was among those who joined Filipino grape pickers on the picket line in what became the five-year “Delano Grape Strike.” With Chavez, she negotiated collective bargaining agreements and contracts with big growers, winning the first health and benefit plans for farmworkers.

Chavez, who died in 1993, once described her as fearless, committed to the cause and tough when it came to negotiations.

On the campaign trail

She met U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy of Massachusetts during his visit to Delano in 1968 and became a volunteer on his presidential campaign, registering Mexican Americans in California to vote. Huerta was on stage with Kennedy after he won the California primary and he publicly thanked her moments before he was shot.

The assassination devastated Huerta, but she kept organizing for farmworkers’ rights.

Huerta was jailed 22 times for union demonstrating. In 1988, she was seriously injured while protesting Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush’s opposition to the UFW grape boycott during his visit to San Francisco.

Caught in a crowd, she was struck by a police officer’s baton, suffered three broken ribs and a pulverized spleen, and required more than a dozen blood transfusions. She reached a settlement with the city to resolve her claims.

After a long recovery, Huerta shifted focus and hit the road to campaign for women’s rights and encourage Latinas to run for office.

She also campaigned for Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Obama and Joe Biden. California Gov. Gavin Newsom considered her a close friend.

Fueled by courage

Emilio Huerta, one of Dolores’ 13 children, once pointed to his mom’s courage during an interview, saying it was one of the most significant drivers of her life’s work.

“To dedicate your life to building a dream of a union for farmworkers, to take on agriculture, which to this today is still a powerhouse. ... That took a lot of guts,” he had said.

Huerta learned the art of lobbying politicians. She secured financial aid for the unemployed and disability insurance for California farmworkers. She spoke out against toxic pesticides, pushed for amnesty for immigrants in the country illegally and fought federal guest worker programs.

By directing nationwide boycotts of grapes and lettuce in the early 1970s, she helped to create the economic pressure and political climate necessary for California to pass what would be the first state law recognizing farmworkers’ right to collective bargaining.

Her work earned her many accolades. She was the first Latina to be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and she’s received nine honorary doctorates from U.S. universities.

Schools are named in her honor in California, Texas and Colorado. Her image graces many murals, and streets bear her name, but she didn’t always win favor with more liberal activists.

In 2016 when she endorsed Hillary Clinton instead of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the presidential Democratic primary, actor Rosario Dawson — a Sanders supporter who played Huerta in a 2014 movie about César Chavez — said Huerta had become “an instrument of the establishment.”

Dawson and Huerta eventually reconciled.

Guitarist Carlos Santana later oversaw a documentary based on Huerta’s life after the pair had a late-night conversation about music while in Hawaii. Santana, a Miles Davis fan, discovered Huerta was a huge fan of bebop legend Charlie Parker.

“I even met Charlie Parker. That’s my claim to fame,” Huerta joked during an interview with The Associated Press when she was 87.

It was her work as a leader within the labor movement that reverberated through the U.S. and beyond, making her name synonymous with civil rights. In the 2025 documentary “Seeds of Change: The Life and Legacy of Dolores Huerta,” she recounted her decades-long journey in activism and talked about the inspiration she drew from the women’s movement during the 1970s, saying it provided validation that she too could stand on the stage with other labor leaders.

“I hope that my legacy will be one of an organizer that organized to fight injustice,” she said in the film. “We want to give our children an inheritance of justice, right, not jewels or property or money because they’ll just fight over it. So the main thing to do is to give them this love for justice — and that is the greatest gift I think that any of us can have.”

___

Associated Press journalist Brian Melley contributed to this report. Former AP journalist Russell Contreras also contributed reporting previously for this story.

The Port of San Diego on Tuesday warned the public to prepare for intermittent street flooding this week thanks to a combination of elevated tide levels, Kelvin waves, seasonal high tides and forecast rainfall.

On Monday and Tuesday, sections of the San Diego bayfront experienced dry weather flooding, closing a section of West Harbor Drive between Market and Front Streets. The street reopened an hour later when water levels receded.

Although flooding is expected to be temporary, elevated water levels may overtop seawalls, flood roadways, limit access to waterfront areas, disrupt traffic and create hazards for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists, a port statement said.

Some of the most vulnerable areas include:

• Embarcadero: North Harbor Drive and Laurel Street; West Harbor Drive and Kettner Boulevard; and West Harbor Drive between Market and Front streets;
• Embarcadero Marina Park North: Walkway near the marina and parking lot entrance;
• Downtown San Diego: Pacific Highway and Laurel Street;
• Point Loma: Anchorage Lane and Canon Street; and
• Bayshore Bikeway: South San Diego Bay between state Route 75 and Flamingo Trail.
  

Neighborhoods bordering Mission Bay bay flooded on Monday. Water rushed into the side streets linking neighborhoods to Mission Boulevard.

At Get It On Smokeshop on Mission Boulevard, store proprietor Leo Santos was breathing a sigh or relief that he'd been prepared with sandbags when the floodwaters came.

“The high tide and the full moon, it made the water fill up pretty much right up to my doorstep and so we were lucky, luckily enough prepared to make sure none of that damaged the inside of the building," Santos said.

On the bay side, city skip loaders were busy on Tuesday reinforcing sand berms in an effort to keep Monday's flooding from happening again.

A coastal flood warning went into effect early Sunday for the entire coast of San Diego County and will remain in effect until Thursday afternoon, with "significant flooding" expected from unusually high tides, forecasters said.

"Numerous roads may be closed. Low lying property including homes, businesses and some critical infrastructure will be inundated," the National Weather Service (NWS) said.

The NWS also said some shoreline erosion will occur in the morning hours and that coastal residents should be alert for rising water and take appropriate action to protect life and property. High tides each day will occur in the morning and may be anywhere from 1 to 1.7 feet above astronomical tide predictions, the NWS said.

"Take the necessary actions to protect flood-prone property. If travel is required, do not drive around barricades or through water of unknown depth. Stay off of jetties and sea walls," the agency added. "Avoid beaches during high tides. During high and rising tides, waves may run farther up the beach than expected. Stay far back from the water and never turn your back on the ocean."

The warning also stretches into Orange County.

A woman experiencing a mental health crisis who prompted a lockdown when she showed up with a gun Tuesday at the same San Diego mosque that saw a mass shooting earlier this year returned to the mosque on Wednesday, and was detained for a mental health evaluation, police said.

The events that led to the roughly 90-minute security alert at the Islamic Center of San Diego began shortly before 2 p.m. Tuesday, when the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) was notified that a motorist had fled from police in Carlsbad and was possibly driving south to San Diego, according to an SDPD statement.

About a half-hour later, after learning that the woman might be distraught and possibly was on her way to the Eckstrom Avenue mosque, officers were sent there "out of an abundance of caution," the SDPD stated.

Before police arrived, the woman showed up at the religious center, spoke to a security guard and then left, police said.

While working to determine the whereabouts of the woman, officers coordinated with staff members at the mosque to lock it down "out of an abundance of caution," according to the SDPD statement.

At about 4 p.m., police confirmed that the woman was no longer in San Diego County, and the lockdown was lifted, police said.

On Wednesday morning, authorities learned the woman had returned to the center. Center officials had maintained contact with her and invited her back to provide assistance, while the SDPD communicated with the center to ensure safety, the department stated.

SDPD Northern Division officers responded alongside Psychiatric Emergency Response Team clinicians to assist the woman. Police said she is not facing any criminal charges nor under arrest by the department, but was detained for a mental health evaluation.

On May 18 of this year, an 18-year-old man and 17-year-old boy opened fire at the mosque, killing a security guard and two other congregation members before fleeing in a vehicle and fatally shooting themselves a few blocks away, according to police.

Writings found in the car with the teens' bodies described hatred toward "various religions and races," authorities said.

In August, a 17-year-old North Carolina girl was arrested and indicted by a grand jury on three counts of murder in the case. According to prosecutors, she had colluded with the shooters to live-stream the murderous rampage at the San Diego mosque.

Warmer temperatures and humidity in San Diego County have created favorable conditions for mosquitoes to thrive this season.

“March was actually quite warm this year,” said Allison Bray, the county’s vector control program coordinator. “So we did see a slightly earlier start to … what we usually think of mosquito season is about April through October.”

Bray said she expects mosquito activity to continue into November if temperatures remain warm.

But warmer weather isn’t the only reason people may be getting bitten more. Over the past decade, Bray said San Diego County has also seen the arrival of invasive mosquitoes that bite — sometimes multiple times — during the day. She calls them ankle biters.

“It’s not necessarily that there's more mosquitoes total, but that there are specifically more of these little mosquitoes that like to live in backyards, apartment complexes, places like that,” she said.

The county is trying to reduce mosquito numbers and the risk of West Nile virus.

They monitor about 1,500 potential mosquito breeding sites.

“We routinely set mosquito traps throughout the county,” Bray said. “We're able to collect those mosquitoes and test them for various diseases in our labs.”

Crews use helicopters to drop larvicide into breeding sites, targeting mosquito larvae before they become adults. When adult mosquito numbers are high, crews also use truck-mounted treatments to reduce their numbers.

But more rain from El Niño could complicate those efforts.

Bray said more rainfall could create additional standing water, providing more places for mosquitoes to breed.

The latest treatment was in Coronado last month after the county found high mosquito counts and detections of West Nile virus.

“Leading up to the adult mosquito treatment, we were seeing pretty consistent weekly detections of West Nile virus, and average trap counts of 20 to 30 mosquitoes,” Bray said.

After the treatment, the county put traps out again.

“In our traps it went down to about four or five mosquitoes per trap,” Bray said. “We definitely consider that to be a success.”

But Bray said numbers can go back up in as little as two weeks.

“For a lot of these mosquitoes, they can grow from an egg to an adult in as little as a week or two. We do usually expect to see some increase after about that amount of time,” Bray said. “So our hope is we interrupt that cycle, and even if the mosquito numbers go back up, our goal would be to see less West Nile virus activity.”

This year the county has reported 11 human West Nile cases, compared to none last year.

“West Nile virus tends to have these kind of cycles where we won't see any significant West Nile virus activity for years,” Bray said. “We'll see a mosquito here and there, we'll get reports of birds that have died from West Nile, but it's scattered, it's not consistent.

Bray said that continued monitoring will help determine whether more treatments are needed.

“Based on our mosquito data, we do see, generally, a decrease in mosquito numbers after we canvas an area, look for breeding sources,” Bray said. “So hopefully we're achieving our goals.”

The county encourages residents to empty standing water around their homes, request mosquito-eating fish, and use mosquito repellent.

The next aerial treatment is scheduled for Thursday.

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

Public pushback over municipal police drones is boiling over across California, turning routine local policy hearings into high-stakes battles over the boundaries of neighborhood surveillance.

The increasingly heated public debates are driven by landmark privacy litigation and a 2021 law that mandates explicit local board approvals for the use of “military equipment,” including drones. Those disclosures make clear that police are increasingly looking to drones as potential “first responders” in cities like San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Ana and Stockton — forcing local leaders to face skeptical residents in public hearings required before drone programs can expand.

At those appearances, law enforcement agencies are pushing to broaden their drone use beyond emergency-only response to aid in everyday patrols, while citizens are concerned about drones conducting warrantless searches, if municipalities are hoarding too much data collected by drones, and whether drone makers have too much power and information.

Those tensions were on stark display earlier this month in San Francisco, when a policy debate at a police commission meeting drew a packed room of opposing residents.

The San Francisco Police Department asked commissioners to approve a policy allowing drones for a wide array of uses, including “public safety response,” active investigations, training, and “community outreach.” While prohibiting random “general surveillance” or tracking activities protected by the First Amendment, the draft stipulated that public footage would be retained for 30 days unless tied to an open investigation.

Supporters argued the technology is vital for modern crime-fighting. “Public safety and personal privacy shouldn't be competing interests,” said Anna Carney, president of Stop Crime SF, urging commissioners to give officers every responsible advantage to save lives.

But privacy advocates and skeptical residents saw a slippery slope toward unchecked surveillance, drawing explicit parallels to the contentious rollout of automated license plate readers across the state. In recent years, cities like San Francisco and Stockton built extensive fixed camera networks supplied by vendors like Flock Safety. Now, communities fear that attaching drones to those same networks creates an inescapable, multi-dimensional dragnet — one that tracks citizens not just by car on the street, but from the air above their homes.

“We are all here today because these drones are impacting all of our communities, " said Manny, a member of the privacy advocacy group DeFlock SF, who urged the commissioners to cancel the department’s contract with drone manufacturer Skydio. "If SFPD truly cared about operating these drones with any respect to privacy, the very least that can happen is one of you make an amendment to require a warrant,” he added, referring to language used in the department’s proposed policy.

Although commissioners voted to advance the policy to labor negotiations without adding a warrant mandate, the friction displayed in San Francisco reflects a statewide reckoning.

Legal uncertainty and the policy vacuum

The 2021 rules governing military equipment in law enforcement still leave a policy vacuum confronting municipalities across California: Local agencies that deploy drones are stepping into a legal gray area where technology is far outpacing state regulation.

A lawsuit against Sonoma County underscores the uncertainty. Privacy concerns festered for years in the county after officials launched a drone program in 2019 for code enforcement. But investigators with the American Civil Liberties Union later uncovered hundreds of warrantless searches over private yards, homes, and windows — all conducted without a published policy in sight. In 2025, the ACLU of Northern California sued Sonoma, and last month, the county settled. Sonoma pledged to reel in its drone use, obtain warrants or consent before conducting residential property code inspections, restrict data retention, and directly notify residents if their property was subjected to aerial surveillance.

The case brought to the forefront the complex legal matrix officials must navigate in deploying unmanned aircraft.

"There's three main buckets," explained Katie Inman, a drone policy expert and attorney at Holland & Knight who previously worked at the Federal Aviation Administration. "You've got the broad…constitutional law principles, then you've got state statutes, and then you've got the third bucket, which is FAA operating rules."

Inman noted that California belongs to a category of states that lack a comprehensive state statute explicitly governing law enforcement drone use, leaving municipalities on their own to read and comply with constitutional Fourth Amendment case law, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

She said the Supreme Court has ruled that aircraft surveilling areas that are visible to the naked eye from lawful altitudes do not violate Constitutional protections.

"But those were manned aircraft; they are not drones,” she said. ”With drones, you can fly at much lower altitudes, you can get thermal imaging, you can get tracking, you can get just a lot of hovering — a lot of surveillance potential there that you would not normally have."

Across the state, nearly 60 law enforcement agencies use drone programs, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Most foundational policies, including those in Chula Vista, Fremont, and the policy proposed in San Francisco, prohibit random surveillance, but programs diverge when it comes to deployment triggers and public oversight. Departments like Chula Vista deploy automated "Drone as First Responder" units broadly ahead of ground officers for routine 911 calls, whereas newer or more heavily scrutinized frameworks, such as San Francisco's proposed policy, attempt to draw tighter lines by limiting flights to active criminal investigations, vehicle pursuits, or specific, incident-based emergencies.

Multimillion-dollar contracts and unproven safety claims

Beyond constitutional and policy questions, the rapid growth of drone programs is closely tied to an aggressive push by defense and surveillance technology vendors.

Both the San Francisco and Los Angeles police departments rely on hardware manufactured by San Mateo-based Skydio, while industry peers like Axon, which makes body cameras, and license-plate-reader manufacturer Flock Safety have also aggressively expanded into the market. Skydio originally launched to give extreme sports athletes a way to track and film themselves doing parkour or snowboarding. But after the U.S. government labeled Chinese drone maker DJI a national security risk in 2020, Skydio pivoted to fill the void for military, police, and enterprise customers.

At a recent customer conference, Skydio CEO Adam Bry laid out an ambitious roadmap: small drones for tactical flights inside buildings, mid-range aircraft for vehicle pursuits, and high-speed models capable of traveling 100 mph up to a 30-mile radius. Bry also outlined a future driven by AI, envisioning software that analyzes 911 calls in real time to automatically recommend dispatching an autonomous drone to a scene.

Executing that vision requires major investments — from taxpayers and billionaire backers alike. Santa Ana recently greenlit $682,900 for its Drone as First Responder initiative in partnership with Skydio, while the Stockton City Council approved a $3.15 million contract expansion with Flock Safety to integrate six drones into its existing network of 120 license plate reader cameras. In San Francisco last year, the police department received a $9.4 million donation from the crypto billionaire and Ripple cofounder, Chris Larsen, to expand its drone program and surveillance systems, Mission Local reported.

“The premise of the Bill of Rights is respect for liberty of the individual, and that used to mean something in this city,” a San Francisco resident named Ilona said at the Oct. 14 Commission meeting, lambasting officials for accepting Larsen’s drone donation. “But it doesn't anymore because now we have sold out to tech billionaires…. SFPD has been sloppy and reckless with our privacy. How can we trust them with these tools?”

Venture-backed drone vendors have spent heavily to influence local officials to support their expansion — Flock Safety, for instance, has reportedly spent millions of dollars on local and federal lobbying, claiming its technology helped “solve” a million crimes last year alone. Yet researchers are increasingly skeptical of what vendors and law enforcement say the technology can help accomplish.

Police argue that drones help them respond to incidents more quickly, help them deescalate potentially dangerous situations, and improve crime clearance rates. A February 2026 study by the UC Berkeley Criminal Law and Justice Center found that while first-responder drones can improve response times, there is no evidence they reduce officer-involved shootings, lower overall use of force, or improve case resolution rates.

The rapid rollout has also intensified community anxiety over interconnected surveillance networks, and intensified the brewing nationwide backlash against AI-powered police tech.

Jesus Gabriel Yanez, a recently-retired police commissioner, spoke at the San Francisco commission meeting. He briefly read a passage from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” before expressing his opposition to the drone use policy outlined by his former peers.

“SFPD should tie deployments to specific incidents that cannot be addressed without compromising officer safety — period,” Yanez said. “Those are the only times when we should allow for the deployment of a drone. No general routine patrol. No general surveillance.”

Opponents like Yanez point to past instances where California law enforcement agencies illegally shared license plate tracking data with federal immigration authorities, as well as technical missteps like a recent leak that exposed live police drone video feeds online due to vendor misconfigurations. That anxiety over vendor overreach and AI surveillance isn't confined to California—similar resistance is bubbling up across the country. In Minneapolis, the city council voted to reject a police drone contract with Skydio following community protests over privacy and dual-use military technology. In New Orleans, advocacy group Eye on Surveillance successfully mobilized against a proposed policy that would have allowed weapons on police drones.

Whether through public city council debates sparked by AB 481 or court-enforced settlements like Sonoma County's, California communities are trying to make it clear that adopting cutting-edge public safety technology will not come at the cost of privacy. The automated eye in the sky may arrive in seconds, but citizens are demanding to know exactly who is watching — and who holds the remote.

CalMatters Technology Reporter Khari Johnson contributed to this report.

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

Friday, a committee of the San Diego City Council advanced the project that Midway Rising leaders have been working on for five years.

It was a moment that had been building for years. Union members who have advocated for it every step of the way cheered loudly in the City Council Chambers. But the Midway Rising hurried out and issued a simple written statement attributed to Brad Termini, from Zephyr Partners.

“We’re honored to receive a unanimous 4-0 vote in support of Midway Rising from the City’s Land Use and Housing Committee and look forward to presenting this transformational project to the full City Council in the weeks ahead,” Termini wrote.

They may be “honored” but, by several accounts, they were not pleased at all.

The committee advanced their deal with one significant amendment: It would require the Midway Rising team to ensure the affordable housing units built at the site are “net-new” – a reference to what we wrote about Friday. We revealed that city staff had preferred the deal prohibit the property from becoming a so-called “receiver site” for the affordable housing other developers in San Diego were going to have to deliver anyway.

But when the proposed deal, a product of four years of negotiations, went public this week, it did not include anything like that. Midway Rising could be a receiver site for affordable housing.

This has become intensely controversial.

Midway Rising had won the chance to exclusively negotiate with the city precisely because it had pledged the most affordable housing among the three teams bidding for the site. Now, it will be the largest affordable housing development in the state.

As a receiver site, though, developers of other projects in the city — who didn’t want affordable housing on their land — could pay Midway Rising to build them and that could count toward the 2,000 affordable housing units Midway Rising was pledging.

“What might be allowed, what gives me pause, is allowing a developer building a project in another part of the city to put the rent restricted units that they are required to build at Midway Rising, as a part of Midway Rising’s 2,000 affordable units. That could present a risk that we don’t actually get 2,000 units of affordable housing that we wouldn’t have otherwise gotten,” said Councilmember Stephen Whitburn at the meeting Friday.

The chair of the committee, Councilmember Kent Lee, had put forward an amendment “… to revise the Disposition and Development Agreement to prohibit any of Midway Rising’s 2,000 affordable housing units from serving as receiver sites to satisfy another project’s affordable housing requirements unless all other available funding options for gap financing have been pursued and exhausted …”

The developers had maintained it was important for them to have this option, though. The Midway Rising partner tapped to build the affordable housing, Chelsea Investment Corp., called it a “tool” in their effort.

“Midway Rising is unequivocally committed and bound to deliver all 2,000 affordable housing units on-site, and it’s important to explore all available tools to expedite their construction,” Charles Schmid from Chelsea said in a written statement.

If the motion to remove that tool was unwelcome, they probably did not like the discussion even more.

Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera went further and asked city staff to prepare a new law that would prohibit public land, like the city’s in Midway, from becoming receiver sites for affordable housing builders somewhere else were going to have to construct anyway.

By late Friday, City Hall was abuzz that the Midway Rising team considered all this a potential deal killer. That would indicate the tool was a significant part of their plan for affordable housing.

Yet nobody was clear on how many units could even be eligible for such an option. Whitburn said he had heard two takes: One, that very few if any developers could pay Midway Rising to take on their affordable housing burdens. And another that developers not only within a three mile radius but, in fact, the whole city, could put the units they were going to have to build there.

He asked the independent budget analyst to look into it.

He imagined a scenario where Midway Rising was pledging 2,000 units of housing and other developers were required to build 2,000 units of affordable housing because of the laws in the city that generally require housing developments to set aside 10 percent or more of their homes for people with lower incomes. The city would be expecting 4,000 new units but if they all sent them to Midway Rising, there would only be 2,000 “net-new” units.

City operations staff have been unusually insistent that this was important to them as well, which indicates they are not on the same page as their boss, Mayor Todd Gloria, and that he pushed it forward without the provision.

In a press release celebrating the vote, Gloria made no mention of the amendment.

“Today’s action brings us one step closer to delivering thousands of homes, including 2,000 affordable homes, a new entertainment center and public spaces that will serve San Diegans for generations. I’m proud of the work we’ve done to get this project to this point, and we’re committed to seeing it through,” Gloria said in the written statement.

The only mention of the requirement his committee added came from Lee.

“I thank my Committee colleagues for affirming the importance of maximizing new affordable housing units. This will allow us to achieve the units that we have asked for and prevent this project from simply being an affordable housing receiver site,” he said.

It will be impossible to pass a new city law before Dec. 9 the deadline the city and Midway Rising set to complete the deal. But they could easily agree to the new provision in the lease and development deal they’re closer now to signing.

Unless it truly would kill the project.

Scott Lewis

Scott Lewis oversees Voice of San Diego’s operations, website and daily functions as Editor in Chief. He also writes about local politics, where he frequently breaks news and goes back and forth with local political figures. Contact Scott at scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0527, and follow him on Twitter at @vosdscott.

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California is on the brink of a total overhaul in the way it governs K-12 schools, but whether those changes actually happen or fade into irrelevance will come down to one person: the next governor.

“We used to ask, who’s in charge here? It was everybody and nobody,” said Michael Kirst, former head of the State Board of Education. “Now we know. It’s the governor. That’s a total sea change – I never thought I’d live to see it.”

In January, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a realignment of the education governance structure, which for more than a century had been fragmented between the state superintendent of public instruction, State Board of Education, governor’s office, the Legislature, local school boards and a dozen other entities. That system was so diffuse, according to the think tank Policy Analysis for California Education, that policies were rarely implemented evenly and it was easy to blame someone else when things went wrong.

Newsom’s proposal, Assembly Bill 181, passed overwhelmingly in July. It calls for a new governor-appointed education commissioner, who will oversee the California Department of Education and ensure that policies set in Sacramento are enacted in classrooms. It also strips most duties from the state superintendent, a voter-elected position that will soon have few job responsibilities besides championing various education policies.

The idea is that one person – the governor – will be in charge. Most other states, particularly those with high test scores like Mississippi and Massachusetts, have a similar system.

But that alone won’t fix California’s convoluted K-12 governance, according to researchers Heather Hough and Jason Willis, who recently published a report through a state agency called the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence on what the state needs to do next.

The new education commissioner needs to simplify and clearly communicate goals for schools, provide stricter oversight and offer more direct assistance for struggling schools. Basically, the state needs to take more responsibility for improving student outcomes, Hough said.

“Right now, if a district is performing badly, there’s not a lot of clarity about what should happen,” said Hough, an education policy consultant. “The state has to be able to step in.”

For example, if a school has persistently low scores on standardized tests, the education commissioner should intervene, Hough said. That could mean bringing in experts, tutors or other resources, or removing barriers. If all else fails, the commissioner should have the power to take drastic action such as replacing the superintendent, she said.

So far, California’s gubernatorial candidates have offered few hints about their plans for education commissioner or K-12 schools generally.

Xavier Becerra, a former state attorney general and cabinet member under President Joe Biden, said in a recent televised debate that he thinks schools are mired in too much bureaucracy, and schools should hold back students who are failing. Steve Hilton, a former Fox TV commentator, said in his platform he favors education savings accounts that would allow parents to use public funds to pay for private school.

Neither campaign responded to requests for more information.

Pressure on new education commissioner

The next governor will name an education commissioner after they take office Jan. 4, and there won’t be much down time. By early June, the commissioner must produce a draft report for the Legislature on how he or she plans to reshape the system. A final report is due in the fall.

Among the commissioner’s priorities should be strengthening – and expanding – the Department of Education so there’s more oversight and assistance for schools, said Marshall Tuck, executive director of the advocacy group EdVoice.

“We will not have a state that is effectively educating all students unless we have a highly effective state Department of Education,” said Tuck, who ran for state superintendent in 2014 and 2018. “It’s just not possible. And it’s something we have not had.”

Overall, he’s hopeful that the new education commissioner and governor will have the political clout to persuade all the major players in education policy, including the powerful California Teachers Association, to support changes in governance. Previously, the teachers union had opposed Newsom’s plan because its members thought it shifted too much power away from voters and toward the governor. In the past, the teachers union spent heavily on superintendent candidates – including those running against Tuck.

“This is a real opportunity to change things,” Tuck said. “But it’s very, very important that the governor makes this a top priority and appoints the right person.”

California Teachers Association President David Goldberg said his organization is looking forward to working with the new commissioner, regardless of the union’s past opposition to the idea.

“We’re hoping for an ally,” Goldberg said, “someone who will advocate for the same things we do and elevate the voices of families and teachers.”

‘An extraordinary opportunity’

In Humboldt County, Superintendent Michael Davies-Hughes is optimistic about the possibility for positive change, and how it could bring about better outcomes for students. A more streamlined system, with a stronger state Department of Education, could reduce the paperwork burden for local schools. That, he said, would give teachers and administrators more time to help students in the classroom.

“Educators spend too much time navigating the bureaucracy. If we can remove those barriers, students will benefit,” said Davies-Hughes, who’s the incoming head of California County Superintendents.

School staff often spend hours a week filling out state-mandated paperwork. For instance, every three years school districts are supposed to make a report describing their finances and goals. One from a small district could top 100 pages. Los Angeles Unified’s is nearly 800 pages. The reports are supposed to be updated regularly.

The new commissioner will have a difficult job balancing policy in Sacramento with the needs of local school districts, Davies-Hughes said. The commissioner will also have to take risks and be willing to stand up to powerful political interests, if necessary.

“This person will have to break through a system that’s been in place for decades,” he said. “Otherwise the current problems will just be exacerbated.”

El Dorado County Superintendent Ed Manansala said that the new commissioner’s role will be important, but it's only the start. Larger changes in governance could have a long-lasting, beneficial impact on schools and students.

“It’s an extraordinary opportunity to rethink how the whole system works,” Manansala said. “But we need to be able to speak openly about what’s working and what isn’t, and collaborate to create a more focused and coherent system.”

Kirst was an architect of the Local Control Funding Formula, which in the early 2010s shifted the bulk of budget decisions from the state to local school boards. Even though the new structure calls for more power concentrated at the state level, Kirst feels it’s the right path forward.

“I don’t think it affects local control. It adds efficiency,” said Kirst, who’s an emeritus education professor at Stanford. “It’ll actually improve local control because it gives teachers and schools clearer guidance.”

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

The San Diego City Council on Tuesday unanimously backed a 45-day moratorium on the permitting, approval and development of data centers within city limits.

The vote was prompted last week after a local developer floated the idea of building one near Old Town in the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command site — known as NAVWAR. Mayor Todd Gloria immediately issued and signed an executive order to temporarily pause data center development in San Diego until the city can develop regulations.

"I appreciate the City Council's unanimous ratification of the temporary moratorium on data center development," Gloria said. "This is a necessary and responsible step to make sure any development does not outpace our responsibility to protect San Diegans.

"Data centers can place significant demands on electricity, water, land and infrastructure. San Diego welcomes innovation, investment and the jobs that come with them. What we will not do is ask residents to absorb unnecessary costs or neighborhood impacts. We can support innovation and protect San Diegans at the same time, and that is exactly what this moratorium allows us to do. This is the right decision for our city," the mayor added.

Dozens of San Diegans spoke at Tuesday's council meeting — including speakers dressed as Elmo from "Sesame Street" and Lord Farquaad from "Shrek" — nearly unanimously opposed to the development of data centers in the city.

"San Diegans were clear, unambiguous and passionate about why data centers don't belong in San Diego," Council President Joe LaCava said.

Tuesday's action puts the pause on the development of data centers for 45 days while city staff develop a framework on how to proceed with such facilities — if at all — in the future. The moratorium could be extended for nearly two years if the council chooses to.

City staff would have a deadline of 180 days to bring forward preliminary recommendations to the mayor and council, guided by a Data Center Stakeholder Working Group, including representatives with expertise in fields ranging from technology, utilities, water, land use, housing and community advocacy, according to a statement from the mayor's office.

The plan is to officially amend the city's land development code next year. Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera tacked on amendments to the moratorium intended to guide the creation of a framework, including council notification of any proposed centers within seven days, no costs from data centers imposed upon city residents, project labor agreements needing to use union labor during construction, clean, renewable energy only and a minimum distance from schools, parks and child care centers, among others.

The idea of a 400-megawatt data center by the San Diego-based Manchester Financial Group was being considered for the NAVWAR location. It would include enough energy to power around 300,000 homes annually and would be the largest in the state of California.

"The costs dramatically outweigh any benefits in the current environment," Councilman Raul Campillo said.

Ted Eldredge, president and CEO of that company, said the data center was one of several ideas and that nothing had been finalized.

"Manchester Financial Group's priority for the Old Town Campus redevelopment is delivering modern facilities for NAVWAR, and we remain committed to working with the Navy and other community stakeholders to do so throughout this process," he wrote in a statement. "Several other project elements are being considered such as retail, commercial, industrial and hospitality uses. The possibilities of a medical center, university campus, defense industry campus, data center and life science facility are also being explored."

This 70-acre, Navy-owned site has been the subject of redevelopment speculation for several years, including as a mixed-use site that could include affordable house as well as military housing.

Since NAVWAR is federally owned, a city moratorium is more of a symbolic measure for that specific site, but several council members said the fight would continue.

"The people asking the hardest questions and fighting the hardest are the ones who will live with it," said Elo-Rivera, referring to dozens of young people speaking at Tuesday's meeting. "The future does not belong to billionaires. Donald Trump wants data centers on federal land so he can dodge communities like ours."

Trump has ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to find military property that could be used to house data centers.

"San Diego needs more affordable housing, not more computer servers," Councilman Stephen Whitburn said. "Federal ownership does not mean San Diegans should be shut out of decisions which will impact us for generations to come."

One of Elo-Rivera's amendments was to get Gloria's government affairs team to lobby lawmakers to take the issue up in Congress.

"Working families and young people are being priced out of the city, struggling to afford rent, and wondering whether they can ever buy a home in San Diego," Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee said. "That includes countless service members who call San Diego home. NAVWAR should maximize its potential as a transit-oriented development with a vibrant residential neighborhood. The city should utilize the extent of our land use authority to regulate data centers and to protect the quality of life for all San Diegans."