Trump says he will reopen Alcatraz prison
JILL COLVIN and MICHAEL R. SISAK, Associated Press: " President Donald Trump says he is directing his government to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on a hard-to-reach California island off San Francisco that has been closed for more than 60 years.
In a post on his Truth Social site Sunday evening, Trump wrote that, “For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
READ MORE on Alcatraz: Trump wants to reopen Alcatraz. Here's how experts and California officials have responded, Chronicle's JESSICA FLORES and SAM WHITING;
Here's why Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered Alcatraz to close in 1962, Chronicle's PETER HARTLAUB.
When FEMA failed to test soil for toxic substances after the L.A. fires, The Times had it done. The results were alarming
TONY BRISCOE, NOAH HAGGERTY and HAYLEY SMITH, LA Times: "On the heels of the Eaton and Palisades fires, among the most destructive urban wildfires in U.S. history, federal and state disaster agencies have refused to pay for soil testing to ensure fire-related contamination no longer remains in thousands of now-empty dirt lots across Los Angeles County.
Without this long-established precautionary measure, tens of thousands of wildfire survivors are poised to rebuild and eventually return home, not knowing if unhealthy levels of heavy metals are hidden in the soil on their properties. That leaves homeowners with a daunting choice: Pay for testing and potentially additional soil removal themselves, or live with the possibility of lingering contamination."
Capitol Spotlight: Sen. Scott Wiener.
RICH EHISEN, Capitol Weekly: "Nobody can ever accuse Sen. Scott Wiener of only taking on the easy fights. The San Francisco Democrat has in fact developed a reputation as someone almost allergic to tackling any bill – from housing to health care, from psychedelics to artificial intelligence – that doesn’t promise a bare-knuckles brawl to get passed. Just don’t tell him that.
“I do smaller bills, too,” he says. “I actually do a whole range of bills that are very impactful.”
Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies made overseas, surprising studios
LA Times' MEG JAMES: "Looking to boost the production of Hollywood movies in the U.S., President Trump on Sunday announced a new 100% tariff applied on films produced overseas.
But studio executives on Sunday were surprised by the announcement, saying they had no advance notice of the tariffs plan and didn’t know the details of how it would be applied."
How long does it take to get a Real ID in CA? What to know if you miss deadline
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ, SacBee: "The deadline to get a California Real ID is just days away. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will soon require people to have a federally approved document — such as a passport or a Real ID driver’s license — on hand for domestic air travel.
As of April 14, more than 19 million Californians had Real ID identification cards, the California Department of Motor Vehicles’ Office of Public Affairs wrote in an email to The Sacramento Bee."
L.A. federal prosecutors resign over plea deal for convicted sheriff’s deputy, sources say
BRITTNY MEJIA, JAMES QUEALLY and KERI BLAKINGER, LA Times: "Several federal prosecutors — including the chief of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section — have submitted their resignations following a plea deal offered by the new U.S. attorney in Los Angeles to a sheriff’s deputy who had already been found guilty of using excessive force.
Two sources confirmed to The Times that Assistant U.S. Attys Eli A. Alcaraz, Brian R. Faerstein and section chief Cassie Palmer resigned from the office over a “post-trial” plea agreement filed Thursday in the case of Trevor Kirk, an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy who was convicted of a felony for assaulting and pepper-spraying a woman outside a Lancaster supermarket."
In Montana, a Rare Sight: Republicans and Democrats Voting Together
KELLEN BROWNING, NY Times: "In the waning days of a tumultuous legislative session in Montana’s Capitol, Carl Glimm, a state senator and a member of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, watched with exasperation as yet another Democratic-backed bill zoomed toward passage.
“Are we not embarrassed?” Mr. Glimm asked from the Senate floor in Helena. “This thing’s a big red ‘No,’ but I’ll tell you what — it’s going to be 23-27,” he added, predicting his own defeat. “Because, like we’ve said before, the cake is baked.”
L.A. fire survivors accuse State Farm of delaying claims. Should it get OK for a rate hike?
LEVI SUMAGAYSAY, CalMatters: "Rossana Valverde’s Pasadena home of 35 years is still standing after Los Angeles County’s devastating January fires — but more than 100 days later, she and her husband still can’t move back in.
That’s because they’re waiting for their insurer, State Farm, to approve and process their claims."
San Francisco’s downtown malls are empty. But there’s one thing keeping them alive
RACHEL SWAN, MARIO CORTEZ and SRIHARSHA DEVULAPALI, Chornicle: "It’s lunch hour in downtown San Francisco. The food court at the troubled San Francisco Centre mall is nearly deserted. Slices of pizza wilt under heat lamps, and some restaurants have their shades rolled down.
Outside on Fifth Street, half a dozen men are loading sacks of grease-spattered food onto mopeds and e-bikes, and preparing to haul them across town. They belong to a burgeoning gig work ecosystem that’s breathing life into otherwise decrepit downtown shopping malls and their dozens of fast-casual restaurants."
Aspiring screenwriters struggle to break into shrinking industry. ‘It shouldn’t be this hard’
MALIA MENDEZ, LA Times: "Since the start of the year, Brandy Hernandez has applied to nearly 200 entertainment jobs.
The 22-year-old film school graduate, who works as a receptionist at the Ross Stores buying office in downtown Los Angeles, said that for most of those applications, she never heard back — not even a rejection. When she did land follow-up interviews, she was almost always ghosted afterward."
“I knew that I wouldn’t be a famous screenwriter or anything straight out of college,” said Hernandez, who graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 2024. But she thought she’d at least be qualified for an entry-level film industry job."
One UC major leads to the highest paying jobs — even more than the same degree elsewhere
NANETTE ASIMOV, Chronicle: "The number “33,000” tells an unexpected story that takes us into the exclusive halls of the computer science departments at UC Berkeley and UCLA.
That figure, it turns out, represents the amount of additional dollars per year that computer science students who graduated from the Northern California UC campus can expect to earn beyond what their counterparts from the Southern California campus are likely to earn."
When will Democratic lawmakers make California more affordable? Later, leaders say
YUE STELLA YU, CalMatters: "In December, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas assigned his members an “urgent” task: Make California cheaper to live in.
“Californians are deeply anxious. They are anxious about our state’s cost of living,” he told his colleagues in the wake of an election where concerns about the economy were top of mind for voters. “We must chart a new path forward and renew the California dream by focusing on affordability.”
