President Donald Trump wants to reopen Alcatraz as a prison. Is he serious?
Sac Bee, LIA RUSSELL: "The month that Alcatraz closed down in 1963, “To Kill A Mockingbird” had been running in movie theaters for 12 weeks and John F. Kennedy, still alive, had just returned from a presidential trip to Central America to warn against the looming specter of communism.
Sixty-two years later, the former San Francisco Bay prison could be reopening if Donald Trump gets his way. On Sunday, the president said he was ordering the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, along with the federal Bureau of Prisons and the FBI, to reopen Alcatraz as a “substantially enlarged and rebuilt” facility to “house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders.”"
Trump’s Alcatraz whim is ‘outlandish,’ but realism isn’t the point, experts say
The Chronicle, SOPHIA BOLLAG: "President Donald Trump’s announcement that he plans to reopen Alcatraz, the infamous island prison in San Francisco Bay that federal officials closed in the 1960s because it was too expensive, has been called “absurd,” “impractical” and “not humane.”
But Trump’s Sunday evening social media post about the idea follows a well-honed strategy that the president has been deploying for years. He makes outlandish claims and goads the media into writing stories debunking or criticizing them, which focuses the national conversation around his preferred topics."
Trump’s popularity in a slump in California amid abuse-of-power concerns
LAT,, MICHAEL WILNER: "President Trump remains deeply unpopular in California after his first 100 days in office, with conservatives and liberals alike expressing concern that U.S. courts can effectively serve as a check on his power, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by The Times.
Overall, the poll, conducted during the last week of April, found that 68% of registered voters in California disapprove of the president’s job performance and believe the country is on the wrong track."
California Democrats, Republicans clash over who’s harsher on sex offenders
Sac Bee, DAVID LIGHTMAN/KATE WOLFFE: "One of the latest Republican blasts at politically vulnerable Central Valley Democratic congressmen: “Should we now add ‘protecting predators’ to their growing list of radical priorities?’’
Democrats are slugging back with their own accusations against their political opponents’ records on sex with minors, saying GOP Assembly members want to protect their party, “not our kids.”"
Indigenous tribes pitted against each other over a state bill to redefine land protection in California
LAT, NOAH HAGGERTY: "In the last year, the Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians – Kizh Nation has worked to protect its cultural sites from more than 850 land development projects around the Los Angeles Basin, thanks to a 2014 state law that allows tribes to give input during projects’ environmental review processes.
Now, its chief fears that a newly proposed bill could significantly limit how the tribe — and dozens of others still without federal recognition — could participate."
Why AB305 deserves support (OP-ED)
Capitol Weekly, TREY LAUDERDALE: "As the California Assembly considers AB305, bipartisan legislation that could rewrite California’s energy future, the stakes could not be higher.
The bill would exempt small modular reactors (SMRs) from the state’s nuclear moratorium in an attempt to end California’s reliance on fossil gas and carve out a new path for an abundant, carbon-free energy future."
For LGBT nonprofits, Trump’s orders target their very existence
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: "The Los Angeles LGBT Center describes itself as the world’s largest provider of services to the LGBTQ community, with more than 500,000 client visits a year. But under President Donald Trump, the organization is being forced to confront an existential crisis: either stop serving transgender people or lose its federal funding.
Los Angeles LGBT “has been told it must remove terms like ‘LGBT’ (which is in the organization’s name), ‘queer,’ ‘trans’ and ‘transgender’ from its materials” or forfeit its $2.25 million grant from the U.S. Office of Family Violence and Prevention Services, lawyers for the group and others targeted by the administration have told a federal judge as part of an ongoing lawsuit in Oakland."
Trump’s budget would abolish funding for English learners, adult ed, teacher recruitment
EdSource, STAFF: "President Donald Trump would maintain funding levels for students with disabilities and for Title I aid for low-income students while wiping out long-standing programs serving migrant children, teachers in training, college-bound students, English learners and adult learners in the education budget for fiscal 2026.
Trump’s “skinny budget,” which he released on Friday, would cut $12 billion or about 15% of K-12 and some higher education programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education. It contains sparse, sometimes dismissive, language explaining why he is eliminating programs and offers no details about plans to consolidate $6.5 billion in 18 unspecified programs into a single $2 billion grant program."
Bay Area universities reel from cuts in research funding from National Institutes of Health
EdSource, STAFF: "The Trump administration has canceled roughly $56 million in research grants that support Bay Area universities’ research, including those from the National Institutes of Health aimed at promoting diversity in the sciences, the East Bay Times reported.
“Everyone who identified themselves as being of a diverse background was just removed from funding, from consideration, from further processing,” Stanford University doctoral student Delaney Smith told the Times."
California joins 19 states in trying to stop Kennedy
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: "As President Donald Trump’s secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised to “make America healthy again.” But his massive budget cuts, staff reductions and termination of vital programs is doing just the opposite, California and 19 other states said in a lawsuit Monday.
“Over the course of a few days in late March and early April, (Kennedy) dismantled the department” in violation of federal law, the states declared in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Rhode Island."
An overdose killed her son. Then, California lawmakers asked her to help save others
CALMatters, JOCELYN WIENER: "Deep breath.
Christine Matlock Dougherty inhaled, pursed her lips and exhaled slowly."
SoCal officials unleash sterile mosquitoes in bid to curb disease — with promising results
LAT, LILA SEIDMAN: "A battle is underway against an invasive mosquito behind a recent surge in the local spread of dengue fever in Southern California — and officials may have unlocked a powerful tool to help win the day.
Two vector control districts — local agencies tasked with controlling disease-spreading organisms — released thousands of sterile male mosquitoes in select neighborhoods, with one district starting in 2023 and the other beginning the following year."
Hepatitis A outbreak declared in L.A. County. ‘We really have to get ahead of this’
LAT, RONG-GONG LIN II: "Los Angeles County has declared a communitywide outbreak of hepatitis A, a highly contagious viral disease that can lead to lasting liver damage or even death.
Although cases of hepatitis A are nothing new in the region, health officials are now expressing alarm both at the prevalence of the disease and who is becoming infected."
California dust storms are expected to become more common. Some are ‘as big as a city’
The Chronicle, JACK LEE: "In November 2024, powerful gusts whipped across parts of the Central Valley. The winds not only knocked out power, but they also kicked up soil particles, producing a massive dust storm. The extreme weather event dropped visibility to near zero, grinding highway traffic to a halt.
Scientists expect dust storms in California to occur even more often in the future, due to climate change and human activities like construction and agriculture."
This small city is the fastest-growing in California
The Chronicle, DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA: "Among the almond orchards, grapevines and alfalfa fields alongside State Route 99 is California’s fastest growing city with more than 20,000 people: Shafter, California.
According to a state report released this week, the population of Shafter, a Central Valley city just north of Bakersfield, grew by 4.7% — about 1,000 people — between Jan. 2024 and Jan. 2025, the most of any city in California with more than 20,000 people whose population gains did not come from college dormitory populations."
Hollywood’s reaction to Trump’s movie tariffs idea: Confusion, dread and a little hope
LAT, MEG JAMES/SAMANTHA MASUNAGA: "Hollywood executives scrambled Monday to interpret President Trump’s call for stiff tariffs on movies produced outside the U.S. — a bombshell proposal that would upend how movies have been made for years.
Trump on Sunday night announced that he was authorizing a 100% tariff on movies “coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” The proposal, like many other Trump-imposed tariffs, is aimed at bringing a key industry back home."
Accused strike violator was subject to a ‘flawed’ and ‘improper’ discipline process, WGA trial chair says
LAT, STACY PERMAN: "A chair of a trial committee of the Writers Guild of America West has called out the union’s handling of disciplinary proceedings against one member accused of flouting the union’s rules during the 2023 strike.
In a four-page letter, Jill Goldsmith, a former public defender from Cook County, conveyed profound concerns over the process behind the board’s decision to expel one writer, saying it was not “fair and proper,” according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Times."
