In-N-Out’s billionaire boss leaving California: ‘Doing business is not easy here’
Chronicle, MARIO CORTEZ and JERRY WU: "To many in the state, In-N-Out Burger is a timeless California staple. But despite the company’s deep roots in the Golden State, billionaire CEO Lynsi Snyder plans to move to the South.
Snyder, who was raised in Northern California, said she will be moving to Franklin, Tenn., during an appearance on political commentator Allie Beth Stuckey’s “Relatable” podcast Friday. The company’s new Eastern headquarters and her family life were the catalysts for the relocation, she said."
California’s unemployment rate rises to highest in the country as layoffs mount
Chronicle, ROLAND LI: "California’s unemployment rate rose slightly, by 0.1 percentage point, to 5.4% in June, tying Nevada for the highest rate in the U.S., according to new federal data released Friday.
The state lost a net 6,100 jobs, including 9,900 layoffs in business and professional services. Health care and government saw job gains, but other sectors all shrank. San Francisco’s unemployment rate rose 0.7 percentage points to 4.2% in June."
As Newsom ponders redistricting, California projected to lose as many as 4 congressional seats
Chronicle, JULIE ZHU: "California could lose as many as four congressional seats in the 2030 apportionment, researchers say.
A recent report from the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) echoes earlier forecasts of the state’s declining political clout, including from the non-partisan American Redistricting Project and from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. All three reports found the state could lose at least three seats; the Brennan Center projected four."
California cannabis companies hoped Trump would be an ally. Then the raids happened
CalMatters, ALEXI KOSSEF: "After massive federal raids last week at two Southern California cannabis farms, the United Farm Workers posted an urgent message to its social media accounts. Because weed remains illegal under federal law, the union advised workers who are not U.S. citizens to avoid jobs in the cannabis industry, even at state-licensed facilities.
“We know this is unfair,” the United Farm Workers wrote Monday, “but we encourage you to protect yourself and your family.”
Federal cuts leave Los Angeles County health system in crisis
LA Times, REBECCA ELLIS and NIAMH ORDNER: "Los Angeles County’s health system, which is responsible for the care of the region’s poorest, is careening toward a financial crisis because of cuts from a presidential administration and Republican-led Congress looking to drastically slash the size of government.
President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which passed earlier this month, is expected to soon claw $750 million per year from the county Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and roughly two dozen clinics. In an all-staff email Friday, the agency called the bill a “big, devastating blow to our health system” and said a hiring freeze had gone into effect, immediately."
Forget the high road: Newsom takes the fight to Trump and his allies
LA Times, TARYN LUNA: "In a common insult the Trump administration uses against dissidents of federal policy, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called a California judge a “communist” after she blocked roving immigration arrests based on race alone. The MAGA-embraced epithet from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s official press office in response, however, was hardly typical for a Democratic politician.
“This fascist cuck in DC continues his assault on democracy and the Constitution, and his attempt to replace the sovereignty of the people with autocracy,” the California governor’s office posted on social media. “Sorry the Constitution hurt your feelings, Stephen. Cry harder.”
California students with immigrant parents seek financial aid despite deportation risks
CalMatters, MERCY SOSA: "While witnessing a rise in deportations across the country, college-bound high school seniors with immigrant parents in California had to decide this spring whether to submit a federal financial aid application. Their fear: The federal government will use sensitive personal information from the application to identify people in the country who lack legal status. An agreement between the IRS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to share tax information is already in motion.
However, the latest data available from the California Student Aid Commission shows that the number of high school senior applicants from mixed-status families has not decreased as much as some financial aid advocates feared it would. In fact, the number of high school senior applicants with at least one parent lacking legal status has nearly rebounded to the 2023 number after the revised financial aid form last year kept them from being able to apply without parental Social Security numbers for several months."
Santa Monica apartment is focus of probe into blast that killed 3 L.A. County sheriff’s deputies
LA Times, RICHARD WINTON and CHRISTOPHER BUCHANAN: "Authorities investigating the deadly blast at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility are looking into connections to some explosives collected in Santa Monica.
Three deputies were killed Friday in an explosion at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Biscailuz Center Training Academy in East L.A. while handling explosive materials."
Trump imposes limits on Mexican flights and threatens Delta alliance in trade dispute
LA Times, JOSH FUNK: "The Trump administration imposed new restrictions Saturday on flights from Mexico and threatened to end a longstanding partnership between Delta Air Lines and Aeromexico in response to limits the Mexican government placed on passenger and cargo flights into Mexico City several years ago.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Mexico’s actions to force airlines to move out of the main Benito Juarez International Airport to the newer Felipe Angeles International Airport more than 30 miles away violated a trade agreement between the two countries and gave domestic airlines an unfair advantage. Mexico is the top foreign destination for Americans, with more than 40 million passengers flying there last year."
The Golden Gate Bridge is about to see 10 years of intensive construction
Chronicle, MALIYA ELLIS: "The Golden Gate Bridge is not expected to collapse in a major earthquake. But it could suffer enough damage to close for months or longer — and repairs to ensure that won’t happen are slated to start next year.
The bridge’s steel elements are designed to move with seismic forces — as much as 27 feet from side to side at the suspension span’s midpoint. But the concrete roadway and pylons (which anchor the span to the ground at either end) are less flexible, a mismatch that could be disastrous during a 1906-level earthquake."
Border Patrol’s Sacramento presence brings Trump’s immigration show of force to CA
SacBee, STEPHEN HOBBS: "The political message was anything but subtle. “The state of California is not a sanctuary state,” Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol official, told a Fox News reporter in front of California’s Capitol Thursday.
“There is no sanctuary anywhere.” Earlier that morning, agents arrested immigrants near a Home Depot on Florin Road during the agency’s first major operation in the area this year. It was an aggressive move for the Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector that Bovino leads and which is based in Southern California near the Mexico border."
Trump releases frozen school grants with conditions; most funds for California still in limbo
LA Times, HOWARD BLUME and ANNIE MA: "The Trump administration will release an estimated $1.3 billion in previously withheld grant money for schools nationwide, but has warned states that it will rescind funding not spent for “allowable activities.”
About $5 billion to $6 billion remains in limbo. In typical years, this funding would have begun reaching states and school districts starting on July 1. California joined about two dozen states this week in suing for the release of the funds, calling the Trump administration action “unconstitutional, unlawful and arbitrary.”
‘Keep ICE out of Dublin’: Hundreds protest prospect of immigrant detention centers
Chronicle, JESSICA FLORES: "Hundreds of protesters gathered Saturday at a park in Dublin to oppose the possibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement reopening the nearby federal prison as an immigrant detention center.
Drivers passing by the family-friendly protest at Don Biddle Community Park honked their horns in support of the demonstrators holding signs that read, “Keep ICE out of Dublin.” There were designated art tables where children could color and attendees could pick up screen-printed posters that read, “Hands off our immigrant neighbors.”
Airbnb allowed rampant price gouging following L.A. fires, city attorney lawsuit alleges
LA Times, KATERINA PORTELA: "The Los Angeles city attorney’s office has filed a lawsuit against Airbnb, accusing the home-sharing platform of allowing price gouging and unverified hosts and addresses at more than 2,000 rentals following the January firestorm in Altadena and Pacific Palisades.
In a statement, L.A. City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office accused Airbnb of allowing illegal rental price hikes and permitting false and nonexistent hosts and addresses on the platform. The lawsuit seeks a permanent order to halt Airbnb from hiking up prices during the existing state of emergency, as well as reimbursement for consumers who were charged higher rates."
A plan to shoot 450,000 owls — to save a different owl — could be in jeopardy
LA Times, LISA SEIDMAN: "An unusual alliance of Republican lawmakers and animal rights advocates, together with others, is creating storm clouds for a plan to protect one threatened owl by killing a more common one.
Last August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a plan to shoot roughly 450,000 barred owls in California, Oregon and Washington over three decades. The barred owls have been out-competing imperiled northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest, as well as California spotted owls, pushing them out of their territory."
S.F. teacher survives horrific throat-slashing attack in Italy: ‘It was a miracle’
Chronicle, St. JOHN BARNED-SMITH: "The thought kept flashing through Nicholas Pellegrino’s mind as he sat on a train station outside of Milan, blood pouring from his throat.
If the 29-year-old San Francisco high school teacher and track coach didn’t get help soon, he was going to die.
“I had no doubt about that in my mind,” he said. “It’s a feeling of helplessness that I don’t wish on my worst enemy.”
‘Just plain horrible’: Prolonged Caltrans construction in California resort town has locals fuming
Chronicle, JULIE JOHNSON: "Last winter, Jennifer Gilbert drove into Guerneville, but the bohemian town she’d loved since childhood seemed to be gone. Barricades choked block after block of Main Street. Construction vehicles and equipment were strewn about. Instead of stopping, she kept driving. “I thought, ‘Oh no what happened? ’” the Woodside resident said.
Fast-forward to June, and Caltrans construction barricades still lined Main Street, with seemingly no place for pedestrians to walk. Rivertime Restaurant and Bar owner Leslie “Jo” Crane said she routinely found orange-and-white striped barricades blocking the door of her business without warning, but she couldn’t afford to close so she would push them aside."
Driver who police say plowed into crowd outside Hollywood club has violent criminal history
LA Times, GRACE TOOHEY, JESSICA GARRISON and RICHARD WINTON: "The driver who police say intentionally plowed into a crowd early Saturday outside a popular East Hollywood music venue was previously convicted of a hate crime in Orange County, a conviction subsequently overturned by an appeals court, according to prosecutors and court records.
Fernando Ramirez was 23 when, on June 15, 2019, he entered a Whole Foods Market in Laguna Beach and sucker-punched a 26-year-old Black employee who’d been on a lunch break, breaking the man’s nose and severely damaging his two front teeth, according to reports at the time of the incident."
