California Policy and Politics Wednesday

Aide involved in affair with Gavin Newsom in 2005 speaks out: ‘Resentment is a luxury I can’t afford’ -- An aide involved in an affair with Gavin Newsom more than 20 years ago, when he was mayor of San Francisco, detailed their relationship and her journey to sobriety in an essay published by Vanity Fair on Tuesday. Hannah Fry in the Los Angeles Times$ Sophia Bollag in the San Francisco Chronicle$ Jeremy B. White Politico Heather Knight in the New York Times$ -- 7/29/26

Newsom’s scandal playbook: Don’t dispute it -- The California governor’s advisers are notably not pushing back on the essay published in Vanity Fair by Ruby Rippey detailing her 20-year-old affair with Newsom. Melanie Mason and Jeremy B. White Politico -- 7/29/26

 

‘See bodies, chase bodies.’ What immigration agents’ body cameras, texts reveal about L.A. raids -- Little was known about how federal immigration enforcement operations were coordinated in Los Angeles last year. But that changed this week when hundreds of pages of court exhibits — released through discovery in a federal lawsuit — provided a glimpse into the operations. Brittny Mejia, Clara Harter and Ruben Vives in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/26

A judge sent a doctor to evaluate California’s largest ICE detention center. What he found -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is failing to provide adequate healthcare at a new detention center in California City, according to a report from an independent monitor at the facility, where detainees complained of missing medications and months-long delays to cancer treatment. Nigel Duara Calmatters -- 7/29/26

Feds targeted Latinos more after Supreme Court’s racial profiling decision, report says -- The League of United Latin American Citizens or LULAC, a Latino civil rights organization, found that court-sanctioned racial profiling has contributed to the disproportionate targeting of Latinos regardless of their immigration status. Ruben Vives in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/26

 

An atheist Bay Area congressman confronts Trump’s politics of faith and fear -- Nine years ago, Rep. Jared Huffman took a bold step that made him unique among the current members of Congress: He announced he doesn’t believe in God. Now, he’s going further to challenge what he calls “Christian privilege.” Joe Garofoli in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/29/26

Voter ID-backers sue California attorney general over ballot description -- Backers of a November ballot measure that would require Californians to verify their identity when voting sued state officials on Monday, alleging bias in how the ballot’s summary is written. Dakota Smith in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/26

What Orange County voters tell us about the state of the race for California governor -- New polling shows OC voters virtually split between Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton — but one candidate has slightly stronger support within his own party. Kaitlyn Schallhorn in the Orange County Register$ -- 7/29/26

 

PG&E wants customers to fund a $26.6 million shareholder reward -- Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has asked California regulators to let it collect $26.6 million from natural-gas customers as a shareholder award, arguing that its prudent gas-buying decisions saved customers roughly $170 million. If approved, the request would add about 41 cents a month to the bill of a typical residential customer, according to a notice PG&E recently sent customers. Aidin Vaziri in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/29/26

Lineage files permit to rebuild Boyle Heights warehouse. ‘A slap in the face,’ mayor says -- A permit application to rebuild the Lineage cold-storage warehouse has been met with fierce backlash from politicians and residents, who are enraged the company would think about resuming business while the community contends with putrid odors and health concerns from the ongoing cleanup. Seamus Bozeman and Clara Harter in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/26

Workplace

Intel and Uber announce Bay Area job cuts -- Intel and Uber Technologies both revealed plans to cut jobs in the Bay Area, affecting dozens of workers in a region that experienced a loss of 2,000 tech positions in June. George Avalos in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 7/29/26

A.I. Companies Are Recruiting Electricians and Carpenters by the Thousands -- The future of artificial intelligence depends on finding more skilled humans for some very physical jobs. Lydia DePillis in the New York Times$ -- 7/29/26

ServiceNow workers thought they’d survived layoffs. Now more San Diego jobs are being eliminated -- ServiceNow, whose software platforms help companies manage workflows and integrate AI, announced it would lay off over 100 workers in its San Diego office, and potentially hundreds more around the world. Noelle Harff in the San Diego Union Tribune -- 7/29/26

Record-breaking El Niño could gut California’s crab and salmon fleets -- As the chances of a ‘super’ El Niño continue to rise — now 81%, according to federal scientists — researchers are looking back to 2015 and 2016, when a Pacific heat wave combined with a strong El Niño threw some of the West Coast’s most important commercial fishing fleets into turmoil. They say we could be looking at a repeat. Or worse. Susanne Rust in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/26

Could the Most Radical Plane Design Since the Concorde Take On Boeing? -- JetZero, based in Long Beach, Calif., last week reached an early deal with the U.S. Export-Import Bank as part of its Make More in America Initiative for as much as $3 billion in loans and guarantees that the company needs to build its first factory. Benjamin Katz in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 7/29/26

Housing

The Tortured History of a San Francisco Ballpark That’s Finally Becoming Housing -- San Francisco’s Candlestick Park was widely considered baseball’s worst stadium before it was demolished in 2015. The oblong structure churned up powerful gusts coming off the Bay, leading fans to wear parkas to games even on summer evenings. Peter Grant in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 7/29/26

Develop

Newsom hasn’t endorsed California Forever. His administration just came close -- Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent years avoiding a public position on California Forever, the controversial, billionaire investor-backed developer seeking to build a new city in rural Solano County. Laura Waxmann in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/29/26

Education

UC accepts record number of Californians, but some select campuses out of reach for most -- The UC system offered record numbers of seats to California first-year and community college transfer students this fall. Behind a 78% in-state acceptance rate, UC campuses show stark contrasts in selectivity, with Berkeley now slightly harder to gain admission to than UCLA. Jaweed Kaleem in the Los Angeles Times$ Nanette Asimov in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/29/26

To Recruit Teachers, School Districts Are Building Homes -- Carolina Sanchez Garcia, a teacher at Rosa Parks Elementary in San Diego, used to wake up at 3 a.m. to leave enough time to drive to work as her children slept in the back seat. Housing in Southern California was so expensive that she was living in Tijuana, Mexico, and spending up to four hours on her commute, which included crossing the border, to get to work. Patrick Sisson in the New York Times$ -- 7/29/26

Street

The LAPD has quietly stopped putting many public records online -- Public records related to the LAPD began disappearing from a city of Los Angeles website last April, according to a UCLA professor. The records include audio recordings of emergency dispatch calls, along with emails and text messages from high-ranking police officials. Libor Jany in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/26

AI

OpenAI's rogue models roamed the internet for 4 days and staged a second attack -- The powerful artificial intelligence models from OpenAI that went rogue and mounted an unprecedented, autonomous cyberattack earlier this month spent more than four days loose on the internet orchestrating the hack, according to a new analysis from the platform that was breached. John Sakellariadis, Maggie Miller and Dana Nickel Politico -- 7/29/26

A Backlash Against Anthropic Is Brewing in Silicon Valley -- A backlash against Anthropic is brewing in Silicon Valley, rooted in concerns about the company’s product launches that compete with existing software providers and its advocacy for a closed AI ecosystem. Angel Au-Yeung, Tina Li and Amrith Ramkumar in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 7/29/26

The Impending, Inescapable Deluge of A.I. -- From the American Midwest to the Persian Gulf, hundreds of major data centers now under construction will be turned on in the coming years. They are set to deliver an avalanche of computing power to develop and run A.I. that has no equal in the history of the technology industry, with breakthroughs that once felt revolutionary likely to become increasingly routine. Adam Satariano, Paul Mozur, Jacqueline Gu and Cade Metz in the New York Times$ -- 7/29/26

OpenAI, Anthropic ask U.S. government to consider slowing down AI -- The rivals endorsed a letter signed by hundreds of AI company employees asking for international diplomacy to slow progress on the technology if it gets too rapid. Gerrit De Vynck in the Washington Post$ -- 7/29/26

Also

FBI raids target San Bernardino County supervisor, Ontario councilman, lawyer and media firm -- FBI agents executed warrants across Southern California on Tuesday and searched the homes or offices of a San Bernardino County supervisor, an Ontario City Council member, a lawyer and a media company. The properties were connected to San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman, Ontario Councilmember Alan Wapner, attorney Frank Lizarraga and a media company operator in West Covina. Agents also searched a Beverly Hills mansion in the 600 block of North Canon Drive. Richard Winton in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/26

POTUS 47

Iran Launches Surprise Missile Attack on U.S. Forces -- Iran launched a surprise ballistic-missile attack on American forces in the Middle East, the U.S. military said, marking a violent escalation after four days without strikes from either side. All of the Iranian missiles were successfully intercepted, the U.S. military said, without saying where the attack was targeted. Michael Amon, Lara Seligman in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 7/29/26

Trump Administration to End Medicare Drug Plan Subsidy -- High drug costs are a perennial issue—especially for seniors on fixed incomes—and healthcare affordability is expected to be a focus in the midterm elections. Roughly 25 million people have Part D plans, and they will learn about their 2027 rates in the fall. Anna Wilde Mathews in the Wall Street Journal$ Rebecca Robbins and Reed Abelson in the New York Times$ -- 7/29/26

Jordanians’ Rare Challenge to Their Leaders: Tell the U.S. to Leave -- Hundreds of Jordanian political, legal and other figures signed an open letter last week calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Jordan in a rare public challenge to the government, which has long cracked down on free speech and dissent. Raja Abdulrahim in the New York Times$ -- 7/29/26

Trump’s Tariffs Are Sending Some Companies Back to China -- For some U.S. brands seeking a location for their factories, the economic logic is once again pointing to China. Alexandra Stevenson and Ana Swanson in the New York Times$ -- 7/29/26

Trump says he wants to honor California lifeguard who rescued boy from pounding surf -- A lifeguard who dove into pounding surf to save a boy in a dramatic rescue off the California coast has caught the attention of President Donald Trump, who said Tuesday that he would invite him to the White House. Olga R. Rodriguez Associated Press -- 7/29/26