California Policy and Politics Friday

Updating . . .

Californian pulls AI ballot measures, citing OpenAI intimidation -- The mysterious Californian behind two ballot measures to regulate artificial intelligence in the state said he was intimidated into scrapping them after OpenAI asked regulators to probe his identity. The initiatives were East Bay resident Alexander Oldham’s first foray into the world of state ballot battles, where propositions can take off seemingly overnight, attracting big bucks and intense opposition. Christine Mui Politico -- 2/27/26

Carvalho’s big bet on AI imploded at L.A. schools. Now, it’s the center of FBI raids -- Supt. Alberto Carvalho touted an AI chatbot as transformative technology in March 2024, but the project collapsed within months. Federal agents raided Carvalho’s home and office in an investigation that sources said is linked to the failed chatbot project. Richard Winton, Howard Blume and Brittny Mejia in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/27/26

L.A. firefighter testifies that Lachman fire was not fully put out when crews were ordered to leave -- A Los Angeles firefighter said in sworn testimony that he sounded the alarm about the inadequate mop-up of the Lachman fire — and was blown off by a captain — days before the embers reignited into the deadly Palisades fire. The firefighter, Scott Pike, testified last month in a lawsuit brought by Palisades fire victims against the city and the state. Alene Tchekmedyian in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/27/26

Sen. Alex Padilla slams DHS after agency admits deporting 86 DACA recipients -- The program, better known as DACA, began under President Barack Obama’s administration and has shielded some people from deportation if they arrived in the country before the age of 16. Mathew Miranda in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 2/27/26

California Democrats propose election laws to keep ICE away from polling places -- Weeks after President Donald Trump suggested on a conservative podcast that the Republican Party should “nationalize” voting in the United States, California lawmakers are floating proposals to limit federal presence in elections. Kate Wolffe in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 2/27/26

Narco-terrorism charges unsealed in San Diego against alleged Tijuana cartel boss ‘The Frog’ -- Prosecutors charged René Arzate Garcia, known as "La Rana," with narco-terrorism and drug charges and announced $5 million DEA bounties for information about him and his brother. Alex Riggins in the San Diego Union Tribune Salvador Hernandez in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/27/26

Gender could play decisive role in landmark L.A. social media addiction suit -- Ladies of the jury dabbed their eyes, sniffling as the 20-year-old on the witness stand described the hours she’d spent trying to fix her face before appearing in court that morning — her view of herself irreparably warped by what she characterized as a decade of addiction to YouTube and Instagram. Sonja Sharp and Sandra McDonald in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/27/26

San Francisco moderates fear a progressive wave is coming -- The famously liberal city has pivoted toward the center in recent years, but national progressive energy ahead of the midterms could challenge that shift. Dustin Gardiner Politico -- 2/27/26

CalOptima reports steep membership drop as providers brace for surge in uninsured patients -- In July, it was reported that the Trump administration gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents access to the personal data of 79 million people enrolled in Medicaid. Claire Wang in the Orange County Register$ -- 2/27/26

Netflix bows out of Warner Bros. auction, Paramount to claim the prize -- Netflix bowed out of the Warner Bros. Discovery sweepstakes Thursday, conceding the prize to Paramount Skydance, a dramatic capstone to one of Hollywood’s biggest auctions in years. The reversal came after Warner Bros. Discovery switched gears, announcing that Paramount‘s revised bid had topped the one on the table from Netflix. Meg James and Ana Ceballos in the Los Angeles Times$ Lauren Hirsch, Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin in the New York Times$ -- 2/27/26

Why Paramount was determined to buy Warner Bros. Discovery -- As Paramount Skydance’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery stretched into the stratosphere, a painful truth emerged. Paramount’s core television business, which includes CBS, Comedy Central and MTV, is rapidly shrinking and its Melrose Avenue movie studio lost money. Meg James in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/27/26

The hypothetical nuclear attack that escalated the Pentagon’s showdown with Anthropic -- Start-up Anthropic and the U.S. military are careening toward a clash over government use of artificial intelligence — and whether it should be allowed to kill. Ian Duncan, Elizabeth Dwoskin and Tara Copp in the Washington Post$ -- 2/27/26

Altman Says OpenAI Is Working on Pentagon Deal Amid Anthropic Standoff -- OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman waded into the standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon over the use of AI on the battlefield, telling his staff Thursday evening that the company was working on a deal that might help solve the impasse. Keach Hagey in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 2/27/26

Anthropic rebuffs Pentagon ultimatum, warns AI can ‘undermine’ democratic values -- In a lengthy statement posted as a Friday deadline loomed, Amodei said the San Francisco company “cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” referring to the Defense Department’s insistence that Anthropic permit its large language model, Claude, to be used for “all lawful purposes.” Aidin Vaziri in the San Francisco Chronicle$ Brendan Bordelon Politico Amrith Ramkumar in the Wall Street Journal$ Julian E. Barnes and Sheera Frenkel in the New York Times$ Tara Copp and Ian Duncan in the Washington Post$ -- 2/27/26

How antisemitic heckling and a tweet by S.F. Mayor Lurie turned into a firestorm -- “Tax the rich! Tax the rich!” chanted a small group of protesters opposed to the mayor’s proposal, which would cut the city’s real estate transfer tax in half in a bid to jumpstart housing construction. Then a woman — who protesters say was a passerby they did not know — began yelling antisemitic remarks, including “tax the Jews,” videos from the event show. J.D. Morris in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/27/26

Workplace

‘Horrifying’: Hollywood blasts Trump’s role in studio sale -- In the Warner Bros. deal, some saw Trump targeting not just programming choices, but questions of corporate structure once largely insulated from political influence. Daniel Miller Politico -- 2/27/26

Jack Dorsey’s Block to lay off 40% of workers, citing AI efficiency --The tech company, which makes the Square payments product and Cash App, is downsizing due to artificial intelligence tools “enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company,” Dorsey said in a note to employees, which he shared on X. Roland Li in the San Francisco Chronicle$ Angel Au-Yeung in the Wall Street Journal$ Natallie Rocha in the New York Times$ -- 2/27/26

San Francisco court clerks hit picket lines, citing staffing, training gaps -- About 200 San Francisco Superior Court clerks went on strike Thursday, picketing outside the Hall of Justice and calling attention to what they described as staffing shortages and inadequate training. The strike disrupted services and proceedings at the courthouse — and represented the latest crisis for a system already faced with a pileup of cases and delays. David Hernandez in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/27/26

Wave of California teacher strikes ‘is no coincidence’ -- The California Teachers Association organized to trigger a wave of negotiations and potential strikes to garner public attention and flex political muscle. Carolyn Jones Calmatters -- 2/27/26

California pulled immigrants’ trucking licenses. Now it can’t give them back -- California says the Trump administration is intentionally stalling efforts to reissue immigrant truck drivers’ licenses to keep them from ever driving professionally again. Sara DiNatale in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/27/26

OpenAI enters Silicon Valley with massive lease in Google’s backyard -- OpenAI is continuing its massive real estate expansion spree with a 450,000-square-foot lease at a Mountain View office complex, its first entry into the South Bay. The offices could hold upwards of 1,500 workers. Roland Li in the San Francisco Chronicle$ George Avalos in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 2/27/26

BART

BART officials approve an alternate ‘doomsday’ plan that still includes closing stations next year -- BART officials on Thursday gave initial approval to an emergency “doomsday” plan that would significantly cut service on the regional rail system, including potentially shuttering 10 to 15 stations to save money — but not as early as they initially had projected. Aldo Toledo in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/27/26

Water

Sierra Nevada snowpack just 68% of normal after whiplash winter -- Dry spells and only a few big blizzards so far could mean increased summer fire risk. Paul Rogers in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 2/27/26

The crisis on the Colorado River — six things to know -- The latest news about the Colorado River is dire. Since 2000, the river’s flow has shrunk about 20%. An extremely warm winter has brought very little snow in the Rocky Mountains. Reservoirs are declining to critically low levels. And the leaders of seven states are still at loggerheads over the water cutbacks each should accept to prevent reservoirs from falling further. Ian James in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/27/26

Power

Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant takes big step toward extending life until 2030 -- On Thursday, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board voted unanimously to approve a five-year permit that allows the power plant to release up to 2.76 billion gallons of wastewater per day into the Pacific Ocean. Stephanie Zappelli in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 2/27/26

Education

Are California students ready for UC admissions? Here’s how every public high school scores -- Bay Area high schoolers are more likely than students from other states to have completed the requirements to get into a California public university, according to a Chronicle analysis of state education data. Danielle Echeverria in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/27/26

Oil

Santa Barbara judge rules against company that turned to Trump for help restarting pipeline -- A Santa Barbara judge tentatively ruled that the Trump administration’s intervention wasn’t enough to let Sable Offshore restart a pipeline shut after a 2015 oil spill. Alejandro Lazo Calmatters -- 2/27/26

Street

Police killed SoCal man with a ‘less-lethal’ round. Officer’s use of force is ruled justified -- One, two, three, then four shots of beanbag rounds were fired from a distance of around 30 feet, but the man did not comply with orders to get on the ground, according to a report released Thursday by the Orange County district attorney’s office. So, the officer fired a fifth shot. It pierced the man’s chest, and he fell to the ground bleeding profusely. Less than an hour later, he was pronounced dead. Clara Harter in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/27/26

Also

Five potential buyers bid on Padres as club’s sale reaches next stage -- The team will likely change hands within the first month or so of the season, and it is conceivable a sale could be completed by the end of March, according to people familiar with the process. Opening day is March 26. “This process is moving very quickly,” one source said. Kevin Acee in the San Diego Union Tribune -- 2/27/26

How one Tahoe renter is adjusting to unusual roommates: Mama bear and 3 cubs -- When a renter moved into a Lake Tahoe cabin this winter, he expected to have the place to himself. But a well-known black bear in the area, known as Rose, had other plans for the home, having already settled into her new den in the home’s crawl space. Grace Toohey in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/27/26

POTUS

Epstein files contain explicit but unsubstantiated claim that Trump abused minor -- Three memos that describe four interviews conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2019 contain explicit but unsubstantiated claims that Donald Trump sexually abused a woman when she was a minor in the early 1980s with the assistance of Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Guardian review of those documents. Jacqueline Sweet and Joseph Gedeon in The Guardian -- 2/27/26

Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency -- Activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft executive order that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. Isaac Arnsdorf in the Washington Post$ -- 2/27/26

Judge Vows to End Trump Administration’s Noncompliance ‘One Way or Another’ -- The federal judge identified 210 orders issued in 143 cases in Minnesota in which he said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had not complied with court orders. Mitch Smith, Ernesto Londoño and Mattathias Schwartz in the New York Times$ -- 2/27/26

Trump’s State of the Union address draws 32.6 million viewers, marking smallest audience yet -- It’s both the smallest audience Trump has received for the annual speech to a joint session of Congress, and the longest State of the Union address in recent history. Stephen Battaglio and Cerys Davies in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/27/26

In Trump’s Case for War, a Series of False or Unproven Claims -- Key elements of the Trump administration’s arguments this week for another military campaign against Iran do not hold up. Mark Mazzetti, Edward Wong, David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes in the New York Times$ -- 2/27/26

‘It's clearly fake': Olympic hockey star disavows AI-generated White House video -- Brady Tkachuk, a bruising winger on the American Olympic men’s ice hockey team, was none too pleased with an AI-generated video the White House released on social media this weekend that appeared to show him criticizing Canada. Gregory Svirnovskiy Politico -- 2/27/26