California Policy and Politics Monday

‘It shook everything.’ 5.2 magnitude earthquake hits San Diego County, felt across Southern California -- A 5.2 magnitude earthquake shook San Diego County and large parts of Southern California on Monday. The temblor was centered three miles south of Julian and 17 miles east of Ramona and was felt across the region. There were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries but some residents reported feeling a strong jolt. Rong-Gong Lin II and Grace Toohey in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 4/14/25

Khanna on Trump White House: ‘They need to have a 21st century understanding of the economy’ -- Rep. Ro Khanna took sharp aim at President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff policies on Sunday, warning they’ll raise prices on American electronics rather than bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Amanda Friedman Politico -- 4/14/25

Trump’s volatile trade policy creates new problems for California state budget -- The whiplash from Washington over President Trump’s tariffs underscores the challenge before lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom this spring as they attempt to develop a state budget plan for the year ahead. Taryn Luna in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 4/14/25

Can California’s largest retirement system handle Trump’s tariff turmoil? -- Cities worry they may need to increase contributions to help cover rising public employee pensions. Ethan Varian in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 4/14/25

Political divide in Silicon Valley: As many tech leaders embrace Trump, their workforce has not -- The tech industry’s political allegiances remain divided. But as some in the upper echelons of Silicon Valley began shifting to the right politically, many of the industry’s workers have remained liberal — but also increasingly nervous and disillusioned. Nicholas Riccardi in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 4/14/25

California lawmakers quietly sideline bills in secretive suspense process -- In just 24 minutes and without any debate, the most powerful committee in the state Senate last week moved 33 bills from public view into a secretive process that will decide whether the measures live or die. Two days later, its sister committee in the Assembly moved 82 of its bills in under two minutes to the same secretive, uncertain future. Ryan Sabalow CalMatters -- 4/14/25

California’s demographic earthquake: Asian immigrants rise, Latinos decline in ‘big shift’ -- More immigrants from Asia are entering California than from Latin America. The H-1B visa program has played a big role in bringing in immigrants with higher education than in the past. Terry Castleman in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 4/14/25

License to Kill -- The California DMV routinely allows dangerous drivers with horrifying histories to continue to operate on our roadways. Too often they go on to kill. Many keep driving even after they kill. Some go on to kill again. Robert Lewis, Lauren Hepler, Anat Rubin, Sergio Olmos, Cayla Mihalovich, Ese Olumhense, Ko Bragg, Andrew Donohue and Jenna Peterson CalMatters -- 4/14/25

7 takeaways: How the DMV allows dangerous drivers to stay on the road -- Officials may call driving a privilege, but they treat it as a right — often failing to take drivers’ licenses even after they kill someone on the road. Robert Lewis CalMatters -- 4/14/25

How bad is California’s housing crisis? A first-in-the-nation bill would let students live in cars -- A progressive Democratic lawmaker is seeking a simple but jarring remedy of last resort for California’s college students navigating the state’s housing crisis: Let them sleep in their cars. Eric He Politico -- 4/13/25

Skelton: Becerra boasts about his anti-Trump resume in bid for governor -- President Trump’s name won’t be on the ballot when Californians elect a new governor next year. But he’ll still be the favorite target of Democratic candidates. That will be especially true of Xavier Becerra, 67, the latest entry in the race. George Skelton in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 4/14/25

Randy Villegas is mounting a challenge to GOP Rep. David Valadao -- The majority-Latino district has shifted toward President Donald Trump, but Democrats are confident they can flip it. Nicholas Wu Politico -- 4/14/25

Newsom shuns Southern California in public utilities commission appointments -- All five of Newsom’s appointees to the state Public Utilities Commission live in Northern California, triggering complaints that Southern California, where Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric alone serve almost 19 million people, isn’t represented. Melody Petersen in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 4/14/25

‘The vibe shift is’ real. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie becomes his hometown’s hype man -- ‘There’s a sense of hope and optimism people haven’t seen in a long time,’ San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said of the city’s nascent rebound. Hannah Wiley in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 4/14/25

Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk mocked in hacked crosswalk recordings in Silicon Valley -- Crosswalk signals were hacked in several cities in the Peninsula, generating messages mocking Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Videos circulated on social media Saturday captured the satirical messages, which were broadcast when pedestrians pressed the crosswalk buttons at intersections. David Hernandez in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 4/13/25

Undocumented workers vital to Fresno restaurants. How much will deportations hurt? -- “Restaurants hire undocumented workers every day,” said one owner of three restaurants in the area. “The backbone of our restaurants are undocumented workers.” Bethany Clough in the Fresno Bee$ -- 4/13/25

Green Day’s Coachella set ends in fire after pyrotechnic mishap -- Green Day’s explosive Coachella debut turned literal when a pyrotechnic misfire set a palm tree ablaze near the artist compound, sending a jolt of real danger into an already incendiary set. Aidin Vaziri in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 4/13/25

Measles cases exploded in Texas after stagnant vaccine funding. New cuts threaten the same across U.S. -- The easily preventable disease, declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, ripped through communities sprawling across more than 20 Texas counties in part because health departments were starved of the funding needed to run vaccine programs, officials say. Laura Ungar, Michelle R. Smith and Devi Shastri in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 4/13/25

Workplace

Here’s which Bay Area jobs are growing the fastest — and which are rapidly disappearing -- Some of the biggest gains between 2018 and 2024 in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metropolitan area were in health care and tech jobs, matching national trends. Sriharsha Devulapalli, Roland Li in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 4/14/25

For California’s largest public union, telework poses challenge — and opportunity -- In the middle of February, about 100 members of California’s largest public employee union marched to a Department of Human Resources office. They were asking the state to award a conditional raise. Stephen Hobbs and William Melhado in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 4/14/25

Education

How Trump administration’s transgender athlete order affects California high schools -- California Interscholastic Federation faces a federal Title IX investigation for policies on transgender athlete participation in sports, says it is abiding by state law. Evan Webeck in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 4/14/25

Trump administration restores dementia research it gutted as part of its DEI purge -- The National Institutes of Health restored a leading University of California researcher’s $36 million grant studying dementia on Friday after terminating it three weeks ago as part of the Trump administration’s DEI purge. The UC says others were restored, too. Mikhail Zinshteyn CalMatters -- 4/14/25

Inside Trump’s Pressure Campaign on Universities -- The opaque process, part of a strategy by conservatives to realign the liberal tilt of elite universities, has upended higher education. Michael C. Bender, Alan Blinder and Jonathan Swan in the New York Times$ -- 4/14/25

Street

A young mom’s slaying was horrific. Then came the cruelties of a California court -- It took only a few hours for Stockton police to make an arrest in one of the city’s most gruesome crimes in recent memory, the slaying of a woman stabbed so many times the coroner described it as “overkill.” Jill Tucker in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 4/14/25

State Department wants staff to report instances of alleged anti-Christian bias during Biden’s term -- As the Christian world commemorates Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday, the State Department has issued an appeal for its employees to report instances of alleged anti-Christian bias, including formal or informal actions related to vaccines or personal pronoun choice, that may have occurred during the Biden administration. Matthew Lee in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 4/13/25

POTUS 47

Shifting Signals on Tech Tariffs Fuel Fresh Trade Uncertainty -- Administration officials on Sunday, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, said the tech products exempted from many tariffs will face separate levies in a month or two as part of a trade investigation into semiconductors. Amrith Ramkumar and John McCormick in the Wall Street Journal$ Tony Romm, Ana Swanson and Tripp Mickle in the New York Times$ -- 4/13/25

China Halts Critical Exports as Trade War Intensifies -- China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world. Keith Bradsher in the New York Times$ -- 4/13/25

Hedge fund billionaire says US may face ‘worse than a recession’ from Trump tariffs -- Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, the 75-year-old hedge fund manager said: “I think that right now we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession. And I’m worried about something worse than a recession if this isn’t handled well.” Maya Yang The Guardian -- 4/14/25

What President Trump’s team wants from the rest of the world -- While substantial confusion remains over the White House’s objectives, a clearer picture of trade talks is starting to emerge. Jeff Stein in the Washington Post$ -- 4/13/25

Justice Dept. says it’s not required to bring back wrongly deported man -- The Trump administration said Sunday that it is not required to engage El Salvador’s government in efforts to facilitate the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a notorious prison there, striking a defiant tone in responding to a federal judge’s order that plans be made to bring him back to the United States. Olivia George and Marianne LeVine in the Washington Post$ Alan Feuer in the New York Times$ -- 4/13/25

Trump administration overrode Social Security staff to list immigrants as dead -- Greg Pearre, who oversaw a staff of hundreds of technology experts, had pushed back on the Trump administration’s plan to move the migrants’ names into a Social Security death database, eliminating their ability to legally earn wages and, officials hoped, spurring them to leave the country. Hannah Natanson, Lisa Rein and Meryl Kornfield in the Washington Post$ -- 4/13/25

College financial aid hit with glitches, delays due to federal staffing cuts -- Cracks are starting to appear in the federal financial aid apparatus after the Trump administration imposed sweeping staff cuts at the Education Department last month. Danielle Douglas-Gabriel in the Washington Post$ -- 4/14/25

How the U.S. Lost Its Place as the World’s Manufacturing Powerhouse -- Trump says his tariff plan will restore American manufacturing might, but economists are skeptical. Justin Lahart in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 4/14/25