Good morning. It’s Tuesday, March 4.
- China targets agriculture in retaliation to tariffs.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom orders state workers back to office.
- And San Diego soccer debut marred by chanted slur.
Statewide
1.
President Trump’s 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico took effect Tuesday, along with a doubling of duties on Chinese goods to 20%. China quickly responded with tariffs of up to 15% on a range of U.S. farm exports, a move that California’s agriculture industry feared. Economists said Americans could expect to see higher prices on everything from cars to breast pumps and vegetables. Alan Gin, a San Diego economist, cited two top imports from Mexico: “If you like strawberry margaritas, both the cost of the strawberries and the tequila are going to be going up,” he said. N.Y. Times | CBS8 | Washington Post
- Trump said his tariffs were a consequence for illegal migration from Mexico. But the migrants are gone, the New York Times reported.
2.
The Trump administration is planning to cut staff by 40% at the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages dams and delivers water to farms and cities in California, an employee said. Roughly 100 engineers, mechanics, biologists, and other workers have already been fired in the state, reports said. The agency could have made careful reductions that avoided disruptions, one employee said: “Instead, it’s been this baseball bat that’s been taken to it, and the targets that they’ve hit are mission-critical.” Politico | L.A. Times
3.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday directed state workers to return to the office four days a week, up from two days a week, saying the change would improve communication and foster better relationships. “In-person work makes us all stronger — period,” he said. The move, which applies to nearly 100,000 workers and takes effect July 1, followed a similar directive by President Trump last month. SEIU Local 1000, a public sector union, accused Newsom of “political posturing” and called on him to “reverse this reckless decision.” L.A. Times | Sacramento Bee
4.
Six of the world’s 16 centibillionaires, having a net worth of at least $100 billion, built their fortunes in California, a new analysis showed. While billionaires have long represented a category of wealth a world apart away from the merely wealthy, the new data illustrates how differences have grown among billionaires. Between them, the six centibillionaires associated with California — Elon Musk, Lawrence Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang, and Lawrence Page — command nearly $1.25 trillion, more than the combined GDPs of Ireland and Argentina. Wall Street Journal
Southern California
5.
A grand jury indicted 30 officers from the Los Angeles County Probation Department for their role in so-called “gladiator fights” between youth in their care, officials said on Monday. Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office reviewed videos at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey and found nearly 70 fights in 2023 during which officers stood idly by or even encouraged violence. “The officers look more like referees or audience members at a prizefight, not adults charged with the care and supervision of young people,” he said. L.A. Times | A.P.
6.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists have warned that sea level rise poses a greater threat in California than wildfires or earthquakes. The struggle to meet the challenge is now playing out in the upscale city of Del Mar, just north of San Diego, where the rail line that carries Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner sits atop bluffs that are crumbling into the sea. Every proposal — moving the line, buttressing it, doing nothing — involves pain, noted Mayor Terry Gaasterland. “We’re going to need to step back and minimize the sum total of the unhappiness,” she said. “And also spread it out.” N.Y. Times
7.
The owner of a Shell gas station that was incinerated in the Pacific Palisades fire has proposed putting an apartment building in its place with units reserved for low-income residents. It won’t happen without a fight. Some homeowners and leaders of the rebuilding effort have portrayed the affordable housing push as a threat to the wealthy enclave. Joe Lonsdale, a conservative entrepreneur and member of a wildfire recovery group, likened the idea of adding low-income housing to building “a new crack den” in the neighborhood. L.A. Times
8.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass appointed a “chief recovery officer.”
The developer Rick Caruso launched a recovery-focused nonprofit.
President Trump appointed his own rebuilding czar.
After catastrophic fires ripped through Los Angeles in January, local leaders pledged to respond with one voice. Instead, at least nine separate recovery groups have emerged in a muddle of colliding egos, ambitions, and financing. “At times it feels like there’s too many people in charge,” said Traci Park, a Los Angeles city council member who represents Pacific Palisades. “And other times it feels like nobody is in charge.” Washington Post
9.
A German tourist has been held in an immigration detention center for more than a month after she tried to enter San Diego from Tijuana on Jan 25. Jessica Brösche, a 26-year-old who spent the winter in Mexico, had met with an American friend in Tijuana, where they planned to cross the border and spend a few weeks in Los Angeles. But when Brösche presented her papers, she was detained and accused of planning to work in California, she said. “I just want to get home, you know?” Brösche said from Otay Mesa Detention Center. “I’m really desperate.” The Guardian | ABC 10News
10.
Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican from San Diego County, said on Monday that he was nominating President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. A Trump loyalist since 2016, Issa said of the president: “No one deserves it more.” Trump has mused about deserving the prize since his first term and has grumbled that former President Obama got one. Asked what prompted the nomination, an Issa spokesman cited Trump’s peace efforts in the Middle East, where he has proposed seizing Gaza and displacing its nearly two million Palestinians. The Hill
11.
School officials in Huntington Beach defended the firing of former NFL punter Chris Kluwe from his position as a freshman football coach on Monday, suggesting he had promoted violence in an online post. Kluwe, who made headlines protesting the Huntington Beach City Council’s embrace of the MAGA movement, urged followers on Bluesky to find where local lawmakers work “and blow *those* places up.” Kluwe said his statement was taken out of context, which made clear he was referring to “review bombing.” O.C. Register
12.
“It has no place here.”
San Diego FC played its first-ever home match Saturday night at a stadium packed with more than 34,500 fans celebrating the arrival of Major League Soccer’s 30th team. But the game at Snapdragon Stadium, located 20 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico, was marred by homophobic chants of a slur that means male prostitute in Spanish, aimed at the goalkeeper on opposing St. Louis City SC. The chant has been a problem with Mexican fans for years and has led to repeated fines by FIFA. S.D. Union-Tribune | A.P.
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