Elon Musk to move X and SpaceX to Texas // A future where humanity has no place

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, July 17.

Elon Musk plans to move X and SpaceX to Texas.
Chino Valley sues over parental notification law.
And a possible future where humanity has no place.

Statewide

1.

In 2021, Elon Musk sold the last of his California homes. That same year, he moved Tesla’s headquarters from the Bay Area to Austin, Texas. Now he’s announced plans to move the headquarters for both X and SpaceX from California to Texas. He cited two reasons: “gangs of violent drug addicts” in San Francisco and a new California law that bars school districts from requiring that parents be notified of their child’s gender identity changes. “This is the final straw,” wrote Musk, the father of a transgender child who severed ties with him. Wall Street Journal | L.A. Times

2.

The Chino Valley school board debated parental notification policies on July 20, 2023. (David McNew/Getty Images)

Chino Valley Unified school district sued California on Tuesday over the state’s new prohibition of parental notification policies. The district argued that the measure is unconstitutional. “School officials do not have the right to keep secrets from parents, but parents do have a constitutional right to know what their minor children are doing at school,” said Emily Rae, a lawyer representing the district. A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit “deeply unserious.” A.P. | KCRA

3.

In the lead-up to a key vote on a gambling bill this month, California’s tribal casinos showered a legislative committee’s 22 members with more than $1 million in campaign donations. The tribes got the votes they wanted. “No politician is ever going to tell you that money affects their vote, but the public isn’t stupid,” said Sean McMorris, a government watchdog. “It’s pretty darn suspicious that most of them voted based on where they got the most money from.” CalMatters

4.

Rep. Jared Huffman at the U.S. Capitol. (Graeme Sloan/Sipa, via AP Images)

Rep. Jared Huffman, of Marin County, is leading a rebellion to thwart a Democratic National Committee effort to confirm President Biden as the party’s presidential nominee before the August convention. “Stifling debate and prematurely shutting down any possible change in the Democratic ticket through an unnecessary and unprecedented ‘virtual roll call’ in the days ahead is a terrible idea,” a draft letter said. “It could deeply undermine the morale and unity of Democrats.” Axios | N.Y. Times

5.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the Southern California Democrat running for Senate, told donors at an event on Saturday that his party would likely lose the presidency along with both chambers of Congress if President Biden remained on the ticket, sources told the New York Times. “I think if he is our nominee, I think we lose,” he said, according to a recording of the event. “And we may very, very well lose the Senate and lose our chance to take back the House.” N.Y. Times

6.

For Democrats in Congress who have lost confidence in Biden, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has emerged “as a last hope of a kind,” Politico reported. Having herself stepped down from leadership to make way for generational change, Pelosi, 84, is seen as uniquely positioned to influence the 81-year-old president. “She’s the political voice of the Democratic caucus right now,” one member said. Politico

Northern California

7.

Last year, Geoffrey Hinton, considered the godfather of artificial intelligence, left his job at Google to warn the world about the dangers of his brainchild. “The good news,” he said, “is we figured out how to build things that are immortal. When a piece of hardware dies, they don’t die. If you’ve got the weights stored in some medium and you can find another piece of hardware that can run the same instructions, then you can bring it to life again. So, we’ve got immortality. But it’s not for us.” Hinton’s worries were featured in a Harper’s Magazine essay on a future where humanity has no place.

8.

By this time in a typical year, there would have been roughly 15 to 20 suicides at the Golden Gate Bridge, officials say. In 2024, after the completion of a safety net in January, there have been three. On Monday, families gathered on a span with portraits of lost loved ones for a ceremony to commemorate the installation. Dayna Whitmer walked over to the bridge’s 97th lamp post, where her son stood for the last time 17 years ago. The net is a wonderful thing, she said, but it’s hard to celebrate: “If it was here so many of our children would not have died.” CBS News Bay Area | The Guardian

9.

At Limantour Beach on the Point Reyes peninsula, a calm golden shoreline unfolds for miles along a curling bay, protected from the northwest swell by the outer headlands. An easy trail follows a spit of sand flanked by the bay on one side and a teeming estuary on the other. It’s so enchanting that Outside magazine included Limantour in a list of “the 15 most beautiful beaches in the world.”

Southern California

10.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office notified San Diego County on Monday that the state was reclaiming a $10 million grant to build 150 tiny homes because the county acted too slowly on the project meant to alleviate homelessness. San Jose will get the money instead. Nora Vargas, a county supervisor, attributed the project’s collapse to “my community’s feedback and concerns.” A survey in January found more than 10,600 homeless people across the county, the largest total in more than a decade. Politico

11.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed appeared at a sentencing hearing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on March 6. (Eddie Moore/AFP via Getty Images)

Days after a judge tossed Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case, the armorer imprisoned in connection with the 2021 “Rust” shooting asked a judge on Tuesday to overturn her case as well. In Baldwin’s case, the judge cited “egregious prosecutorial misconduct.” Lawyers for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed said the same misconduct plagued her trial. “Justice demands that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s conviction be overturned immediately, ensuring that the legal system does not perpetuate this core affront to our system that has been watched all over the world,” the filing said. The Wrap | Hollywood Reporter

12.

The Los Angeles River in 1932. (California Historical Society)

After a devastating flood in 1938, Los Angeles undertook one of America’s largest infrastructure projects: encasing the L.A. River in concrete. The shackling of the unwieldy river led to an explosion of urbanization in what was formerly a tapestry of marshes, pools, and streams. Meanwhile, the river no longer replenished the soil with nutrients, the aquifers with water, and the beaches with sand. To this day, as droughts deepen, Los Angeles sends its rainfall out to sea while importing water at huge financial and ecological cost. The podcast 99% Invisible produced a great episode on the story of a peculiar river.

See nine views of the L.A. River before and after it was paved. 👉 Curbed

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The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.

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