Good morning. It’s Tuesday, May 14.
- OpenAI unveils voice assistant that can see and hear.
- Video appears to show prohibited use of force at UCLA.
- And a grandmother swims to the Farallon Islands.
Statewide
1.
Facing a huge budget deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed trimming billions of dollars from climate-change programs, shrinking college aid, and stalling an expansion of subsidized childcare. But he has avoided one step that analysts say would save $1 billion a year: closing prisons made redundant by more than a decade of plunging inmate numbers. Newsom said his reluctance was informed in part by the movement to revive tough-on-crime policies. “We want to be mindful of trends and we want to be mindful of the unknown,” he said. CalMatters
2.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from California corrections officials who sought immunity from litigation over their May 2020 decision to transfer inmates with Covid-19 to San Quentin, setting off an outbreak that killed 29 people. Assemblyman Marc Levine, whose district includes the prison, called the transfer “the worst prison health screw-up in state history.” California now faces four lawsuits from relatives of those who died. “They’re not getting off on a technicality,” said Michael J. Haddad, an attorney for the families. A.P. | L.A. Times
3.
Nicole Shanahan, the Silicon Valley millionaire chosen by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his running mate, made her first solo outing on the stump, speaking to a crowd of dozens in Houston on Saturday. She portrayed the electorate as the victim of a vast Covid-related conspiracy. “I often said Covid was the truth serum,” Shanahan said. “Because it showed us things that people have been trying to hide from us for a really long time.” She added: “We can’t unfeel it — that raging sense of being controlled and captured and manipulated and herded. We’re not going to stand that anymore.” N.Y. Times
Northern California
4.
OpenAI has given its chatbot the powers of a voice assistant, responding to voice commands, images, and videos. During demonstrations in San Francisco on Monday, GPT-4o exhibited a lifelike repartee: It laughed, got sarcastic, and even appeared to flirt, evoking comparisons to the 2013 movie “Her” about a man who falls in love with a voice assistant. “It feels like AI from the movies,” Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, wrote in a blog post on Monday. “It’s still a bit surprising to me that it’s real.” Wall Street Journal | The Atlantic
- See GPT-4o interpret a conversation between Italian and English speakers. 👉 YouTube
5.
A new study found that return-to-office mandates at powerful firms including Apple, Microsoft, and SpaceX were followed by a spike in departures among the most senior, tough-to-replace talent. Robert Ployhart, a professor of business administration and management, suggested tech companies hoping to boost office morale had miscalculated: “By driving those employees away, they’ve actually enhanced and sped up the very thing they were trying to stop.” Washington Post
6.
“I liked him better than any other Jew but no way.”
— A prosecutor’s note about a juror in a 1990s murder case in Oakland
The discovery of jury notes indicating that Alameda County prosecutors worked to exclude Jews from juries has prompted a review of capital cases, raising the possibility of new trials. It’s come as a shock to families who now face the prospect of reliving the violent loss of loved ones. “Obviously people are not happy to hear from us after 20, sometimes 30 years, that the case is not over,” said Pamela Price, the Alameda district attorney. N.Y. Times
7.
A 55-year-old grandmother hopped in the water near the Golden Gate Bridge and swam 29.7 miles to the Farallon Islands, making her the first to swim the treacherous outbound route. Amy Appelhans Gubser braved darkness, cold, swirling currents, and roughly 20 jellyfish stings for some 17 hours before reaching the islands. A pediatric intensive-care nurse in Pacifica, Gubser described her swimming practice as an antidote to worry: “It’s one of the only times my brain actually calms down.” Mercury News
8.
A Midwest transplant living in San Francisco recently posted a tweet marveling at the city’s easy driving distance to seven world-class destinations, among them Napa Valley, Big Sur, and Yosemite. It set off a lively thread in which Bay Area locals noted that his list could be considerably longer. The California Sun reviewed Reddit forums, local publications, and travel sites for recommendations of other nearby gems. Here are five that got the most mentions:
- Mendocino Coast — Picturesque headlands, misty redwoods, amazing food.
- Russian River Valley — Gently flowing river, artsy towns, top wineries.
- Monterey Peninsula — Awesome aquarium, gnarly cypress trees, fairy-tale cottages.
- Half Moon Bay — Dramatic ocean bluffs, great food, small-town charm.
- Santa Cruz Mountains — Dense redwoods, coastal vistas, hidden vineyards.
Southern California
9.
California law prohibits law enforcement from firing less-lethal munitions into crowds or pointing the weapons at people’s heads. During the May 2 clearance operation at UCLA’s pro-Palestinian encampment, officers did both, a review found. Jeff Winneger, a use-of-force expert, said he was shocked by video of one officer, his face concealed by a balaclava, firing successive bean bag rounds into a crowd. “Those things need to stop,” he said. CalMatters
10.
Wonderful Co., one of California’s most influential agricultural companies, filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to halt a fiercely contested 2022 law that made it easier for farmworkers to vote for union representation. Under the law’s provisions, farmworkers can unionize by signing authorization cards without holding an election at a polling place. Wonderful argues that it goes too far in cutting employers out of the process. A law professor said the company could be aiming to bring the case to the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court. L.A. Times | A.P.
11.
Before they became California lawmakers, Janet Nguyen and Tri Ta were children of war in Vietnam. Nguyen’s uncle — an officer in the South Vietnamese Army — was taken before his village and executed, while her parents were jailed. Ta’s father spent years in a Communist reeducation prison camp. So they were stunned when Los Angeles County declared April 30 “Jane Fonda Day” to recognize the environmental work of the actress who infamously posed for photographs on a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun in 1972. That’s the date Saigon fell in 1975. CalMatters
12.
The Joshua Tree area’s premier rattlesnake wrangler is a 29-year-old former model who sports 10-inch boots, a cowboy hat, and lots of tattoos. Since arriving to the desert about six years ago, Danielle Wall has become something of a local celebrity, helping transform how locals interact with the unfairly maligned reptiles. “I always tell people I’m afraid of two things: men and distracted drivers, and that’s it,” Wall said. L.A. Times
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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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