ICE Heads to Airports. SFO Won’t Be Affected
The partial government shutdown is now in its fifth week. TSA agents are working without pay. More than 400 have quit, and no-shows have hit 10%. In Atlanta, the security line stretched to two and a half hours. Trump announced that starting Monday, ICE agents will be deployed to airports to assist with security and immigration enforcement. ICE agents are not trained in airport screening, and it’s unclear what exactly they’ll do. SFO is a rare exception: security there is handled by a private contractor under a TSA agreement, and its employees are still being paid on time. Oakland is worse off — TSA agent Joseph Cerletti told ABC7 his last paycheck came out to a few hundred dollars.
30,000 at the Nvidia Conference, Then — Nothing
Nvidia GTC drew 30,000 attendees to downtown San Jose — 5,000 more than last year. Restaurants, hotels, and sidewalks were packed with people wearing green badges. But the convention center’s numbers tell a different story: 269,000 total visitors over the last fiscal year. That’s 54% of pre-pandemic levels, when it saw nearly 500,000 in 2018–19. When the conference ends, downtown San Jose goes quiet again.
Vallejo to Pay $8.5M for the Killing of Sean Monterrosa
The city of Vallejo agreed to a record $8.5 million settlement with the family of Sean Monterrosa — a 22-year-old San Francisco resident shot and killed by officer Jarrett Tonn on June 2, 2020. Tonn fired five rounds from an AR-15 through his patrol car windshield. He mistook a hammer in Monterrosa’s pocket for a gun. The city fired Tonn in 2022, but an arbitrator reinstated him. He now works as a detective in the same department. Vallejo has not had a single police shooting in six years — the family sees that as proof the reforms are working.
San Jose Is Closing Five Schools. Parents Are Furious
San Jose Unified School District is considering closing five elementary schools: Empire Gardens, Lowell, Gardner, Canoas, and Terrell. All five are Title I schools with a high share of low-income families. The district has lost 6,000 students since 2017 — a 20% drop. About 60 people spoke at a board meeting Saturday. An 11-year-old fifth grader from Gardner Elementary told the board: they’re going to tear apart our community, and it’s going to be really hard on the little kids.
A Killing in Quiet Lafayette
On Saturday around 11:30 a.m., Lafayette police responded to a call about a suspicious person on Westminster Place — a dead-end street south of Highway 24. Inside the home, they found a man’s body. David Prince, 35, of Chico, was detained nearby and charged with murder. Bail was set at $1 million. For Lafayette, one of the safest cities in the East Bay, this is deeply unusual.
Bets on the California Governor’s Race Top $7M
Prediction platforms Kalshi and Polymarket are reporting record wagering on the California governor’s race — more than $7 million. Prediction markets surged in popularity after successfully forecasting the 2024 presidential election. The California race has become the first major state-level test for these platforms.