California
In a Small California City, Nearly Half the Police Included in Racist Text Threads
By Zusha Elinson | Photographs by Amy Osborne for The Wall Street Journal
ANTIOCH, Calif.—For at least four years, officers in this small Bay Area city called Black residents racial slurs, bragged about beating suspects and joked about violating people’s civil rights in text messages.
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Yosemite National Park’s eastern entrance will reopen just in time for Memorial Day, officials announced this week.
Tioga Road — a popular scenic section of Highway 120 — has been closed due to ice and snow since November. It will reopen to all traffic at 8 a.m. Monday, according to the National Park Service.
The road is typically closed each year between November and late May or early June due to wintry conditions, while all other park entrances remain open year-round. The 45-mile road closure extends from the Tuolumne Grove east of Crane Flat to the Tioga Pass Entrance Station.
Preparing the road for reopening is a significant undertaking that includes plowing through multiple avalanche zones, clearing downed trees and rockfalls, and preparing campgrounds and critical facilities for visitors, according to the park service.
This year’s May 26 reopening is about two weeks earlier than last year — and about a month earlier than the year prior, park data show.
Additionally, the park service will not provide early access to Tioga Road for cyclists this year, as they do some years. Some cyclists were upset by the announcement.
“It’s outrageous that they’re not giving two days to cyclists on the road system without cars this year,” one Reddit user wrote in the Yosemite forum, adding that they planned to write a letter to the park service and their local representative about the decision.
“Cyclist-only days should be a tradition that is celebrated and encouraged, not an afterthought in favor of motorists,” another person wrote.
But officials are bracing for a busy season. Visitors who plan to enter Yosemite between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. this holiday weekend will need a reservation and should be prepared for extended wait times, according to the park service. Those planning to come any day between June 15 and August 15 or during Labor Day weekend will likely need a reservation as well.
Drivers using Tioga Road should plan for limited services along the roadway, bring appropriate levels of food and water and utilize food lockers if away from their vehicle, the park service said.
Yosemite may also face staffing shortages this year due to cuts at the National Park Service and other federal agencies, according to the Yosemite Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to the park’s conservation.
“The National Park Service (NPS) will likely be understaffed in Yosemite National Park this summer,” the group wrote on its website. “Last year, the NPS was already operating at a 30% staffing deficit — meaning any other cuts and restrictions to their staffing and funding will deepen that deficit.”
Park officials urge visitors to be patient and courteous to staff working at entrance stations and throughout the park, noting “they are here to help and ensure a safe, welcoming experience for all.”
“We’re thrilled to welcome everyone over Memorial Day Weekend as we honor the memory of nation’s fallen service members,” read a statement from Yosemite’s acting superintendent, Ray McPadden. “The park team has worked super hard to safely reopen every area of the park. We wish visitors a safe and enjoyable weekend.”
California saw a decline in public school enrollment for an eighth consecutive year, amid falling birth rates and the migration of families with children out of state.
Why It Matters
Declining enrollment in California has been an issue since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is an indicator of some of the issues facing the state, including falling birth rates, high housing costs pushing families out of the state and lasting impacts from the pandemic
On top of this, lower enrollment has major financial and social consequences for California’s public schools.
What To Know
In the academic year 2024-25, California schools had a total of 5,806, 221 students enrolled, according to data released by California’s Department of Education on Wednesday. This is a 7 percent decrease from the 6,235,520 recorded a decade ago.
There is also more than a 20 percent difference between the size of the number of students leaving school (488,295) and those starting it (384,822).
Stanford University education professor and economist Thomas Dee told The Los Angeles Times: “These losses largely reflect the fact that there are now substantially fewer school-age children in the state.
“This demographic decline is due to both lower birth rates and net migration of families with children out of California — e.g., due to housing costs and the growth of work-from-home employment.”
Indeed, California, like much of the rest of the United States, has a declining birth rate.
In 2023, the most recent year for which the California Department of Public Health records birth data, there were 400,129 births. This is down almost 100,000 births from a decade ago, when there were 494,392 births.
AP
The state’s fertility rate was 49 per 100,000 residents in 2023—down from 60.6 per 100,000 residents in 2013.
However, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond stressed that there has been growth in transitional kindergarten (TK) enrollment—a new grade that serves four-year-olds.
What People Are Saying
Thomas Dee also spoke about “the students who fled public schools at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic who still have not returned.”
“The public school enrollment losses also reflect an enduring increase in private and home-school enrollment,” he added.
Tony Thurmond said: “While we have more work to do, the dramatic growth in TK is inspiring and shows that providing rigorous and quality programs can be a key ingredient to bringing more families back to our schools.”
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen whether enrollment will continue to decline in California and what impacts that will have.
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