California
The California Jazz Conservatory’s Degree Program Comes to an End | KQED
Pham loves the school so much that he enrolled in as many classes as he could, from theory to bebop to jazz history. He’s learned from musicians he admires at the school, including Jeff Denson, Gerald Cleaver, and Mimi Fox, one of his favorite guitarists.
Students and alumni say the CJC gave them the chance to build a foundation in jazz, play alongside talented faculty, and grow into the musicians they are today.
The opportunity to earn a degree at a place like the CJC is rare. The institution is the only private music conservatory in the country solely devoted to the study and performance of jazz. The school, which gained accreditation in 2013, is the vision of Susan Muscarella, an educator and pianist who has sought to establish “the Juilliard of jazz on the West Coast.”
But the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns caused a major dip in enrollment, said Nick Phillips, who became president of the California Jazz Conservatory in October of 2023. The high cost of living in the Bay Area also makes it difficult to recruit students to a smaller California school offering only jazz.
Phillips said in 2014, about 70 students were enrolled in CJC’s degree program. By the fall of 2023, that number had dropped to 20 students.
“For a degree program to be sustainable, you need to have students enrolled in it. That’s just the bottom line,” said Phillips.
About one university or college per week on average this year has announced that it will close or merge, according to an April report from the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.
The CJC announced the end of the degree programs in July, but made the decision to offer it one final semester to give students and faculty enough notice. The school is also helping students transfer credits.
The organization is also turning its attention to the Jazzschool, the CJC’s community education program, where enrollment numbers are rebounding.
“A place where people can explore and learn jazz — that’s what we want to continue,” Phillips said.
The legacy of the jazz program
As the CJC transitions into its next chapter, students and alumni are reflecting on how the degree program shaped their lives as musicians. Ruthie Dineen, a pianist, composer, and the executive director of the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, was part of the school’s first graduating class.
“I think about the Bay Area music scene as one large band. I feel like I’m still finding my voice, but that was really how I became part of it,” Dineen said.
The CJC made jazz education accessible for students like Dineen. She remembered being awestruck as a kid seeing Berkeley High’s jazz band perform.
“The group was so diverse. I vividly remember that, because as a young girl coming from a family from El Salvador, none of this seemed very accessible,” Dineen said. “My mom was a nurse, my dad was a firefighter. So it’s just a whole other world.”
Around 2009, Susan Muscarella asked Dineen if she would attend the new jazz degree program she was starting up in Berkeley.
The school offered Dineen a scholarship. She enrolled, taking private piano lessons with Susan, who pushed her hard.
“I cared so much about Susan, and I was so grateful to her in particular for providing that education to me,” Dineen said.
Out with a bang
Now the remaining students at the CJC are preparing for their final concerts and next chapters. Phạm, the international student from Vietnam, plans to continue studying in the United States, and wants to be a teacher one day.
His classmate, pianist Abner Robles, is determined to go out with a bang. He’s also an apprentice at Callahan Piano Service, a shop offering piano care, tuning, and rebuilding. He’s living the life of a tradesman, a musician and — for now — a student.
Robles grew up singing in church choir, and discovered jazz during the pandemic after hanging around musicians in Sacramento who loved to improvise.
“Improvising doesn’t have to mean that it’s this crazy advanced thing that only the chosen ones can do. You can boil it down to the simplest thing ever,” Robles said.
He has no regrets about taking the leap to study at the CJC.
“I knew I wanted to be in a Hogwarts of music,” Robles said. “I enjoy this semester more than the other ones because with the professors, all their focus is on us, and they want to build us up. Now is as intense as it gets and as cool as it gets.”
He knows attracting students is a challenge, especially when so many aspiring jazz musicians want to move to New York. But he’s proud he got the chance to study in Berkeley.
“What I have learned up to this point, and people that I’ve met, I wouldn’t trade that for anything,” he said. “I have a lot of love for that school.”
He’s looking at other schools now, like the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His friends at CJC are doing the same.
Like any good jazz musician, these students know how to improvise.
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As the nation prepares for its 250th Independence Day celebration, a decades-long California Fourth of July fireworks tradition that has raised millions for local children’s programs is going dark this year after the California Coastal Commission rejected a final effort to keep it alive, citing environmental concerns to protect the bay.
“We’ve raised over the past 14 years $2 million for kids programs here in Long Beach,” event organizer John Morris told Fox News Digital, adding the July 3 event is fully funded by the local community.
“This community pays for everything — everything. City fees, and the city doesn’t give us a break. We pay $20,000 to the city for police and fire, which I’m fine with, because there’s 100,000 people enjoying the fireworks,” said Morris, a Long Beach resident and business owner.
Morris, who owns the Boathouse on the Bay restaurant, had planned a scaled-up fireworks display this year to mark America’s 250th Independence Day.
CALIFORNIA BEACH TOWN BANS THE USE OF BALLOONS
Long Beach residents have enjoyed the fireworks organized by John Morris for over a decade. (Scott Varley/MediaNews Group/Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images)
In January, Coastal Commission staff rejected the proposal, and last week commissioners unanimously upheld that decision despite an appeal backed by local, state and federal officials.
Regulators warned Morris last year that 2025 would likely be the final year for fireworks at the event, as they continue pushing organizers to switch to drone shows they say are more environmentally friendly.
The decision stands in contrast to other approvals by the commission, including a permit granted to SeaWorld allowing up to 40 nights of fireworks.
“They get 40 nights in Mission Bay. All I’m asking for is 20 minutes — it doesn’t make any sense,” Morris said.
Morris, 78, also pushed back on the environmental concerns cited by the commission, pointing to years of testing around the event.
CLIMATE EXECUTIVE WARNS CALIFORNIA ‘FUNCTIONALLY BANKRUPT,’ $1T SHORTFALL COULD SHAKE NATION
Due to the lack of fireworks, Morris has decided to cancel the July 3rd celebration.
“We’ve had 10 years of environmental studies,” Morris said. “We test the water before and after the fireworks and send a robotic camera into the bay to check for debris — there’s never been any. It’s been spotless.
“We’ve also had eight years of bird reports to make sure we’re not harming wildlife. We’ve never had an issue. We’ve never been written up one time. So what is it really about?”
Joshua Smith, a spokesman for the California Coastal Commission, told Fox News Digital that permits are determined on a case-by-case basis, citing environmental concerns to “protect the bay.”
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Organizer John Morris said environmental studies are regularly conducted to measure the impact of the fireworks show on the bay. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Smith said Morris was approved for a permit to hold a drone show in lieu of fireworks. Morris told Fox News Digital such a show would cost about $200,000 — roughly four times more than traditional fireworks.
Smith confirmed that SeaWorld received a permit allowing 40 nights of fireworks. When pressed on the discrepancy, he reiterated that decisions are made individually and declined to provide further details.
Morris said the loss of the fireworks show will be felt across the community, from local businesses to families who have made the event an annual tradition.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In the wide-open race for California governor, billionaire Tom Steyer is on a spending binge.
The hedge fund manager-turned-liberal activist is using his personal fortune to saturate TV screens and mobile phones with advertising, while his competitors accuse him of trying to use his vast wealth to buy the state’s most powerful job.
Steyer’s ads — in which he promises to bring down household costs or rails against federal immigration raids — appear inescapable at times in heavily Democratic Los Angeles, the state’s largest media market. Data compiled by advertising tracker AdImpact show Steyer has spent or booked over $115 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio — nearly 30 times the amount of his nearest Democratic rival.
If he makes it through the June 2 primary election, Steyer could easily eclipse the 2010 record set by Republican Meg Whitman, who spent $178.5 million in a losing bid for governor, much of it her own money. At the time, it was the costliest campaign for statewide office in the nation’s history.
Even when ad buys from all his major competitors are combined, along with ad purchases by independent committees supporting candidates, Steyer is outspending the field by tens of millions of dollars.
“Billionaire money is flooding our state in an attempt to buy this election,” former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, one of Steyer’s chief rivals, warned her supporters this month.
Mail-in ballots are set to go out to voters next month. Steyer is among a crowd of candidates hoping to seize a spotlight after former Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s dramatic departure from the race following sexual assault allegations that he denies.
But while Steyer has ticked up in polling amid his spending splurge, he has not broken away from the field, leaving some wondering if he’s getting value for his dollars.
“If your first round of ads doesn’t move you dramatically (in the polls), the third, fourth, fifth, six, seventh and eighth rounds won’t either,” said veteran Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, who for years advised the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. “There is something inherently holding Steyer back.”
In recent prior campaigns for governor, at this stage a leading candidate was taking control of the race. This year, voters appear to be shrugging at a contest that lacks a star candidate among seven leading Democrats and two Republicans.
“Somehow the campaign is frozen,” Carrick added.
History shows that money doesn’t always translate into votes.
Billionaire developer Rick Caruso spent over $100 million in 2022 in his bid to become Los Angeles mayor, much of it his own money, but he was handily defeated by Mayor Karen Bass, who spent a fraction of Caruso’s total. Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion of his own money on his 2020 presidential bid before dropping out. And Steyer’s money was unable to lift him into contention in the 2020 presidential contest, when he dropped out early in the year after a poor finish in the South Carolina primary.
Steyer has never held elected office.
In a 2019 interview with The Associated Press, Steyer was asked what he would say to people who think he’s trying to buy the presidency.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Steyer said at the time, before adding, “I’m never going to apologize for succeeding in business. That’s America, right?”
His campaign did not respond directly when asked about similar criticism facing his run for governor.
“Tom now stands as the only Democrat with the grassroots energy, institutional backing and resources to advance to the general election,” spokesperson Kevin Liao said in a statement.
The governor’s race was recently reordered by two developments: Swalwell, a leading Democrat, abruptly withdrew from the race then resigned from Congress, following sexual assault allegations. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump endorsed conservative commentator Steve Hilton.
Still, there is no clear leader.
Polling in late March and early April by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found a cluster of candidates in close competition: Democrats Steyer and Porter, Republicans Hilton and Chad Bianco, and Swalwell. Other candidates were trailing. The polling was conducted before Swalwell withdrew.
Democrats have feared the party’s large number of candidates could lead to them getting shut out of the general election in November. That’s because California has a primary system in which only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party.
Leading Democrats are all claiming to have picked up support since Swalwell’s exit. Steyer nabbed one plum endorsement, when the influential California Teachers Association, which previously backed Swalwell, recommended him.
In his ads, Steyer promises to “abolish” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been staging raids across California. In another, he laments the state’s punishing cost of housing, “Everybody needs an affordable place to live,” he says.
Rapper was stabbed 16 times by fellow inmate in May 2025 while 10-year sentence in Megan Thee Stallion shooting case
Tory Lanez has filed a $100 million lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections stemming from a May 2025 incident where the rapper was stabbed in prison.
Lanez — born Daystar Peterson and currently serving a 10-year sentence after being found guilty in the Megan Thee Stallion shooting case — also sued the warden and guards at the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, where the rapper was stabbed 16 times in an “unprovoked life-threatening attack” by another inmate, the lawsuit states.
Peterson was hospitalized following the May 2025 incident, suffering a collapsed lung among stab wounds to his back, torso, and head.
According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit criticized the Department of Corrections for housing Peterson with fellow inmate and alleged attacker Santino Casio, who was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. “The choice to house Casio with Peterson was known or should have been a known danger,” the lawsuit said, adding that Tory Lanez’ “high-profile celebrity status” made him a target.
The lawsuit also said that prison guards were slow to respond to the shanking, and didn’t employ flash grenades or other measures to halt Casio’s attack.; Casio was not charged for stabbing Peterson, the Associated Press notes.
Lanez, who following his hospitalization was transferred to San Luis Obispo County’s California Men’s Colony, also alleges in the lawsuit that he never received his possessions from the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, including songbooks filled with lyrics to his unreleased music.
Lanez is serving a 10-year prison sentence for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot during a confrontation in the summer of 2020. He was eventually convicted on several firearms charges, including assault with a firearm, in December 2022. In November 2025, his appeal was denied by a three-judge panel, and the 10-year sentence was upheld.
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