Topline:
Turning Point chapters continue to grow on California campuses months after Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Why it matters: Campuses are seeing tensions rise as conservative students become more vocal both in and out of the classroom.
The backstory: While conservative students say they’ve felt hesitant to speak aloud in the past, they now say emerging Turning Point chapters have helped them break out of their shells in California, with one student even describing them as a “safe space.”
Despite being a political junkie and longtime fan of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, Shasta College senior Raymond Randolph hesitated to speak up about politics on campus. But Kirk’s assassination during a Turning Point USA event at a Utah university in September 2025 changed that.
“God was calling me up to the plate,” said Randolph.
The day after Kirk’s death, Randolph reached out to Turning Point, which Kirk had founded, to start a chapter at his college in Redding. As the chapter’s president, he said he’s not alone in feeling mobilized after Kirk’s assassination.
“It drove a lot of people like me to get up and do something,” he said.
While conservative students say they’ve felt hesitant to speak aloud in the past, they now say emerging Turning Point chapters have helped them break out of their shells in California, with one student even describing them as a “safe space.”
As of March this year, Turning Point USA told CalMatters it has 1,462 active college chapters nationally. Over 70% of those were founded after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Turning Point’s presence has nearly tripled on California campuses as of March, with 78 of the state’s 119 active college chapters founded after Kirk’s death.
But conservative views continue to be overshadowed by more liberal voices on California campuses as tensions persist both in and outside classrooms, students and professors say.
“Most of [the liberal students] think we’re racist, most of them think we’re fascists … especially in California,” Randolph said.
Kameron Tessier, president of the statewide California College Democrats organization, said Turning Point’s rhetoric is “disgusting and very bigoted” and must be investigated on campuses.
“I’m a firm believer in the First Amendment, but also the First Amendment has its consequences,” said Tessier, a senior at UC Santa Cruz. “If they are pushing actively dangerous rhetoric on campuses, then I think it’s worth it for administrations to look into that.”
Turning Point founder Kirk was a highly controversial political figure. His organization is notorious for its Professor Watchlist, an online database identifying “radical” professors. The watchlist has been called inaccurate, and has led to threats and harassment against faculty members across the country. It was also the reason why Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego denied a third attempt by students to establish a school-affiliated Turning Point USA chapter last November.
Some of Kirk’s most controversial comments include calling the Civil Rights Act “a huge mistake,” spreading COVID-19 misinformation and saying some gun deaths each year were worth it to protect the Second Amendment.
In California, Generation Z, or those under the age of 29, is 1.5 times as likely to identify as liberal compared to their grandparents’ generation, according to a 2022 statewide survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California.
This lack of conservatism among young people spills onto campuses. Only three California institutions are featured on a list published last fall by college-ranking website Niche of the 100 most conservative colleges in the country. The list is based on student reviews of the political leanings of their campus communities. All three California institutions are private universities: Biola, California Baptist and National.
Students founded a Turning Point chapter at Claremont McKenna last spring. After Kirk’s death in the fall, college security supervised each of the chapter’s events. Several students heckled a vigil they held after Kirk’s assassination in September. And at a February campus Turning Point tabling event, dozens of partially nude bikers rode by in protest of the national organization’s viewpoints.
Bike protest organizer Luca Davis called Turning Point’s values “un-American,” and said the national organization’s harmful rhetoric should not be tolerated on campuses. A junior at Pitzer College, which is part of the Claremont consortium, Davis said he hoped that having dozens of students laughing and blasting music as they biked by the tabling event would act as a visible “foil” to Turning Point’s values.
“We’re living our beliefs and values while they’re working to tear them down,” he said. “It’s an active expression of everything they’re trying to destroy.”
Despite the pushback, a Turning Point student leader said that membership has grown substantially since Kirk’s death, and most members are underclassmen.
A die-hard Floridian, 19-year-old Gabriel Khuly said he became disillusioned by Democratic politics after he moved to California to attend Claremont McKenna for college.
“You really only get to see how stupid and bad Democrat policies are once you get to [really] see them,” he said, citing the high concentration of homelessness on Skid Row and high food prices.
The self-described “gadfly” and well-known conservative on campus said he noticed his right-leaning peers often don’t feel fully comfortable sharing their views, both in and out of the classroom.
“There is still a sort of desire… to at least partially conceal those views,” he said.
Khuly has received a lot of flak for voicing his conservative political opinions on campus, particularly on the anonymous, campus-based social app Fizz. In late September last year, Khuly wore his MAGA cap and, alongside his friends, debated students on abortion and climate change at a table outside the campus dining hall. Later, a post on the campus app called him “the most insufferable, weird, and unf*ckable guy on the planet,” receiving over 1,500 upvotes.
Khuly said “he could not care less” about the retaliation.
“These sorts of people, they don’t exist in the real world,” he said. “They exist online, they exist on college campuses, they exist at bougie millennial coffee shops … they’ll block up the streets for traffic for some protest or whatever, but outside of that, they don’t exist.”
Up north in Shasta County, voters aged 18 to 20 are more likely to register Republican than those aged 21 to 29. But Shasta College itself, according to Randolph, is still a liberal hotspot, where speaking against liberal viewpoints wasn’t really allowed — until his Turning Point chapter came along.
“People have said that they’ve gotten a lot of relief now that they know we’re on campus.”
In some instances, tensions have boiled over, like at Turning Point’s final tour stop at UC Berkeley in November. Fights broke out, with one man hospitalized after he was struck in the head. Police in riot gear arrested several people. In March, a heated exchange occurred at Cerritos College between Democratic congressional candidate Shonique Williams and Republican students and activists.
Scott Waller is the chair of the Political Science Department at Biola University in La Mirada, which Niche calls the most conservative college in California — and the 24th most conservative in the nation.
During both of Trump’s administrations, Waller said he has noticed an increased “anxiousness” in the classroom.
“If a student expresses his or her displeasure with the current Trump administration, they will know that there are students similarly animated in a very virulent way to defend the Trump administration,” he said. “That creates some tension in class.”
Yet, some educators relish in-classroom conflict. Stephanie Muravchik and other scholars across the Claremont Colleges analyzed millions of college syllabuses last year to see how professors teach about some of the most contentious subjects in academia, including the ethics of abortion and the Israel-Hamas war. They argued that only a small fraction of professors teach the full range of controversy in the classroom.
Professors must build “more contention” into the classroom in order to encourage healthy intellectual debate, the Claremont professors wrote in an October online magazine op-ed.
So, in sections of her “Introduction to American Politics” class, Muravchik runs simulations with students taking on characters across the political aisle on topics such as social media regulation and constitutional ratification.
She builds the simulations to include prominent conservative characters such as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and FBI Director Kash Patel. While all of her students have fun taking on these roles, she noted that her “quietly conservative students” can choose them and feel like they have “equal play in the political conversation.”
“They have fun fighting,” she said. “They get to argue in a civil way.”
Freshman Ava Khansari was in Muravchik’s American Politics class last fall. She said she enjoyed the simulations, and found them eye-opening. In one simulation, as she took on the role of TikTok CEO Shou Chew in a debate on deregulating social media, Khansari said she realized her true viewpoints “went the opposite direction” to her character’s views.
“The games were a lot of fun,” Khansari said. “I really did change my viewpoints on certain topics.”
In a separate course on “American Jews and Liberal Democracy,” Muravchik allows a few tense class sessions where, in class discussions, students debate more right-wing perspectives as well as other views.
“A number of students had some sort of revolution in their political thinking in all kinds of directions,” Muravchik said. After some particularly exciting debate, one student even “came out as conservative.”
Claremont McKenna student Khuly was part of a course titled “Liberalism and Conservatism” at the college last fall, which explored political opinions over multiple centuries, and was, for the first time, co-taught by a left- and a right-wing professor.
“I think that it allows the space for genuine, real study of politics,” he said. “You don’t get many spaces for that.”
Despite these benefits, there is one thing Khuly would change.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, [but] I wish we read more [work by] liberals.”
Kahani Malhotra is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.
In this edition:
British bands invade the Roxy, a Griffith Park night hike, Shatner and deGrasse Tyson explore the great beyond, Lena Dunham brings Famesick to L.A. and more of the best things to do this week.
Highlights:
Add one more exciting museum opening to the pre-Olympics lineup in L.A. with the expansion of the California Science Center set to house a Korean Air 747 (as well as the Space Shuttle Endeavour). Our own Makenna Cramer got a sneak peek at the Korean Air Aviation Gallery this week. Before 2028, visitors will be able to take a simulated flight from LAX to Seoul — but don’t worry, it’s only five minutes long. Science is amazing!
The week’s music picks from Licorice Pizza are off the charts, starting with Tuesday, when Florence + The Machine play their first of two nights at the Forum, and Russian rock legend Aquarium hits the Whisky a Go Go. Also Tuesday, French psych-rock singer Melody Prochet is at the Belasco, indie-pop star Hemlocke Springs is at the El Rey and Book NOT Brooke with Jack Xander is at the Airliner (free with RSVP!).
Wednesday, the Afghan Whigs celebrate their 40th anniversary at the Bellwether, Estelle is at the Blue Note, and Japanese pop singer Anri plays the first of her two nights at the Wiltern. Moving on to Thursday, new British faves Dry Cleaning play the Belasco, and American roots band Josiah and the Bonnevilles are at the Fonda. Wrapping up Thursday, jazz saxophonist Grace Kelly plays the Sun Rose, while Latin superstars Romeo Santos and Prince Royce are at Crypto.com Arena. And, for something a bit harder, Gatecreeper with Eternal, Dying Remains and Denial of Life play the Echoplex.
Elsewhere on LAist, you can learn about the Sphere’s next-gen concert technology, Gab Chabrán looks at L.A.’s Puerto Rican food scene and find out how to sign up for traffic alerts as the World Cup approaches. And don’t forget to do your election prep homework with our Voter Game Plan.
Wednesday, May 20, 7 p.m.
The Roxy
9009 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood
COST: $35.25; MORE INFO
Buzzy British bands take the stage for a British Music Embassy showcase featuring the Molotovs, Red Rum Club, Coach Party and MT Jones. Can’t make the Roxy show? You can catch the Molotovs for free at Amoeba in Hollywood on Tuesday, May 19 at 5 p.m., where they will do a live performance and host an album signing.
Thursday, May 21, 6 p.m.
Scribble
5541 York Blvd., Highland Park
COST: FREE; MORE INFO
All you need to bring is your creativity to this weeknight art hang. Don’t let kids have all the fun with their imaginations; get to work on something you’ve been thinking about, or start a new project at this Scribble free-for-all. Feel free to bring your sketchpad, but some art supplies will be provided.
Tuesday, May 19, 7 p.m.
Merry-Go-Round Lot #2
Griffith Park
COST: FREE; MORE INFO
Build strength and meet fellow hiking enthusiasts at the Tuesday night Griffith Park Night Conditioning Hike, hosted by the Sierra Club. Hikes last from one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours and are meant for hikers of all experience levels — bring a flashlight!
Wednesday, May 20, 7 p.m.
The Belasco
1050 S. Hill Street, Downtown L.A.
COST: $54; MORE INFO
The popular Australian-born Pub Choir series is back for a night at the Belasco, where you’ll spend 90 minutes learning the harmonies to popular songs and singing along with hundreds of your new besties. Led by Astrid Jorgensen, by the end of the night the choir is sure to be ready for prime time.
Tuesday and Wednesday, May 19 and 20
Saban Theater
8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills
COST: FROM $119; MORE INFO
Spend an evening in the final frontier with William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson as they answer your burning questions about the world beyond our world. They're doing two nights of their show, The Universe is Absurd! — you can do a double and check out both, as they promise a completely different experience each time. To be fair, seems like answering questions about the universe could take more than one session!
Through Sunday, June 7
Chance Theater
5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim
COST: FROM $30; MORE INFO
It may take place just after 9/11, but the uncertainty is as real now as it was then in Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok’s look at immigration and deportation. On at the Chance Theater in Anaheim, Sanctuary City tells the story of two undocumented teenagers in Newark, New Jersey navigating both politics and coming of age.
Wednesday, May 20, 8 p.m.
Robert Frost Auditorium
4401 Elenda Street, Culver City
COST: WAITLIST AND ONLINE ONLY; MORE INFO
Whether Girls creator Lena Dunham is your cup of tea or not, there’s no denying she’s always unapologetically herself. It’s something I’ve always admired about her work, and it’s as true as ever in her new memoir, Famesick. She’s in conversation with actress Rita Wilson at Live Talks L.A.; the event is sold out, but there’s a waitlist, and you can stream the conversation online as well.
Topline:
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has confirmed its fifth measles case of the year. The person flew into LAX on Thursday, May 14.
Why now: The resident was traveling internationally and arrived at Tom Bradley International Terminal (Terminal B) at LAX on May 14 via Alaska Airlines Flight 1354, departing from Guatemala City. Anyone in the terminal between 6 and 8 a.m. that morning may have been exposed.
What's next: Public health officials say passengers seated near the infected traveler will be notified by their respective local health departments. They are working to find additional exposure sites that the traveler visited in L.A. County.
What you should do: If you were at LAX during that time, officials say you should check your vaccination status.
Those exposed could be at risk of developing measles one to three weeks after exposure. If you do develop symptoms of measles, officials advise you to call your doctor as soon as possible, and before going in, since it’s so contagious.
Symptoms include: High fever, cough, runny nose, red and watery eyes, and a rash three to five days after other symptoms.
Vulnerable populations: If you’re pregnant, have an infant, have a weakened immune system or are not immunized, call your doctor right away after possible exposure, even if you don’t have symptoms.
The bigger picture: According to the CDC, there have been 27 new outbreaks of measles across the United States this year, with 1,893 cases so far.
In 2025, there were 48 outbreaks across the U.S., with a total of 2,288 confirmed cases. Nine were in Los Angeles County.
Go deeper: Measles is back in California. Health departments are fighting it with less
Topline:
Data center builders don’t tell the public how much water they use, according to a new report — and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities.
Why now: The report, by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara University, finds that planned data centers are spreading to regions reliant on overtapped groundwater and strained surface water, with potentially major effects in the Central and Imperial Valleys.
Why it matters: The researchers found that a patchwork of state, federal and local policies allows data center operators to avoid publicly disclosing their actual water use.
Data center builders don’t tell the public how much water they use, according to a new report — and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities.
The report, by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara University, finds that planned data centers — the ganglia of artificial intelligence — are spreading to regions reliant on overtapped groundwater and strained surface water, with potentially major effects in the Central and Imperial Valleys.
But, reinforcing previous studies, the researchers found that a patchwork of state, federal and local policies allows data center operators to avoid publicly disclosing their actual water use.
California lawmakers tried to address this last year, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure. Now, the legislature is trying again, with bills mandating disclosures about water use and planning.
“We have this huge build out, and we have very little data,” said Irina Raicu, who directs the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
Paired with California’s precarious water supplies, Raicu said, “It’s just not a good combination.”
Shaolei Ren, an expert on the environmental impacts of AI at UC Riverside who was not involved in the study, said the findings point to a much broader problem.
“Limited publicly available information about data center water use makes it difficult for communities, water providers and researchers to have meaningful public discussions and responsibly assess power-water trade-offs,” Ren said in an email.
Few environmental impact reports for California’s data centers were publicly available online, the researchers found.
Raicu and co-author Iris Stewart-Frey, a professor of environmental science, went looking for the reports, meant to assess and disclose a project’s impacts for both nature and people under the landmark California Environmental Quality Act.
They found almost none. The ones they did find were largely for facilities in the city of Santa Clara.
Through interviews with planning officials, they discovered that projects can slip through with little environmental review if they fall under certain size or water use thresholds, or if they meet a city or county’s criteria for other approval pathways. These include something called ministerial approval, which requires planning agencies to approve a project that meets local zoning and other standards.
Even for data centers that undergo more stringent environmental scrutiny, the researchers found that documentation is rarely available to the public.
In the few cases the planning documents were posted publicly, the information — on the data center’s owner or operator, size, type of cooling system, the amount of water used, whether it’s recycled or potable — was often “missing, contradictory, or vague,” the report said.
The researchers said they contacted water providers in areas where data centers cluster, seeking usage data. None responded.
California’s data centers mostly cluster in the south San Francisco Bay Area and the city of Los Angeles, with smaller concentrations in Sacramento and San Diego.
But the report noted large, planned projects in rural and less affluent regions — like in Santa Clara County’s Gilroy, as well as in the heavily agricultural Imperial Valley.
“They need a bunch of cheap land,” Raicu. “If we’re not careful, they will end up being pitched, very convincingly, to communities that have real needs — without enough attention being paid to the water part.”
Khara Boender, director of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, which has opposed bills mandating more granular water-use reporting, said in an email the industry is “committed to being a good neighbor.”
Boender argues that data centers collectively “used significantly less water than other essential industries in 2025, including the agriculture, power, food and beverage, and semiconductor sectors,” but the coalition offers no data to back that up.
Collective use matters less than local impacts in a state where each community has its own mix of water supplies and strains, according to a previous study published by a team at UC Berkeley.
Whether data centers use a lot or a little water relative to agriculture or other industries, “what matters most is the scale of new local use compared to available local supply,” the Berkeley team concluded earlier this year. “Unfortunately, this picture is clouded by data deficiencies.”
In this week’s report, the Santa Clara University team drilled into those local supplies and community vulnerabilities to anticipated expansion.
“We’re at the brink of this happening in California,” Stewart-Frey, the environmental scientist, said. Her report, she added, isn’t advocating against data centers. But “communities should know what they’re getting themselves into.”
Debates over proposed data centers are erupting in a Kern County desert community with dwindling groundwater and in the hot Imperial Valley, which draws from the strained Colorado River.
Monterey Park residents in the San Gabriel Valley successfully opposed one data center project over environmental concerns and inadequate information and secured an upcoming vote on a citywide ban.
In a letter to city officials, a representative for the developer dismissed opponents as “rage-baiting an uninformed mob to pressure your decisionmaking.”
Raicu pushed back. “If those communities are uninformed about the issue — whose fault is that? Who should be informing the people so that you don’t have this kind of pushback, if there is no need for it?”
Last year, Assemblymember Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo, authored a bill requiring data center operators to report estimated or actual water use to their water supplier when seeking or renewing a business license or permit.
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure amid industry pressure, saying he was “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements about operational details on this sector without understanding the full impact on businesses and the consumers of their technology.”
Now, Papan is trying again with two bills. One largely reprises last year’s measure, with additional reporting required to the city and county. The other would bar local governments from approving new or expanded data centers unless the developer discloses information about their water use and plans.
It would also set other requirements — like prohibiting development in overdrafted groundwater basins in places like the San Joaquin Valley, unless state water managers OK it.
“You cannot manage what you have not and cannot measure,” Papan said. “The public likes transparency, and they should.”
Both bills cleared a key legislative chokepoint this week but face staunch opposition from the tech industry and business groups.
“If they run out of water, guess what happens? And they can’t cool their systems — are they going to succeed?” Papan said. “To which I say, help us help you.”
Topline:
Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”
Background: Founders Jenny Yang and Chris Capizzi spent seven years operating as a pop-up without a brick-and-mortar location. Opening their doors to local vendors pays homage to their own roots selling at Los Angeles markets, from the Melrose Trading Post to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market.
Read on ... for more on this community space.
Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”
Founders Jenny Yang and Chris Capizzi spent seven years operating as a pop-up without a brick-and-mortar location. Opening their doors to local vendors pays homage to their own roots selling at Los Angeles markets, from the Melrose Trading Post to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market.
“Mega giant online sellers have the scale and the resources and the patience and the reach to capture most people,” Capizzi said. “Whereas for us, I think we have to be really creative — we have to band together.”
Yang and Capizzi’s long history of vending at markets taught them how isolating running a small business can be. At their market, they aim to build connections with each vendor and strategize the best timing and layout so everyone can succeed.
“[Amazon and Barnes & Noble] are Goliath, and we’re not even David — we’re just the ant underneath David’s foot,” Capizzi said. “I think we can do what we do and try to get as many people, at our level or even smaller, to get together.”
Weekly markets at A Good Used Book have captivated the neighborhood since its opening in October 2023, with charming names like “Sunday Funday,” “Saturday School” and “Hi-Fi Friday Night,” plus hand-drawn flyers by well-known artist Noah Harmon. Now, it’s become a weekly occurrence where LA pop-ups can display their own crafts, allowing local readers to indulge in a little more than a pocket paperback.
Each week holds a Pandora’s box of niche snacks, crafts or trinkets you didn’t know you needed, ranging from Southeast Asian-inspired trail mix to natural incense sticks to vintage Japanese audio equipment. One week you might be enticed to adopt a kitten from a rescue booth outside, another week you might impulsively get a stick-and-poke tattoo in the back of the store.
On one sunny Sunday afternoon, Brandon Stanciell hand-tossed fresh pizza dough on the sidewalk outside the bookstore. His 2-year-old pop-up, Pizza Ananda, which he named after his daughter, is an homage to her and to Italian cooking, a hobby he started during paternity leave. An hour before the market closed, Stanciell had already sold out and garnished his last pepperoni-and-hot-honey pie for one lucky customer.
“I love that places like this allow us all to meet at once to share what we have and give it to the community around us,” Stanciell said.
For the owners, building a community market is about deepening relationships with the people who walk through their doors. In an increasingly digital landscape, it is also a reciprocal partnership among local businesses.
“A lot of people talk about community building nowadays as a marketing strategy,” Capizzi said. “But I think the actual community building comes from talking to each vendor and each customer and being a consistent presence in the neighborhood.”
While customers browsed for unique titles, Gerin del Carmen worked her booth of ceramic dishware, oyster-shaped trinket holders and vases resembling miniature boxes. As a ceramicist, del Carmen draws from her Filipino heritage, including the Balikbayan boxes that represent immigrants sending gifts to family in the Philippines.
“Sharing the community and your space is such a big deal. This is not a huge, gigantic Barnes & Noble store,” del Carmen said. “It has so much foot traffic, and the fact that [the owners] are setting up and sharing the space once or twice a week with other vendors and other artists is huge.”
Yang and Capizzi may think of themselves as an “ant underneath David’s foot,” but A Good Used Book is building a colony of vendors, rooted in community.
