The Brief

Older and wiser from one academic year with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, faculty at community colleges have recognized that their students are no strangers to generative artificial intelligence tools.

With a new academic year beginning, faculty fall somewhere between two sentiments — optimism on what generative AI can do for students, and serious concern about what damage it can cause.

Across the country, education guidance for generative AI has in some cases been unclear and in other cases too didactic — outright bans of its use.

In the absence of official guidance, this leaves faculty members to figure this out on their own. Faculty leading these discussions share one thing in common: They want to make sure students are learning.

And so at the start of the fall semester, in an auditorium at Pasadena City College, a talkative group of just over 30 faculty and staff gathered to talk about the inevitable new presence in their classrooms and offices.

You can feel that the room is ready to engage. Even before the session kicks off, instructors swap stories about how new technology enters the classroom. One laughs about whether to borrow a playbook from another professor and ban all electronics in the classroom.

Writing center faculty Giselle Miralles and Genesis Montalvo address the crowd.

“We just want to do a really quick reflection on this AI tsunami that we have suddenly experienced, as we have heard more and more about AI and its use in the classroom,” Montalvo says, kicking off the training with a partner exercise.

“Where are you now? Are you still in the same place that you were when you first learned about ChatGPT and other AI? Or have you changed directions, changed your viewpoint?”

Not a replacement for learning 

Miralles and Montalvo tell LAist their own thinking has developed over time. The English instructors learned about ChatGPT last year through TikTok. They say faculty feared their jobs could be replaced, and many had planned to prevent or catch students using the generative AI for assignments.

“It became this really negative conversation. And that kind of brought into question, well, I don't want my job to be just policing students. Like, ‘ha, gotcha,’” Montalvo says. “What we want to do with this presentation is let professors know that this is here to stay. And rather than treating it as an enemy, how can we treat it as a learning tool?”

Giselle Miralles

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Genesis Montalvo

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Montalvo and Miralles personally have both found ChatGPT useful. Montalvo has used ChatGPT for starting the simple mundane task of summarizing author biographies before adding her own take on the assignment. She says she’s not out to stop students from becoming digitally savvy, knowing friends in the legal and medical fields who have used the AI for their professions.

For Miralles, ChatGPT can reach students in a way that she might not. She reached that conclusion when she asked ChatGPT to explain how a camera exposure works, in simple terms, hoping it could do better than her husband. (This took a few tries.) For students, Miralles reasons, that would be like having someone who could explain concepts when faculty are not available — on the weekends, 24/7.

Full of tradeoffs

Over the course of the training, faculty explore all kinds of questions and comments.

One offers at the outset that he finds ChatGPT is very good at writing code. Another says she could see that the AI could enhance accommodations to students. One notes that ChatGPT could give students instant feedback on their work. A counselor shares that generative AI can help first-generation students construct resumés and write cover letters. Another attendee complains that ChatGPT is "usually giving me C-level work."

Genesis Montalvo presenting at a faculty presentation about AI at Pasadena City College.

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There are thornier issues, too. If ChatGPT learns through material it can access, well, there’s a lot of prejudiced and otherwise bad material out there, so does that mean ChatGPT might be replicating those issues? Another participant says he’s seen on the news that ChatGPT might cite sources that don’t actually exist.

And as much as instructors may recognize the benefits of AI, they still express concern about students completing assignments without contributing their own work.

Set a starting point

Montalvo supports students using ChatGPT as a starting point for their assignments, a brainstorming tool. Nonetheless, she expects that students revise the output for accuracy and to reflect their own voices.

“If you're using AI to just completely generate without you, yourself, engaging with it, you are hurting yourself in the long run because you're taking yourself out of that equation and solely relying on the AI to create everything for you,” Montalvo says. “So, it's finding that balance of empathy and understanding, but also being firm and holding the student accountable for their own actions and their own learning.”

Miralles agrees. The worst would be if students were to cut and paste from ChatGPT directly as their own work. Reminding students that faculty are there to help students learn, not just tell them what to do, is what Miralles thinks is important to instill in students.

“You know, I think it's out of respect to tell students like, this is why I'm having you do it, because I think it's valuable for your learning, right?” Miralles says. “This is why I have you understand how to vet your sources, right? Because you want to understand what kind of sources are credible, right? Like, that you can understand what information is something that you can believe, right? So that is a skill you need in everyday life, I think, right?”

Assignments only humans can do  

Software to detect AI has proven to be unreliable, and questioning students about cheating has been difficult. Reflecting on the initial faculty response to ChatGPT, which had struck a policing tone, Montalvo realized there must be underlying reasons students were using ChatGPT instead of producing their own work.

“It's like why students plagiarize for any reason. It's never because of like, ‘Oh, it's easy. I don't wanna do this.’ It's usually because they're stressed, they're unsure about the topic, they don't really understand the topic, like there's a bunch of other reasons behind the plagiarism.”

Miralles says the responsibility of the instructor is to adapt material to ChatGPT and consider what the instructor can do to motivate students to engage with the work. Faculty say the way to push students to create original work has been to emphasize what only students can do — that which is human.

Montalvo, who teaches poetry, points out the times when she suspects a student is using ChatGPT to write a poem. The poems are boring — they lack artistry, depth and personality. Montalvo says she tells them, “I want to know you.”

Miralles encourages assignments that are metacognitive, which is defined as an awareness of one’s own thinking. “As we know, ChatGPT does not have human emotions, so it can't recreate that.”

She suggests asking students about their learning process. “How are they learning? What did they learn from this assignment? What parts of their personal experience can they bring, right?” Miralles says.

Faculty are also discussing how to assess students’ performance in the context of AI. Miralles, as an English instructor, expects that grading criteria can assess students for originality, creativity, and even for the “energy” of their work.

Collaborate on guidance

The faculty trainers at Pasadena City College did not fault their administration for a lack of guidance. They express that it has taken time, the technology is still so new, and that they’re still figuring out how to respond to AI.

There's some evidence to suggest the conversation will need to happen sooner than later. A survey of students in grades 6-12, released Wednesday by the nonpartisan think tank Center for Democracy & Technology, found that students with special needs are more likely than their peers to use generative AI and be disciplined for doing so. That survey also found widespread differences in how educators use AI and discipline students for using it. The center suggests that administrative guidance can provide consistency and protect vulnerable students.

At the moment, the Pasadena City College trainers said faculty-driven guidance is more valuable than the administrative kind. Administrative guidance could run the risk of taking a more punitive stance, policing students, and generating fear.

Eventually, the trainers at Pasadena City College say that the faculty can have open discussions with administration or bring proposed suggestions to the administration that they hope would be supported.

“I think that with any change on any campus, I do think it should always be faculty driven, just because faculty are the ones that are engaging with students,” Miralles says. “So the fact that it's faculty talking about it, I think that's great.”

It was a good night for normie Democrats, a bad one for self-funded campaigns, a mixed bag for state legislators aspiring to higher office and another electoral reminder of President Donald Trump’s dominant role in our politics — even in deepest blue California.

At the top of the ticket, Republican former Fox News host and British political adviser Steve Hilton and longtime Democratic politico Xavier Becerra hold the top two spots needed to progress to the November election for governor. Tom Steyer, the billionaire former hedge fund manager turned left-leaning political donor, is holding a distant though technically viable third. The Associated Press has not called the race.

Veteran state election observers will know that it may be weeks before the final score of the June primary election is tallied. But a few early takeaways are already coming into focus:

Money can’t (always) buy you love

Whether Steyer ultimately claws his way into the top two spots in the governor’s race after spending a record-setting sum on his self-funded campaign, it’s got to be a disappointing return on investment.

Steyer ultimately spent nearly a quarter of a billion dollars on his populism-coded gubernatorial bid. The fact that all that advertising didn’t translate to an electoral blowout is no surprise, said Garry South, a longtime California Democratic strategist.

“It may sound facetious to say that you can have too much money in a campaign, but in fact the way these rich self-financing candidates spend their money becomes a liability. …They wear out their welcome.”

Steyer isn’t the only candidate to have drawn deeply on his personal finances only to flounder at the ballot box. Patrick Wolff put $600,000 of his own money toward his insurance commissioner campaign, Yvonne Yiu invested $750,000 in her race to join the state Board of Equalization and Saikat Chakrabarti put up the bulk of the millions he spent in his bid to replace Nancy Pelosi in Congress. In Los Angeles, Zach Sokoloff put up $1 million — with millions more coming from his mother — to unseat the sitting city controller.

Chakrabarti couldn’t crack the top two in his race, losing to state Sen. Scott Wiener and San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan. As of Wednesday morning, the remaining three trailed in their respective races.

A good night for ‘standard’ Democrats

Anti-incumbent populism may be in the national zeitgeist, but California voters seem perfectly happy with — or at least, fine settling with — experienced, garden variety Democrats.

“What they want is a Democratic elected official who can go and fight Donald Trump,” said Andrew Sinclair, a Claremont McKenna University political science professor.

Hence the sharp, sudden rise of Becerra following the political implosion of former frontrunner Eric Swalwell. Swalwell was also well known as an experienced politician who “Donald Trump didn’t like,” said Sinclair. Mild-mannered Becerra with a deep political resume and limited baggage was the next logical choice. “What’s your standard, out-of-the-box Democrat who you can get to fight Republicans? Becerra is probably that guy.”

It helped that Becerra’s main Democratic opponent, the self-styled populist Steyer, had the easily-attacked billionaire status, and Democrats worried about being locked out of the general election wanted to get behind whoever was polling best.

Tom Steyer speaks at his watch party on election day during the California gubernatorial primary at The Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on June 2, 2026.

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Many of the Democratic incumbents in Congress also appeared to be fending off challenges from younger, more progressive insurgents — or at least keeping them firmly in second place. Those include Mike Thompson, Brad Sherman and Doris Matsui.

Party still matters

Back in 2010 when California adopted the top-two primary system, proponents pitched it to voters as a way to shake the partisan gridlock out of California politics. Rather than have Democratic and Republican primary voters predictably electing candidates who appeal to the ideological poles, a system that lets every candidate from every party compete on the same ballot was supposed to encourage across-the-aisle reaching candidates who can appeal to voters in the middle.

Voters in the middle are less likely to show up in primary elections, said South.

Nor has the state’s top-two system ever produced a general election race for governor with two Democrats. For all the talk of then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom squaring off against Antonio Villaraigosa in 2018 or the possibility of a Becerra vs Steyer showdown this year, California governor races have always reverted to the partisan pattern with energized Democratic voters gravitating around their candidate and Republicans doing the same.

Similarly, the top two spots in both the lieutenant governor and treasurer’s races are also blue vs. red. The one exception: As of Wednesday, two Democratic candidates to become the next insurance commissioner — Jane Kim and Sen. Ben Allen — appear to be headed to the November election.

The shut out that wasn’t

Democrats can now officially stop worrying about a dreaded “shut out” scenario.

With so many Democrats packed into the race and none dominating the field, many party members worried early on that the two most prominent Republicans running, Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, could claim the first and second place spot in the primary.

Concerns over such a paradoxical, and for Democrats, nightmarish outcome prompted party chair Rusty Hicks to commission a poll to push some of the lowest-polling Democratic candidates to step aside for the good of the party and state.

Almost none did. But either because Democratic voters were sufficiently spooked into strategically avoiding that outcome — or because a shutout was never that likely in the first place — it doesn’t appear likely to happen.

Democrats have dodged such electoral bullets before. In 2018, a glut of anti-Trump Democratic congressional candidates threatened to hand Republicans both top spots in competitive races across the state. There were no shutouts in that year's primary. California Democrats ended up cleaning up in the subsequent “blue wave” general election. There was similar Democratic hand-wringing in the run-up to the recall election over a possible procedural fluke that could have handed the governor’s office to a Republican. Newsom swatted down the recall in a landslide.

Despite the recurring bouts of Democratic angst, the most prominent top two “lock out” in recent memory was in a deeply conservative state Senate district in the Sierra foothills in 2022 which a crowded pack of Republicans ended up cannibalizing the GOP vote leaving two Democrats in first and second.

The victor in that race, Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, ended up switching parties to join the Republicans anyway. As of early Wednesday, she is trailing in third place in her re-election contest behind Jaron Brandon, a Democrat, and Alexandra Duarte, a Republican.

Senator who?

Anthony Rendon was the former speaker of the California Assembly. In an org chart of state governance, that made him one of the three most influential people in the Capitol, alongside his counterpart in the Senate and the governor.

Alas, that wasn’t enough star power for Rendon to secure the largely symbolic position of superintendent of public instruction. As of Wednesday, he sits in fourth place.

Likewise, state Sen. Anna Caballero, a Merced Democrat who once served as the state Senate’s powerful appropriations chair, is a distant third in her bid to become treasurer — far behind Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and little-known Republican Jennifer Hawks. Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a moderate Democrat, is also trailing in her race to unseat Republican Rep. David Valadao in the Central Valley, currently boxed out of the second place spot by Sen. Bernie Sanders-backed college professor Randy Villegas. And former state Sen. Steven Bradford is bringing up eighth place in the insurance commissioner contest.

It wasn’t all bad news for state lawmakers looking for other employment opportunities. Sen. Ben Allen is in second place in the insurance race, while Wiener and Sen. Aisha Wahab, two Democratic legislators from the San Francisco Bay Area, both easily claimed the top spots in their respective races for Congress.

Jeanne Kuang contributed reporting.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

CBS fired veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley late Monday evening after his fiery remarks at a staff meeting held by the program's new executive producer, Nick Bilton, who has never worked in TV news.

Pelley told Bilton that he was "murdering" the program, according to three people with direct knowledge of the conversation.

In a statement shared with NPR, Pelley alleges that new management attempted to inject falsehoods, bias, and unverified claims into his reporting — efforts he says he fended off.

It's all part of CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss' effort to wrest control of the network's signature news program. Last week, Weiss fired the show's top executives and forced out two of its correspondents.

With Anderson Cooper's departure, the show is down from seven correspondents to just three.

This story was taken from an audio report by NPR's David Folkenflik. 
Copyright 2026 NPR

Updated June 03, 2026 at 00:20 AM ET

Polls are officially closed in New Jersey, South Dakota, Iowa, New Mexico, Montana and California, where voters are casting ballots in primary races for U.S. House, Senate and statewide offices.

Most of the attention is on California and Iowa, where there are competitive primaries for governor. In both states, the Democratic Party also sees a road map to control of Congress in the fall.

In California's unique primary system, voters send the top two vote-getters to November's general election, regardless of candidates' political parties. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is term limited, and California voters will also pick who should move on to the general election in five new Democratic-leaning congressional districts.

In Iowa, Democratic voters picked state Rep. Josh Turek as their candidate in a key Senate race. In order to win a majority in the Senate, Democrats must pick up four seats, forcing the party to win in Republican-leaning states like Iowa. For the first time in years, Iowa Democrats have a shot at winning the governor's office.

Here are key races to follow:

California governor | California U.S. House | Iowa governor | Iowa U.S. Senate | New Jersey and Montana

You can also check out June 2 voter resources from the NPR network.

California decides top two gubernatorial contenders

It's been a chaotic scramble to pick the next leader of the country's largest state. After three prominent Democrats — former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Alex Padilla and state Attorney General Rob Bonta — decided not to run, Democratic voters haven't had a clear front-runner for the first time in decades. Voters have more than 60 candidates to choose from, but only a fraction of those are considered serious contenders. Only the top two vote-getters will move on to the general election in November.

California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra hugs a supporter at the Long Beach Arena on May 31 in Long Beach, Calif.

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The race got a shakeup when former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, the presumed favorite, dropped out of the race after he was accused of sexual misconduct by several women. Most recently, polls show the contest could be between two Democrats — the Health and Human Services secretary under former President Joe Biden, Xavier Becerra, and billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer.

Before Becerra was appointed to Biden's Cabinet, he served 12 terms in Congress and was elected as the California attorney general in 2016. He's considered by many as the candidate with the strongest political background. Becerra's pitch is that he is a proven leader who can hold his own and protect California from President Trump.

Steyer has forked over more than $213 million of his own fortune on the race and is also financially backed by Our Revolution, a group aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Steyer's platform is centered on taking a stand against special-interest groups in politics.

Polling just a few points behind Becerra and Steyer is Republican Steve Hilton. The former Fox News host was endorsed by President Trump in April, after which Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, another Republican in the race, quickly dropped in the polls. Hilton's platform focuses on increasing affordable housing supply for first-time homebuyers, bolstering tech industries and reviving California's film industry.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer speaks with students during a Get the Youth Vote with Bruin Democrats event at UCLA's campus on June 1 in Los Angeles, Calif.

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The outcome of California's new congressional districts

In response to Texas redrawing its congressional lines to create five Republican-leaning districts at the behest of President Trump, Californians approved Proposition 50 in November last year. The measure temporarily sidestepped the independent redistricting commission tasked with drawing nonpartisan influenced congressional boundaries, in favor of politically gerrymandered districts. That allowed state Democrats to redraw their map so five previously Republican-held districts now lean Democratic.

This has left those Republican incumbents figuring out their political futures. Rep. Ken Calvert, the longest-serving Republican from California, and Rep. Young Kim are running in the same district, for example, in a race that's gotten quite heated.

Then there's Rep. Kevin Kiley. After being drawn into a much more Democratic-leaning district, he decided to run in a new seat and announced he was leaving the Republican Party and running as an independent instead, though Kiley said he would still caucus with the Republicans.

Because of California's primary system, some of these more competitive seats are creating competitive primaries between Democrats, allowing primary voters to signal to the party what kinds of candidates speak to them most in places that have the most to lose — and gain.

Follow results here.

Iowa's GOP gubernatorial primary

While the Associated Press hasn't called the race, Republican candidate businessman Zach Lahn narrowly led in the polls late Tuesday night. Out of five candidates vying for the spot, Rep. Randy Feenstra was the only one endorsed by Trump, but he conceded the race even though he trailed Lahn by less than 1%.

The governor's office is an important race for both parties. It's the state's first open race for governor since 2011, as sitting Gov. Kim Reynolds opted not to run for reelection.

There is a good chance, though, that Iowans won't know the outcome of the race on Tuesday because a candidate must secure 35% of the vote to win outright. If no one clears that threshold, the nominee will be decided at a Republican convention where delegates — not primary voters — make the final choice.

But the Republican-backed candidate isn't a shoo-in come November. Cook Political Report categorizes the governor's race as a toss-up with a slight Republican advantage. Whatever Republican wins on Tuesday will face unopposed Democratic state Auditor Rob Sand in the general election. Sand is popular among voters and has, so far, outraised any other candidate for governor.

Iowa Senate matchup set: Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson and Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek

Democratic voters in Iowa selected state Rep. Josh Turek as their nominee against Trump-endorsed Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson for a competitive Senate seat, according to race calls from the AP.

The seat is one that Democrats believe they have a shot at flipping come November. It's part of a larger strategy of expanding their map — and winning in states currently held by Republican senators — if they want a chance to retake the Senate majority.

Turek, a two-time gold medal paralympian, won the nomination against state Sen. Zach Wahls. Both candidates are courting different Iowa voters though. Turek sought the independent-leaning vote, while Wahls was hoping to gain the support from committed Democrats. Turek flipped a state House district held by a Republican, and now Democrats hope he can do the same with the Senate seat.

And with three competitive congressional races on the ballot, some Democrats in the state are feeling like the road to a Democratic majority in Congress runs through Iowa.

Looking beyond Tuesday

New Jersey and Montana also have competitive races that could decide which party has control of Congress.

In New Jersey, Democrat Rebecca Bennett won the primary in the competitive Congressional District 7, according to an AP race call. Voters there believe Bennett is the best shot the party has flipping the swing seat blue in November.

Bennett will face the uncontested Republican Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. in the general election. The sitting congressman has been notably absent from Washington for weeks due to what Kean cites as unspecified medical issues. He has missed more than 100 House votes since his last recorded vote on March 5.

Bennett, who is a former Navy helicopter pilot, beat three other Democrats for the nomination. Bennett's platform is centered around affordability, lowering healthcare costs and protecting America's national security interests.

Two races in Montana may be more competitive than originally expected with the last-minute announcements — shortly before the filing deadline — by Republicans, Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Ryan Zinke, that neither would seek reelection. When Zinke announced he was retiring from Congress, it was seen as an opening for Democrats to compete.

But the Democratic nominee for Montana's 1st Congressional District is too close to call, according to the AP. As of Tuesday night, Ryan Busse, an author and sales professional, maintained a small, 2-point lead, against Sam Forstag, a smokejumper who is supported by popular progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. Whoever wins the Democratic primary will face Republican Trump-endorsed nominee Aaron Flint.

While an open Senate seat does not make Montana, which has long been considered a Republican stronghold, necessarily competitive for Democrats, an independent candidate is outraising candidates in both major parties. Seth Bodnar, Iraq war veteran and former president of the University of Montana, is hoping voters will send him instead, mostly on the message that he won't work for either party and is focused on changing the direction America is heading. In Bodnar's case, he has enough voter signatures to land himself on the November ballot, but the Montana Secretary of State's Office hasn't yet certified those signatures.

But two Senate candidates who will for sure appear on November's ballot are Republican nominee Kurt Alme, an attorney endorsed by Trump and Democratic nominee Alani Bankhead.

June 2 voter resources from the NPR Network

California | Iowa | Montana | New Jersey | New Mexico | South Dakota

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