The Brief

While fears of immigration raids clouded the back to school season, some lighthearted student traditions persist.

Tuesday was the first day of school for about 63,000 students in the Long Beach Unified School District.

Seniors at Lakewood High School sported their “kid backpacks,” as an homage to their younger years.

Adrianna Tanaka ordered a pink Peppa Pig backpack from Amazon. “Her really spunky personality — it really resonates with me 'cause I'm the same way,” Tanaka said. “I just grew up with her. … it's comforting.”

Lakewood seniors told LAist that upperclassmen and social media posts inspired their backpacks.

“ It's a little bit of a culture within the kids,” said Principal Mona Merlo. “Whatever today's trend is, all the kids are jumping on it.”

Merlo’s son had a Minecraft bag his senior year at an LBUSD school.

 "You gotta just have fun," Asher Wilder said of why he joined the senior backpack trend. "It's your last year in school."

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Wilder chose a Pokémon backpack, in part because he shares a similar name to the series' longtime protagonist.

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Tamarah Weston's Hello Kitty backpack came with matching headphones. Her favorite Sanrio characters are Pompompurin and Cinnamon Roll. Weston hopes to become a veterinarian after graduation.

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LAist forgot to ask if this backpack came with a banana.

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Melanie Mendoza said the senior backpack trend brings back "that little kid feeling in you."

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Students across the country have embraced the nostalgic backpack tradition in the years since returning from the pandemic.

Seniors walked through an inflatable tunnel to their first classes with the bittersweet feeling of excitement mixed with sadness.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

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SpongeBob SquarePants, but also his loyal snail Gary, featured on the back of Lakewood senior Victor Rodriguez.

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“ I'm not gonna be able to see my friends like [as] often,” predicted senior Victor Rodriguez. ”It's life. So just stay in touch as much as you can.”

But if he learned anything from SpongeBob, the inspiration for his Gary the snail backpack, it’s “don’t take life too seriously.”

Amid first day excitement, preparing to keep students safe

While students shopped for their perfect backpack, Long Beach Unified educators and administrators prepared to reopen campuses amid increased immigration enforcement actions throughout the region.

There have been no reported interactions with immigration officials at Long Beach schools. However, several Southern California school-age children have been detained and deported since the start of the raids this summer, including a 9-year-old Torrance boy. Last spring, staff at two Los Angeles Unified elementary schools turned away Homeland Security agents who sought access to five students to conduct “wellness checks.”

Lakewood High School Principal Mona Marlo greets students on the first day of the 2025-2026 school year in the Long Beach Unified School District. “ I am everyone's cheerleader,” Marlo said.

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Superintendent Jill Baker said all staff who interact with students and families, including front office and campus safety staff, were trained how to respond to immigration officials on school grounds in the spring and 1,000 employees received additional preparation in the two weeks before the first day.

“ICE is not allowed on our campuses,” Baker said. “Our staff are ready to defend the perimeters of our schools to ensure that families see and feel that inclusive and welcoming environment and the safety that they can expect from Long Beach Unified.”

Community college students in California could gain access to medication abortion through campus health centers under a proposal that would extend reproductive health services already required at the state’s public universities.

Assembly Bill 2540 would require community colleges with student health centers to offer access to medication abortion beginning in 2029, if the Legislature provides funding. The bill builds on Senate Bill 24, a 2019 law that requires University of California and California State University student health centers to provide medication abortion beginning in 2023.

Supporters say the bill would close an access gap for community college students who may face transportation, cost, privacy or insurance barriers when care is only available off campus. But campus health center directors warn that many community colleges may not have the funding, staffing or clinical capacity to provide the service.

Authored by Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, a Democrat from San Francisco, the bill would apply to community colleges with student health centers — estimated at roughly 92 campuses statewide. If the Legislature provides funding, those campuses would have to offer access to abortion by medication techniques beginning in 2029.

“We are closing a critical gap by ensuring that community college students, one of the most diverse and economically vulnerable populations in our state, have the same access to care as their peers at four-year institutions,” Stefani told lawmakers during an Assembly Health Committee hearing in April.

The bill would also require all campuses to promote awareness of the service, provide information to students and post availability online. The awareness requirement would extend to universities, which were not compelled to publicize medication abortion services under the previous law.

Community colleges fill healthcare gap for students

“Healthcare is a basic need for any human,” said Stephanie Goldman, executive director of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, a statewide advocacy organization that represents community college faculty and supports AB 2540. “And of course, abortion access and abortion is a healthcare issue.”

Goldman said community colleges increasingly operate under a “whole student” model that goes beyond academics to include food access, housing support, childcare, mental health and healthcare services. Reproductive healthcare access can directly affect whether students are able to remain focused on school, she said.

“It’s helpful that they understand that they have this kind of healthcare on campus and available to them, should they need it,” Goldman said.

Mifepristone and misoprostol at a Wyoming abortion clinic in Casper on March 10, 2025.

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Student leaders backing the bill say community college students often face challenges accessing reproductive healthcare outside campus systems, particularly in rural areas.

“Where you go to school should not determine what access you get just because you went to a community college system versus a four-year system,” said Alisha Nagpal, a student at Folsom Lake College who serves as vice president of legislative affairs for the Student Senate for California Community Colleges.

Nagpal said some community college students live hours away from providers, lack transportation or may not know what health services already exist on campus. She pointed to online-only students, low-income students and undocumented students as groups that may face additional barriers obtaining reproductive healthcare off campus.

Community college health centers vary in size and services

But while supporters frame the bill as a matter of equal access, health center directors say implementing the proposal statewide may be far more complicated than applying the UC and Cal State models.

According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee analysis, the community college health centers “vary widely in structure and capacity, with many operating under limited staffing models or contracting services out to community providers and hospitals.”

The Health Services Association of California Community Colleges, which represents student health programs across the system, opposes the bill. In an April 15 letter to lawmakers, the organization said many community college health centers do not prescribe medication, nor do they have sufficient staffing or the infrastructure needed to provide medication abortion onsite.

Michelle Barkley, president of the association and a nurse at Cosumnes River College, said many community college health centers function more as public health entry points than full-service clinics.

“Some of our campuses have 5,000 students,” Barkley said. “Their health center is run by a single registered nurse.”

Barkley said many campuses currently rely on referrals to outside providers rather than onsite reproductive healthcare services.

Funding may be a challenge

The bill’s projected cost has become a key point of disagreement between supporters and community college health center directors.

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office estimates implementing the bill could cost between $7 million and $27.9 million in one-time startup costs across all 93 community college health centers, plus between $5.6 million and $9.3 million annually to maintain services. Those estimates are not limited to the cost of medication. The appropriations analysis says the expenses could include staffing, training, equipment, telehealth services, billing support and other infrastructure needed for campuses to provide or coordinate care.

Community college health centers may be partially funded through student health fees, though not all campuses charge them. The analysis said most campuses charge an average health fee of about $23 per academic term. The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office lists the 2025-26 maximum health services fee at $27 per semester and $22 for summer, intersession or quarter terms.

Supporters of the bill argue the projected costs may overstate the financial burden. According to the committee analysis, Stefani’s office argues medication abortion services could become financially sustainable through Medi-Cal reimbursement, private insurance billing, third-party vendors and telehealth partnerships.

Nagpal pointed to language making the bill contingent on legislative funding, saying community colleges would not be expected to implement the requirement without state support.

“If funding is not provided at community college campuses, there’s no legal expectation for (community colleges) to provide the service,” Nagpal said.

The bill was put on hold in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on May 6 because of its potential cost. On May 14, the committee advanced the bill on an 11-4 vote after making amendments.

The amendments changed how the bill would apply to community colleges. Earlier language would have required community colleges with student health centers to offer medication abortion onsite, but the amended bill now says campuses must “offer access” to the service beginning in 2029. The bill still allows care to be provided by campus staff, through telehealth or through contracted external agencies, but it now also includes partnerships with community health providers “as appropriate.”

The amendments also broadened what colleges would report to the state, allowing campuses to count services provided through outside healthcare providers instead of only those performed at campus health centers.

AB 2540 was referred to the Senate Health and Education committees on June 10. After additional amendments, the bill was re-referred July 2 to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where lawmakers will review its fiscal impact.

The latest amendments further define how community colleges could comply, including through referrals, “warm handoffs,” written partnerships with licensed providers or a statewide provider agreement through the Chancellor’s Office. They also clarify that state funding could support costs such as telehealth, staffing, training, billing support, outreach and reporting.

Andrea Baltodano 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.

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

The private prison company CoreCivic has sold two of the largest immigration detention facilities in California to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in a deal worth $1.5 billion, the company announced Monday.

CoreCivic said it anticipates that the sale of the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County and the California City Detention Facility in Kern County will bring the company an estimated net proceeds of approximately $1.1 billion.

The sale closed on July 2, according to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, with the federal government paying $739.2 million for the 1,994-bed Otay Mesa facility and $732.6 million for the newly-opened 2,560-bed California City facility.

CoreCivic said in a news release that it expects to continue running the day-to-day operations of both facilities under existing contracts with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The company acknowledged in its filing that the terms of those contracts could be renegotiated now that the federal government owns both properties outright.

They also might not be renewed. CoreCivic's contract in California City contract runs through August 2027, and its Otay Mesa contract is in effect through December 2029, with an option to extend for five more years.

The purchase comes as the Department of Homeland Security sits on an unprecedented influx of cash. The 2025 federal budget gave the department roughly $170 billion for immigration enforcement and detention, including $45 billion specifically earmarked for expanding detention capacity through fiscal year 2029.

The acquisition of the two sites is another step in the federal government’s plan to build out national immigration detention capacity that isn’t reliant on the two largest private prison contractors, according to a brief from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law from February.

The proposed transition away from private detention was described at the time as the “ICE Detention Reengineering Initiative” in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement documents released by the city of Social Circle, Georgia, where city leadership was worried about the strain on city services from a major detention facility housing between 7,500 and 10,000 people.

“This new model will allow ICE to create an efficient detention network by reducing the total number of contracted detention facilities in use while increasing total bed capacity, enhancing custody management, and streamlining removal operations,” according to the unsigned ICE memo.

The Department of Homeland Security’s purchasing program surprised local officials in at least five states, who only learned of the purchases and their purpose after the deals closed. Some of those projects have run into legal challenges, according to the New York Times, though the agency appears to be moving forward with four warehouse acquisitions.

Health inspections at ICE centers

California law allows state and local officials to inspect immigrant detention centers, and Democratic leaders have drawn attention to conditions inside since President Donald Trump began his second term. Eight ICE detention centers are operating within the state, up from six since former President Joe Biden left office.

Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat, has visited both of the sites CoreCivic sold to the federal government and spoken up for the needs of detainees, including access to healthcare.

"Too many people who pose no threat to public safety and should not be in detention are nevertheless being held in unacceptable conditions with inadequate access to medical care, legal counsel, clean water, nutritious food, and other basic necessities," he said in a written statement. "Whether these facilities are operated by a private contractor or owned by the federal government, my expectations remain the same."

The Otay Mesa facility has been at the center of an ongoing legal fight over local health inspections. San Diego County officials sued the federal government and CoreCivic in March after claiming health inspectors were blocked from a full inspection under a 2024 state law. A federal judge later granted county health officials access to the detention center.

Private prison companies CoreCivic and GEO Group have fought back against California’s 2024 county-inspection law in court, arguing that states can’t pass laws that directly burden the federal government’s core functions. GEO Group has argued the state law is unconstitutional because it steps on federal authority over immigration detention centers.

“This is Trump’s mass detention agenda getting bigger, more permanent, and more expensive — with CoreCivic getting a billion-dollar payday while still running the cages. DHS may own the building, but it does not own the law," San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer said in a written statement about the sale.

An aerial view of the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego on May 20, 2026.

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California City opened last year in eastern Kern County about 100 miles north of Los Angeles in a site the company previously operated as a state prison.

California City opened last year in eastern Kern County about 100 miles north of Los Angeles in a site the company previously operated as a state prison. A federal lawsuit is ongoing about whether the facility opened without proper permits in remote California City.

Grisel Ruiz, a staff attorney from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said the change in ownership does not change her organization’s opinion that the facility opened without the required permits.

The organization intends to ask California City’s planning commission on Tuesday to deny the permits and shut down the facility. Attorney General Rob Bonta has urged the same.

“The sale to DHS doesn’t change the fact that CoreCivic must still lawfully operate the facility,” said Ruiz.

Ruiz also noted the sale deal appeared favorable for CoreCivic in that they get the profits from the sale of the property, as well as revenue from continuing to operate the facilities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement

“They get to have their cake and eat it too,” said Ruiz.

CoreCivic said the sale prices were set through a federal government process in which independent appraisers account for replacement cost, depreciation and land value to determine fair market value. Spokesman Ryan Gustin said the appraisals were reviewed by the government for compliance with federal standards.

“The process was marked with rigor and integrity,” he said in an emailed statement.

More sales possible

The company also disclosed that it is having ongoing talks with ICE about selling the federal government additional detention facilities, though it said those discussions are in the early stages of a deal and may not close.

Maryland-based CoreCivic said the proceeds from the sale, which would be about $1.1 billion after taxes and transaction costs, could go toward paying down its bank credit and retiring $238.5 million in senior notes coming due in 2027. Any remaining funds are earmarked for further debt reduction or possibly stock buybacks.

Patrick Swindle, the president of CoreCivic, said in the news release, “We are pleased with the sales of these two mission-critical facilities for the Company’s government partner, while reflecting our role as a long-term, flexible solutions provider to government.”

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

The summer heat is now in full swing, bringing with it scorching temperatures for some areas of Southern California over the next few days.

Starting Tuesday, a heat advisory kicks in for interior mountains and valleys in L.A. County, with temperatures in the mid 80s to 90s. Meanwhile, closer to the coast, temperatures will hover in mid 70s.

In Orange County, high temperatures along the coast will range from 71 to 80 degrees, and from 79 to 86 degrees more inland. In the Inland Empire, temperatures there will reach up to 98 degrees.

In Coachella Valley, there's an extreme heat warning since temperatures are expected to reach up to 113 degrees on Tuesday.

Come Wednesday, temperatures will continue to increase, so make sure to stay hydrated and check in on loved ones.

SEATTLE — This time was supposed to be different.

The U.S. men's national team came into this FIFA World Cup with a lineup full of players with key roles in Europe's top leagues. They had the name-brand coach — Mauricio Pochettino, of Tottenham, PSG and Chelsea fame. And they had homefield advantage, with every game on U.S. soil for the first time in three decades.

For weeks, the hype seemed like it might be real: The team's three wins over Paraguay, Australia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were the most ever by a U.S. men's squad in a World Cup. A new generation of American fans filled stadiums by the tens of thousands and tuned in on TV by the tens of millions.

But in the end, the Americans' exit was the same as it ever was: Eliminated yet again in the Round of 16 at the hands of a European team — this time, Belgium, by a score of 4-1.

From the moment they stepped onto the Seattle field, the U.S. was outclassed by their opponent, No. 9-ranked Belgium. Countless turnovers and defensive lapses were seized on by the Belgians, who needed only nine minutes to take a 1-0 lead.

Then, once the Americans equalized on a free kick by midfielder Malik Tillman, Belgium scored yet again in barely a minute of play. Belgian forward Charles De Ketelaere scored both his team's first-half goals.

After halftime, came an embarrassing nail in the coffin that silenced the Seattle sellout crowd for good — a 57th minute roll-in by Hans Vanaken after a slip-up by goalkeeper Matt Freese outside of the penalty area left the goal unguarded. Belgian forward Romelu Lukaku added a stoppage-time goal to seal the final score at 4-1.

Malik Tillman #17 of the United States celebrates scoring his team's only goal during their World Cup match against Belgium. In what was one of the few bright spots of the game, the U.S. pulled even with Belgium at 1-1. The tie lasted less than two minutes before Belgium scored again.

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The U.S. had entered Monday's game under a cloud of controversy around their striker Folarin Balogun, who was shown a red card in last week's Round of 32 match against Bosnia-Herzegovina. An automatic one-game suspension was set to sideline Balogun, the Americans' leading scorer at the World Cup, for Monday's game.

Then, the day before the game, a FIFA disciplinary panel took the highly unusual step of delaying Balogun's suspension by a year to allow him to participate. Then, news broke that President Trump had personally called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to encourage him to review the red card.

The Royal Belgian Football Association said it would protest Balogun's inclusion in the lineup. But even at full strength, the U.S. were never real contenders in Monday's game.

Belgium will advance to the quarterfinals for the third time in the past four World Cups, where it will face Spain on Friday in Los Angeles.
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