The Brief

As the Blue Angels roared overhead, about 1,500 mourners gathered in front of San Francisco City Hall Thursday to remember the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who made history here as the city’s first female mayor in the aftermath of two political assassinations that shook San Francisco to the core, and then as California’s first woman Senator, a post she held for 31 years. She was the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history.

The state’s biggest political stars, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom, were among those gathered to pay respects to a woman who broke numerous glass ceilings over her decades in politics.

“Dianne commanded respect and she gave respect,” Harris said. “She was a serious and gracious person who welcomed debate and discussion, but always required that it would be well informed and studied. And I believe that this city where she started had a lot to do with that.”

“To the uninitiated here, I will let you in on a well-known secret. San Francisco politics is rough and tumble,” Harris added, to laughter from the memorial’s attendees.

Feinstein died last week in her Washington, D.C., home at age 90. She had struggled in recent years to fulfill her Senatorial obligations as her health declined — but in true Feinstein fashion, she showed up to cast a vote hours before her death.

That tenacity and grit was honored by many of the speakers Thursday, who in addition to Harris included San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Feinstein’s only grandchild, Eileen Mariano.

“Senator Feinstein, that is her official title. It’s how Californians and people all over the world knew her. But to us San Franciscans, she was Mayor Dianne Feinstein,” Breed said in opening remarks.

Breed recounted an old memory of playing French horn in a junior high school band in San Francisco, which was nicknamed the “Dianne Feinstein Band.” She told KQED last week that playing for Feinstein was one of her most cherished memories.

Feinstein as a role model

Feinstein inspired a generation of women, including Breed.

“She showed us a world where women lead, where we lift each other up, so that girls like me could follow in her footsteps,” Breed said.

High-profile memorial attendees also included Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee and Adam Schiff, who are competing for Feinstein’s Senate seat. Other attendees included Christine Pelosi, former mayor Willie Brown, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, and newly sworn-in Sen. Laphonza Butler, who Newsom appointed this week to Feinstein’s seat.

Feinstein was also honored in the skies above, as the Blue Angels soared over the memorial. They are set to perform a “Missing Woman” formation this weekend in her memory, an appropriate homage to Feinstein who is credited with bringing Fleet Week to San Francisco in 1981.

In a recorded message played across the City Hall lawn, President Joe Biden noted Feinstein’s work on the assault weapons ban, her environmental stewardship, and her leadership for women.

“Based on her character in action up close and personal, she was always tough, prepared, rigorous, compassionate. She always served the people of California and our nation for the right reasons to make life better for everyday people and ensure America stood for freedom, transparency and justice at home and abroad,” Biden said.

“She was something else,” he added. “And she was a dear friend. God bless Dianne Feinstein.”

Stories of resilience, sage advice and hydrangeas

Schumer told a story about Feinstein he said was “quintessentially her.”

Feinstein injured her ankle on a morning walk to Lake Tahoe. Some might go to the doctor, Schumer said, but Feinstein said “‘forget it.” — even after hearing her bone “pop.” It was the week of the Lake Tahoe Summit, what she considered a “signature” event to convene leaders in the California public and private sectors that she started after taking office in the Senate.

When Schumer asked how she got through the day, he remembered Feinstein answering, “‘I just did.'”

Schumer said there were a lot of words to describe Feinstein: strong, unflappable, winning, fierce. But one quality stood out to him.

“Her integrity made her sparkle like a diamond in the Senate,” said Schumer.

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi was Feinstein’s close ally for decades, and spoke of many accolades after her death, from the San Francisco Giants and 49ers to the thousands who attended her casket viewing in City Hall, Wednesday.

But of all the memorial’s speakers, she spoke the most personally of her longtime friend. She called Feinstein a “matchmaker.”

“Dianne loved cultivating people, and flowers. She cultivated relationships, bringing people together officially, personally, and romantically,” Pelosi said.

Feinstein also loved flowers, Pelosi said, and had “the most fabulous” hydrangeas.

“We all have gotten great advice from Dianne, but the most constant advice I ever got from her again and again was, ‘Nancy, you don’t always have to be the one going out on the attack. Let some other people do that from time to time. Why don’t you do that?'” Pelosi said.

Feinstein also loved San Francisco, she said. Feinstein was such a “commanding” mayor for “ten powerful years,” that when her term was up and men began to run for mayor, Pelosi recalled schoolchildren saying, “can a man be mayor of San Francisco?”

Pelosi accompanied Feinstein’s body on a military plane back from Washington, D.C., earlier this week, along with her daughter Katherine Feinstein and the senator’s chief of staff, James Sauls.

On Thursday, Pelosi, a longtime San Francisco neighbor of the Senator, said Feinstein lived, and died, on her own terms — and recalled her as not only a stateswoman, but a friend.

On Wednesday, Feinstein laid in state inside City Hall, where members of the public mourned alongside political leaders to pay their respects.

A granddaughter’s farewell

Thursday’s memorial was closed out by Feinstein’s granddaughter, Eileen Mariano.

“To me, she will be remembered as the most incredible grandmother. Minutes after I was born at the hospital, she exclaimed to my mom and dad, ‘Oh wow, she looks just like me! You should change her name to Dianne,'” Mariano said.

For her entire life, Mariano said she enjoyed an “effortless connection” with her grandmother. Feinstein sketched flowers with her granddaughter, cut her hair and would teach her about San Francisco history.

“At the end of the day, we would curl up, close on the couch, and watch a movie or our favorite TV show. And when it was time to go to sleep, she would say goodnight and she would always sing me the song ‘You Are My Sunshine,'” Mariano said.

“Your family loves you. We are so proud of you. We miss you. And you will always, always be my sunshine,” Mariano said.

The late Senator will be buried at a private funeral later today, according to Feinstein’s office.

Watch the funeral

Just off the 405 freeway at the border of Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, a block down from IKEA and a couple of business parks over, you'll find Darkroom.

It's the kind of address where you'd expect to find a dentist's office or a logistics company — instead, it's home to some of the most inventive food in Orange County, and arguably beyond, anchored by a formidable wine program featuring small producers.

The location is a deliberate choice by Zach Scherer, Darkroom’s chef-owner, that has turned the restaurant into a growing word-of-mouth destination. For Scherer, hiding in plain sight was never a compromise. It was the plan.

Inside Darkroom

The interior of the restaurant is a completely different story. Its decor matches that of an angsty teenager who shops at Hot Topic, with an affinity for industrial and goth music, and a bit of new wave mixed in.

Darkroom's interior leans into its irreverent, gallery-meets-Hot Topic aesthetic.

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Your eyes might take a minute to adjust to the low light before a friendly server wearing a tattered band T-shirt greets you and escorts you to your table.

Scherer wears his nonconformist attitude with pride — and intention. "If you're a little too serious, Orange County won't love it," he said, and it shows: the room is built to feel like the opposite of a hushed tasting menu.

Chef Zach Scherer (right) and Drew Adams work the pass together — the same partnership they describe as "like a band."

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Scherer runs the kitchen with longtime partner Drew Adams — a lifelong Orange County resident — who also oversees the pastry program. The two think of Darkroom's identity "like a band," Scherer said: a shared core sound, no matter who's guesting on a given dish. (Their tasting-menu concept, Chrysalis, runs out of the same kitchen some nights — a five-course tasting menu happening in parallel.)

The menu

Start off with the Scotch olives, fried Castelvetrano olives with anchovy and lamb merguez, served over spiced sumac yogurt. Meanwhile, a couple of slices of their zucchini bread with koji butter, topped with silky jamón serrano, provide some comforting bites.

Grilled and marinated Jimmy Nardello peppers — a short-season ingredient the kitchen deliberately doesn't overwork.

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From there, seasonal produce takes center stage, with grilled, marinated Jimmy Nardello peppers served with fennel-pollen labneh and sprinkled with walnut dukkah, hitting equal notes of sweet, spicy, nutty, and fresh. Followed by honeynut squash from Weiser Farms — poached in a light broth known as nage, made with bits of country ham and horseradish, topped with rainbow chard, a dish that reads Southern-meets-European.

The Darkroom burger, cut in two — only 10 are made a night.

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Cap things off with The Darkroom burger, cut in half, made with dry-aged beef, molten Comté cheese, and gooey caramelized onions, served between soft, glossy brioche-style buns, swimming in a light au poivre bath. It's a dish that, like the others, exhibits strong technique but still wears its fun on its sleeve — all the makings of a truly memorable meal.

The philosophy

Scherer's goal is to make the Orange County food scene nationally competitive with San Francisco, New York, and Chicago — and the seasonal fluency on display that night, from summer's last Jimmy Nardellos to fall's first honeynut squash, is the technical proof behind that claim.

The fried Scotch olives — Castelvetranos stuffed with anchovy and lamb merguez, set over sumac yogurt.

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The menu's dynamic approach — its ability to oscillate between cuisines — reflects that same nonconformist identity, reinforcing the idea that the food doesn't take itself too seriously, just like the space around it.

Scherer's ambitions don't stop at Darkroom's walls; he's also developing Three Eyed Tiger, a cocktail-forward concept nearby.

"The food we're making now is the food that I'm the most proud of, because it really shows our identity," said Scherer.

A San Bernardino County Superior Court judge on Tuesday rejected Chino Valley Unified School District’s request to dissolve an injunction blocking its policy requiring employees to notify parents when students identify as transgender or use different names or pronouns at school.

Judge Michael Sachs upheld his 2024 injunction blocking Chino Valley Unified from enforcing a policy the school board adopted in 2023. The policy required district employees to notify parents within three days if their student asked to go by a name or pronoun different from official school records or join a sex-segregated program, such as athletics, that did not correspond to those records.

The school district had asked Sachs to overturn a permanent injunction after the U.S. Supreme Court issued an emergency docket ruling in a separate case, Mirabelli v. Bonta. The district argued that the ruling affirmed parents’ constitutional right to be informed about information critical to their children’s health and well-being.

Sachs rejected the request, saying his injunction does not conflict with the Supreme Court’s ruling. During Tuesday’s hearing, he distinguished between the two cases, saying the school policy at issue in the Mirabelli case required school employees to withhold information from parents when asked.

“The school’s policy essentially mandated that staff lie to the parent about their child, and the court did not accept that,” Sachs said of Mirabelli v. Bonta.

The Chino case involves a different question: whether school employees can be required to disclose a child’s gender identity to their parents.

“There is no mandatory duty for the school district to voluntarily release information about the student,” Sachs said in court.

Chino Valley Unified was disappointed by the ruling, said Emily Rae, the district’s attorney and president of the California Justice Center, a conservative legal nonprofit focused on protecting individual liberty.

“The main problem is that it puts the burden on parents to know whether they’re having a secret kept from them,” Rae said.

Rae said Sachs’ ruling misinterpreted the Mirabelli opinion, which she said made clear that schools should not withhold information from parents. She said it was too soon to say whether the district would appeal the ruling or make changes to any of its policies.

Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified school board and a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, also criticized the ruling. In an interview with EdSource, she called the proceedings a “kangaroo court” that has caused “so much confusion.”

Shaw said she planned to ask the superintendent whether the district could ask all parents to check a box: “Do you want secrets to be held from you?”

“They shouldn’t have to do that,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s insane we have to go through all these hoops to uphold a parent’s right to know.”

Christine Parker, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said the ruling was consistent with the Supreme Court’s order in Mirabelli v. Bonta and other applicable law.

“The court got it right: Blanket policies like Chino Valley USD’s, in which school employees must — in all circumstances — disclose a student’s gender identity to their parents, remain unlawful in California,” Parker said in a statement to EdSource.

Another pending case referenced in Tuesday’s proceedings was the City of Huntington Beach v. Newsom, which hinged on a dispute over AB 1955, known as the SAFETY Act. The law, signed by Newsom in 2024, bars school districts from requiring staff to disclose a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to parents. It went into effect before the injunction in the Chino Valley Unified case.

In the wake of the Mirabelli v. Bonta case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary injunction for parents in the City of Huntington Beach v. Newsom who sued to block enforcement of the SAFETY Act.

This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.1 struck near Compton Thursday afternoon and was felt in Downey, Long Beach and surrounding areas.

No damage would be expected from a quake with that level of shaking, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A number of small earthquakes northeast of today's were felt earlier this month.

We have earthquake resources

We don't want to scare you, but the Big One is coming. We don't know when, but we know it'll be at least 44 times stronger than Northridge and 11 times stronger than the Ridgecrest quakes in 2019. To help you get prepared, we've compiled a handy reading list:

• Your guide to surviving the Big One
• For earthquakes, forget the 'go-bag.' Here's how to prepare
• How to not get life-threatening diarrhea after a major earthquake
• 10 earthquake-related questions to ask your landlord immediately
• How to prepare for an earthquake if you have a disability

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