Kristin Smart's killer appeals his sentence

Author

Carly Heltzel
October 10, 2025

Good morning. It’s Friday, and I’m reading about the hair museum that just closed down, scattering its locks across the country. Onto the five Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

Paul Flores, the man who was convicted of killing Cal Poly freshman Kristin Smart in 1996, appealed his first degree murder conviction, presenting oral arguments yesterday. He argued that a juror who should have been excused was allowed to serve, that testimony from two women alleging Flores raped them should have been excluded and that the jury was incorrectly instructed on the legal definition of attempted rape. He’s currently serving 25 years to life in prison.

2.

Cal Poly’s International Center moved to Kennedy Library along with a slough of other centers and classrooms on campus. The university hopes to consolidate student-facing service centers to make them more accessible. “I didn’t know where it was before,” one student said of the center. “But now I’m fully aware and it’s very accessible to me.”

3.

California’s school lunches will no longer serve certain ultra-processed foods after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill banning them from distribution in schools. While the legislation was just passed, the rules won’t go into effect until schools are required to start phasing them out in 2029 — they will be fully banned by July 2035. The law is the first of its kind in the U.S.

4.

Former Rep. Katie Porter, a frontrunner for the 2026 gubernatorial race to replace Newsom, has been consumed by controversy after a contentious interview with a CBS News investigative reporter. She’s received blowback from the argumentative nature of the interview and threatening to walk out of it in the middle. She said she didn’t need to court Republican voters to win office even if she was running again another Democratic candidate.

5.

Cal Poly’s rose float-building team just shipped off the float to Pomona for the other Cal Poly to finish up the magic. SLO’s half of the team was tasked with building individual sections of the float, titled “Jungle Jumpstart,” while Pomona’s students will assemble them in the next 12 weeks. The float will be shown at the Rose Parade in Pasadena on Jan. 1.