Middle Eastern students on DA's reposts

Author

Carly Heltzel
November 17, 2025

Good morning. It’s Monday, and I’m reading about the Central Coast’s very own hot sauce brand: Sauce Baby. Onto the five Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

Middle Eastern Cal Poly students said it was “narrow-minded” and a “horrible message” what SLO County District Attorney Dan Dow reposted, linking NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani to 9/11. One Muslim student said the comment leaves “a little uncertainty in the back of the minds of people like me” when Dow holds such a powerful position in the county, and a Middle Eastern student said the reposts were “not behavior I want to see from someone who makes important decisions in my home.”

2.

SLO is giving $500,000 to its art museum to aid in the expansion and relocation process as the museum takes over three Higuera Street storefronts and converts its current location by Mission Plaza into an art education center. This new space will allow the museum to host larger traveling exhibits while still holding after-school workshops and art classes. One board member said the museum is “a dynamic place where art becomes a bridge.”

3.

Cal Poly Football hasn’t won since September, extending its six game losing streak after its game against Northern Arizona University on Saturday. The Mustangs have one more game left after a season riddled with injuries, close calls and falling short. Cal Poly is so far down in the rankings that there’s no route to the playoffs anymore. 

4.

Fresno isn’t a very well-planned city, experts agree. And a major new development could expand this haphazard sprawled suburbia by building 45,000 homes on “some of the best farmland in the world.” Proponents call it the solution to California’s housing crisis. Opponents call it a money grab. One opponent said the development is a reflection on why Fresno is so poorly planned and will only multiply its problems. “Nobody wants to be here,” he said.

5.

In the immense desert two hours east of San Diego, circles of rocks have puzzled archaeologists for decades. Experts are mostly stumped by the prevalence of the circles, with one counting 500 of them within nine square miles. People placed the rocks four to 12 inches apart in circles eight to 10 feet across, with no purpose evident to experts. The only thing archaeologists have decided upon is the origins are from Native Americans.