SLO County parents circulate anti-trans petition

Author

Carly Heltzel
April 16, 2025

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, and I’m read about a beloved pet tortoise who was reunited with its family after disappearing in a tornado. Onto the five Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

A group of parents are circulating a petition hoping to force SLO County school districts to adhere to the Trump administration’s anti-transgender executive orders. They want schools to ban trans kids from using locker rooms, ban trans girls from girls’ sports and not recognize transgender identity, claiming that these allowances “violate our children’s civil rights.” Parents behind the petition said they will keep their kids home on April 28 if their demands are not met by then. California state law protects these practices.

2.

SLO County schools have pretty steady vaccination rates, with 94.2% of kindergartners fully vaccinated in 2023-24 school year, and 95.1% and 94.1% the two years prior. This soars above 10 years ago, when only 80-90% of students in the county were fully vaccinated. And, amid measles outbreaks in other parts of the country, the districts that provided measles-specific data have slightly higher rates for the measles vaccine. School officials said the most common being an allergic reaction to the vaccine. 

3.

California said it will sue the Trump administration for “unlawfully” imposing blanket tariffs on goods imported to the U.S., lead by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The lawsuit centers around the powers of an Act that Trump said gave him the power to unilaterally impose tariffs. Newsom is arguing that he needs congressional approval. The state’s two-way trade last year was worth $675 billion. “This game the President is playing has very real consequences for Californians,” the state attorney general said.

4.

The Bay Area now has the most billionaires of anywhere in the world. Some 82 billionaires live in the region, surpassing No. 2 New York City with 66 billionaires. The Bay could be considered a special case too: over the past decade there was a 98% increase in billionaires, a high tech phenomenon unthinkable to the 1970s orchard farmers that used to inhabit Silicon Valley. The wealth goes deep, too, with 756 people worth more than $100 million and over 342,400 millionaires.

5.

For any 1/16th Italians out there hoping to claim the national identity, or the passport, you might just be out of luck. Italy shut down their “jus sanguinis” or “right of blood” program that allowed anyone who could prove a relative of theirs immigrated from Italy after its modern formation in 1861 to apply for citizenship. Italian consulates got so clogged up with passport-hungry vacationers and E.U.-hopeful retirees that lawyers began a campaign against the “highly illegitimate and unconstitutional” practice. If you have an Italian parent or grandparent, you still qualify, though.