Good morning. It’s Tuesday, and I’m reading about how Fresno State’s basketball team just lost its two best players to a gambling probe. Onto the five Cal Poly, SLO and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

The CSU probably won’t eliminate DEI. A letter from the Department of Education earlier this month demanded that all schools eliminate DEI programs from all aspects of student life or risk having federal funding pulled, leaving universities and K-12 districts in a headspin. Everyone seems to be awaiting the CSU and UC leaders’ responses. The CSU Chancellor has not directly addressed the DOE letter, but a week beforehand she sent an email saying that CSU “will turn to and uphold our core values” in the face of President Trump’s executive orders.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez / LAist

2.

At the rate a judge wants to release water from Lopez Lake, in a drought year, 45,000 SLO County residents would run out of drinking water, a SLO County supervisor said. But we’re not in a drought year. And environmental groups say the claims are “false and fear-mongering.” The new release schedule was approved by a judge in December to support the migration of the endangered steelhead trout. But above all, one state senator warned both sides that the issue is not worth losing “precious time and resources in a drawn-out legal battle.”

Stephanie Zappelli / The Tribune

3.

A judge told the SLO County DA — and a defense lawyer team — to shut up. After the DA posted a series of complaints on social media alleging a judge was giving special treatment to a probation officer accused of embezzlement, the defense team filed, then withdrew, a gag order on him. Now, no one can comment on the case or post on social media about it. The judge agreed that the social media rants and subsequent comment replies were protected by the DA’s first amendment rights and that every person has a right to an unbiased trial, but most of all, he preferred that everyone just… shhh.

Chloe Jones / The Tribune

4.

Parents are suing an AI chatbot after it allegedly told their teens how to harm themselves, engaged in sexual exchanges with kids as young as 11 and told one 14-year-old to “come home” moments before he killed himself. The platform, Character.AI, allows users to customize their chatbot’s identity and personality, forcing lawyers to confront the question: who’s responsible for the resulting content, creators or users? Character.AI said it has safeguards against that kind of content, but there are too many loopholes and subtleties which create a “dangerous” product, parents say.

Queenie Wong / Los Angeles Times

5.

One guy said he’s spent $14,000 on Waymo’s robotaxis since their public SF takeover in June. The driverless cars now make up 22% of the city’s ride-hailing market, with some users so dedicated to the service they’ll use it for everything from climbing a steep-looking hill to avoiding the “drunk or tired” regular rideshare drivers. But it seems like the broadest appeal is to introverts who prefer to redirect a robot than a person or feel pressure with a real person “to keep coming up with stuff just to keep the vibe going” in their Ubers.

Ezra Wallach / The San Francisco Standard