California To Spend $239 Million Turning San Quentin Into "Scandinavian-Style Rehab Center"
California To Spend $239 Million Turning San Quentin Into "Scandinavian-Style Rehab Center"
California is spending $239 million to transform San Quentin State Prison into what Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office once called the state’s “most notorious prison” into a Scandinavian-style rehabilitation center. Construction is set to finish in January 2026, with the first incarcerated people moving in soon after, https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/san-quentin-rehabilitation-scandinavia-20240530.php
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The Chronicle https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/san-quentin-rehabilitation-scandinavia-20240530.php
that the plan dates back to Newsom’s 2018 election, when he halted executions, began dismantling Death Row, and ordered transfers of San Quentin inmates. In 2023, he unveiled a full-scale conversion into a Nordic-inspired campus aimed at preparing prisoners for life outside.
Modeled after systems in Norway, Denmark, and other Nordic countries, the project emphasizes rehabilitation through work, education, and “normalizing spaces” such as a self-service grocery store, café, farmers market, and podcast studio. Prisoners will have single rooms, reducing San Quentin’s population from 3,400 to about 2,400.
“The holistic initiative leverages international, data-backed best practices to improve the well-being of those who live and work at state prisons,” said Todd Javernick, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He added the goal is “creating safer communities and a better life for all Californians, by breaking cycles of crime for the incarcerated population, while improving workplace conditions for institution staff.”
The state hired Danish architecture firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen and convened an advisory council of reform advocates, which recommended measures like making “good nutrition foundational to the San Quentin experience.”
Supporters hope the California Model will serve as a national blueprint, but critics argue the money should instead go to crime victims. Families of incarcerated people also worry transfers will send loved ones far from spouses and children.
San Quentin has already shifted from maximum to medium security, allowing in prisoners deemed lower-risk. Officials also note that closing Death Row reduces costs, as housing death-sentenced inmates can be twice as expensive.
The redesign includes three new buildings for media production, coding classrooms, a large multipurpose hall, café, and store.
Fri, 09/05/2025 - 17:20
“The holistic initiative leverages international, data-backed best practices to improve the well-being of those who live and work at state prisons,” said Todd Javernick, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He added the goal is “creating safer communities and a better life for all Californians, by breaking cycles of crime for the incarcerated population, while improving workplace conditions for institution staff.”
The state hired Danish architecture firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen and convened an advisory council of reform advocates, which recommended measures like making “good nutrition foundational to the San Quentin experience.”
Supporters hope the California Model will serve as a national blueprint, but critics argue the money should instead go to crime victims. Families of incarcerated people also worry transfers will send loved ones far from spouses and children.
San Quentin has already shifted from maximum to medium security, allowing in prisoners deemed lower-risk. Officials also note that closing Death Row reduces costs, as housing death-sentenced inmates can be twice as expensive.
The redesign includes three new buildings for media production, coding classrooms, a large multipurpose hall, café, and store.
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge
Zero Hedge
California To Spend $239 Million Turning San Quentin Into "Scandinavian-Style Rehab Center" | ZeroHedge
ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
If accurate, or if this scenario comes to fruition it would be a definitive death knell for any future state of Palestine or for a two-state solution, the latter which happens to still be Washington de facto policy, and stretching back historically across several administrations.
Despite occasional protestations from Trump over the ratcheting hunger crisis, or high civilian death toll, the US administration has really done nothing of significant pressure or with teeth to thwart the overwhelmingly destructive Gaza offensive by Israel's military.
The White House has also said nothing, even in terms of caution, concerning to new Netanyahu-ordered offensive which will see ground forces try to take over Gaza City.
President Trump only put the following message out Wednesday on Truth Social: “Tell Hamas to IMMEDIATELY give back all 20 Hostages (Not 2 or 5 or 7!), and things will change rapidly. IT WILL END!”
Essentially he's standing by Netanyahu, who has stated time and again that the war will carry on until it ends with the complete eradication of Hamas, and to ensure it can never return to rule the Strip again.
If there is Israeli annexation of the West Bank, which has long been recognized by the UN and even the US as 'occupied' Palestinian territories, the unraveling of the Abraham Accords would surely follow. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is in charge of the Gaza Strip, and is actually a political rival to Hamas.
The UAE, for example, has already declared that this would be a 'red line' concerning its recently restored relations (in 2020) with Israel.
But here's how 
"We will not stop the war until we defeat this enemy," he emphasized, in line with Prime Minister Netanyahu's priory of inflicting a total military defeat on the Islamist group behind the Oct.7, 2023 terror attack.
Soldiers and tanks were spotted pushing into Sheikh Radwan, one of the urban center's largest and most crowded neighborhoods, on Wednesday - with so far at least 24 Palestinians, some of them children, reported killed across the Gaza Strip.
For nearly two years there have been sprawling tent encampments on the edges of and within Gaza city, housing thousands of displaced, and these have been destroyed in the fresh military assault.
Addressing reservists at Nachshonim base, Zamir continued his his speech, "Hamas will have no place to hide from us. Wherever we locate them, whether they are senior or junior figures – we strike them all, all the time."
He described, "We have already begun the Gaza maneuver. We are already entering places we have never entered before and operating there with courage, strength, valor, and an extraordinary spirit."
The Gaza City assault is expected to worsen the Strip's already horrific internal refugee crisis and food crisis, after the UN and various monitoring groups have confirmed famine in some sectors. Dozens if not hundreds of civilians have already died of starvation.
Interestingly, amid anti-Netanyahu protests in major cities and even near his personal residence, some Israeli reservists are revolting, intentionally failing to report for duty. Haaretz 
Times of Israel is among those outlets framing this as retribution for the growing movement to recognize Palestine. "The small forum will also examine a range of possible responses to the expected wave of Western recognition at the UN later this month, including applying sovereignty over parts of the West Bank," the Tuesday 
But the ruling fell far short of some of the most contentious demands from the US government.
Mehta said Google would not have to divest from Chrome or Android.
"Plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced divesture of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints," Mehta wrote in the Tuesday ruling.
Additionally, Mehta ruled that Google must hand over its search results and some of its data to rival companies
In another win for Google, the judge didn’t bar the company from making payments to third parties for default browser placement.
“Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban,” the judge wrote.
Alphabet shares jumped more than 6% in after-hours trading.
She had also said that "President Trump reassured us that there will be [an] American presence as part of the backstop. That was very clear and repeatedly affirmed."
Indeed Trump had declared immediately after hosting European leaders at the White House last month, "We’re willing to help, especially from the air - because no one has what we have."
However, there still appears to be some distance between Washington and European expectations, with one senior official recently 
Statist policies, crushing taxes, bloated bureaucracy, and a society overtaken by woke ideology have shattered Canada. This is a cautionary tale for those looking at Canada as an ideal living space. If you are asking yourself what living in Canada is like, let me explain: Canada is not a land of fulfilled dreams but of enduring harsh conditions and barely getting by.
As if economic hardships aren’t enough, Canadians are also oppressed by the Orwellian newspeak that woke culture is creating. If you speak your mind, you’re labeled a fascist. If you question social policies, you’re accused of microaggressions.
There are no best places to live in Canada anymore. As a Canadian, I see little chance of Canada becoming livable again. Since I founded 
"In compliance with the laws and national security interests of the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of the upcoming UN General Assembly," a State Department spokesman 
The story centers around the Sixteen Thirty Fund, one of the crown jewels of 
And this time, the pipeline wasn't just about elections, protests, or legislation—it was about directly paying the online voices that shape the political worldview of America's youngest voters.
That "dark money" group, Sixteen Thirty Fund, is Arabella Advisors and is pure Open Society passthrough. Congratulations to Taylor Lorenz for finally catching up to what we've all known for years: that the Democratic party is controlled by Soros. 
And the timing couldn't be more potent. According to Pew Research, over 50% of Americans under 30 say they get their news primarily from social media. Among Gen Z, the number is even higher, with TikTok and Instagram rivaling traditional news outlets as primary sources of information. Combine that with the fact that younger Americans tend to trust influencers more than politicians or journalists, and you begin to understand just how valuable a Soros-funded influencer army really is.
Two of the most prominent figures on the hard-left influencer scene are Taylor Lorenz herself and Hasan Piker. Between them, they embody the cultural energy of the young online left. Yet when it comes to their politics, both are radically anti-Western, openly sympathetic to America's enemies, and fall into the "burn America to the ground" category of the progressive left.
Piker once glorified the 9/11 terrorists. Lorenz routinely amplifies fringe activists and thinks Luigi Mangione is the greatest thing to happen to mankind since sliced bread. Both sit at the center of an online ecosystem that frames nihilism and "death to America" sloganeering as a form of cool, cultural chic.
Both play a key role in mainstreaming hatred for America to young voters.
Now imagine this ethos pumped into classrooms, dorm rooms, and teenage TikTok feeds—not through organic content, but through a dark money-funded pipeline designed to bypass any form of accountability.
That's the real story here: while many Americans are scratching their heads at the state of our politics, wondering why crime rises as prosecutors look away, why borders stay open, why drug decriminalization spreads despite chaos, the answer often traces back to a single man and his bank account. George Soros already bankrolls district attorney races, radical criminal justice reforms, immigration lobbying, "racial justice" organizations, and massive street protests. Now we learn he's also bankrolling the influencers who interpret those same issues for the youngest, most impressionable slice of the electorate.
That should terrify anyone who still believes in transparency, democracy, or the free flow of ideas.
And here's the bitter irony: Taylor Lorenz, a living embodiment of this world, may have finally done her most important piece of journalism, not by accident, but because the truth slipped out in a way that even the left couldn't ignore. She showed us how the sausage is made.
What comes next is the harder question. Will the media class brush this off as "just how politics works"? Or will Americans finally see what's really happening—that their children's politics are being shaped not by authentic cultural voices, but by professionalized operatives on Soros's payroll?
In a nation where young people trust Instagram more than the nightly news, this isn't just clever marketing. It's an engineered future. And unless someone pulls the plug, that future is going to look a lot like the worst instincts of the radical left—slickly packaged, algorithmically boosted, and secretly funded by a billionaire class that pretends to hate billionaires.
Ng expects four new iPhone models to be launched at the beginning of the iPhone 17 cycle:
iPhone 17 (base);
iPhone 17 "Air" (replacing the Plus model);
iPhone 17 Pro; and
iPhone 17 Pro Max.
So, what's really changing with the new iPhone? Good question. The analyst provides some thoughts:
First, the iPhone 17 series will reportedly feature a variety of different form factor changes (Exhibit 1). For one, Apple should debut the first iPhone 17 "Air" model (which should replace the iPhone "Plus" model), featuring a thinner and lighter form factor relative to other iPhone models, with a display size between that of the 17 Pro (6.3") and 17 Pro Max (6.9"). In addition, the iPhone 17 base model display size should now measure 6.3" (v. 6.1" in the base iPhone 16 model), now equal to that of Pro models. Second, the iPhone 17 series should be able to support greater compute intensity, with updated A19 series processor chips and 12 GB of RAM (v. 8GB RAM in the iPhone 16 family). iPhone 17 Pro & Pro Max models should feature premium chip models (likely A19 Pro), and the iPhone 17 (base) and Air models featuring a less advanced chip model (A19 base or less compute intensive A19 Pro). Greater chip power and RAM capacity likely reflects a greater need for compute intensity ahead of upcoming Apple Intelligence feature updates and releases, including the 2026 expected release of AI-enhanced Siri. Third, the iPhone 17 series should see an improved front camera (24 MP v. 12 MP in the iPhone 16 family).
Thoughts on pricing:
Though it has been reported that Apple could raise prices by $50 across its iPhone 17 line up, we expect pricing for iPhone 17 (base) and Pro Max models to be in-line with that of preceding models ($799 128GB base model starting price; $1,199 256GB Pro Max starting price). That said, we believe Apple could implicitly raise prices on the Pro model, in-line with recent reports. While the iPhone 16 Pro started at 128GB at $999, we believe Apple could raise prices by eliminating the 128 GB storage option, moving 17 Pro starting storage and price to 256 GB and $1,099. This would be similar to how Apple raised prices on Pro Max models in 2023 during the launch of the iPhone 15 series, when it eliminated the $1,099 128 GB storage option for the iPhone 15 Pro Max, moving the Pro Max model's starting storage and price to 256 GB and $1,199. We expect iPhone 17 Air pricing to be relatively in-line with the iPhone 16 Plus ($899), due to its specialized thin form factor yet reported inferior battery capacity and single-lens back camera.
And what does the new iPhone mean for Apple's revenue growth? Well, Ng has that topic covered as well:
Overall, we view the iPhone 17 line-up as supportive of sustaining iPhone revenue growth from F2025 into F2026 (GSe iPhone revenue growth estimates for +5% yoy in F2025E, +7% yoy in F2026E). First, from a demand standpoint, we view updates including larger screen sizes on the 17 base model, improved front-cameras, and improved processor chip power as supportive of device refresh, particularly amongst members of the iPhone installed base with devices that are aging (>3 years since purchase) or that do not support Apple Intelligence (devices less powerful than iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max) ahead of the launch of additional AI features in the coming year (AI-enhanced Siri). Second, from a price perspective, we view the potential for an implicit iPhone price increase through eliminating the 128GB $999 Pro model option as supportive of ASP uplift over time, particularly as the iPhone shipments skew increasingly premium over time (Exhibit 5). We are mixed on the benefits of the iPhone 17 Air model. While the thinner, lighter form factor may drive some demand interest, potential features such as an inferior battery & a single lens rear camera (vs. base model with 2 lenses & better camera) may not justify a purchase over the iPhone 17 base model.
Summary of key changes expected in iPhone 17 series
iPhone announcement event has not historically been a stock catalyst for outperformance/underperformance
Promotional activity among US carriers for iPhones
iPhone 17 pricing
iPhone revenue forecast
Remaining product pipeline
How "Awe Dropping" will this upcoming launch event be if the iPhone 17 still looks the same as previous iPhone models?