iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

My mom acted in commercials in the 70s/80s & did one with an unknown child actor who was also auditioning for the lead in the upcoming “Annie” movie. The girl was fully convinced she’d be cast—& her mom worried about her getting her hopes up, given how wide the casting search. It was Aileen Quinn.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I wish I didn’t have such a lousy news peg for these job postings just about every time — but if anybody just caught up in the new McClatchy layoffs is looking for their next move, well… >>

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

…and here’s the San Diego communities reporter job listing: myworkdaycenter.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/MNG/jo... Whether you’re interested in one of the 2 jobs or know somebody who might be, please apply & share! And reach out with any questions.

myworkdaycenter.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com

Reporter

Summary: The San Diego Union-Tribune is seeking an ambitious, resourceful, thoughtful and tenacious reporter to cover and serve the diverse communities of California’s second-largest city and beyond. ...

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Journalism job alert: I’m hiring two reporters at the @sandiegouniontribune.com — one to cover San Diego communities (this is a great beat) and one focused on investigative and enterprise reporting with our watchdog team. Here’s the watchdog job… myworkdaycenter.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/MNG/jo...

myworkdaycenter.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com

Reporter

Summary: The San Diego Union-Tribune is seeking an ambitious, accomplished, and tenacious reporter to join its Watchdog team and hold power to account in California’s second-largest city and beyond. T...

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Fair! I bet Haagen-Dasz would be almost as good, tbh

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I ate ayva tatlisi once in Istanbul years ago, & it was so incredible I’ve sought out quinces since to make it. You poach them for a long time till they’re sort of candied. Kaymak is key — it can be hard to find, but I think I got it at NetCost (also Gulluoglu). www.tasteatlas.com/ayva-tatlisi...

tasteatlas.com

Ayva Tatlısı Authentic Recipe | TasteAtlas

Traditional recipe for Ayva tatlısı. This is the traditional ayva tatlisi recipe

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

And of course as newsrooms shrink, remaining staff are under pressure to do far more with those resources, with less institutional knowledge handy to help. Plus gov’t is far less available to us, refusing interviews, insisting on emailed questions & pushing everything into official records requests.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Absolutely, even for staffers! Just a few years ago, our paper had a librarian (a godsend for archival research), powerful subscriptions to data & records services (& papers), data journalists to consult, a robust copy desk that fact checked—hell, a company car to drive when one’s job required it…

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

“It’s the old standard that worked perfectly fine before the transphobic panic … This policy will keep bad-faith attention-seekers at bay without giving the anti-trans activists what they want: an official definition of womanhood that doesn't include trans women & a full ban on trans women players.”

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John Schwartz @jswatz.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Bigotry and persecution against people serving honorably. “It’s in a lot of ways a public humiliation ritual,” Ms. Rashid said in an interview. “Going in, I had hoped I was paranoid, and boards’ outcomes were not predetermined. It turned out to be much worse than I thought.”

nytimes.com

Inside the Secretive Boards Deciding Trans Troops’ Fate (Gift Article)

The Pentagon is relying on closed-door hearings to kick out transgender service members. An Army Reserve lawyer is one of the few who have seen how they really work.

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Reposted by Sam Schulz

Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Great piece from @mattdpearce.com on why America has less community than ever, especially on the left: People don't like the downsides of tight-knit groups. mattdpearce.substack.com/p/how-much-c...

mattdpearce.substack.com

What if people just prefer bowling alone?

Civic renewal in the isolation of American democracy.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Meanwhile, in San Diego, where a number of people have died in jail in isolation cells, these high schoolers are bringing the fight against solitary in county jails to their sheriff and other elected officials: www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/07/15/t...

sandiegouniontribune.com

The teen activists working to end solitary confinement in San Diego County

‘We do want a fundamental restructuring,’ says the founder of Youth to End Solitary SD. His group will sit down Wednesday with Sheriff Kelly Martinez.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

"The reversals have validated advocates’ earlier fears about Newsom’s decision to let the prison system handle its own reforms, rather than imposing legislative guardrails. They come at a time of reduced judicial oversight, too." Via @psfrench.bsky.social @boltsmag.org: boltsmag.org/california-d...

boltsmag.org

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back for Solitary Reforms in California - Bolts

California officials dial back the minor reforms they've made to isolation in prison, four years after Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation to rein in solitary confinement.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

…and yeah, definitely the relative affordability. Our rent was about $1k lower than it would be in any of those other cities.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Truly! I’d previously lived in NYC, LA & SD & am moving to Boston; none is any prettier or nicer to walk around than central Sac. In Curtis Park, I was spoiled by massive trees, excellent walkable food spots & people-protecting street infrastructure — bulbouts, bike lanes, medians in crosswalks…

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Hi, longtime follower here. I believe a reporter on my team was trying to reach you earlier but isn’t on Bluesky. DM me with your contact info if you’re up for an interview tomorrow.

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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

A general FYI if you're debating whether or not to email a journalist saying you like their article, email them. Trust me, those who don't like what we write are quick to do so. The compliments are a nice balance.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

I finally understood car washes once I moved from NY to LA. We moved in July & it didn’t rain for our first 4 months. Even in SoCal’s rainy season, there’s rarely anything as torrential as eastern thunderstorms — yet stormwater systems can’t handle it. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2024/01/28/w...

sandiegouniontribune.com

What San Diego is – and isn’t – doing to fix its ‘failing’ stormwater system

When flash flood waters swept into homes and businesses near Chollas Creek last week, not many people should have been surprised — not residents, not activists and certainly not a parade of San Diego ...

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Reposted by Sam Schulz

Nolan Hicks @ndhapple.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Damning detail in here: CBS had managed to secure a visa to get into Iran and Bari opted not to send anyone.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

And he didn’t even knowingly make Ran as a Lear adaptation! The use of color and space in that movie is just stunning.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Yep. When I bought my Subaru Impreza hatchback in 2018, dealers kept trying to upsell me to a Crosstrek. It was $7k more but is literally just an Impreza body a few inches higher (with worse mileage & less ground feel—that floaty SUV feeling makes me carsick). Yet I see far more of them on the road.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

This may underline your point, but the paper’s small editorial board (which is totally separate from the newsroom, of course) reports not to U-T editorial leadership but to opinion editors at SCNG (which may explain why there’s a photo of the LA Metro on a U-T editorial, but that’s just my guess).

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Who should own Liberty Station? San Diego is escalating its war to hang onto the sprawling complex of artist studios, parks, food & retail — even as a developer tries to force it to sell. As for why this is happening? Blame the aftermath of CA's dissolution of redevelopment agencies 14 years ago:

sandiegouniontribune.com

San Diego’s war over Liberty Station is coming to a head. Here’s how the city hopes to win.

The City Council is set to approve complex deals Tuesday that aim to cement city ownership, even as a management company fights to force it to sell.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Interestingly, UCSD says it has no record of any such research going before its IRB. But two mothers of kids who were subjects of the research — which Epstein gave $$ to, but not via the university — told us the neuroscientist conducting it tested their kids on campus. He did not respond to us.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

"I don’t have a problem with my lab being funded by Epstein," one neuroscientist told a colleague. "Thank you for your interest & support," a neurologist wrote Epstein. Epstein's UCSD ties go much deeper than previously reported — & involve funding fringe research with autistic kids, emails show.

sandiegouniontribune.com

UCSD professors wanted money to research telepathy. They turned to Jeffrey Epstein.

‘I don’t have a problem with my lab being funded by Epstein,’ one wrote to another.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Is Darrell Issa's career in Congress over? His seat was redrawn in Dems' favor, his $$ has lagged, he hasn't yet filed, today's the deadline & yesterday, Jim Desmond, the GOP supervisor running in a nearby seat, pulled papers to switch to Issa's. Issa's response: "Don’t owe you anything nothing no."

sandiegouniontribune.com

Jim Desmond moves to run for a different seat in Congress — Darrell Issa’s

The Republican supervisor withdrew from the race in a neighboring district. Issa, a longtime GOP congressman, wouldn’t say if he’s still running for re-election.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

This lawsuit concerns not that law — which wasn't even on the books when the Escondido teachers first sued — but rather a district-level policy that barred teachers from telling parents. The district policy, since changed, was based on state guidance. That state guidance is also no longer.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

First: California law does not bar teachers from telling parents when they think that a kid is trans or gender-nonconforming or that their gender presentation has changed. The only state law on this is one by @chriswardca.bsky.social that only bars districts from REQUIRING schools to tell parents.

sandiegouniontribune.com

Schools can’t be forced to tell parents when students are transgender, new law says

The law from Assemblymember Chris Ward, a Democrat representing San Diego, aims to prevent the ‘forced outing’ of LGBTQ students

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

So many other outlets get this story wrong. Long before the Supreme Court weighed in on Mirabelli v. Olson on its shadow docket, Kristen Taketa's been covering it with care for @sandiegouniontribune.com & getting it right from the beginning. Here's our story. And here's what's gotten missed... 🧵

sandiegouniontribune.com

Supreme Court sides with Escondido teachers in ongoing lawsuit over transgender student privacy, parents’ rights

A federal appeals court is still considering whether parents have a right to be informed of possible changes to their child’s gender.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

This is exciting. The 2 years I lived by the future D extension (when they were tunneling between La Brea & Fairfax), this stretch of Wilshire sorely needed human-scale, integrated transit & public spaces to revive those desolate, highway-like blocks of barely-punctuated facades. So much potential!

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

"These are boutique issues. If you're basing your vote solely on who treats trans people more poorly, you don't really suffer from any real problem ... What the fuck do you mean you're voting for whoever prevents whether some trans 6th grader from playing soccer with her friends?" @katelynburns.com

burnsnotice.com

There Will Never Be a Sista Soulja Moment for Trans Rights

But that won't stop Democrats from trying for it anyway In the midst of the 1992 presidential election, future president Bill Clinton visited Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition conference and delivere...

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

I’ve worn only wool socks for years, & somehow the 4-packs of women’s wool socks from Costco are easily the best everyday (not hiking) socks I’ve ever worn.

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Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

“The U.S. no longer has emission standards of any meaning,” said Margo T. Oge, who served as the E.P.A.’s top vehicle emissions regulator under three presidents and has since advised both automakers and environmental groups… “Nothing. Zero,” she added. “Not many countries have zero.”

nytimes.com

With Latest Rollback, the U.S. Essentially Has No Clean-Car Rules

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Five years! Forbes was extraordinarily lucky to have you for so long. Can’t wait to hear what’s next.

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Tanya Lewis @tanyalewis.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Under RFK, Jr., the CDC's authority has crumbled: it is no longer updating dozens of health databases, and has abandoned vaccine guidelines. But states and governors are trying to fill the void, @laurenjyoung.bsky.social writes @scifri.bsky.social: www.scientificamerican.com/article/stat...

scientificamerican.com

A ‘shadow CDC’ is scrambling to fill gaps in public health data

Dozens of routinely updated CDC databases have gone quiet. Here’s what states and medical societies are doing to preserve U.S. public health

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

It’s fairly new. It jumped out to me because where I’m from, the Office of the Public Advocate is a real citywide elected office.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

“I can’t think of any other way to describe it but an attack on the independence of the judiciary and the International Criminal Court’s independence as an institution.” Prost was sanctioned because she’d ruled to OK an investigation into alleged U.S. war crimes. www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...

irishtimes.com

‘It’s surreal’: US sanctions lock International Criminal Court judge out of daily life

Canadian judge Kimberly Prost is unable to use credit cards, transfer money or book everyday services in what she calls an attack on the independence of the judiciary

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

Speaking of people adjacent to Mae West, how well-established was the current meaning when Cary Grant, clad in a marabou bathrobe, exclaimed “I just went gay all of a sudden” in Bringing Up Baby (1938)?

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

“Cuomo began renting the Sunnyside apartment in 1982 while working as a campaign manager for his father’s run for governor… After his father became governor in 1983, he worked as one of his aides, taking a salary of $1 a year.” How did the son of the then-governor pay his stabilized rent on that?

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Cucina Urbana in Bankers Hill lets kids make their own pizzas. I haven’t been there myself, but I’ve heard good things about the food & liked what the chef’s done elsewhere.

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The Verge @theverge.com · 16/10/2025

Trans rights and the internet itself are in a moment of crisis. What happens next? Our special series, The Future of Being Trans on the Internet, is now live in its entirety. You can check out each piece in our beautiful hub, or join us on a quick scroll 🧵

theverge.com

The future of being trans on the internet

The internet has long been a source of information and support for transgender people. Now, trans rights and the internet itself are in a moment of crisis. What happens next?

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Many issues L4L highlights — related-party transactions, lax oversight by small rural authorizers, entities that run schools avoiding transparency — are familiar for CA charters. But oversight efforts keep failing. Reforms the moratorium aimed to buy time for haven't materialized. It lifts Jan. 1.

sandiegouniontribune.com

In Learn4Life charter school network, millions of taxpayer dollars get spent by one private corporation

Lifelong Learning operates outside state transparency laws, despite its outsize role in managing the schools and despite the millions it reaps in public funding.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

One teacher specifically took issue with the expansion, given these results: “Their model doesn’t work, & it shouldn’t be used elsewhere until it works.” For now, the expansion is only in other states: For 5+ years, CA has banned opening new non-classroom-based charters to buy time to make reforms.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

And as in CA, Learn4Life schools elsewhere graduate fewer kids than other schools with similar populations. L4L schools in CA graduated 29% of students within 5 years, compared to 54% for all alternative high schools. For out-of-state L4L schools, it's 9% to 35%. (L4L takes issue with this metric.)

sandiegouniontribune.com

‘This isn’t right’: Teachers question priorities, track record of Learn4Life charter schools

The network’s model has drawn criticism of its effectiveness, and some teachers described its schools as more focused on funding than on results.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

That adds up: Lifelong Learning’s assets doubled from $18M to $36M in 3 years. It's using them to expand in other states. As in CA, the out-of-state schools' boards are controlled by one entity tied to Lifelong Learning — this one Educational *Improvement* Corp, not Educational Advancement Corp.

sandiegouniontribune.com

In Learn4Life charter school network, millions of taxpayer dollars get spent by one private corporation

Lifelong Learning operates outside state transparency laws, despite its outsize role in managing the schools and despite the millions it reaps in public funding.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

As for the financial benefits, Lifelong Learning takes a cut of each school's revenue — so the more ADA funding schools can get out of students & teachers, the more Lifelong Learning collects. School admins wouldn't say how much they pay Lifelong Learning. But documents suggest 14-15% of revenue.

sandiegouniontribune.com

In Learn4Life charter school network, millions of taxpayer dollars get spent by one private corporation

Lifelong Learning operates outside state transparency laws, despite its outsize role in managing the schools and despite the millions it reaps in public funding.

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Sam Schulz @sam-schulz.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

Watchdogs have warned about such arrangements — in which the client is controlled by a party related to one that financially benefits. (It's a regular issue in CA charter world.) They raise questions of whether school boards are doing what's best for students or for the entity that controls them.

sandiegouniontribune.com

In Learn4Life charter school network, millions of taxpayer dollars get spent by one private corporation

Lifelong Learning operates outside state transparency laws, despite its outsize role in managing the schools and despite the millions it reaps in public funding.

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