By MIKHAIL ZINSHTEYN, CalMatters

Cal Poly Pomona postponed its annual fall job fair this week after students, alumni and community members criticized its inclusion of Customs and Border Protection as an in-person recruiter, underscoring the heightened sensitivity about immigration agencies on college campuses this fall.

The interim president of the Los Angeles County campus with nearly 28,000 students — the majority of whom are Latino — said leadership responded to the criticism and decided to rethink their approach to job fairs.

“We have listened carefully and are leveraging this input to design career programming this fall that is more personal and better tailored to the evolving needs of our students and to workforce demands,” said Iris S. Levine in a public letter Monday. “I want to thank those of you who reached out and shared your perspectives with honesty and passion,” she added. Tracee Passeggi, the career center director at Cal Poly Pomona, said she received 200 to 250 emails between late Thursday and Monday protesting the presence of immigration law enforcement at the job fair.

In the days leading up to the postponement, social media swirled with rumors that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be among the employers at the September job fair, something the campus said is not true in a Tuesday FAQ. “FYI @calpolypomona invited ICE to come and recruit at a job fair on September 18th from 10:30am-2:30pm. Even when calling themselves a HSI (Hispanic serving institution). Stand up against the racial profiling and ICE bounty hunters. Contact: Career@cpp.edu, President@cpp.edu, Admin_affairs@cpp.edu,” read one message from a poster on the campus’s main Facebook page on Sunday. More than 106,000 employers share job updates on the Cal Poly Pomona career portal called Handshake, a common software tool among college campuses. Both Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection are in the system and receive updates about campus career events. But ICE has never taken part in a career fair, the FAQ said.

Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection, the multi-pronged agency that oversees Border Patrol, a law enforcement agency that’s conducted immigration raids in California, was among the roughly 200 employers registered for the career fair slated Sept. 18-19 and has participated in almost every job fair at the campus since 2017. Billy Gallagher, the faculty union senior field representative at Cal Poly Pomona, said the hyper-vigilance about immigration law enforcement on the campus makes sense, especially given that judges have faulted the agencies for using racial criteria in their arrests in the Los Angeles area. The federal government under the current Trump administration has appealed a preliminary injunction from a district judge to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“There’ve been arrests, U.S. citizens swept up. At this point, it’s hard to tell even who’s who in some of these raids, so there was definitely concern among faculty for sure,” Gallagher said, adding that officers at both Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have led immigration raids in California. Most of the students on campus are Latino, he also noted.

Career fair postponed, not cancelled

The campus doesn’t have a new date for the career fair, said Passeggi of the career center, but she aims to finalize those plans by late September, she said in an interview. The postponed career fair was technically two events on consecutive days, and Customs and Border Protection was scheduled to appear on just one of those days with some 80 other employers.

Still, both dates were postponed. Passeggi said her team will use the opportunity to organize the fairs in new ways. What that means, she doesn’t know yet, but she pointed to the job fairs for the school’s hospitality and education majors that are smaller and subject-specific. Each event includes 200 students and 35 employers. The postponed event usually draws more than 1,500 students. It’s also outside and exposed to the elements on hot or, in the spring, possibly rainy days. She’s unsure if the redesigned fairs will be virtual or in-person. “We have received some feedback from students saying that they were disappointed that the career fair was canceled,” she said, noting that her office was battling two types of misinformation: that the fair was called off and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was among the employers. Neither is true. The Career Center will still support students seeking to connect with employers and organize internships, she said. With much of the email and social media blowback occurring over the weekend, she thinks the campus leadership rallied fast. “We moved as quickly as we could” in a transparent manner, she said, pointing to the FAQ and letter from the president. Nonetheless, “I can definitely hear where our community is coming from,” she said.

Faculty, student perspectives

The campus’ response to the outcry was sensible, said Mario Guerrero, a professor at Cal Poly Pomona who is chair of the university’s Political Science Department. “I think it speaks volumes about (Levine’s) leadership and being able to hear what folks were saying, but also respond appropriately. It’s a super delicate situation for fairly obvious reasons,” he said. “Even reading the comments now, people are still unhappy, and that’s always going to be part of it, but at least you know you can point to leadership being able to make proactive moves to protect the students however they can.” Guerrero also thinks that the worry over immigration law enforcement as an employer at a job fair tapped into wider fears about those federal agents entering campus and arresting students, faculty or staff. On Instagram, a student group that’s a subsidiary of the faculty union and that has chapters across multiple Cal State campuses, criticized Cal Poly Pomona for writing that it cannot bar employers from participating in its job fair because it is a public university. “Disappointed once again in administration, ignoring the safety and needs of their campus population — while claiming their hands are tied,” read the text on an Instagram Story posted earlier this week.

The campus administration was “getting pretty pummeled by students,” Gallagher said, and he’s “certainly hoping that the (Cal Poly Pomona) administration continues to listen to students.”

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Campus staff limited if federal immigration officers enter campus

The California Faculty Association, the systemwide faculty union, published in January a list of demands to California State University leadership that seeks to block federal agents from conducting immigration law enforcement on campus. The demands, updated in July, included blocking those agencies from participating in job fairs.

But as a public system, Cal State University campuses cannot limit who enters their sites. Cal Poly Pomona administrators said as much in a February email to staff: “CSU is a public university, and a large portion of CSU property is open to the general public. The areas on campus that are open to the general public, like the campus quad and walkways, are also open to federal immigration enforcement officers.” The notice said that immigration officers cannot enter areas that aren’t open to the general public, such as classrooms that are in session and residence halls — “unless the officer presents a valid judicial warrant or declares that exigent circumstances exist.”

However, the guidance says that staff and faculty do not need to divulge any information. The campus appointed an administrator to deal with immigration law enforcement. The guidance says personnel should “respectfully inform the officer that you lack authority but will immediately contact” the designated administrator. If that person isn’t available, personnel should contact campus police or campus legal counsel.

The University of California has similar guidance and stresses that hiding evidence or individuals violates federal law. So does interfering with an arrest. “Further, you should not put yourself in physical danger,” UC’s guidance says. Cal State University spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith didn’t answer CalMatters’ questions about whether other campuses invited immigration law enforcement agencies to job fairs. But in an email, she wrote that campuses should try to “mitigate” community concerns about those agencies appearing on site. “That can include informing key stakeholders, like Dream Center coordinators, of the dates and times when” immigration law enforcement are on campus, she wrote.

This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

Award-winning artisan chocolate shop St. Croix Chocolate Company has been sold.

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Founders Robyn Dochterman and Deidre Pope have sold the Marine on St. Croix business to Jason Moldan of St. Paul, who will take over as head chocolatier and owner in September.

“We had our pick of potential buyers, and we feel very confident Jason will continue St. Croix Chocolate Company’s 15-year legacy of excellence,” Dochterman said in a news release. “He has skills. He has vision. He has the right combination of genuine care for people, craft, and energy. In short, he’s a great match for the chocolate shop and our amazing community.”

Moldan is a retired sergeant major in the U.S. Army Reserve and former tech worker who discovered chocolate making during the COVID-19 pandemic. He established The Chocolate Lab, producing small-batch chocolates and teaching classes at Cooks of Crocus Hill.

“What began as a hobby quickly became an obsession,” Moldan said in the release. “I immersed myself in mastering techniques, sourcing the best ingredients and experimenting with flavors. I’m honored to carry forward the tradition Robyn and Deidre built, while bringing my own creativity to the shop.”

Dochterman, who was a journalist at the Star Tribune prior to establishing St. Croix Chocolate Company with Pope in 2010, has been struggling with arthritis and tendinitis in her hands for several years.

She and Pope, who runs the customer and sales side of the business, will plant and tend a chestnut orchard near their home in the St. Croix Valley.

Dochterman and Pope will be in the shop with Moldan for meet-and-greets from noon to 2 p.m. Sept. 6 and from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 18. If you can’t make it, they’ve set up an online memory book on their website where you can share your stories about the shop.

St. Croix Chocolate Company: 261 Parker St., Marine on St. Croix; 651-433-1400; stcroixchocolateco.com

 

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage slipped this week to its lowest level in 10 months, but remains close to where it’s been in recent weeks.

The long-term rate eased to 6.56% from 6.58% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.35%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, were unchanged from last week. The average rate held steady at 5.69%. A year ago, it was 5.51%, Freddie Mac said.

Elevated mortgage rates have added to a slump in the U.S. housing market that began in early 2022, when rates began climbing from pandemic lows.

For much of the year, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage has hovered relatively close to its 2025 high of just above 7%, set in mid-January. It’s has mostly trended lower six weeks in a row and is now at the lowest level since Oct. 24, when it averaged 6.54%.

The recent downward trend in mortgage rates bodes well for prospective homebuyers who have been held back by stubbornly high home financing costs. But it has yet to translate into a turnaround for home sales, which have remained sluggish this year after sinking in 2024 to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.

Economists generally expect the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to remain near the mid-6% range this year.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation.

The main barometer is the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. The yield was at 4.21% at midday Thursday, down from 4.24% late Wednesday.

The yield has been mostly easing since mid-July as bond traders weighed data on inflation, the job market and how the potential economic impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs may influence the Fed’s interest rate policy moves.

In a high-profile speech last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled the central bank may cut rates soon even as inflation risks remain elevated.

Powell noted that there are risks of both rising unemployment and stubbornly higher inflation, and suggested that with hiring sluggish, the job market could weaken further. That could warrant the Fed adjusting its “policy stance,” he said.

The central bank has so far been hesitant to cut interest rates out of fear that Trump’s tariffs could push inflation higher, but data showing hiring slowed last month have fueled speculation that the Fed will cut its main short-term interest rate next month.

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The Fed doesn’t set mortgage rates. And while a Fed rate cut could give the job market and overall economy a boost, it could also fuel inflation. That could push bond yields higher, driving mortgage rates upward in turn.

“While the Fed is likely to cut interest rates at their September meeting, it is not at all certain that mortgage rates are going to come down,” said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS. “As a result, buyers and sellers are still going to be cautious and the market could remain gridlocked this fall.”

New data on contract signings suggest home sales could remain sluggish in the near term.

A seasonally adjusted index of pending U.S. home sales fell 0.4% in July from the previous month, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday. Pending home sales rose 0.7% from July last year.

There’s usually a month or two lag between a contract signing and when the sale is finalized, which makes pending home sales a bellwether for future completed home sales.

By GERALD HERBERT and TED ANTHONY, Associated Press

The power of place is real.

In an increasingly virtual world, the physical spots where momentous things happened remain potent — and able to evoke some of our deepest-cutting moments.

That was the thinking behind these photos from New Orleans on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. By projecting images of places at some of their worst moments onto the way those places and neighborhoods appear now, something of a rudimentary visual time machine emerges.

The photos haunt. They bring back the chaos and fear of those jumbled days two decades ago. Images of moments captured and gone — water pushing up against buildings, makeshift memorials, empty roads with the projection of the days when people were using them in desperate bids to get out.

In one frame, the wreckage and rubble outside a house in 2005 is projected, at night, against the house as it stands today. In another, a woman, huddled up, wrapped in an American flag, braces herself against the elements and the world around him. Today, projected against a building, it is a phantom portal into another era.

Photography freezes and preserves moments. By having those moments touch time — reappearing in the city, in the spots where they happened in the first place — the power of the photos is magnified.

Remembering history is grounded in summoning the past in vivid and relevant ways. By bringing August 2005 in New Orleans to August 2025, a generation later, these photos show not only what disaster looked like, but what recovery and moving on look like as well.

This photo of a man pushing his bicycle through floodwaters near the Superdome in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Eric Gay, is projected Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, onto the same spot in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of a makeshift tomb at a New Orleans street corner, concealing a body that had been lying on the sidewalk for days in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Dave Martin, is projected onto the same sidewalk Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo showing throngs of New Orleans residents gathering at a evacuation staging area along Interstate 10 in Metairie, La., in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Dave Martin, is projected Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, onto the same roadway. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of a New Orleans resident walking through floodwaters coated with a fine layer of oil in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Bill Haber, is projected Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, in New Orleans, underneath the same overpass where photo was made. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of people taking goods from stores on Canal Street in downtown New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Eric Gay, is projected Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, onto a storefront in the same location. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of Milvertha Hendricks, 84, waiting in the rain with other flood victims outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, taken by AP photographer Eric Gay, is projected Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, next to statues of the king and queen of Mardi Gras next to the center. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of receding floodwaters leaving their mark on a house and automobile on Orleans Avenue in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Ric Francis, is projected Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, onto the same house. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of Valerie Thomas and her nieces Shante Fletcher, 6, and Sarine Fletcher, 11, viewing the destruction of her brother’s home in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Gerald Herbert, is projected Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, onto the same block, while a heat lightning storm illuminates the clouds. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of a young man wading through chest-deep floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Dave Martin, is projected Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, next to a mural of New Orleans music legend Allen Toussaint, below the overpass where the original photo was made. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo showing the body of a flood victim tied to a telephone pole in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Steve Senne, is projected Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, onto the same spot the original photo was taken. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of a poodle perching itself precariously upon a pile of trash while surrounded by floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Rick Bowmer, is projected Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, onto a house in a neighborhood that was flooded by the storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo of the FEMA markings indicating a deceased victim in the home of Michael Harrison, who died inside during Hurricane Katrina in Bay St. Louis, Miss., taken by AP photographer Gerald Herbert, nephew of Harrison, is projected Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, onto his grave in Pass Christian, Miss. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This photo showing flood victims sitting at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center where they had been waiting for days to be evacuated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, taken by AP photographer Eric Gay, is projected Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, along the Mississippi River behind the convention center. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

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