• After news broke this month that investment firm Alden Global Capital was acquiring the 168-year-old Santa Rosa Press Democrat, staffers’ fears have been confirmed that the firm is looking to lay off a large number of them. Journalists and other staff got a “voluntary separation agreement” email last week, which they don’t have to take, but it might be their last chance to get any form of severance if more jobs are axed in the future. [SFGate]
• Layoffs are coming to many of California’s biggest amusement parks that are under the umbrella of Six Flags Entertainment, including at Santa Clara’s Great America and Vallejo’s Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. The 135 jobs being eliminated sound like mostly office jobs, but we remind you that in the wake of the sale of Great America, that park will close sometime before 2033. [Chronicle]
• California farmers are angry that they’re not allowed to use autonomous tractors, even though those tractors were invented right here in California. The self-driving tractors are only used in 11 states, and California is not one of them, because of nearly 50-year-old state safety regulations requiring human operators. [NBC Bay Area]
• A Tuesday test launch of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket was not as much of a disaster as the previous two, because the rockets didn’t explode, but they also failed to launch the satellites they were supposed to. [KTVU]
• Amazon just had to do another software recall of its odd-looking Zoox robotaxis after one of the vehicles collided with a scooter in SF. [SF Business Times]
• KQED has a delicious deep-dive into the history of bacon-wrapped hot dog vending in San Francisco, noting that this style of hot dog originated in the Mexican state of Sonora in the 1970s, came here after being popularized as Mexican street food, and is of course now the cause of an SF City Hall crackdown on unlicensed vendors. [KQED]

Image: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom via Facebook