All of the must-read news about the Golden State in one place.
Hi, I’m Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times. I survey more than 100 news sites, then send you a tightly crafted daily digest — no ads, no AI, just essential news.
Each weekday at about 6 a.m., you’ll get an email like this.
Good morning. It’s Monday, Aug. 17.
- Trump voter didn’t think ICE would come for his wife.
- Car break-in numbers plummet in San Francisco.
- And television actress Hayden Panettiere dies at 36.
Statewide
1.
A new poll appeared to spell trouble for supporters of a proposed billionaire tax in California. The survey by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found 48% of likely voters would support Proposition 40, short of a necessary majority. Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director, said undecided voters tend to vote no on ballot propositions: “Usually, for ballot propositions, you want the yes side to be above 50%, and that’s not where it is right now.” L.A. Times | Sacramento Bee
- Silicon Valley’s ultra-rich are pouring extraordinary sums into the fight against the tax, including more than $100 million from Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Bloomberg
2.
Brent Jindra, a tech salesman in Redwood City, voted for President Trump three times, impressed by his aggressive immigration rhetoric. Then last month, ICE agents handcuffed his Russian wife, who has a pending green card, at the Burbank airport. She spent a night on the floor of a cold holding cell and two weeks in a Mojave Desert detention center. Jindra said he no longer considers himself a MAGA patriot. “We are living in fear in my own country,” he said. N.Y. Times
3.
Xavier Becerra says he wants California to be more affordable. He also wants to make health care universally accessible. Yet he’s offered precious few details about how he would achieve those goals after his unexpectedly meteoric rise in the race for governor. Becerra is the presumptive next leader of America’s largest state, Politico Magazine wrote: “So why does no one know what he thinks?”
Northern California
4.
In San Francisco, car break-ins peaked at more than 30,000 reported cases in 2017, and remained above 20,000 for several years during the pandemic. Then there was a dramatic drop-off. In 2025, just 5,380 were reported. Cases this year are on track to fall below 4,000. During a podcast appearance, the San Francisco rapper Dreamllife Rizzy explained what’s going on. “Crime in San Francisco, period, that shit over with, brother,” he said. “They got drones, hella shit.” The police tell a similar story. S.F. Standard
5.
“Who takes care of the caregivers?”
Annie Morgan, a former Oakland Raiders cheerleader living in Rancho Cordova, has spent years caring for her special-needs child. The toll has grown quietly. On the hardest days, Morgan and her husband would retreat to the bathroom at the far end of the house, where they would hold each other and cry. Disturbing thoughts intruded while Morgan drove alone. “I thought, what if I just hit the accelerator and turned the wheel a little …,” she recalled. The Washington Post wrote a powerful piece on the unsustainable burden facing many family caregivers.
- In April, Morgan posted a video on tough school-morning routines. It went viral.
6.
A century ago, the Santa Clara Valley was known as the Valley of the Heart’s Delight, a pastoral landscape filled with orchards of apricots, cherries, and plums. Then the crops gave way to computer chips. Andy’s Orchard found itself among the last growers standing. Now owner Andy Mariani is preparing to call it quits. If officials approve, his 60 acres will give rise to hundreds of homes, two parks, a playground and pickleball courts. “It’s time,” Mariani told the New York Times. “I have hardly any money in the bank.”
7.
A elementary school teacher in Madera was placed on leave after she posted videos in which she appeared to load a gun and say she was starting a “Black militia,” reports said. “Come find me,” says the woman, identified as Kenisha Daily. “We’re gonna rob some white people.” The police opened an investigation and visited the teacher’s home, school officials said. Daily told a local broadcaster she intended the video as entertainment. Upon reflection, she added, “I understand how it could be hurtful or concerning.” KFSN | FOX26
8.
Meet Jinny Lu, the 2026 winner of the World’s Ugliest Dog contest, held in Santa Rosa on Friday. According to her biography, the 6-year-old pug with a floppy tongue and bulging eyes was “found in a wooden box in freezing weather in the mountains of South Korea.” She was rescued from the country’s meat industry before being adopted by owner Michelle Grady, of Ukiah. Jinny Lu is said to sometimes scream at her reflection in the mirror. Press Democrat | N.Y. Times
- See photos from the World’s Ugliest Dog contest.
Southern California
9.
Hayden Panettiere, a TV actress who spoke about her struggles with mental health and substance abuse, has died at 36, reports said on Sunday. The cause was not disclosed, but police said there was no indication of foul play. Panettiere began as a child actress in the early 2000s before being propelled to fame in her role as a cheerleader with superpowers in “Heroes.” She followed up as a troubled country diva on “Nashville.” Panettiere said she suffered from postpartum depression, turning to alcohol and opioids, after having a daughter with the Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014. N.Y. Times | NBC News
10.
Following a $100 million restoration, the luxury Palisades Village mall reopened on Saturday, a milestone in the recovery of the Pacific Palisades 19 months after a historic blaze. But the revival highlighted a stark divide, wrote Bloomberg News. The neighborhood remains full of burned-out lots, with only 1% of homes rebuilt: “Those with the money to move ahead are doing so, while many residents are still waiting on insurance payouts and government aid. Still others are giving up altogether.”
11.
In 2015, two aspiring restaurateurs were looking to open a place in Los Angeles but were wary of the high rents. So they went instead to the desert near Joshua Tree, opening La Copine, a minimalist spot with eclectic dishes that might include spicy melon gazpacho or beets with a pistachio pistou. It’s become so popular that diners must reserve a table four weeks out and only via text message. Eater Los Angeles included La Copine in a roundup of the surprisingly robust dining offerings around Joshua Tree National Park.
12.
Erick Medel first gravitated in high school toward photography, capturing the daily goings-on along the streets of Los Angeles. Later, he was drawn to textiles. Then he found a way to combine both. Using colored threads and an industrial sewing machine, Medel embroiders portraits of immigrant life on denim as a painter would with a brush. The filmmaker James Manson made a gorgeous documentary short on Medel and the inspiration he draws from the working-class enclave of Boyle Heights. Vimeo
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