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Good morning. It’s Tuesday, May 20.
- Federal authorities aim to “neutralize” sanctuary policy.
- San Franciscans’ complicated relationship with coyotes.
- And a restaurant critic is asked to leave French Laundry.
Statewide
1.
Federal authorities announced an operation on Monday to “neutralize” California sanctuary policies that limit transfers of potentially deportable inmates to ICE. Bill Essayli, appointed U.S. attorney for Los Angeles last month by President Trump, said a federal task force was established to “flood the system with warrants” for those inmates. “They can ignore a detainer,” Essayli said, referring to the law enforcement instrument that amounts to no more than a request. “But they cannot ignore a criminal arrest warrant.” Victorville Daily Press | Fox 11
2.
California’s influential Latino Legislative Caucus castigated Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday over his proposal to pare down Medi-Cal coverage for undocumented immigrants. One lawmaker likened the plan to redlining. Another questioned if it was constitutional. “If you were to remove the name from this document — if you were to remove the state, and people would just read this off to you and you closed your eyes — you would think, ‘Oh, that’s a budget proposed by a Republican in, perhaps, Alabama,'” said State Senator Caroline Menjivar. KCRA | L.A. Times
3.
Landon Morrison, a recovering addict, felt so strongly about pending legislation designed to hold drug and alcohol treatment centers accountable that he left at 4 a.m. and drove six hours to the capital to testify during a hearing. He had spent hours rehearsing what he wanted to say in his allotted two minutes. But he didn’t get to say a single word. Others speakers had talked too long, and testimony was cut short. Morrison’s indignity was not unusual. It happens all the time, reported CalMatters.
Northern California
4.
Jessica Stephens, a homeless woman, recalled how San Francisco’s Tenderloin used to be. “It was kind of like a drama-filled high school party,” she said. “When we first moved here, you could literally do anything. I took a bong rip right in front of a cop’s face, and absolutely nothing happened.” Then police started cracking down, the San Francisco Standard reported: “As a result, the culture on the city’s streets has changed, drug users say. The camaraderie is gone. The drugs are mostly weaker. Anxiety is high. And effectively, they say, the party is over in the Tenderloin.”
5.
When MacKenzie Chung Fegan, a restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, went for a meal with three companions to the Napa Valley restaurant French Laundry, the renowned chef Thomas Keller pulled her aside and asked her to leave. “Mortifyingly, I want to cry,” Fegan recalled. “Partially this is because Keller’s vulnerability is arresting, like hearing your dad tell you he’s scared.” That was just the start of the most extraordinary night of her career as a critic, Fegan wrote. S.F. Chronicle
6.
In a review of two new books on Sam Altman, the New Yorker pondered whether the OpenAI chief can be trusted with the future. It quotes several Silicon Valley figures who see him as the embodiment of tech’s promise.
- Peter Thiel once said Altman was “just at the absolute epicenter, maybe not of Silicon Valley, but of the Silicon Valley zeitgeist.”
- Paul Graham said, “You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in five years and he’d be king.”
- A third unnamed executive who encountered Altman in the 2000s said, “Anyone who came across him at the time wished they had some of what he had.”
7.
“Dozens of coyotes live in San Francisco, with small packs controlling specific territories like mob families. Golden Gate Park is home to two clans, with the 19th Avenue thoroughfare apparently serving as their dividing line. Other coyotes lay claim to parks, canyons, hills and golf courses that dot the urban landscape.”
The New York Times ran a feature illustrated with gorgeous photography on San Francisco’s complicated relationship with its coyotes.
Southern California
8.
The Trump administration is preparing to pay nearly $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt to settle a wrongful death lawsuit over the killing of the San Diego woman by a police officer during the U.S. Capitol riot, reports said on Monday. The settlement would represent an extraordinary concession by the Justice Department, which prosecuted nearly 1,600 people in connection with the Jan. 6 siege. Trump has cast Babbitt as a martyr and the riot an outbreak of patriotism. Micki Witthoeft, Babbitt’s mother, moved to Washington, D.C., a few years ago to help lead the “Justice for J6ers” movement. Washington Post | N.Y. Times
9.
The bombing of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs over the weekend has spotlighted what authorities say is a growing wave of “nihilistic” violence. The term has increasingly been used to describe violence for the sake of it, or to hasten the downfall of society. “At their core their main agenda is not ideological or hate like the movements we’ve seen in the past,” said Oren Segal, a researcher at the Anti-Defamation League. “It’s definitely this burgeoning movement of violence that’s hard to place on the ideological spectrum.” Washington Post
- The bombing suspect, Guy Edward Bartkus, purportedly wrote about choosing to die after the shooting death of a friend. His apparent manifesto noted that they were both “anti-sex misandrists” and “VegAntinatalists.” L.A. Times | Desert Sun
10.
Surgeons in Southern California have performed the world’s first successful bladder transplant, a breakthrough that could be life-changing for thousands of people suffering from crippling pelvic pain. The eight-hour operation was performed on May 4 by a pair of surgeons from UCLA and USC on a 41-year-old man, Oscar Larrainzar, who had lost much of his bladder during treatments for bladder cancer. Larrainzar said he was a “ticking time bomb. But now I have hope.” N.Y. Times
11.
A state appeals court on Monday overturned the Temecula school board’s ban on teaching critical race theory, saying it violated the rights of students to a proper education. The ruling said the school board relied on an overly vague definition of the theory examining racism in American institutions. “Teachers are left to self-censor and potentially over-correct,” Justice Kathleen O’Leary wrote in the 3-0 decision. It is the first ruling of its kind in the nation, an attorney for the plaintiffs said. S.F. Chronicle
12.
Hotel Laguna, a historic structure in Laguna Beach, has welcomed guests to “the grand old lady” by the sea for more than a century. It’s also collected “repeated violations” of the California Coastal Act, according to regulators. Locals have been enraged by the hotel’s latest alleged infraction: creating a berm and erecting signs that cordon off a section of public beach. Responding to complaints, the Coastal Commission gave the hotel until May 23 to remove the obstructions or face fines of up to $11,250 a day. CBS News | SFGATE
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