Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Sept. 1.
- Seniors block senior housing in Oakland’s Rockridge.
- Former gang leader found guilty in killing of Tupac Shakur.
- And bears won’t stay out of Monrovia couple’s pool.
Statewide
1.
Managing the costs of California’s catastrophic wildfires emerged as one of the mostly fiercely contested issues of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s final legislative session. In the end, lawmakers blocked his push to limit utilities’ liabilities when their equipment causes wildfires, a rare rebuke for a governor used to getting what he wants from the Democrat-controlled body. Shares in PG&E and Edison International both plunged at least 20% on Monday, their biggest drop in years. Politico | Bloomberg
2.
State legislators pushed through a flurry of bills as the 2026 lawmaking session barreled toward its conclusion on Monday. Approved were measures that, if signed by Newsom, would:
- force data centers to reveal their water usage
- let undocumented students work at public colleges
- restrict social media features for children under 16
- give Native Americans more say over state land
- require large companies to disclose past ties to slavery
- and block offshore oil producers from getting their product to shore.
3.
Trump administration officials on Monday revoked the accreditation of 110 truck-driving schools for certifying drivers who can’t demonstrate English proficiency, singling out California as a problem state. The move is the latest in a longstanding campaign to target immigrant commercial truck drivers. A handful of fatal crashes involving noncitizen drivers have become a rallying cry among some conservatives. But critics say the administration has failed to provide data that shows any elevated risk associated with foreign-born drivers. L.A. Times | Wall Street Journal
Northern California
4.
In an interview last fall, Harmeet Dhillon asked herself a rhetorical question: What is the defining civil rights issue of our time? “It’s not even in the Bill of Rights,” she said. “It’s the fact that Americans feel like they have to lie every day to get through the day. They have to lie about pronouns. They have to lie about the person in the cubicle next to them being qualified if they aren’t. They have to pretend to laugh at and like certain types of jokes.”
The New York Times published a new 2,400-word profile of the gladiatorial San Francisco lawyer who leads the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
5.
Barred owls, native to the eastern U.S., have spread with such abandon across the West that smaller northern spotted owls are now functionally extinct or close to it across much of their historic range in Washington and Oregon, new research found. Now the old forests of Northern California are among the last strongholds for the iconic native species. A second study, also published in August, found what supporters see as encouraging news: A program of shooting barred owls out of the sky has led to spotted owls reclaiming their old nesting habitat. Active NorCal | Lost Coast Outpost
6.
In Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood, plans to add roughly 600 units of desperately needed housing for seniors have run into a fierce foe: seniors. Bloomberg Businessweek explored a paradox: “Across the country, senior-housing developers are facing pushback from the very demographic they’re targeting. … In Rockridge, the protest centers on affordability and identity. When 84-year-old Myrna Walton stepped up to the podium at [a] community meeting, she opened by asserting her pro-housing bona fides. … ‘We simply oppose skyscrapers,’ she explained.”
7.
Last week, the authorities accused a man of posing as a 49ers player to defraud dozens of women out of more than $1.3 million. Daejon Love, 35, shared videos that purported to show him training and flaunting a lavish lifestyle. After watching them, Defector declared Love a scammer for the ages: “With all due respect to Love’s alleged victims, the videos are extremely funny. Many of them consist of Love simply wearing 49ers gear while working out in a public space. The best of the bunch is a clip of him wearing a 49ers helmet at the beach, running an absolutely awful route, and then catching a pass lobbed from a few yards away.”
8.
“It’s hard to believe they’re real sometimes.”
The dahlia is San Francisco’s official flower. Wilder and more varied than roses or orchids, dahlias are “the very symbol of San Francisco life and of the spirit of her people,” the city proclaimed in 1926. A century later, they are gaining new popularity as a salve to the anxieties of modern life. With the flowers reaching peak bloom in August and September, the New York Times published a photo-heavy piece on the delight of San Francisco’s dahlias.
Southern California
9.
Duane Davis, a one-time Compton gang leader who claimed his boasts about orchestrating the 1996 killing of rap legend Tupac Shakur were just talk, was found guilty of the murder by a Las Vegas jury on Monday. Shakur family members in the courtroom sobbed and embraced. Davis, 63, raised his hand. “Excuse me, I want to have my stuff back,” he said, referring to his jewelry and other belongings. He added, “And I would like to appeal this matter.” The judge replied, “Of course, there will be an appeal but that happens after sentencing.” L.A. Times | A.P.
10.
A 17-year-old North Carolina girl who recorded a livestream of the deadly May 19 shooting attack on a San Diego mosque was charged with murder by aiding and abetting, prosecutors announced on Monday. The girl, identified as Sarah Santiago, knew the gunmen and disseminated their white-supremacist writings. She sent one of the men, 18-year-old Caleb Vazquez, a Nazi patch that he wore during the shooting, according to court documents. “She ran with the pack — she shared in the kill,” said Jim O’Neill, the Forsyth County district attorney. News & Observer | N.Y. Times
11.
Los Angeles County sued State Farm on Monday, accusing California’s largest home insurer of delaying, denying, and underpaying property damage claims filed by victims of the January 2025 wildfires. The filing followed a county investigation that State Farm refused to cooperate with, the county said. “We tried this the nice way,” said Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. “State Farm must live up to its commitment to be a ‘good neighbor’ and do right by its customers who have lost so much.” Bloomberg | L.A. Times
12.
When Brian Gordon and his partner bought a home in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, a place that abounds with bears, he had never even seen one of the shaggy predators. “I said, ‘We’ll just build a big wall with barbed wire,'” he recalled. Four years later, he’s grown fond of his wild neighbors, who routinely swim in his backyard pool. Gordon’s Instagram feed, @poolbearlife, where he posts videos of bears at play in his yard, has become a full-fledged hobby, with more than 80,000 followers. BBC
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