Good morning. It’s Friday, April 12.
• | South L.A. bids an emotional farewell to Nipsey Hussle. |
• | Surviving in abandoned boats on the San Francisco Bay. |
• | And the surprise food capital of California’s far north. |
Statewide
1
People protested the Trump administration’s immigration policies in Sacramento last year.
Noah Berger/AFP/Getty Images
The White House tried to convince immigration officials to release detainees onto the streets of sanctuary cities as retribution against President Trump’s adversaries. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, noting “PR risks” and other concerns, rebuffed the proposal as inappropriate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it “warped” and “despicable.”
2
Fire-resistant roofs work. A McClatchy analysis found that homes built after 2008 — when new building codes went into effect — fared much better than older homes. All told, about half of the homes built after 2008 in the path of the last November’s Camp Fire were undamaged. Of the older properties, 18 percent survived. “These are great standards,” an engineer said. “They work.” A.P.
California leaders broadly agree on the need to step up prescribed burns and vegetation removal. A big obstacle: environmental regulations. A.P.
3
More than a million high-capacity ammunition magazines flooded into California in a single week after a federal judge threw out the state’s ban on March 29. The run on magazines crashed at least one retail website during what the California Rifle and Pistol Association called “Freedom Week.” The judge’s ruling has since been stayed pending a challenge.
4
A vintage Palm Springs home has remained virtually untouched since the 1960s.
Realtor.com
A few eye-catching homes on the market:
• | Don Draper would feel right at home in this candy-colored Palm Springs property built in 1969. Among its charms: an all-pink master bath and a jukebox that actually works. Asking: $1.6 million. Patch | Realtor.com |
• | Dangling over a canyon in Sherman Oaks, this 1966 stilt house was built by star architect Richard Neutra. Floor-to-ceiling windows give the sensation of floating on air. Asking: $1.55 million. Dwell |
• | This retreat perched on a cliff in Big Sur was designed by the iconoclastic architect Mickey Muennig. It maximizes breathtaking views of a redwood canyon and the Pacific. Asking: $7.25 million. Realtor.com |
Northern California
5
The Bay Area has struggled to manage its homeless crisis.
About 67 percent of the Bay Area’s homeless population is unsheltered, a report said. In New York City, the figure is 5 percent. The number of homeless people in the Bay Area — more than 28,000 — combined with the lack of shelter makes the crisis more visible than any other place in country. Press Democrat | SFGate.com
Also, San Francisco has now passed New York to become the world’s most expensive place to build. Blame a labor shortage and rising steel prices. S.F. Chronicle | Construction Dive
6
An emotional debate about panhandling is roiling Fresno. Last month, a proposal to outlaw the practice at intersections was rejected. Now some city leaders want to post signs around town encouraging people to donate to charity instead of panhandlers. That too is facing resistance. “We should not be spending public money to try and starve homeless people,” one opponent said.
7
Uber is losing $1.8 billion a year and its drivers struggle to make ends meet. Still, the San Francisco company is aiming for a valuation of about $100 billion as it prepares for what one analyst called “the Godzilla of IPOs.” It feels less like a business than an essential service, The Atlantic wrote. “Something so useful would have to make money at some point, right?” The Atlantic | N.Y. Times
A rush of companies onto the public markets is expected to yield a tax windfall, “possibly the largest California has seen,” an analyst said. S.F. Chronicle
8
Small boats have been squatting off Sausalito for years.
Eric Risberg/A.P.
“You’re born with too many marbles. You can afford to lose some. In fact, you only need one marble.”
That’s Larry Moyer, a 91-year-old man who has lived on a boat in Richardson Bay, by Sausalito, for nearly half a century. A reporter spent years following a community of roughly 100 people living on the bay: “Known as anchor-outs, they make their homes a quarter mile from the shore, on abandoned and unseaworthy vessels, doing their best, with little or no money, to survive.”
9
Photo by Brett Lucido
Here’s a view of Scott Valley, located at the edge of the Marble Mountain Wilderness in California’s far north. Aside from the stunning views, the valley’s rural community of Etna is a surprise food capital of the North State. The S.F. Chronicle included it among 10 hidden gems to visit in California.
Southern California
10
Nipsey Hussle’s procession passed his clothing store after his memorial in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Kyle Grillot/AFP/Getty Images
More than 20,000 people gathered at the Staples Center to remember Nipsey Hussle, the rapper and community activist who was gunned down last month in South Los Angeles. Among those paying tribute were former President Obama, Snoop Dogg, and Stevie Wonder. Hussle’s fiancee, Lauren London, called him “majestic” and “brilliant.” “This pain is really ours,” she said. “We lost someone very rare.” After the service, a funeral procession carried Hussle’s coffin on a 25.5-mile route through the streets of South Los Angeles. L.A. Times | A.P.
Four people were shot in Watts after Hussle’s procession had passed by. One person died. L.A. Times | CBSLA
11
Last year, chief executives of Wall Street banks earned record pay packages. But across the country, in San Diego, the C.E.O. of a tiny online lender out-earned them all. Gregory Garrabrants, head of Axos Financial Inc., made $34.5 million in 2018. Some see the payout as evidence of incentives gone wrong and an out-of-touch board beholden to its C.E.O.
12
Michael Avenatti is best known for representing Stormy Daniels against President Trump.
Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
A federal grand jury in California indicted Michael Avenatti on 36 counts of fraud, embezzlement, and other financial crimes in a sweeping expansion of criminal charges against the brash L.A. lawyer. Prosecutors portrayed Avenatti as a scheming operator who stole millions of dollars from clients, cheated on his taxes, lied to investigators, and tried to hide money from debtors.
13
Disney unveiled details of its new “Netflix-killer” streaming service. Disney+ will launch in November at $7 a month and offer new movies and TV series, along with the company’s own library of content — including titles from its Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars catalogs. A standard Netflix subscription is $13 month. “We are all-in,” Disney’s C.E.O. said.
14
Beverly Hills, with its mansions and swimming pools, in 1991.
George Rose/Getty Images
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman chats with Nancie Clare, author of “The Battle for Beverly Hills,” on the improbable gilded enclave and the birth of celebrity politics. “Celebrities lived there and they didn’t want to be part of Los Angeles, which was just as corrupt as any other big city in America by the early 1920s,” she said.
In case you missed it
15
Plastic bags have been targeted as a menace to the environment.
Here are five blurbs that got big views over the past week:
• | Researchers found that sales of garbage bags skyrocketed after bans of plastic bags in California. Turns out a lot of people were reusing the disposable shopping bags. NPR |
• | Caitlin Flanagan on the college admissions scandal: “The collapse of manufacturing jobs has been to poor whites what the elite college-admissions crunch has been to wealthy ones: a smaller and smaller slice of pie for people who were used to having the fattest piece of all.” The Atlantic |
• | The Burlington Hotel in the Bay Area town of Port Costa is the oldest operating hotel in California. It was included in a list of 19 unusual hotels across the state. Atlas Obscura |
• | All told, more than 2.7 million Californians live within “very high fire hazard severity zones.” Here are snapshots of 10 vulnerable communities, from the Sacramento Valley to the suburbs of Southern California. A.P. |
• | Here’s a fascinating account of Berkeley’s 1960s hippie scene: “As they begged for money and frequented free clinics, these children of the suburbs siphoned resources away from the urban locals who needed them most.” The Atlantic |
Wake up to must-read news from around the Golden State delivered to your inbox each morning.