Here are a few stories you missed in the California Sun over the last week.

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The Sisters of the Valley is not your typical religious order. In fact, the nunnery on a marijuana farm in Merced County is unaffiliated with any religion at all. The feminist sisterhood was formed on a lark in 2013 as a repudiation of the establishment, but its members appear to be sincere about their stated mission: to heal the world — one joint at a time. Rolling Stone paid a visit and got some fantastic pictures.

The Japanese have a word for the dance of sunlight filtering through the forest: komorebi. SFGATE's Ashley Harrell heard that nowhere in California is the phenomenon more dramatic than along Damnation Creek Trail in Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, where the fog, redwoods, and sloped trail align perfectly for the sun's rays. She walked a ways down the trail, then turned around and gasped at what looked like an exploding firework shooting through the canopy. “God is talking,” a stranger nearby said.

Dutch Faro was filming the scenery near Pyramid Lake, a short distance northeast of Santa Clarita, when he caught sight of something emerging from the brush in his peripheral vision. “Didn’t take long to snap into reality it was a f—n cougar,” Faro wrote in an email to Backpacker magazine. He ran, but the cat followed. So Faro turned toward the animal and let out a roar, a gambit that he later explained was driven by "primal instincts." It worked. Faro posted the video on his Instagram.  👉 @du7chfaro 

To become truly immersed in the California desert, drive 140 miles east of Los Angeles and hang a left into the wilderness at the heart of the Mojave Desert. There, a campground called Hole In The Wall sits beneath the some of darkest skies of the Mojave National Preserve, shielded from the lights of Las Vegas and Los Angeles, with surrounding trails that wind along wide-open desert vistas and sculptured volcanic walls. For those reasons, the desert environmentalist Chris Clarke named Hole In The Wall one of the nine best winter campgrounds in the California desert. KCET | Outdoor Project

“He wore the camera around his neck all day long.”

Dennis Hopper wanted to be remembered as much as a photographer as an actor. While living in the Hollywood Hills in the 1960s, he produced a huge body of photography that evoked the freedom of the "Easy Rider" generation. He shot Timothy Leary, Robert Rauschenberg, and John Wayne, and brought his camera to the March on Washington, the Sunset Strip riots, and San Francisco's Human Be-In. Flashbak published a collection of 16 Hopper photos.

See more pictures at the New Yorker and AnOther magazine.

Fifty years ago last week, Aretha Franklin entered a Baptist church in Watts and put on a performance for the ages. The resulting double LP, "Amazing Grace," became a landmark American album, her biggest seller and the top-grossing gospel collection of all time. A film of the performance was supposed to be released in 1972, but it languished for decades because the director failed to sync the audio and images correctly. When it finally debuted in 2018, critics gushed: "utterly joyous," "soul-shaking," "nothing short of a miracle."

Writing in Vanity Fair, K. Austin Collins called it a genuinely religious experience, no matter how secular you are:

"Amazing Grace is a rare object: something truly mythical, something we’d only ever told stories about, that having finally arrived somehow lives up to its name. That’s saying something. The film is just as exhausting and beautiful as the recording sessions it documents, just as overflowing with those inexplicable qualities — that unquantified ability to reach directly into the soul that only the greatest art approaches."

Here's the trailer. The film is on Hulu, Apple TV, and other streaming services.

During the pandemic, San Francisco closed a 2-mile stretch of stretch of road flanking Ocean Beach, transforming it into a promenade for pedestrians and cyclists. Whether to reopen the Great Highway to cars became an acrimonious battle, with city leaders ultimately deciding to reintroduce vehicle traffic Monday through Friday. On Monday, the N.Y. Times included the reimagined thoroughfare in a feature on "52 places for a changed world."

A few items shared in the newsletter last week.

Sunday sampler: The marijuana nuns of Merced County // 9 best winter campgrounds in the desert

Sirhan Sirhan's lawyer vows to fight after parole denied.

Sewage samples suggest Bay Area has passed Omicron peak. 

And train burglars intercept thousands of packages in L.A.

Scheduling note: The newsletter will pause Monday and Tuesday. Back in your inbox Wednesday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday rejected parole for Sirhan Sirhan, who fatally shot Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968. A state panel recommended release in August, saying the Palestinian immigrant, now 77, no longer posed a threat. In a statement, Newsom said Sirhan "has failed to address the deficiencies that led him to assassinate Senator Kennedy." The governor had indicated his resistance to granting parole from the outset, telling reporters he idolized Kennedy and kept a photo on his desk that shows Kennedy with his father. L.A. Times | Sacramento Bee

Angela Berry, Sirhan's lawyer, said she would ask a judge to overturn Newsom's denial: “Mr. Sirhan has been a model prisoner for half a century; he serves no threat to society; and the law requires his release.” S.F. Chronicle

After Californians voted to end cannabis prohibition in 2016, people were supposed to have their old marijuana convictions cleared. But some counties haven't cleared a single charge, leaving roadblocks in place for those seeking jobs, housing, and loans. In Riverside County, all 21,000 cannabis cases are still languishing. In San Bernardino County, it's 5,400 cases. L.A. Times

In Santa Clara County, coronavirus levels in sewage samples have fallen sharply since Jan. 6, suggesting the Bay Area may have already hit its peak of Omicron infections. More analysis is needed, but officials are “cautiously optimistic that that is a sign of things to come,” said Michael Balliet, a county health official. S.F. Chronicle | L.A. Times

Even so, California is still reporting record coronavirus cases. A hospital group warned Thursday that the number of Covid-19 patients was likely to triple by the end of January, pushing hospitals beyond their limits. "We find ourselves on the precipice of the most challenging time to date for California’s healthcare system," said Carmela Coyle, of the California Hospital Association. CalMatters | Sacramento Bee

See coronavirus trackers. 👉 L.A. Times  | Covid19.ca.gov 

On this week's California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with Elizabeth Weil, a California journalist who wrote recently in the New York Times Magazine about our changing relationship with wildfire. Californians, she argues, need to stop expecting to be saved: "That guy, that whole squadron of people in their yellow Nomex shirts, they can evacuate you, they can try to keep you safe. But they maybe can't put that fire out and we need to adjust to that being the world that we live in."

The mother of three children found dead inside a home outside Merced has been charged with murder. The county sheriff said Patricia Ortiz, 30, also attempted to take her own life after killing the children — Anna, 8, Matteo, 5, and Alexa, 3, pictured above — at the family's apartment in Le Grand. A neighbor said he was home Wednesday when he heard a man frantically going up and down the street screaming: “He said, ‘My kids were killed!’" KFSN | A.P.

A Bay Area reporter checked in with voters in Hanford a year after the cattle region's congressman, David Valadao, became the only California Republican in the House to vote to impeach then-President Trump. The bad blood still runs deep. During breakfast at Overland Stockyard Cafe, regulars cussed and banged the table. “He’s related to me and I don’t give a damn,” said Jack Toledo, 78. “He used to fight for us, but, boy, he turned coat.” Mercury News

The Jan. 6 congressional panel on Thursday issued subpoenas to four major Silicon Valley companies — Alphabet, Meta, Reddit and Twitter — accusing them of failing to cooperate with its investigation. The committee said it was investigating how the companies “contributed to the violent attack on our democracy, and what steps — if any — social media companies took to prevent their platforms from being breeding grounds for radicalizing people to violence.” N.Y. Times | Politico

"Austin is just a bunch of dudes with big beards complaining about capitalism."

"I miss how things used to be."

"Normal life?"

"No like, banana bread quarantine, when everyone clapped for healthcare workers instead of going to Cabo."

"Marin is weird. It's like Berkeley and Orange County made a baby. I met this woman who was an environmentalist with fake boobs."

SFGATE told the story behind Overheard San Francisco, a popular Instagram account that posts snippets of conversations overheard around the city and submitted by eavesdropping strangers. 

The reporter John Schreiber kept hearing chatter on the police scanner about train robberies in Los Angeles, so he went to a station and found this. 👇

Scattered everywhere were thousands of ripped boxes and bags from Amazon, REI, and other retailers, plucked from cargo containers as they slowed or stopped on approach to a downtown hub. Sources said the raids had been going on for months. CBSLA

Schreiber posted a wild Twitter thread with more video. 👉 @johnschreiber 

Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged four suspects in the shooting death of an off-duty Los Angeles police officer. They said the group included members of the Florencia 13 gang who were on the prowl for robbery victims Tuesday when they encountered Officer Fernando Arroyos and his girlfriend. Normally, the case would be referred to county prosecutors. But sources said law enforcement leaders who are opposed to the progressive reforms of District Attorney George Gascón directed the case instead to the U.S. attorney’s office. L.A. Times

Fifty years ago this week, Aretha Franklin entered a Baptist church in Watts and put on a performance for the ages. The resulting double LP, "Amazing Grace," became a landmark American album, her biggest seller and the top-grossing gospel collection of all time. A film of the performance was supposed to be released in 1972, but it languished for decades because the director failed to sync the audio and images correctly. When it finally debuted in 2018, critics gushed: "utterly joyous," "soul-shaking," "nothing short of a miracle." 

Five items that got big views over the past week:

The Hole In The Wall campground sits beneath the some of darkest skies of the Mojave National Preserve, surrounded by trails that wind along wide-open desert vistas and sculptured volcanic walls. The desert environmentalist Chris Clarke named it one of the nine best winter campgrounds in the California desert. KCET

A nunnery on a marijuana farm in Merced County is unaffiliated with any religion. It was formed on a lark as a repudiation of the establishment, but its members appear to be sincere about their mission: to heal the world — one joint at a time. Rolling Stone

The siphoning of water from the San Bernardino Mountains by the Swiss multinational Nestle has been a matter of bitter contention for years. But a Desert Sun investigation found that the Forest Service has been quietly allowing thousands of similar diversions from forests across the West.

A California emergency-room doctor recalled a patient: “He was wearing one of those anti-vax ‘Live free or die’ t-shirts. I just said, ‘I see you made your choice.’ He was already so far gone he couldn’t hear me.” The patient died two hours later. The Economist

Dutch Faro was filming the scenery near Pyramid Lake, a short distance northeast of Santa Clarita, when he caught sight of something emerging from the brush in his peripheral vision. “Didn’t take long to snap into reality it was a f—n cougar,” he said. Backpacker magazine

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Today's California Sun: Sirhan Sirhan's lawyer vows to fight after parole denied, sewage samples suggest Bay Area has passed Omicron peak, and train burglars intercept thousands of packages in L.A.

Sirhan Sirhan's lawyer vows fight over denied parole //  Train burglars target packages in L.A.

Kevin McCarthy says he won't cooperate with Jan. 6 panel.

Three young children found dead in Central Valley home.

And the ethereal filtered light of North Coast redwoods.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol on Wednesday formally requested an interview with Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was in close contact with former President Trump as the violence unfolded. In a statement, the Bakersfield Republican said he would refuse to cooperate, accusing the panel of "abuse of power." The committee now faces the question of whether to take the extraordinary step of issuing a subpoena. Rep. Liz Cheney: "We're going to evaluate our options." N.Y. Times | Washington Post 

Just five months ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom was fighting for his political life as a recall vote approached. How things have changed. Susan Kennedy, a top aide to former Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis: “He’s sitting on a massive budget surplus that is every politician’s dream. He’s got no credible opposition to reelection and the wind at his back. He should be able to tackle any major issue he sets his mind to.” L.A. Times

A federal judge blocked a new state law that prohibited protesters from coming within 30 feet of vaccination clinics to harass those trying to enter, saying it violates free speech. Lawmakers said the law, signed by the governor on Oct. 8, was necessary to protect patients and health care workers. It was challenged in court not by vaccine opponents, but anti-abortion activists whose protests would also face restrictions. S.F. Chronicle

More than two months after Covid-19 vaccines were opened up to children ages 5 to 11, nearly 68% Californians in the age group have gotten no shots, new CDC figures showed. Doctors called the data disturbing. NBC News | A.P.

San Jose became the first city in the state to require all municipal employees to get a booster shot. It also adopted a booster shot mandate for large indoor venues. Mercury News | CBS SF

The sickouts are spreading. Groups of teachers in Contra Costa County planned sickouts throughout this week. In Oakland, hundreds of teachers and students said they would skip school Thursday. In Redondo Beach on Wednesday, dozens of students held a walk-out. Mercury News | EdSource | KTLA

Three children under the age of 8 were found dead inside an apartment in a small town in the San Joaquin Valley on Wednesday, the authorities said. A woman with injuries that appeared self-inflicted was also at the home, leading investigators to focus on a possible murder-suicide. Sheriff’s spokesperson Daryl Allen said the deaths jolted Le Grand, located about 15 miles from Merced: "This whole town — I’m going to call it a family — everybody in this town knows everybody. So when something like this happens it effects everybody.” Merced-Sun Star | KSEE

The national political writer David Weigel wrote about the forces shaping the effort to recall three San Francisco school board members. Recall opponents have portrayed the campaign as a power grab by moderates and conservatives. But it has plenty of supporters on the left. Among them: Matt Gonzalez, the Green Party candidate who challenged Gavin Newsom in San Francisco's 2003 mayoral race. “I hate to break it to them,” Gonzalez said, “but this is really more about incompetence than it is about how it fits into some ideological battle over school boards or textbooks or things like that.” Washington Post

Sutter’s Fort, a state historic park in Sacramento, has portrayed the 19th-century Swiss immigrant John Sutter as a pioneer of the “California Dream.” Glossed over has been how Sutter abused the local Miwok people, feeding workers from troughs and lashing runaways. In one gruesome episode, historians say, he had a Miwok man decapitated to terrorize local tribes. Parks officials are now reinterpreting the fort with input from historians and Indigenous people. Capitol Public Radio

An analysis of IRS records found that since 2016 parent groups at Los Angeles public schools raised at least $30 million a year to help pay the cost of supplies, educators, and arts programs. But the fundraising varied widely: a full two-thirds of the parent fundraising happened on just 6% of the district's campuses — mostly in wealthy westside neighborhoods or the southwestern San Fernando Valley. LAist's report lets you look up fundraising at your neighborhood schools. 

A political power couple in San Diego were jolted awake by a smoke detector at 4 a.m. Wednesday and found the front of their home engulfed in flames. Police said they were treating the fire at the home of Board of Supervisors Chairman Nathan Fletcher and former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, both of whom escaped injury, as suspicious. Both Fletcher and Gonzalez have drawn strong reactions from critics on issues such as pandemic restrictions and labor policy. S.D. Union-Tribune | A.P.

Dutch Faro was filming the scenery near Pyramid Lake, a short distance northeast of Santa Clarita, when he caught sight of something emerging from the brush in his peripheral vision. “Didn’t take long to snap into reality it was a f—n cougar,” Faro wrote in an email to Backpacker magazine. He ran, but the cat followed. So Faro turned toward the animal and let out a roar, a gambit that he later explained was driven by "primal instincts." It worked. Faro posted the video on his Instagram. 👉 @du7chfaro 

☝️ Imagine driving home bleary-eyed from the office and seeing this race by mere feet away. The Santa Fe 3751 is a 430-ton locomotive that once played a seminal role in introducing high-speed passenger rail service to the West. Built in 1927, it ran primarily between California and the Midwest until the 1950s. To train enthusiasts' delight, the 3751 was restored in the 1980s for public display and, from time to time, passenger trips. The clip above shows an outing in 2014, when the 3751 barreled along a track that runs down the middle of the I-10 from San Bernardino to Los Angeles. Excursions have lately been on hold, but the San Bernardino Railroad Historical Society, which owns the train, said it hopes to announce new trips as soon as the spring.

See video of the 2014 ride. (Skip to 2:30 mins to hear the horn blare). 👉  YouTube 

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Today's California Sun: Kevin McCarthy says he won't cooperate with Jan. 6 panel, three young children found dead in Central Valley home, and the ethereal filtered light of North Coast redwoods.

Kevin McCarthy refuses to talk with Jan. 6 panel // Ethereal sunlight of North Coast redwoods

Oakland students vow to strike if safety demands aren't met.

A young off-duty L.A. cop is killed in an attempted robbery. 

And "the new dogma" around race and gender in Hollywood.

The reporter Ryan Ver Berkmoes granted a California emergency-room doctor anonymity to speak candidly about colleagues and patients who refuse to get vaccinated. The doctor tried to be civil, but at times his caustic side broke through. He recalled a patient: “He was wearing one of those anti-vax ‘Live free or die’ t-shirts. I just said, ‘I see you made your choice.’ He was already so far gone he couldn’t hear me.” The patient died two hours later. The Economist

Nearly 1,000 Oakland students signed a petition vowing to strike unless the school district reverts to remote learning or adopts a list of safety protocols that include KN95 masks for everyone. The action follows a "sickout" by teachers last Friday that played a part in shuttering at least a dozen Oakland schools. The Flashpoint | Washington Post

A day after Sonoma County imposed a ban on large gatherings in response to the Omicron wave, officials across the Bay Area said they had no plans to follow suit. San Francisco's mayor: “We know this is a really tough time. But like I’ve said in the past, we are learning to live with Covid, and that means everyone assessing their own risk. It means making smart choices. ... It does not mean imposing new restrictions.” S.F. Chronicle | Mercury News

A review of more than 52,000 Omicron patients at Kaiser Permanente of Southern California found that not a single patient went on a ventilator between Nov. 30 and Jan. 1. N.Y. Times

In Palo Alto, school leaders asked parents to volunteer as substitute teachers for hundreds of absent staff members. More than 700 volunteers stepped up. EdSource | Mercury News

A self-described "progressive in ultra-lefty Oakland" wrote 2,000 words in Politico magazine about how her rage over school closings has led her to reevaluate her politics. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to have heard the cry of California's marijuana entrepreneurs. Weeks after leaders of the cannabis industry threatened to mount a tax revolt unless reforms are made, Newsom said on Monday that he supports rethinking the taxes the state levies on marijuana growers and purchases. Five years since the end of marijuana prohibition, the illegal market remains at least as big as it was before. Sacramento Bee | KRCR

Kelp, which absorbs carbon and can be used as food, fuel, and fertilizer, has become a star in the fight against climate change. Thriving industries have been established in Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine — but not California, where no new commercial aquaculture lease has been issued in 25 years. The reason, say would-be entrepreneurs: the review process is prohibitively onerous. “They treat permitting a new shellfish farm like a nuclear power plant,” said John Finger, of Hog Island Oyster Co. S.F. Chronicle

Vox told the story of Dorothea Lange's photos of Japanese internment in an episode of its documentary series "Darkroom." Most of Lange’s candid photography was rejected for publication by the War Relocation Authority and “impounded” during World War II. It was rediscovered decades later in 1972 when Lange’s former assistant pulled the pictures from the National Archives for a museum exhibit. They became a pillar of the reparations movement for camp survivors.

Endangered coho salmon are spawning in Marin County creeks, where they haven’t been seen more than a decade, after copious rainfall granted them passage into their historic habitat. The fish journey from the Pacific in December and January, scrambling up freshwater streams to spawn, lay eggs, and eventually die. The Marin salmon journeyed from Tomales Bay, turning east into a series of engorged creeks in San Geronimo Valley, where they have been recorded wriggling and leaping.  SFGATE | S.F. Chronicle

A massacre unfolds every winter and spring along a mountain road near Los Gatos. Each year, an estimated 5,000 Pacific newts are flattened under the tires of passing cars as they emerge from the forest and waddle toward a reservoir in search of mates. Researchers say it's one of the highest roadkill rates of any wildlife species in the world. Proposed solutions — fencing, an elevated road segment, periodic closures — have so far been rebuffed. Atlas Obscura | Bay Nature

A young off-duty police officer was fatally shot during an attempted robbery in South Los Angeles late Monday, authorities said. Fernando Arroyos was house-hunting with his girlfriend when three men drove up in a pickup truck and confronted the couple. The officer yelled for his girlfriend to run and then exchanged gunfire with the assailants, police said. Mayor Eric Garcetti said Arroyos, a 27-year-old son of immigrants, died a hero. “My heart is broken," he said. "Our city’s heart is broken." L.A. Times | LAist

A pair of Los Angeles journalists interviewed more than 25 writers, directors, and producers about "the new dogma" around race and gender in Hollywood. Most declined to speak on the record for fear of retaliation. An exception was Mike White, the writer and director of HBO's “The White Lotus.” “Everyone has gone so underground with their true feelings about things," he said. "If you voice things in a certain way it can really have negative repercussions for you, and people can presume that you could be racist, or you could be seen as misogynist.” Common Sense

Dennis Hopper wanted to be remembered as much as a photographer as an actor. While living in the Hollywood Hills in the 1960s, he produced a huge body of photography that evoked the freedom of the "Easy Rider" generation. He shot Timothy Leary, Robert Rauschenberg, and John Wayne, and brought his camera to the March on Washington, the Sunset Strip riots, and San Francisco's Human Be-In. Flashbak published a collection of 16 Hopper photos. 

Today's California Sun: Oakland students vow to strike if safety demands aren't met, a young off-duty L.A. cop is killed in an attempted robbery, and "the new dogma" around race and gender in Hollywood.

Oakland students threaten strike // Young off-duty L.A. cop is killed

Sonoma County reimposes prohibition on large gatherings.

Gavin Newsom proposes more health care for undocumented. 

And the best winter campgrounds in the California desert.

Sonoma County announced a ban on large gatherings — more than 50 people indoors and 100 people outdoors — making it the first in the Bay Area to reimpose crowd limits in response to the Omicron surge. Officials set the restrictions to last for a month and urged people to upgrade to surgical masks and stay home as much as possible. "While we may be done with Covid, Covid is not done with us,” said Dr. Sundari Mase, the county’s health officer. Press Democrat | NBC Bay Area

Dr. Jeanne Noble, UC San Francisco's director of Covid response, said 70% of the coronavirus patients at UCSF hospitals had arrived for other medical reasons. The situation at the hospitals is dire because of staffing shortages, she said — not because of severe illness: "The crisis we are suffering in the Bay Area is largely driven by disruptive Covid policies that encourage asymptomatic testing and subsequent quarantines." SFGATE

California's Covid positivity rate surged into record territory Monday, with 22% of tests now showing infection. That's well above the record of 17.1% set last winter. S.F. Chronicle | SFist

The Bay Area school district Hayward Unified switched to remote learning for at least a week, rejecting appeals from the county and state to keep classrooms open. It could cost the district $2.5 million a day for lost in-person instruction. KTVU | S.F. Chronicle

The L.A. Times published a defense of "mocking anti-vaxxers’ Covid deaths" by the Pulitzer-winning columnist Michael Hiltzik. It was widely condemned online: "Despicable." "Sick stuff." "I'm speechless. And not in a good way."

California would become the first state to pay the health care expenses of all of its low-income adults, regardless of immigration status, under a proposal unveiled by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday. The plan, a Democratic priority for years, is included in the governor's record $286 billion spending blueprint for the coming fiscal year. “For those of us who have worked on this campaign a long time, this has been a long time coming," said Sarah Dar at the California Immigrant Policy Center, "but it’s still incredible.” L.A. Times | Fresno Bee

Other budget priorities outlined by Newsom: Covid-19, climate change, wildfires, homelessness, and public safety. KQED | A.P.

Huron is perhaps the greenest migrant farmworker community in the country. Frustrated by a lack of reliable public transportation, the isolated Central Valley town amassed a fleet of nine electric cars that shuttle residents all over Fresno County free of charge. There are already 30 charging ports in town. The program is now being held up as a model for low-income communities left behind by the electric car revolution. L.A. Times

Campaigns to recall progressive figures in San Francisco are being powered by tech industry employees, founders, and investors who used to shrug off local politics. Many of those pushing for the recall of three school board members and District Attorney Chesa Boudin consider themselves left-leaning. “Everyone I know is just mad — deeply, deeply mad,” said Zach Coelius, a venture capitalist. He added: “We can’t seem to build anything. We can’t seem to fix anything. And we can’t seem to have a city that can operate on a basic level.” NBC News

Court documents revealed that Google responded to rising worker activism in 2018 with a secret campaign aimed at convincing workers, in the words of a top executive, "that unions suck." The initiative, dubbed "Project Vivian," included commissioning a "respected voice" to publish an op-ed warning tech workers against unionizing. Meredith Whittaker, a former Google walkout organizer, called the campaign "odious and gross." Vice | WIRED

In Susanville, nestled along the Susan River in remote northeast California, there are nearly as many people living inside the town’s two state prisons — roughly 7,000 people — as outside. But after new sentencing laws reduced prison populations, the state moved to shutter one of the facilities. Susanville has responded with defiance, mounting a legal fight to halt the closure. “People have pegged us as this white community that just wants to keep incarceration going,” said Kerri Cobb, a local resident. “This industry was given to us and we embraced it.” N.Y. Times

Robert Durst died as a prisoner in Stockton on Monday. The New York real estate scion was accused of several murders, but dodged justice for nearly four decades before telling on himself during the making of a 2015 HBO documentary series. In September, a jury found him guilty of killing a confidante to stop her from cooperating with authorities looking into the 1982 disappearance of his first wife. Durst's death was attributed to natural causes. He was 78. A.P. | N.Y. Times

Two Los Angeles police officers were fired after they ignored an active robbery to instead hunt creatures in the mobile game Pokémon Go, court records showed. On April 15, 2017, Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were discussing Pokémon when a call came in about a robbery at the Crenshaw Mall. Lozano said, “Ah, screw it," the filings said. The pair then drove around for the next 20 minutes hunting a Snorlax and Togetic, Pokémon creatures that appear in physical surroundings via augmented reality. The men lost a legal challenge to their firings on Friday. L.A. Times | Ars Technica

While outrageous, the case had some great footnotes. 👇

Today's California Sun: Sonoma County reimposes prohibition on large gatherings, Gavin Newsom proposes more health care for undocumented, and the best winter campgrounds in the California desert.

Sonoma County imposes ban on large gatherings // 9 best desert winter campgrounds

New guidelines let Covid-positive hospital staff stay on job.

Test data shows big setbacks for students during pandemic. 

And video captures a harrowing rescue on Pacoima train tracks.

California announced new guidelines that allow health workers who test positive for the coronavirus to stay on the job, a drastic step to ease the strain on short-staffed hospitals. Labor leaders reacted with outrage. "It's a major disaster waiting to happen," said Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, of the California Nurses Association. "I think it's callous and it's putting our patients and ourselves in grave danger." S.F. Chronicle | KCRA

Newly released data offered the most comprehensive view yet of how California students fared during the pandemic — and it's troubling. After five straight years of gradual improvement, test scores fell significantly across the board last year, while achievement gaps between Black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian peers grew even wider. Among all students, more than half failed to meet minimum standards in English, and roughly two-thirds fell short in math. Edsource | L.A. Times

L.A. County hospitals are seeing far fewer critically ill coronavirus patients than they did last winter — and vaccination status is playing a huge role. In December, unvaccinated people were 38 times more likely to need hospitalization than boosted people. L.A. Times

A QAnon influencer who appeared in videos with comedian Roseanne Barr died at a Camarillo hospital after contracting Covid-19. Cirsten Weldon was virulently anti-vaccine and harassed people in line at vaccine sites. Daily Beast | SFGATE

Video showed a man attacking workers at a vaccine clinic in Tustin. The man called staff members "murderers" and punched one worker repeatedly. It took several shocks with stun guns to subdue him. ABC7

When General Motors sided with the Trump administration in a fight with California over emissions standards in 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a halt to all government purchases from the automaker. Three years later, with a Democrat in the White House, GM said on Sunday that it had agreed to recognize California’s legal authority to set its own tailpipe standards under the Clean Air Act. "We’re all in on putting everybody in an [electric vehicle],” said Omar Vargas, GM's vice president. Reuters | Detroit News

Hunter Lewis, 21, spent years creating an elaborate treasure hunt for his friends and family along the North Coast. On Dec. 30, he set off in a canoe from Trinidad state beach on a mission to hide the final prize. He never returned. In recent days, pieces of the canoe have washed up on shore, causing searchers to refocus. “We know it is not a rescue operation," Lewis' father said. "It is a recovery of the lost Lewis treasure: my son Hunter’s body.” The Guardian 

In 2016, an analysis of San Francisco's luxury Millennium Tower found that it was sinking into the soft soil, leaning 6 inches at the top since its completion in 2008. Last week, the engineer responsible for shoring up the 58-story tower gave city officials an update: Now it's leaning 26 inches, adding 3 more inches of tilt annually. If it isn't fixed soon, he said, the plumbing and elevators will start having problems. NBC Bay Area

On the night of April 24, 1968, Johnny Cash took the stage at the Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco. It was just one week before the release of his landmark Folsom Prison album, which would revive the country singer's flagging career. Owsley Stanley, the Grateful Dead sound man and LSD chemist, made a recording of the performance that was subsequently lost to time — until now. The entire album, "Johnny Cash at the Carousel Ballroom," has now been released for free.  KPIX | SFist

Video captured the incredible last-second rescue of a pilot who had been forced to land his aircraft on railroad tracks in Pacoima on Sunday. With an oncoming train blaring its horn, several officers struggled to free the injured man from the Cessna cockpit. As they finally pulled him free, the train smashed into the wreckage of the plane with a terrifying boom. Everyone was fine. L.A. Daily News | KABC

Body cam footage of the rescue. 👉 Twitter 

"It was the craziest thing I've ever seen."

A sea lion turned up on a San Diego freeway Friday some 3 miles from the Pacific, halting traffic. Rescuers said it wasn't the first time the 200-pound juvenile male sea lion had wandered to an odd location. In November, it was found near the airport. In December, it showed up along the boardwalk in Mission Beach, near a deli in Mission Bay, and at the Navy base on Point Loma. City News Service | KABC

California swore off new freeway building more than two decades ago because of environmental concerns and budget shortfalls. Yet Bakersfield is now nearing completion of a freeway project that officials have heralded as a solution to gridlock between the city's east and west sides. Critics see it differently, describing the so-called Centennial Corridor variously as "retrograde," "tragic," and “one of the dumbest highway projects in the entire U.S.” The end result will be a 1.7-mile ribbon of concrete through the middle of Bakersfield's Westpark neighborhood that swallows up 310 homes and displaces nearly 1,000 people. 

Satellite imagery over the last seven years tells the story. 👇 

The hometown columnist Robert Price called the process of clearing the path one of "random injustice." Many displaced homeowners have been made whole — at least financially. But others along the edge of the highway have seen their home values plummet. Vicky Gresham described the horror of watching a 12-foot sound wall rise along her backyard, blocking the sunset. "It's like a prison," she told Price. The freeway is expected to open by the end of this year. 

See a time-lapse of Bakersfield from 1984 to 2020, with the gash created by Centennial Corridor emerging after 2016. 👉 Google Earth  

… Jennifer Fearing, a Sacramento-based environmental and animal rights advocate.

Q: What is one place everyone should visit in California?  

A: Everyone in California should visit a farmworker community like those in the San Joaquin, Salinas, and Coachella valleys where nearly $50 billion worth of the world’s food is produced every year. I volunteered at some COVID vaccination clinics last winter for farmworkers and their families in the Cantua Creek and Lanare communities in Fresno county. The humility and kindness of the people I met, who labor in often intense and extreme weather conditions and at heightened risk of contracting COVID, left a deep impression on me. We should all see where and how California’s farmworkers and their families live to gain a deeper appreciation for our groceries and to strengthen our support for improving their working and living conditions.

What’s the best book you've read or podcast you've listened to recently?

My husband and I listened to Isabel Wilkerson’s "Caste: The Origins of our Discontents" during a recent road trip to and from the East Coast. Maybe not everyone’s idea of vacation material, but we were anxious to continue our personal journeys toward active anti-racism. Wilkerson connects many painful dots and produces ample evidence of America’s long history of racial violence that shows up in systemic and structural ways throughout modern society. I am glad we listened to the book as we moved throughout the country, passing historic sites and places while being reminded that their stories depend on the perspective of who is doing the telling.

I am fortunate to work with the Community Alliance of Family Farmers, which advocates on behalf of thousands of California’s smallest farmers. Sacramento is the so-called “farm to fork'' capital, so we are able to shop at farmers markets year-round and purchase seasonal fruits and vegetables directly from local producers. Specifically, I love supporting and volunteering with the Yisreal Family Urban Farm, which grows herbs, fruit, and other produce on the grounds of a shuttered public school a couple miles from our house. Their work to transform neighbors’ backyards into edible gardens inspires me.

You’re organizing a dinner party. Which three California figures, dead or alive, do you invite, and why? How would you get the conversation started?

I’d invite Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš (founder of Azul), Veronica Garibay-Gonzalez (co-founder of Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability), and whoever I could identify as the wealthiest Californian ready to give away their fortune to maximize the power of community voices in pursuit of environmental justice. Right now, too many well-meaning philanthropists center their ideas and intentions instead of investing in getting the voices of those most impacted by climate change, air and water pollution, income inequality, and systemic racism into the rooms of power to speak for themselves.

Much of your advocacy work has focused on animal rights and environmental issues. What are two policies that you'd still love to see written into California legislation along these lines?

We urgently need to reduce single-use plastics. They cause harm from their very beginning (as petroleum-based products) to gumming up recycling infrastructure, piling up in landfills, and polluting our forests, rivers, and oceans. California voters — nearly two-thirds of whom consistently agree — will get to vote “yes” on a November 2022 ballot measure to reduce plastics packaging and foodware, fund improvements in reusable and refillable options for consumers, and pay to clean up our neighborhoods, coast, and waterways. 

I’d also like to see California bring back beavers, amazing animals that bring enormous, urgently needed benefits to the state’s water challenges, habitats for endangered species, and climate change impacts. Nature’s engineers are native to California, but since the “fur rush” that preceded the race for gold nearly wiped them out, beavers have been treated as nuisance animals under California law and policy. I’m grateful to California scientists and beaver believers like Dr. Emily Fairfax who are making the case and communicating it to the public and decision makers.

“5 questions with …” is a weekly feature by Finn Cohen, who edits the California Sun. Conversations are sometimes edited for brevity. Someone you’d like to see interviewed? Let him know: finn@californiasun.co.

Today's California Sun: New guidelines let Covid-positive hospital staff stay on job, test data shows big setbacks for students during pandemic, and video captures a harrowing rescue on Pacoima train tracks.

New policy lets infected hospital workers stay on job // Harrowing rescue on train tracks

A group of state Democratic lawmakers unveiled a sweeping plan for universal healthcare on Thursday, breathing new life into a progressive dream that has been scuttled in the past over financing questions. The latest proposal would create a first-in-the-nation system, dubbed "CalCare," that covers medical expenses for all Californians using revenue from new taxes on businesses and the wealthy. Vehement opposition from private insurers and Republicans was guaranteed. A.P. | L.A. Times

Shoshone, population 31, was once a Death Valley mining community. It could have easily devolved into ghost-town status, getting slowly consumed by the desert. But a Smith College graduate named Susan Sorrells has transformed Shoshone into a place of ecologically conscious living on the border between civilization and wilderness. In a profile that dubbed her "the Queen of the desert," the New Yorker wrote: "She deserves to be on anyone’s shortlist of the most interesting people in California."

Surf Ranch, a wave pool carved out of Central Valley farmland 100 miles from the Pacific, is a marvel of engineering, creating glass-like barrels that last for 45 seconds. Here's what happened the first time professional skim boarder Austin Keen was invited to give it a try. 

Last May, Laurie Steves quit her job, packed up her Seattle apartment, and moved to San Francisco in a desperate quest to rescue her 34-year-old daughter from fentanyl on the streets of the Tenderloin. She had no idea what she was up against. Her daughter explained: “The city is way too easy for people with nothing to get by. That’s why I’m still here nine years later. You get by with doing drugs and suffer no consequences. I like it here.” An incredible longread by Heather Knight. 👉 S.F. Chronicle 

Howland Hill Road was carved through dense forest in the 19th century to connect inland mining operations to the harbor at Crescent City. The 6-mile route located deep within Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park now serves as one of the most scenic redwood drives anywhere. It was included in a great feature naming the "coolest thing to do in each Northern California county." SFGATE

The Relaxation Channel uploaded a three-hour, 4K video of the drive along Howland Hill Road. YouTube

Elizabeth Weil wrote movingly about coming to terms with California's new climate reality:

"We need to stop thinking a dashing rescuer in a red slicker or yellow fire-​resistant shirt should come save us from wildfire. We don’t fight hurricanes. We don’t fight tornadoes. No one assumes there will be an armed defense from an earthquake or a flood. Instead, we bolt our houses to our foundations. We raise our homes on stilts. Now we, Californians of the Anthropocene, need to grow up, take responsibility and stop expecting to be saved." N.Y. Times Magazine

"Los Angeles remains this country’s glorious sushi capital."

So declared the food critic Tejal Rao in the N.Y. Times on Tuesday. Rao celebrated the sheer variety, skill, and creativity of the city's many sushi restaurants. Nothing beats sitting at the sushi counter, but chefs have also adapted their work for takeout and Rao nominated the most luxurious boxes on offer: those crafted by Yoshiyuki Inoue at Sushi Kaneyoshi.

Sunday sampler: California's new climate reality // L.A., the sushi capital of America

State Democrats revive proposal for universal health care.

L.A. County firefighter dies while battling house fire.

And an ugly display after unvaccinated woman's Covid death.

The siphoning of water from the San Bernardino Mountains by the Swiss multinational Nestle has been a well-known — and bitter — matter of contention for years. But a Desert Sun investigation found that the Forest Service has been quietly allowing thousands of similar diversions from parched forests across the West. We’re in a prolonged drought, said Hugh Bialecki, a conservationist: “Why would you be taking any water, especially on public lands, when the whole forest is at risk?”

Then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters when a pipe bomb was discovered outside the building on Jan. 6, 2021, Politico reported on Thursday. The revelation, which wasn't publicly known, raised the chilling prospect that the incoming vice president's life could have been directly endangered. The FBI described the bomb, which was neutralized, as a “viable” device capable of causing death.

One in six of San Francisco teachers absent. More than 50 East Bay schools shuttered. Remote instruction extended at four U.C. campuses. Public education was further disrupted Thursday as campuses contended with staff shortages and viral exposures. L.A. Times | A.P. | S.F. Chronicle

After a Thursday "sickout" by teachers in San Francisco over safety concerns, a group of Oakland teachers said they would follow suit on Friday. They want weekly testing, better ventilation, and KN95 masks. Oaklandside

There's a huge demand for Covid-19 tests in the Bay Area. The line at a Fremont testing site stretched four hours. The wait for PCR tests, the gold standard, is more than a week. Mercury News | S.F. Chronicle

More medical experts are predicting a short-lived surge. Barbara Ferrer, L.A. County's top health official: “My hope is that by the time we get to February, we’re on the downside." Dr. Jeanne Noble, of UCSF, predicted hitting a peak in seven to 10 days. A.P. | ABC7 News

On this week's California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with Jackson Parell and Sammy Potter, a pair of Stanford friends who hiked the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide trails in a single year. The men faced a grueling pace, an E. coli infection, and a night of sleep in a trail-side bathroom when the temperature dropped to near zero. Still, Parell said, "I don't regret it. I think every moment that I spent out there on trail was a purposeful moment. And it was a great way to spend a year of my life."

A judge halted a $1 billion housing project in Guenoc Valley, about 25 miles northeast of Santa Rosa, saying the fire danger was too high. Local leaders had enthusiastically backed the project, which was projected to bring more than 4,000 new people to the badly depressed area. But state Attorney General Rob Bonta fought it in court as part of a broader crackdown on housing developments in fire-prone areas. "We must build responsibly,” he said after the ruling Thursday. Sacramento Bee | Press Democrat

The sister of a federal security guard killed during racial justice protests in Oakland in 2020 sued Facebook's parent company, Meta, saying the company helped radicalize the suspects. The lawsuit accused Facebook of promoting the far-right boogaloo movement whose adherents, prosectors say, plotted the murder of Dave Underwood. Federal law has reliably shielded companies from liability for things people post online. But the latest lawsuit argues that the act of recommending a dangerous group made Facebook ineligible for those protections. East Bay Times | Washington Post

The photographer Michael Shainblum recently captured an image, above, considered next to impossible because of light pollution: the Golden Gate Bridge and Milky Way together in a single frame. He said it was thanks to a low fog that dimmed the city lights just as the Milky Way started to glide across the western sky. PetaPixel | @shainblumphotography

Shainblum also made a video. YouTube (~11 mins)

A Los Angeles County firefighter died Thursday after being overcome by smoke and flames while battling a house fire in Rancho Palos Verdes, officials said. Fellow firefighters, the governor, and other political leaders offered condolences over the death of Jonathan Flagler, a 21-year veteran, as a procession was formed and flags lowered to half-staff. “The city will never forget his sacrifice and courage,” said Mayor Dave Bradly. Flagler left behind his wife, Jenny, and two sons, ages 13 and 15. L.A. Times | L.A. Daily News

Peter Bogdanovich died early Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He became one of the most celebrated directors of the 1970s with black-and-white classics such as “The Last Picture Show” and "Paper Moon," but then followed up with a series of box-office debacles. Hollywood turned against him, and by the 1980s, Bogdanovich was bankrupt and addicted to pills. He returned to the big screen with modestly successful projects in the 2000s, but never recaptured the luster of his early years. He was 82. N.Y. Times | Hollywood Reporter

"Hilarious." "One Less Republican." “Congratulations on winning your very own Darwin award.”

The Covid-19 death of Kelly Ernby, a rising star in the Orange County Republican Party who was unvaccinated and fought coronavirus mandates, set off an ugly public display online. While many people offered condolences to Ernby’s family, thousands of others seemed to revel in her death in comments posted on Twitter and her Facebook page. Ernby’s friend, Ben Chapman, called the messages "disgusting." L.A. Times

Shoshone, once a Death Valley mining community, could have easily devolved into a ghost town. But a Smith College graduate named Susan Sorrells has transformed it into a place of ecologically conscious living on the border between civilization and wilderness. New Yorker

Howland Hill Road, carved deep within Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, is one of the most scenic redwood drives anywhere. It was included in a great feature naming the "coolest thing to do in each Northern California county." SFGATE

Last May, Laurie Steves quit her job, packed up her Seattle apartment, and moved to San Francisco in a desperate quest to rescue her 34-year-old daughter from fentanyl. She had no idea what she was up against. An incredible longread by Heather Knight. 👉   S.F. Chronicle 

The official motto of the California Conservation Corps is “Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions, and more.” Young Californians who join the corps carve wilderness trails, plant trees, and respond to wildfires. Despite the motto, they talk about being transformed by the experience. National Geographic

Surf Ranch, a wave pool carved out of Central Valley farmland, is a marvel of engineering, creating glass-like barrels that last for 45 seconds. Here's what happened the first time a professional skim boarder was invited to give it a try.  👉 YouTube 

Today's California Sun: State Democrats revive proposal for universal health care, L.A. County firefighter dies while battling house fire, and an ugly display after unvaccinated woman's Covid death.

Lawmakers revive universal health care bill // L.A. County firefighter dies 

San Francisco teachers plan "sickout" over Covid safety.

A Bay Area tech unicorn embraces four-day workweek.

And a meditation on the small-c conservatism of Joan Didion.

Nearly 600 San Francisco teachers signed a petition saying they would skip school Thursday to protest what they said were inadequate coronavirus safety measures. The move would add to the strain caused by widespread absences of teachers who have reported sick. Dr. Jeanne Noble, UCSF’s head of Covid response, said any attempt to shut schools would be “wrong beyond words.” She added: “We just cannot do this to our children again.” S.F. Chronicle | SFist

A testing site in Los Angeles County detected a rare case of “flurona,” a co-infection of the flu and the coronavirus. Health experts said with flu season starting the condition would grow more common. O.C. Register | L.A. Times

California extended its indoor mask mandate for an additional month in response to the explosive spread of the Omicron variant. The new end date: Feb. 15. Mercury News | A.P.

The NFL said it expected Los Angeles to host the Super Bowl next month as planned. But organizers of the Grammys opted to postpone its Jan. 31 awards show in the city. They said a new date would be announced “soon.” L.A. Times | Politico

A woman accused of killing a baby girl at her Visalia day care in November was the subject of an earlier complaint over a child's unexplained fracture. However, no child services agent was sent to follow up "due to Covid-19 pandemic," an investigative document showed. Officials concluded that the allegation from March 2020 against 41-year-old Amanda Taylor "may have happened." They closed the case anyway, citing a lack of evidence. Visalia Times-Delta

Ross Douthat offered an interesting meditation on the small-c conservatism of Joan Didion: "If all fans of Didion have something they particularly owe her, then what she offered to admirers on the right was an example of how to write conservative essays that were first and foremost simply essays, their conservatism a matter of atmosphere and attitude rather than tedious polemic." N.Y. Times

Surf Ranch, a wave pool carved out of Central Valley farmland 100 miles from the Pacific, is a marvel of engineering, creating glass-like barrels that last for 45 seconds. Here's what happened the first time professional skim boarder Austin Keen was invited to give it a try. 👇

A 65-year-old Yuba City man was left paralyzed after police officers slammed him to the ground and used “pain compliance” techniques, according to a lawsuit announced Wednesday. Officers arrested Gregory Gross on April 12, 2020, while investigating a 1-mph vehicle collision that caused no injuries or damage. In body cam video, Gross, in handcuffs, tells an officer that he can't feel his arms or legs. The response: “Mr. Gross, we are done with your silly little games.” Sacramento Bee | A.P.

A Guardian reporter and photographer paid a visit to Greenville, the Gold Rush community devastated in August by the Dixie fire. While the town's future remains uncertain, those involved in the recovery effort say Greenville is worth fighting for. “There’s this quality there and you can’t explain it,” said Sue Weber. “No matter who you are or what you hold, when the rubber meets the road, the community will gather around. I think that’s rare today.” 

Last fall, Bolt, an e-commerce developer in San Francisco, tested a four-day workweek. The results were so positive — making employees both happier and more productive — that the company has now decided to make the change permanent. “A lot of companies operate with a lot of work theater, which is people caring more about the appearance of working than the actual work,” said Ryan Breslow, the chief executive. CNBC | Fast Company

The rabbi of a Poway synagogue who was wounded in a 2019 anti-Semitic attack was sentenced Tuesday to 14 months in prison for running a multimillion-dollar donation fraud, authorities said. In a rare agreement, both prosecutors and defense attorneys sought home confinement rather than time behind bars for Yisroel Goldstein, 60. But the judge rejected the recommendation. “I think it’s important to send a message to the community, and I think it’s important to send a message to you,” she said. A.P. | N.Y. Times

The Glendale-Hyperion Bridge, a cultural landmark, has been illuminated since its completion in 1929 by dozens of decorative bronze lampposts. But thieves have sawed down and hauled away so many of the old lights that the city made the drastic decision to remove those that remain, placing them in storage. All told, 22 are missing, officials said. “It’s just a tragic loss of some of the city’s history,” a local historian said. L.A. Times | Fox 11 Los Angeles

The photographer Gregg Segal asked his friends and neighbors to save their garbage for a week, then lie down in it in his Altadena yard and be photographed. Segal said he hope the series, "7 Days of Garbage," inspires people to reflect on what we're doing to our world.  "A couple of weeks after a show, my son and I were driving around and he started to kind of reflect on plastic," he said. "It really struck him that there wasn’t anything plastic in the world 100 years ago. And now the world is covered in it." Lens Culture | GreggSegal.com

Fun fact: Before they were famous, Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall were roommates in New York City in the 1960s, and they palled around with an acting school reject named Gene Hackman.

Few would have guessed, least of all the men themselves, that they would each become giants of Hollywood.

Hackman and Hoffman, both born in Southern California, became friends as students at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1957. But Hackman didn't stay long. Deemed talentless, he earned a grade of 1.4 on a scale of 1 to 10 in his first semester and was kicked out.

Both men made their way to New York, where they hooked up with Duvall, another Southern California native. The trio was instantly inseparable.

Scrounging for acting roles and scraping by on menial jobs, their futures were uncertain. But in interviews with Vanity Fair decades later they recalled a time of creativity, adventure, and parties late into the night at the West 109th Street apartment shared by Hoffman and Duvall. 

Hackman: “There was a kind of feeling of Jack Kerouac at that time — 'On the Road' — kids just wanting to have a good time and kind of experience things. It didn’t have anything to do with being successful — just wanting to try this thing and see if it worked.”

Duvall: “Those were good years, not knowing what the future was about. All these friends. Very important. Dreaming. That was fun.”

Before long, bit parts gave way to bigger ones and ultimately breakout roles on the big screen. For Hackman it was "Bonnie and Clyde," for Duvall "To Kill a Mockingbird," and for Hoffman "The Graduate."

Duvall and Hackman are now both 91, Duvall having celebrated a birthday this week. Hoffman is 84. Between them, they have 19 Oscar nominations and five wins.

Today's California Sun: San Francisco teachers plan "sickout" over Covid safety, a Bay Area tech unicorn embraces four-day workweek, and a meditation on the small-c conservatism of Joan Didion.

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