Newsletter
The California Sun gathers all the must-read stories about California in one place.
Good morning. It’s Friday, July 11.
- Immigration sweeps leave two cannabis farms shaken.
- ICE agents say deportation campaign has tanked morale.
- And solar becomes state’s top source of electricity.
Deportation crackdown
1.
Federal immigration agents descended in force on two California cannabis farms Thursday, one in Camarillo, about 50 miles up the coast from L.A., and another in Carpinteria on the Central Coast. In Camarillo, hundreds of protesters confronted officers in combat gear, who lobbed tear gas and fired less-lethal ammunition. Some protesters were seen throwing projectiles at federal vehicles. KTLA broadcast images of roughly 30 people lined up against a wall with their hands bound.
Local lawmakers called the raids “immoral,” “senseless,” and “military theater.” “It is not who we are as Americans,” said Rep. Julia Brownley. “I think there is a way to do it. This is not the way.” The authorities said they were exercising “criminal search warrants” and had found 10 undocumented minors, eight of whom were unaccompanied. Ventura County Star | L.A. Times | Noozhawk
- Video appeared to show a protester firing a gun during the Camarillo operation. The FBI offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to his conviction. KABC
2.
Before Thursday’s immigration sweeps, Manuel Cunha Jr., the president of an industry group in Fresno that represents 500 farmers, was on edge. If there’s another raid like the one that unfolded on an Oxnard farm on June 10, “we’re screwed,” he said. “Because no one is going to go to work in any field or packing house.” Another fuming grower, standing among his plum trees in Kingsburg, said he’d love to call a general strike just to teach people a lesson. “Let’s just quit feeding America for one week,” he said. N.Y. Times
3.
“It became a contest of how many deportations could be reported to Stephen Miller by December.”
“It’s infuriating. … [We’re] arresting gardeners.”
“It’s just not a good atmosphere.”
The Atlantic’s Nick Miroff spoke with a dozen current and former ICE agents and officers about morale at the agency.
4.
A federal judge on Thursday indicated that she is likely to order ICE to halt raids that civil rights groups allege have indiscriminately targeted people with brown skin across Los Angeles. During a hearing, a government lawyer argued that agents were engaged in “sophisticated operations.” But Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong criticized the government’s failure to provide evidence for how individuals came to be targeted. “There doesn’t seem to be anything like that here,” she said, “which makes it difficult for the court to accept your description of what is happening.” L.A. Times | Courthouse News
Statewide
5.
It’s suddenly become a misnomer to call solar “alternative” energy. Over the past year, solar power has surpassed natural gas to become California’s largest source of electricity. The state’s move away from fossil-fueled power is part of a paradigm shift, wrote environmental journalist Bill McKibben. Globally, more than a third more power is being generated from the sun this spring than last. He continued: “With surprisingly little notice, renewable energy has suddenly become the obvious, mainstream, cost-efficient choice around the world.” New Yorker
6.
California schools are being driven to fiscal insolvency after a 2020 state law dropped the statute of limitations for filing sexual abuse claims and unleashed more than 1,000 lawsuits. Overall, the claims against schools amount to nearly $3 billion. Carpinteria Unified, a predominantly low-income Latino district near Santa Barbara, has been served with four sexual abuse lawsuits, all involving the same perpetrator. “These suits are settling for $5 million to $10 million each, and we have a $42 million budget. You do the math,” said Superintendent Diana Rigby. “It’s untenable.” CalMatters
7.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that President Trump’s domestic policy megabill will result in nearly 12 million losing their health insurance. That spells trouble for Rep. David Valadao’s battleground district in the San Joaquin Valley, where roughly two-thirds of residents rely on Medicaid, the largest share of any House district held by a Republican. Valadao vowed to oppose cuts to Medicaid, yet still voted for Trump’s bill. Democrats are salivating at the chance to punish him, while Republican allies seem unperturbed, Politico reported.
- Rural hospital closures, higher premiums, millions fewer people with insurance. CalMatters predicted how health care will change in California.
8.
“He’s up for the fight. And I’m up for the fight with him.”
“We need about 10 Gavin Newsoms right now.”
“We need the charisma right now, and the backbone — and he’s proven that.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom this week tested his presidential appeal in South Carolina — without saying so. During stops at churches and community centers in rural counties across the early primary state, some Democratic voters expressed reservations about California’s liberal reputation. But they mostly said they viewed Newsom as one of the few party leaders who have effectively jousted with President Trump. N.Y. Times | Washington Post | Politico
Northern California
9.
First, Oakland officials changed the name of Oakland International Airport to San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport in a marketing bid to drum up more business. Across the bay, San Francisco International Airport sued on copyright grounds, winning a preliminary injunction. Now Oakland is back with a new name, approved unanimously on Thursday: Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport. San Francisco’s city attorney, unsurprisingly, said the new name fixes nothing. Michael Colbruno, president of the Oakland Port Commission, accused San Francisco of “elitism.” Mercury News | SFist
10.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Christopher Beam, who recently investigated the cult-like “Zizians” for the New York Times. Beam recalled how the group’s putative figurehead, Ziz LaSota, a transgender woman from Alaska who embraced apocalyptic visions of a world destroyed by artificial intelligence, had faked death by jumping overboard from a ship. Later, even LaSota’s lawyer was shocked to discover she was alive. “There’s so many bizarre twists and turns here,” Beam said. “It’s almost hard to talk about.”
Southern California
11.
In 1940, Los Angeles bulldozed its shantytowns.
In the 1950s, it demolished cheap hotels on Skid Row.
In the 1970s, the city stopped building housing.
Before the late 1970s, wide-scale street homelessness was rarely seen in Los Angeles. Today, the metropolitan area is the developed world’s homelessness capital, with more than 75,000 people who have nowhere to go. In a major investigative piece, the Los Angeles Times showed how “homelessness is not innate to Los Angeles like earthquakes or Santa Ana winds. It is the predictable result of public policy.”
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- In 1975, the photographer Tod Papageorge lugged his clunky medium-format camera to the beach to capture the beautiful Los Angeles light and the stripped-down bodies basking in it. The New Yorker revisited his “theatrical vignettes” of 1970s Southern California beach life.
- On the edge of the Mojave Desert, Newberry Springs once boomed with five gas stations, four motels, and even a public swimming pool. But overpumping and careless governance doomed one of its neighborhoods, ultimately surrendering to the shifting dunes. Today, the buried homes of Newberry Springs are a bucket-list destination for desert explorers. YouTube
- In 2014, a tech entrepreneur bought a 1,100-acre ranch atop Sonoma Mountain for $12 million and, over the years, spent $33 million restoring it. He rebuilt the main house and added four greenhouses and a massive woodshop. It was recently listed for $50 million. The Wall Street Journal
- New office hires want to be promoted after only a few months. Some show up in skimpy outfits and FaceTime friends from their desks. Others treat bosses like parents. Bay Area companies are so fed up with their Gen Z workers that they are hiring etiquette coaches to train them how to behave at work, the San Francisco Standard reported.
- On May 24, 1987, revelers gathered on the Golden Gate Bridge for a celebration of the graceful span’s 50th birthday. Organizers had planned for 50,000 people. More than 800,000 showed up. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub dug up unpublished pictures from the newspaper archive.
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