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

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👆This eye-opening animation shows U.S. Drought Monitor maps from January of 2000 to the present month.

A climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists offered a point of comparison: In June of the second year of the last drought, which began in 2012, none of California was experiencing "extreme drought." Right now, in the second year of the current drought, 85% of California is experiencing "extreme drought" or worse. And the hottest months are still to come.

Tree rings provide glimpses into droughts of the distant past: When widely spaced they indicate periods of wet soil, and when tightly spaced they indicate dry soil. Scientists who analyzed more than 1,500 tree-ring timelines across the American West found that the region is now experiencing a drought almost as bad as a megadrought in the 1500s whose severity has been described in biblical terms. The Guardian created a fascinating visual guide.

Victoria's Secret is attempting a radical brand turnaround: swapping its angels for activists. Gone will be the winged supermodels, replaced by seven women known for their accomplishments. Prominent among them will be Redding's own Megan Rapinoe. Victoria's Secret, the soccer star said, was “patriarchal, sexist, viewing not just what it meant to be sexy but what the clothes were trying to accomplish through a male lens and through what men desired." But she's been convinced it wants to change. N.Y. Times | New York Post

"Everybody that surfs in Southern California knows Curt — he's famous."

After Curt Harper was diagnosed with autism at the age of two, doctors told his parents they would need to institutionalize him. They didn't. Given a chance to find his place in the world, Harper became a beloved fixture of Santa Monica's surfing scene, chauffering young surfers to the shore when their parents can't make it. This short film about him, titled "Curt," will make you love him too. Vimeo (~17 mins)

Kings Canyon cuts a swath through the Sierra range deeper than the Grand Canyon, measuring as much as 8,200 feet from river to rim. Amazingly, you can drive right through it. The Kings Canyon Scenic Byway is the only vehicular route to penetrate the national park, snaking about 40 miles along progressively more stunning views of granite cliffs, giant sequoias, and the roaring south fork of the Kings River. The terminus is aptly named Road's End, which sends motorists around a short loop back the way they came. For backcountry hikers, it's just the start of another adventure on foot.

What it looks like to drive the byway. 👇

Fun fact: Sunflowers aren't just pretty, they demonstrate an elegant mathematical formula. It's known as the Fibonacci sequence — a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the preceding two (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and so on). Count the clockwise and counterclockwise spirals of seeds that make up a sunflower's head, and you'll usually find a pair of numbers from the sequence: 34 and 55, or 55 and 89, or 89 and 144. Here's a great little explainer. 👉 YouTube (~2:40 mins) 

Why am I telling you about sunflowers? It's sunflower season in the Sacramento Valley, the heart of American sunflower seed production. A drone camera pilot recently did a flyover of a brilliant yellow field in Colusa County. 👉 YouTube (45 secs) 

"The dynamics of the Birmingham Roller ... helped us to become gentle giants.”

Birmingham Roller pigeons are renowned for performing a bizarre aerial stunt: They will launch into a series of tight, backward somersaults. In California, the prized birds are bred by a community of Black men and boys in South Los Angeles who have been obsessed with them since the 1960s. Here's a terrific long read about how a subculture of pigeon fancying flourished among men longing for community and solace. 👉 Pipe Wrench 

A few items shared in the newsletter this week.

Sunday Sampler: Examining the megadrought // How an autistic surfer won over Santa Monica

Tree ring data reveal once-in-a-millennium drought.

Vaccinated workers get the OK to remove masks.

And Ring turns LAPD cops into brand ambassadors.

The bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday, signed on Thursday by President Biden, followed a smooth path through Congress. The Senate vote was unanimous. In the House, of 429 voting members, just 14 opposed the measure, all of them Republicans and most from Southern states. Two were Californians: Reps. Doug LaMalfa of Butte County and Tom McClintock of Sacramento County. “I don’t believe it’s healthy to reach into the dead past, revive its most malevolent conflicts and reintroduce them into our age,” McClintock said of the celebration of slavery's end. N.Y. Times | Sacramento Bee

An L.A. Times analysis of California voting data over the last two decades yielded some eye-opening graphics on the electorate's leftward shift. A comparison of how the major party candidates split the gubernatorial vote in 2002 and 2018 revealed that all but 11 counties swung toward the Democrat. In Los Angeles County, the leftward shift was 10 percentage points. In San Diego County, it was 13 points, and in Sacramento, 12 points. All this to say: Gov. Gavin Newsom seems to be on much firmer ground than was former Gov. Gray Davis when he was recalled in 2003.

California regulators voted Thursday to let vaccinated workers take off their masks, bringing workplace rules in line with the state's reopening. The change would normally take 10 days to go into effect, but Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order expediting it. Some labor leaders said the standards board acted prematurely. The move, said Mitch Steiger of the California Labor Federation, "will sicken many and likely kill some workers, particularly in rural areas." L.A. Times | A.P.

In January, a hacker who wanted to poison the Bay Area's water supply accessed a treatment plant by simply typing in a former employee's username and password. After logging in, the hacker deleted programs used to treat the water. No illnesses resulted, but the incident highlighted how vulnerable America's water supplies are. "If you could imagine a community center run by two old guys who are plumbers, that's your average water plant," a cybersecurity expert said. NBC News

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged that it video recorded 14 privileged jail meetings between attorneys and their Aryan Brotherhood defendants last year, a startling admission made public as part of a lawsuit. A sheriff's lieutenant said the recordings of meetings were inadvertent and contained no audio. A defense lawyer responded: "If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn for you.” Sacramento Bee | Mercury News

In 1979, the San Francisco Examiner dubbed Kem Lee “the Dean of Chinatown photographers.” For five decades starting in the 1920s, he chronicled nearly every facet of life in Chinatown with more than 200,000 photos — weddings, beauty pageants, parades, and visits from luminaries such as Duke Ellington, Bruce Lee, and Cary Grant. Yet his work has largely slipped through the cracks of popular memory. The journalist Charles Russo dug up some great photos. 👉 The San Franciscan 

On this week's California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Steve Wasserman, the publisher of Heyday Books in Berkeley. He talked about the literary provincialism on both American coasts, in which Californians nurse resentments over a perceived lack of respect and East Coasters imagine themselves as the end-all and be-all. "So whenever I'm in California, I want to defend New York," he said. "Whenever I'm in Manhattan, I want to defend California."

The home surveillance company Ring essentially turned the LAPD into a brand ambassador by giving at least 100 officers free and discounted devices and encouraging them to promote the products. The giveaway poses an ethical problem, experts said: When freebies give officers motives other than public service, citizens are left wondering whether they can trust their public safety advice. L.A. Times | The Verge

“I just love being a helper and to serve others wherever I am.”

During the darkest months of the pandemic, someone in every hospital had to collect all of the bodies of Covid-19's victims. At Loma Linda University Medical Center, that person was Karl, a deeply private man who didn't want his last name used or his photograph taken for an article. The reporter Maria L. La Ganga wrote a moving portrait of one of the pandemic's quiet heroes. L.A. Times 

☝️ There's a figure of a 7-foot-tall man with his head lodged in a wall in downtown Los Angeles. Created by the artist Terry Allen in 1991, the anonymous businessman known as Corporate Head is installed outside an office tower with an accompanying poem that reads in part, "They said to become concrete and I became concrete." As Californians return to their commutes and offices this summer, the work expresses a recognizable lament — at once funny and achingly poignant.

Five items that got big views over the past week:

You can't visit the Bay Area's last ghost town; Drawbridge is part of a protected nature preserve. But this panoramic viewer offers some awesome views. 👉 Roundme.com 

It's sunflower season in the Sacramento Valley, the heart of American sunflower seed production. A drone camera pilot recently did a flyover of a brilliant yellow field in Colusa County. YouTube (45 secs)

After Curt Harper was diagnosed with autism at the age of 2, doctors told his parents they would need to institutionalize him. They didn't. Given a chance to find his place in the world, Harper became a beloved fixture of Santa Monica's surfing scene. Vimeo (~17 mins)

As a high school student in 1950s New Jersey, Tom Ammiano was denied a varsity track letter by a teacher who had bullied him with anti-gay rhetoric. Six decades later, someone finally stood up for him. ESPN (~7 mins)

The street photographer Alan Dejecacion roamed Los Angeles during a period when the city was the new Ellis Island, a place of promise, dynamism, strife, and disaster. See his superb photo series "City of Angels: Los Angeles, 1988 — 1993." 👉 Vantage 

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Today's California Sun: Tree ring data reveal once-in-a-millennium drought, vaccinated workers get the OK to remove masks, and Ring turns LAPD cops into brand ambassadors.

Workers get OK to remove masks // Ring turns L.A. cops into brand ambassadors

Brutally hot weather prompts call to conserve energy.

A feasible plan to truck ocean water to the Salton Sea.

And Megan Rapinoe joins rebrand of Victoria's Secret.

The managers of California's power grid warned that energy supplies could fall short of demand on Thursday, as a punishing heat wave engulfs the state. Officials issued a "flex alert," a voluntary call to conserve energy, for Thursday evening. Forecasters said temperatures could rise well into triple digits in places across California. Death Valley was expected to match its hellish high from Wednesday: 125 degrees. AccuWeather | A.P. | SFGate.com

Quotes from UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain in a New York magazine article on California's record-setting fire seasons:

“I personally know probably a dozen people in California, maybe 20, who’ve had to personally outrun flames. Before the last six or seven years, I had literally never heard of that. And then all of a sudden it’s like, Oh, you too?"

“I mean, you talk to firefighters and wildland firefighters who’ve been at this for 20, 30 years ... And they’re like, ‘Yeah, every fire we’re on now would have been the career-defining fire a generation ago.’"

On Colorado: “Like, Holy hell, what’s going on? I mean, one of the fires jumped the Continental Divide. In some places on the Divide, there’s two miles of just bare granite. Usually it’s considered the second-best firebreak in the West, the best one being the Pacific Ocean. And the fire jumped it. That was shocking.”

The L.A. Times reached out to several of the more than three dozen California organizations awarded money by the philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The leader of a women's rights group thought the offer was spam. A museum president didn't believe it for days. Many echoed the same refrain about gifts such as $15 million, $25 million, and $40 million: They were the largest sums they ever received and would enable game-changing leaps in their work. 

As reporters on California's recall election have lavished attention on John Cox's bear and an Olympian-turned-reality TV star, Kevin Faulconer has been releasing policy proposals. The fiscally conservative but socially moderate Republican has recommended, for example, eliminating state income taxes on individuals making less than $50,000. The election calls for a "serious" candidate, Faulconer told CalMatters. Others have used another adjective for the former San Diego mayor: "boring.”

Victoria's Secret's is attempting a radical brand turnaround: swapping its angels for activists. Gone will be the winged supermodels, replaced by seven women known for their accomplishments. Prominent among them will be Redding's own Megan Rapinoe. Victoria's Secret, the soccer star said, was “patriarchal, sexist, viewing not just what it meant to be sexy but what the clothes were trying to accomplish through a male lens and through what men desired." But she's been convinced it wants to change. N.Y. Times | New York Post

A viral video of a daytime shoplifting incident at a San Francisco Walgreens, in which a man filled a garbage bag with items then rode a bike past security guards out of the store, highlighted how mundane such crimes have become in the city. A retail crime expert said San Francisco is now "one of the epicenters of organized retail crime." Theft at Walgreens stores in the city is four times the average at its other stores. Spending on security guards is 35 times more. CNN

The Salton Sea is dying and the architect Nikola Lakic has a solution: Lay 125 miles of pipe to the Gulf of California and fill it back up with ocean water. The multibillion-dollar project is not idle talk. It's among 11 formal "sea-to-sea" proposals that California is taking seriously. The Desert Sun dispatched a reporter to examine the project. The conclusion: It's technically feasible.

Sun, sand, and salt water: The photographer George Mann captured the Salton Sea during its 1960s heyday. 👉 Flickr 

A former Los Angeles police officer said that while crossing a San Diego port of entry from Tijuana last summer, she was made to spread her legs as a female border agent penetrated her through her clothing. Later, she said, officers forced her to disrobe and squat as an agent shined a light at her genitals. Janine Bouey, 61, filed a sexual assault claim Wednesday. “If they’re doing this to a retired LAPD officer," she said, "they’re going to do this to a lot of people.” S.D. Union-Tribune | City News Service

In a remarkable public disclosure on Wednesday, Ojai's Thacher School, one of California's most exclusive private schools, acknowledged decades of allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment by faculty members. In the most serious case, an English teacher was accused of repeatedly raping a girl starting when she was 16 in the 1980s. Law enforcement is reviewing the evidence. L.A. Times | Newsweek  

☝️ Here's one way to take in the show when the perseid meteor shower makes its appearance in July and August. The "bubble tent" is nestled under the dark skies of Joshua Tree, a desert landscape that may be sweltering during summer afternoons but is perfect at night. Fodors included the rental in its list of the 10 most unique lodgings in California. 

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Today's California Sun: Brutally hot weather prompts call to conserve energy, a feasible plan to truck ocean water to the Salton Sea, and Megan Rapinoe joins rebrand of Victoria's Secret.

A call to conserve energy // Megan Rapinoe joins Victoria's Secret rebrand

Many Californians are reluctant to give up their masks.

A defense of San Francisco's progressive district attorney.

And how a surfer with autism won over Santa Monica.

“It’s nice to see people’s smiles again.”

On Tuesday, Californians streamed into Disneyland, sat side-by-side at Dodger Stadium, and danced to DJ music atop a peak in San Francisco as they shrugged off 15 months of pandemic restrictions. But not everyone left their masks at home. In many cases, people cited not concerns about safety, but social etiquette. “When I see everybody else wearing one I feel naked," a Sacramento woman told CBS13, "like I should probably put mine on too.” Mercury News | A.P.

Avoiding the charged phrase "vaccine passport," Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday said California would introduce a vaccine verification system that would help businesses confirm whether customers were inoculated against the coronavirus. Newsom said they would be digital cards stored on phones. "It’s not a passport. It's not a requirement," he said. "It's just the ability now to have an electronic version of that paper version. SFGate.com | S.D. Union-Tribune

Reversing itself, the University of California said vaccines would be mandatory for students in the fall. S.F. Chronicle

The drought gripping California is not only sapping water supplies: Low reservoir levels mean hydropower supplies are also tumbling. At a time when punishing summer heat waves threaten to stress the power grid, the state's hydropower output has fallen to the lowest in more than five years. “California," an analyst said, "is walking a tight rope.” Bloomberg

MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced that she had given away $2.7 billion, a significant portion of which went to organizations across California. They included Homeboy Industries, the Japanese American National Museum, the East Bay Fund for Artists, and a number of community colleges and Cal State campuses. Remarkably, Scott's wealth is growing faster than she can dispense it. In 2019, when she pledged to give away her fortune, her Amazon shares were valued at $36 billion. Today she is worth $60 billion. N.Y. Times | Medium

In a column titled "The bogus backlash against progressive prosecutors," the opinion writer Radley Balko challenged a common narrative that San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is allowing criminals to run amok. Balko cited a viral ABC report that claimed Boudin dropped charges against a juvenile accused of assaulting a 75-year-old woman. It wasn't true. James Queally, a Los Angeles police reporter, called Balko's piece "as stark of an indictment of local TV coverage of the criminal justice reform movement as you're ever going to see." Washington Post | SFist

California's drought may have solved the mystery of a 1965 plane crash. With Folsom Lake near Sacramento now shriveled to roughly 37% of capacity, an underwater surveying company discovered a plane propeller and tail that matched the description of a lost Piper Comanche 250 that fell into the water after a midair collision. The discovery has given hope to family members that they may get to finally lay to rest three victims whose bodies were never found. SFGate.com | The Guardian

The photographer Troy Holden has said he is drawn to odd moments, which makes the downtown streets of San Francisco a sort of artistic heaven. Vantage magazine once called Holden the best street photographer in the city, "taking some of the rawest, life-affirming, and emotion-crushing images of public life that San Francisco knows." Vantage | @tholden415

Harvey Weinstein, currently serving time in a New York state prison for rape, is expected to arrive in Los Angeles within a few weeks to stand trial on charges that he sexually assaulted five women. The disgraced movie producer fought to postpone extradition on medical grounds, but a New York judge on Tuesday denied the petition. Weinstein dropped his head as the ruling was issued. L.A. Times | N.Y. Times

When Covid-19 hit last year, the Los Angeles City Council issued a moratorium on homeless tent removal. Since then, camps, trash, and crime have transformed the Venice boardwalk, home to the county's largest concentration of homeless people after Skid Row. So last week, Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who doesn't answer to the council, arrived in a cowboy hat and declared he would clear everyone out by July 4. He gave an ultimatum: accept services, leave, or be arrested. LAist 

☝️ Here's a Chinook CH-47, the world’s largest firefighting helicopter, in action.

The helitanker can carry up to 3,000 gallons, far more than other helicopters, slurping up water from lakes with a snorkel between drops. Officials announced this week that Southern California fire agencies were adding two of the Chinooks to their arsenal — just as a potentially awful fire season ramps up. A.P. | O.C. Register

Believe it or not, the hassle of parallel parking was solved more than 80 years ago. In 1938, an energetic Bay Area lumberman named Brooks Walker patented a device that would drop a wheel perpendicular to the others from the trunk of a car, allowing it to swivel in and out of tight parking spaces. 

The “fifth wheel” drew significant buzz during the car customization craze after World War II. Walker’s prototypes wowed audiences at car shows. LIFE magazine ran a spread in 1952. Rolls Royce, Duesenberg, and Packard were said to show interest.

Yet no one bit. “I guess I’m not a very good salesman,” Walker told the San Francisco Examiner years later. There were notable drawbacks too: the hydraulic contraption required fuel tanks to be repositioned and all but eliminated a car’s trunk space.

Even if the fifth wheel didn’t catch on, it did ease Walker’s own parking headaches. He drove his own modified Cadillac Sixty Special more than 100,000 miles.

Watch an old newsreel on Walker’s fifth wheel. 👉 YouTube (~1 min) 

Today's California Sun: Many Californians are reluctant to give up their masks, a defense of San Francisco's progressive district attorney, and how a surfer with autism won over Santa Monica.

Breaking the mask habit // How an autistic surfer won over Santa Monica

California reopens 15 months after going into lockdown.

A week of brutally hot temperatures across the West.

And video shows Dana Rohrabacher at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

An agonizing 15 months after Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered Californians to isolate in their homes "until further notice," the state today officially goes back to normal — mostly. Here are highlights of what's changing, with the caveat that local governments and business can still set tougher restrictions:

Capacity limits are lifted pretty much everywhere, including churches, stores, bars, and restaurants. 

Vaccinated people can ditch their masks in most settings with the exceptions of health care facilities, schools, and public transportation. (A workplace mask requirement will be dropped Thursday, Newsom said.) 

Unvaccinated people must wear masks at indoor establishments, but enforcement is based on an honor system.

"Mega events" — meaning more than 5,000 people indoors or 10,000 outdoors — may require proof of inoculation.

A couple of good guides. 👉 S.F. Chronicle  | CalMatters 

A Washington Post analysis found that coronavirus cases are markedly falling in places where people are vaccinated, and rising where they are not. An x-y graph with variables of case rates and vaccination rates placed California, where 72% of adults have gotten at least one dose, firmly within the "more vaccinations, fewer cases" quadrant.

NBC News: "Virtually all hospitalized Covid patients have one thing in common: They're unvaccinated."

“They’re immediately one paycheck away from homelessness.” 

New research showed how the coronavirus has attacked Hispanic Americans in an especially insidious way: They have died at younger ages than people from other racial or ethnic groups. It led their families to experience a very different pandemic as income streams and support networks unraveled. The N.Y. Times told the story of one family's grief in Santa Clara County.

With cases, deaths, and hospitalizations drastically down from their peaks, health experts seem upbeat. Dr. John Swartzberg:  “I really am ecstatic about where we are." L.A. Times | S.F. Chronicle

Thanks to uneven vaccination rates, California isn't close to herd immunity. In Marin County, 75% of people 12 or older is vaccinated. In Lassen County, the figure is 22%. CalMatters

Newsom added another enticement to his “Vax for the Win” initiative: Six dream vacation packages to places such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Palm Springs. S.F. Chronicle | A.P.

“By adding 1.3 million people to its non-farm payrolls since April last year — equal to the entire workforce of Nevada — California easily surpassed also-rans Texas and New York. At the same time, California household income increased $164 billion, almost as much as Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania combined, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. No wonder California's operating budget surplus, fueled by its surging economy and capital gains taxes, swelled to a record $75 billion.”

☝️ This eye-opening animation shows U.S. Drought Monitor maps from January of 2000 to the present month. 

A climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists offered a point of comparison: In June of the second year of the last drought, which began in 2012, none of California was experiencing "extreme drought." Right now, in the second year of the current drought, 85% of California is experiencing "extreme drought" or worse. And the hottest months are still to come. 

It's going to be so hot this week that doctors who work in burn centers warned people to be careful touching hot pavement. Excessive heat watches and warnings were issued throughout California as forecasters predicted temperatures along parts of the coast in the upper 90s along with broiling heat in the Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Coachella valleys as high as 120 degrees. Grid operators asked people to conserve energy. Accuweather | L.A. Times | S.F. Chronicle

"Those things still hurt, even 100 years later."

As a high school student in 1950s New Jersey, Tom Ammiano was denied a varsity track letter by a teacher who had bullied him with anti-gay rhetoric. Ammiano went on to become a prominent activist and politician in San Francisco. The letter became ancient history. But then, 63 years later, someone finally stood up for him. Here's a touching short documentary about how Ammiano finally got his varsity letter. ESPN (~7 mins)

Kings Canyon cuts a swath through the Sierra range deeper than the Grand Canyon, measuring as much as 8,200 feet from river to rim. Amazingly, you can drive right through it. The Kings Canyon Scenic Byway is the only vehicular route to penetrate the national park, snaking about 40 miles along progressively more stunning views of granite cliffs, giant sequoias, and the roaring south fork of the Kings River. The terminus is aptly named Road's End, which sends motorists around a short loop back the way they came. For backcountry hikers, it's just the start of another adventure on foot. 

Newly released video showed that Dana Rohrabacher, a former Orange County congressman, breached the police barricades outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, making him the highest profile politician known to be on the grounds that day. “I marched to protest," the Republican told the Portland Press, "and I thought the election was fraudulent and it should be investigated.” Weeks before the siege, Rohrabacher told a "Stop the Steal" rally in Huntington Beach that communists were trying to take over the country. Press Herald | O.C. Register

The music entrepreneurs Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are starting a public high school in South Los Angeles, and the district school superintendent has predicted it will be "the coolest school in America." The men, both reportedly billionaires, admitted to hating their own school experiences. So they've embraced a vision to excite inner city youth: “This is for kids who want to go out and start their own company or go work at a place... like Marvel, or Apple or companies like that,” Iovine said. L.A. Times | L.A. Daily News 

… Kevin Feinstein, an avid forager and co-author of the Bay Area Forager.

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

A. Some place where epic cliffs overlook the coast. There is just something about these areas that makes you feel you are at the edge of the world somehow. Beautiful forests and breathtaking hills overlooking the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. It's a must-see in California.  

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

“For the Love of Paw Paws.” I'm too busy farming (and moving) lately to listen to podcasts or read much, but I am super excited about growing paw paws, and am really loving the book. They are native North American fruits that are delicious!

The food forest at the Children's Center that I created over 16 years. Although the Children's Center Garden is not open to the public, I have never been to a cooler place as far as food. It is a half-acre food forest, with "normal" and rare fruits, wild plants, herbs, wildlife, and free-range chickens and ducks. Moraga Garden Center is one of the coolest nurseries around, and the super-knowledgeable owner, Kenny, stocks lots of unusual edibles.

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?

John Muir (the uber California naturalist), David Aurora (the king of wild mushrooms), and Steven Murray (he grows soooo many types of rare fruits as well as normal California fruit staples). I would start by saying, "California is the best state for nature and growing, don't you agree?"

How has the current drought affected the available foraging environment? Which areas in California are better positioned to withstand it, and which areas are the most vulnerable?

The drought is not as straightforward as it may seem. There is the actual lack of rainfall in certain areas (this year has been the lowest in a long time), there is the political "drought" that is used in rhetoric for various agendas, and there is the human-created drought, where people are prevented from doing drought abatement practices and there’s gross mismanagement of the forests and dumping water in the ocean.

As far as foraging areas, near the more moist coast they are likely to do better than inland areas. California naturally experiences droughts throughout its natural history. There are ways to mediate that. Allowing this to be done is the key to making it through. If agencies are intentionally or through gross neglect making it worse, then more people will be fleeing.

Today's California Sun: California reopens 15 months after going into lockdown, a week of brutally hot temperatures across the West, and video shows Dana Rohrabacher at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Reopening day is here // Dana Rohrabacher at the Capitol on Jan. 6

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A developer built an interactive map that lets you point anywhere on a map, then zoom through a 3D visualization of the waterways that a theoretical raindrop would travel on its path to lower ground. For California, most clicks in the northern half of the state lead ultimately to the San Francisco Bay, into which 40% of California's landmass drains. Give it a try. 👉 River Runner 

The ghost town of Drawbridge in the south San Francisco Bay was once a vision of the Wild West, with gambling, brothels, and speakeasies. In the 1920s, it had about 90 homes, many on stilts, and drew hundreds of visitors on weekends. Duck hunting was so bountiful that gamblers slapped their catches on betting tables as currency. But unlike other of California's prized ghost towns, Drawbridge is not being saved. Perched mere feet above sea level, its boardwalks and sagging wooden structures are being left to slowly melt into the marsh. KQED

You can't visit the Bay Area's last ghost town; it's part of a protected nature preserve. But this panoramic viewer offers some awesome views. 👉 Roundme.com 

As Americans emerge from their post-pandemic cocoons, the ultrarunner Timothy Olson is celebrating in his own way: He's attempting to break the speed record on the Pacific Crest Trail, stretching from the Mexican border to the Canadian border through California, Oregon, and Washington. To pull it off, he needs to cover 2,650 miles in under 52 days — or the equivalent of back-to-back marathons daily for 50 days straight. “I want to set a marker for what is possible,” he said. Outside | S.F. Chronicle

Olson set off from the trail's Southern Terminus on June 1. Track his progress. 👉 Outside 

"The Pileated Woodpecker again. It's so loud!"

As part of a new pop-up podcast series, an ecologist brought sophisticated recording equipment into Sequoia National Park to capture the sounds of the forest — from 150 feet off the ground. Jacob Job climbed into the canopy of a giant sequoia and interpreted an incredible symphony of birdsong. Scientific American

In the 1970s, the coastal village of Bolinas was a place where people settled to share existence with each other and nature. The photographer Rachel Barrett was interested how those communal roots echoed decades later among a new generation enthralled once more by back-to-the-land ideologies. She chronicled the lives of eight young women sharing a home between 2008 and 2010. The images capture a mood as much as a place. Fraction Magazine | Behance

The Wikipedia entry for the plucky cartoon puppy Scrappy-Doo is 25,623 words, nearly 2,000 words longer than the entry for the entire history of Poland. Mystified, a British journalist who stumbled upon the page tracked down the author: Shauna, a 20-year-old college student in California who has high-functioning autism and felt Scrappy was misunderstood. "He was sweet and happy, he was quirky, he was kind,” she said. The Waiting Room

Over the last five years, the independent journalist Yashar Ali has emerged as one of the most powerful voices on the web. When a reporter working on a profile asked for a list of his acquaintances who might comment about him, Ali shared a spreadsheet with the personal emails and cellphone numbers of more than 40 bold-face names, including Chrissy Teigen, Piers Morgan, Jeff Zucker, and Meghan McCain. The resulting profile didn't fully answer how Ali amassed his army of A-list supporters, but it did provide a fascinating window into the world of a bon vivant who lives out of benefactors' homes while using his vast Twitter following to promote his famous friends and punish foes. L.A. Magazine

Sunday sampler: The communal roots of Bolinas // A marathon a day for 50 days on the Pacific Crest Trail

Scheduling note: The newsletter will be off on Monday. Back in your inbox Tuesday.

Justice Department in 2018 seized data of California Democrats.

Gavin Newsom calls judge in guns case "a stone-cold ideologue."

And a former police chief is charged in Jan. 6 Capitol siege.

The Justice Department under former President Trump secretly subpoenaed Apple for the data of two California Democrats as it hunted for people who leaked Russia investigation intelligence to reporters. Apple complied. The lawmakers were prominent critics of Trump: Rep. Adam Schiff, then the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, also on the committee. The N.Y. Times called the step "a nearly unheard-of move outside of corruption investigations." N.Y. Times | Washington Post

As California officials filed an appeal of a federal ruling that overturned the state's assault weapons ban, Gov. Gavin Newsom assailed the judge behind the decision in starkly personal terms on Thursday. “Judge Benitez is a stone-cold ideologue,” he said. “He’s a wholly owned subsidiary of the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association.” S.F. Chronicle | A.P.

State analysts on Thursday projected the cost of conducting an expected recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom: $215 million. Within hours, Democratic leaders announced a plan to cover the tab, allowing them to skip a 30-day cost review. Democrats want a speedy recall to leverage voter confidence as the state reopens, rather than wait and risk bad news. Early estimates predicted the recall in November. Now, wrote Politico, it could come by September. A.P. | S.F. Chronicle

On Thursday, 10 Bay Area health officers gathered at a San Francisco middle school, unmasked, hugging, and shaking hands. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder to say that California must fully reopen schools in the fall. “On this we are 100% united,” said Dr. Sara Cody. Yet district-level decision-making means California may see a hodgepodge of reopening plans. Los Angeles officials announced theirs Thursday: Classes will reopen, but everyone will remain in masks, regardless of vaccination. S.F. Chronicle | L.A. Times

Lake Mead, a water source for Los Angeles, San Diego, and locations across the Southwest, fell to its lowest level since being formed by the damming of the Colorado River in the 1930s. Arizona Republic | ABC News

Mandatory water restrictions hit one of the Bay Area's largest water districts. The Santa Clara Valley Water District ordered its 2 million customers to cut their water usage by 15%. SFGate.com | CNN

CBS News meteorologist: "By almost any measure the drought in the Western states this year is about as bad as we've ever seen — perhaps the worst in modern history."

Before Samuel Cassidy killed nine people at a San Jose rail yard, a coworker said of him: "He scares me. If someone was to go postal, it’d be him.”

That was among the chilling revelations revealed Thursday in internal files from the Valley Transportation Authority. Officials said Cassidy was the subject of several investigations into his conduct. In the most serious case, witnesses said Cassidy accosted a female coworker, “shouting and pointing at her” over the vacation schedule. Mercury News | A.P.

On this week's California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Colleen McCain Nelson, the Sacramento Bee's new executive editor. She talked about the hedge fund purchase of the Bee, efforts to diversify her newsroom, and the struggle to convince people to pay for journalism. "It just doesn't work for us to give away the news for free," Nelson said.

A former Orange County police chief is among a group of six Californians charged Thursday for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Alan Hostetter, 56, who once led the La Habra police department, is now a yoga instructor with a pony tail. In a video recorded after the November election, he ranted about what he believed was brazen voter fraud. "Tyrants and traitors need to be executed as an example so nobody pulls this shit again,” he said. O.C. Register | HuffPost

Four Glendale police officers were under investigation after a video showed them pummeling a 17-year-old suspected of shoplifting in a Dick’s Sporting Goods store. Officials said a struggle ensued during an attempt to detain the suspect. The video shows two plainclothes officers repeatedly punching the boy while he's on the ground as a third officer holds his legs. A fourth officer, in uniform, then arrives and kicks the teenager in the face. CBSLA | NBC News

"Los Angeles is the Great Gatsby of American cities." 
— Kevin Starr, historian

The street photographer Alan Dejecacion roamed Los Angeles with his camera during a period when the city was the new Ellis Island, a place of promise, dynamism, strife, and disaster. His photo series, "City of Angels: Los Angeles, 1988 — 1993," is superb. Vantage

The photographer Rachel Barrett chronicled the lives of eight young women sharing a home in Bolinas between 2008 and 2010. The images capture a mood as much as a place. Fraction Magazine | Behance

The ultrarunner Timothy Olson is attempting to break the speed record on the Pacific Crest Trail. He needs to cover 2,650 miles in under 52 days — or the equivalent of back-to-back marathons daily for 50 days straight. “I want to set a marker for what is possible,” he said. Outside | S.F. Chronicle

Jacob Job, an ecologist, brought recording equipment into Sequoia National Park to capture the sounds of the forest — from 150 feet off the ground. He climbed into the canopy of a giant sequoia and interpreted an incredible symphony of birdsong. Scientific American

A developer built an interactive map that lets you point anywhere on a map, then zoom through a 3D visualization of the waterways that a theoretical raindrop would travel on its path to lower ground. River Runner 

A Sacramento Bee investigation found that companies with reasons to ingratiate themselves with Gov. Gavin Newsom — including PG&E, Comcast, and Kaiser Permanente — pumped more than $800,000 into his wife's nonprofit. Sacramento Bee | Fox News

Today's California Sun: Justice Department in 2018 seized data of California Democrats, Gavin Newsom calls judge in guns case "a stone-cold ideologue," and a former police chief is charged in Jan. 6 Capitol siege.

Trump officials seized data of California Democrats // Ex-police chief charged in Jan. 6 siege

Kamala Harris faces rebuke for telling migrants "do not come."

Pride flags rise for the first time in many California cities. 

And a glimpse into the world of Twitter influencer Yashar Ali.

Health officials said Wednesday that vaccinated Californians will be allowed to shed their masks in almost all settings starting next Tuesday, when the state fully reopens. The guidance brings the state into alignment with CDC guidelines. Yet a baffling wrinkle remains: California workplaces will be required to enforce strict masking rules for at least a few more weeks as regulators continue to wrangle with their regulations. S.F. Chronicle | A.P.

As of Tuesday in California, the average number of daily deaths from the coronavirus is about two. Yet Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he plans to keep his emergency powers beyond the state's June 15 reopening. "This disease has not been extinguished," he explained last Friday. "It’s not vanished.” That prompted some opinions: 

O.C. Register: "The governor has moved the goalposts again, this time clear off the field and out of the stadium."

L.A. Times: "This has no doubt contributed to some of the frustration that drove more than 1.5 million Californians to sign the Newsom recall petition."

Wall Street Journal: "Judges should also seize the next opportunity to clarify that the governor’s emergency authority cannot last forever."

Those three words, said by Vice President Kamala Harris to migrants during a recent visit to Guatemala, have triggered blowback from critics on the left who called them "disappointing” and “tone-deaf.” The California Latino Legislative Caucus reminded Harris that seeking asylum is legal. “In keeping with past precedent we should not discourage asylum seekers from seeking a better life," the leaders said. "They are doing what they need to do to survive." Politico | L.A. Times

June is Pride month, and in recent days local leaders agreed to fly City Hall pride flags for the first time in Gilroy, Fresno, Pasadena, Delano, Huntington Beach, and San Diego. Even Shasta County, one of California's most conservative outposts, narrowly approved a proclamation declaring June LGBTQ+ Pride month — but not without opposition. Supervisor Les Baugh wondered where it would all end: "Would we present a heterosexual day? Would we represent, I'll just say 'fat white day?' I don't know." Record Searchlight | KRCR

When the sports reporter David Chen traveled to Marin County to investigate the case of a high school tennis coach who was convicted of molesting his star players in 2019, he found a court document mentioning a former college recruit who had accused that same coach of abuse 15 years earlier. He was identified as John Doe, and when he testified against the coach he was heckled from the gallery by other players and their parents. N.Y. Times

David Pride lost his father when he was young. He put aside his father's typed poems having never read them, planning to pull them out some day when he was ready. Then a wildfire roared through Pride's mountain community of Boulder Creek last September. "After the fire, at first I mourned the loss of my things," he said. "But I realized that, ultimately, my attachment to things was because of the memories in them. With my dad’s poetry, though, I don’t have the memory of it. I didn’t get to read it all. I didn’t get to feel it, experience it, and then let it go. And now it’s gone."

The Believer collected 10 portraits of loss from California's wildfires, told through the stories of irreplaceable personal objects. 

In the Gold Rush town of Auburn, it was hard to not have an opinion about the chosen hobby of the local dentist Ken Fox. Beginning in the 1960s, he made colossal nude figures inspired by Greek mythology, including a topless archer rising 42 feet along the road outside his office. Scandalized, city officials rerouted the school buses. Half a century later, attitudes have softened toward Fox's statues, which remain scattered across town. Fox died just last November at the age of 95, his passing noted with a brief obituary in the Auburn Journal. His statues, Fox once predicted, will stand for another 200 years. Atlas Obscura

“It’s a case of women being absolutely trampled."

Six women, who never met each other, accused an orthopedic surgeon in Newport Beach of raping them. Their stories were strikingly similar: Dr. Grant Robicheaux and his girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, were accused of luring women, spiking their drinks, and taking them to Robicheaux’s home. Investigators collected evidence, but the case became entangled in the politicking of rival prosecutors. Years later, it appears now that the women may never get their day in court. BuzzFeed News

In March, the FBI got a warrant to raid a Beverly Hills safe deposit box company accused of conspiring to sell drugs and launder money. The customers were accused of nothing, however. So a judge was clear: “This warrant does not authorize a criminal search or seizure of the contents of the safety deposit boxes." Yet now the FBI is trying to confiscate $86 million in cash and millions of dollars more in other valuables found in the boxes. L.A. Times | Courthouse News Service

Mountain lions once enjoyed the broadest range of any terrestrial mammal in the Americas, roaming forests, deserts, and marshlands. In Southern California, they exist now on fragments of habitat, hemmed in by freeways that cut them off from mates. Year after year, the big cats make deadly attempts to sprint across them. That's why work is due to begin this year on what will be the world's largest and most ambitious wildlife crossing: a pathway as wide as a football field over Highway 101, carpeted in vegetation and melded into the surrounding hillsides. Alta

Today's California Sun: Kamala Harris faces rebuke for telling migrants "do not come," Pride flags rise for the first time in many California cities, and a glimpse into the world of Twitter influencer Yashar Ali.

Kamala Harris faces backlash for "do not come" // The rise of Twitter influencer Yashar Ali

A growing movement to return lands to Native American tribes.

San Francisco shows evidence of coronavirus herd immunity.

And harrowing video of a great white shark approaching two kids.

There is a burgeoning movement across the U.S. to repatriate lands back to Native American Tribes, including a recent transfer of a 1,200-acre ranch with a redwood forest and a crystalline stream to the Esselen. Conservationists have embraced the moves in part because Indigenous management styles, including the use of “fire as medicine,” are seen as consistent with the goals of protecting biodiversity and hedging against climate change. Yale Environment 360

Economist Jerry Nickelsburg on what the data says about the correlation between pandemic restrictions and economic growth:

"We found two things. First, California had more stringent interventions and a lower infection rate than either Texas or Florida, two states to which it’s often compared. Yet California also performed better with respect to GDP than either Texas or Florida. Second, the same pattern showed up across all big states: On average, the ones with more stringent interventions had both better health outcomes and better economic outcomes." Yahoo News

Alyssa Milano said she is weighing a congressional run from California in 2024. The celebrity activist has her sights set on Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican who has represented a district that spans much of the Sierra since 2008. Milano said she lives part of the year in Truckee and would love to flip the red district to blue. "I'm basically gathering information right now," she said, "speaking to different consultants, speaking to the community.” The Hill | L.A. Times

All nine Bay Area counties plan to fully reopen along with the rest of California on June 15, health officials have said. That includes San Francisco, which has had some of the nation's strictest pandemic restrictions. The city has lately been recording about 12 coronavirus infections a day. “That is what herd immunity looks like,” said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist. S.F. Chronicle | The Guardian

In one message, a sergeant compared homeless people to pigeons: "... if we feed them they won’t ever leave!!!”

In another, an officer joked about having a helicopter chop the heads off "a bunch of trogs."

Eureka's police department has been upended by an investigation into the dehumanizing text messages of two officers. Three people have been put on leave. Four others have announced plans to retire or take jobs elsewhere. Sacramento Bee

Ann Russell Miller died. She was a staple of San Francisco's society pages who collected designer shoes, hobnobbed with Phyllis Diller, and vacationed on Mediterranean yachts. Then one day she walked away from everything to become a nun, stunning her massive social circle. Miller joined the Order of Discalced Carmelites outside Chicago, where she remained enveloped in silence for nearly 31 years until her death on June 5. She was 92. SFist | Chicago Sun-Times

There's a bar in downtown Sacramento where mermaids swim in a massive overhead fish tank. Years ago, the Sacramento Bee did a short video feature on one of the performers, Rachel Smith, who oversees the team of merfolk and has the fantastic job title of Head Mermaid. "There are very few fantasy characters that you can be as a person. You can't go out and, 'I want to be a phoenix!'" she said. "But you can actually be a mermaid."

Traveller extraordinaire Josh McNair thought the bar was so cool he included it in his "Ultimate California Bucket List."

Prosecutors on Tuesday charged Marcus Anthony Eriz, 24, with murder in the road rage killing of a 6-year-old boy on a Southern California freeway last month. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer told reporters that the case against the former auto body shop worker was rock solid and could put Eriz away for 40 years. Eriz's girlfriend, Wynne Lee, who authorities said was behind the wheel, was charged with being an accessory after the fact. L.A. Times | O.C. Register

In the summer of 2019, headlines in publications across the country reported that a ladybug swarm in Southern California was so massive that it showed up on National Weather Service radar. Two years later, a journalist finally took a meticulous look at the story. His verdict: bogus. "The ladybug swarm seems to have been entirely a figment of the media’s creation, based on a single Tweet, which itself was based on a single volunteer weather observer's report of seeing 'specks' in the air." The Drive

Soaring nearly 90 feet near Orange County's Seal Beach is one of California's most unique homes, a converted water tower dating to the late 1800s. The landmark structure, now on the market for $4.95 million, was rescued from demolition in the 1980s when locals mounted a "Save the Water Tower" campaign. It was later refurbished as a luxury residence with a walk-around deck for unobstructed 360-degree views, from the Pacific Ocean to the mountains. Dirt | L.A. Daily News

A longtime ocean drone pilot, Carlos Gauna, published a new video showing the closest great white shark encounter involving kids that he's ever seen off the coast of Southern California. Gauna, normally unflustered by the shark encounters he records, said this one concerned him. As the apex predator came with 10 feet of the two kids, Gauna tried unsuccessfully to alert them from the shore. Gauna told the kids what happened when they later emerged from the water. They went back in anyway, he said. YouTube 

Today's California Sun: A growing movement to return lands to Native American tribes, San Francisco shows evidence of coronavirus herd immunity, and harrowing video of a great white shark approaching two kids.

Movement to return lands to tribes // Shark encounter with two kids

A quarter of California sea lions are getting cancer.

Sausalito cracks down on illegal boat colony. 

And the Tiananmen Square Tank Man of the Mojave Desert.

A study found that 25% of adult California sea lions end up with urogenital carcinoma, the highest prevalence of cancer in any mammal, including humans. Afflicted sea lions often end up on the beach, underweight and swaying their head back and forth. Researchers blame pesticides and a cancer-causing herpes virus. An L.A. Times investigation last year revealed that massive amounts of DDT waste was dumped in the ocean near Catalina, a toxic threat not just to marine life but to humans. Reuters

Today's California Sun: A quarter of California sea lions are getting cancer, Sausalito cracks down on illegal boat colony, and the Tiananmen Square Tank Man of the Mojave Desert.

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