Good morning. It’s Friday, July 1.
- California sets tough rules slashing use of plastics.
- Data shows many schoolteachers are underprepared.
- And a beautiful but deadly stretch of Highway 1.
Please note: The newsletter will pause for a long holiday weekend. Back in your inbox Wednesday.
Statewide
1.
Sweeping legislation passed and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday established the nation’s most stringent restrictions on single-use plastics and packaging. Under the law, producers of plastics used for shampoo, food, and other products will have to cut their use 10% by 2027, increasing to 25% by 2032. State Sen. Ben Allen, who worked for years to advance the bill, described his emotional state after the signing: “Relief,” he said. “It’s been a long journey.” L.A. Times | A.P.
2.
Newsom also signed a nearly $308 billion state budget, California’s biggest ever, extending a remarkable turnaround just two years after lawmakers raised taxes and cut spending in anticipation of a pandemic slump. Republicans called the spending plan bloated and slammed Democrats not suspending the state’s gas tax. Among the provisions:
- Cash payments to most taxpayers to help offset gas prices.
- Health care for low-income adults in the country illegally.
- Abortion assistance for women who can’t afford the procedure.
- And more than $128 billion for schools, a record sum S.F. Chronicle | A.P.
3.
Nearly one out of five public school classes in California are led by teachers who are underprepared, a new analysis showed. A brutal staffing shortage has forced districts to turn increasingly to teachers who lack appropriate credentials. Remote pockets of the state are the most affected: At Cuyama Joint Unified in Santa Barbara County, just 54% of teachers were properly credentialed during the 2020-21 school year; at Surprise Valley Joint Unified in Modoc County, the figure was 39%; at Death Valley Unified, it was 15%. EdSource
4.
A growing number of scientists believe the unprecedented drying and warming now plaguing the western United States could permanently and profoundly change California’s landscape. The conditions, some say, could be akin to those that drove past civilizations to abandon thriving cities. “There were big droughts previously, like during the medieval times around 1,000 years ago … but we’ve actually kind of surpassed that now,” said Jessica Tierney, a professor who studies past climates. “We’re kind of going into this unknown territory.” L.A. Times
5.
A political action committee affiliated with Speaker Nancy Pelosi worked to boost far-right Republican House candidates in California and Colorado, David Brooks wrote in a column on Thursday. The idea was to elevate Trumpist candidates that would be easier to beat in the general elections. But the gambit is not only “sleazy,” he wrote: “What they are doing is insane: The far-right candidates whom Democrats are supporting could easily wind up winning.” N.Y. Times
Northern California
6.
In the late 1980s, Dan Moss swerved his car to avoid a deer on a treacherous section of Highway 1 just south of San Francisco and went over the cliff edge. He survived with a couple of broken bones. In 2017, his 22-year-old son disappeared while driving the same stretch. He was never seen again. About a year later, a beachgoer found a bit of his vertebra. Vanessa Arredondo wrote about how people are still driving over the beautiful but deadly cliffs known as Devil’s Slide. S.F. Chronicle
7.
Sonny Barger, the larger-than-life leader of the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels and a fixture of 1960s counterculture, died on Wednesday at his Bay Area home. Hunter S. Thompson once wrote of Barger: “In any gathering of Hell’s Angels, there is no doubt who is running the show: Ralph ‘Sonny’ Barger, the Maximum leader, a six-foot, 170-pound warehouseman from East Oakland, the coolest head in the lot, and a tough, quick-thinking dealer when any action starts. By turns he is a fanatic, a philosopher, a brawler, a shrewd compromiser and a final arbitrator.” Barger was 83. The cause of death was cancer. N.Y. Times | L.A. Times
8.
On July Fourth weekend in 1977, thousands of people gathered in Oakland Coliseum and gyrated ecstatically as a Southern rock band played an anthem to Alabama on a stage draped with a giant Confederate flag. The concert by Lynyrd Skynyrd was one of their most celebrated and, as it turned out, one of the last with their classic lineup. Three months later, frontman Ronnie Van Zant and two other band members died in a plane crash in Mississippi. Skynyrd was never the same. Yet they continue to perform, with a date planned in the Bay Area this fall. There will no nods to the Confederacy this time though. In 2012, the band denounced the flag, saying it had been “kidnapped” by racists. That set off a backlash from some fans, and a backpedaling by the band. When they eventually retired the secessionist emblem, they did so quietly.
See Skynyrd’s scorching 1977 renditions of “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Freebird.”
Southern California
9.
On June 30, 2021, a Los Angeles bomb squad botched a planned detonation of a fireworks cache discovered in South Los Angeles. The blast injured 17 people, badly damaged numerous homes, and displaced more than 80 people. The city rented rooms for them at the luxury Level Hotel downtown as a stopgap. A year later, 18 families — totaling 66 people — still reside at the Level, according to city officials. “Although the cage is made of gold,” one resident said, quoting a song, “it is still a prison.” L.A. Times
10.
“Blockbuster.” “Seismic.” “Bold and brilliant.”
USC and UCLA announced Thursday that they are leaving the Pac-12, the league where they have played since the 1920s, to join the Big Ten Conference. The defections were expected to lift the stature of Big Ten, which occupies a predominantly Midwestern footprint, while severely hobbling the West Coast-based Pac-12, long one of the premier conferences in college sports. But the Los Angeles columnist Bill Plaschke said the schools had little choice, having outgrown the Pac-12. Plus, he wrote, the money will be “insane.” L.A. Times
Sun Podcast
11.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman chats with the screenwriter David Koepp. In a new novel, “Aurora,” Koepp imagines what would happen if a solar storm knocked out most of humanity’s power grids, a catastrophe that scientists say is a real possibility. Government studies have warned that it could take 12 to 18 months to repair the damage, Koepp said. “And I pause so that we can digest that — 12 to 18 months before all our electrical systems go back online. I just, it really gets the imagination going.”
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- California’s springtime wildflowers can be pretty enough to set off a stampede. But the show doesn’t end with the summer; it moves into the mountains. Karen Wiese, author of “Sierra Nevada Wildflowers,” named seven of her favorite flower hikes, including Mono Basin, pictured above. Visit California
- Before the pandemic, Natalie and Dustin Raschke comfortably supported their family of six with bartending work. But after losing their jobs, misfortune piled atop misfortune. Suddenly, the Raschkes faced a reality that seemed inconceivable: They were homeless. Voice of San Diego
- A cabin with walls of windows in the Mojave Desert, a hillside unit that faces an amazing view of Tahquitz Rock in the San Jacinto mountains, and a renovated oasis in South Lake Tahoe with a hot tub and bright red door. Architectural Digest named 21 Airbnb cabins worth bookmarking.
- In May, the Berkeley author Dave Eggers learned that one of his novels was among five books banned by a South Dakota school district. He went to investigate why. He found little evidence of support for the ban among teachers or parents, yet fear was widespread. Washington Post
- Every so often, a Yosemite waterfall transforms into a brilliant, cascading rainbow. Rarer still are moonbows that are barely detectable to the naked eye. The filmmaker Brian Hawkins brought them to life in a gorgeous short video. YouTube
Thanks for reading!
The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
Please tell us how we can make the newsletter better. Email mike@californiasun.co.
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