Good morning. It’s Thursday, Sept. 21.
- Berkeley activists try to get people to stop eating meat.
- L.A. politician caught in racism scandal seeks reelection.
- And a photo essay on the faith of California’s immigrants.
Statewide
1.
San Jose State is more selective than UC Merced; Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is more selective than UC Davis; and Cal State Long Beach is more selective than UC Santa Cruz. An analysis of acceptance rates at California’s public colleges found that a number of Cal State schools are surprisingly harder to get into than those in the more prestigious UC system. See a breakdown of the numbers. 👉 S.F. Chronicle
- See admissions rates for every California high school to:
2.
Recent dispatches from California’s classroom culture wars:
- A week after the Sunol school board, in the Bay Area, banned the district’s elementary school from flying a Pride flag, a board meeting Wednesday descended into chaos. At one point, sheriff’s deputies had to break up an altercation. Mercury News
- A school district in suburban Sacramento became the seventh in California to require that parents be notified if their child changes their gender. The move by Dry Creek Joint Elementary drew a rebuke from Attorney General Rob Bonta. KCRA
- A judge blocked Escondido Union from enforcing a policy that keeps student gender changes private, including from parents. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez said the policy violated parents’ right to care for their children. San Diego Union-Tribune | NBC San Diego
3.
Brian L. Frank, a San Francisco photographer, has chronicled the lives of California’s immigrant communities for years. His latest project, “East of Eden,” unfolds in chapters, following the flight of immigrants from corruption and violence south of the border to the fertile soil of the San Joaquin Valley, where they rely on the church for support and connection. He said he hoped American viewers would find common ground with people who are often scapegoated for the nation’s problems. His images are gorgeous. BrianFrank.com | ABC News
Northern California
4.
San Francisco on Wednesday had the worst air quality in the country and the 10th worst in the world, according to IQAir.com. Smoke drifting south from more than two dozen wildfires burning across the Pacific Northwest and far northern California blanketed the Bay Area and beyond, causing college campuses to call off on-site instruction and youth sports leagues to move practices indoors. The foul air was expected to linger through Thursday, forecasters said. Fox Weather
- See simulation of smoke forecast. 👉 @NWSBayArea
- A study found that wildfire smoke is unraveling the progress America made on cleaning the air over the last half century. Washington Post | Wall Street Journal
5.
The Berkeley vegan activist group Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, is so radical that they annoy other vegan groups. They’ve gone after small business, glued themselves to the floor of a basketball stadium, and chained themselves to a factory-farm assembly line. “DxE’s efforts at mobilization seemed likelier to alienate potential supporters than to persuade them,” wrote Annie Lowrey. “But if vegans can be annoying, they are also profoundly right.” The Atlantic
6.
In 2019, Berkeley mother Minna Dubin published an essay about the anger she felt parenting her 3-year-old son. “Don’t touch him, don’t touch him, don’t touch him,” she would whisper. Dubin has now published a book, “Mom Rage,” that seeks to absolve mothers of their feelings of shame. In an incisive review, Merve Emre said it amounts to flimsy pop feminism: “Dubin is not really imagining the freedom to be more than ‘one thing’ but the freedom to run away from this bind and into the arms of nothing — no fixed roles, no lasting responsibilities.” New Yorker
7.
“I don’t think he got cold feet. I think he got an accountant.”
On April 19, Oakland’s mayor, Sheng Thao, believed that the city was close to finalizing a deal on a new stadium for the A’s, the baseball club that called the city home since 1968. Then the team president called, informing Thao that the A’s would in fact be going to Las Vegas. It was a “blindside,” she said, “just ‘Hey, we’re gone.'” The announcement came after no breakdown in talks, no stalled process, no contentious back and forth, wrote ESPN.
8.
Critic Jason Zinoman on the Northern California comedian Hasan Minhaj’s penchant for making up stories:
“He didn’t invent stuff to make himself funnier. He did it to raise the stakes in the easiest, most self-regarding way possible. Lying in comedy isn’t necessarily wrong. But how you lie matters.” N.Y. Times
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Southern California
9.
When three Los Angeles councilmembers were heard participating in a leaked backroom conversation that included racial slurs last year, one stepped down and another disappeared from the public stage. But Kevin de León rejected calls to resign, including from President Biden. On Wednesday, he announced that he was running again. “When a lot of people that I called my friends and allies turned away from me, my constituents had my back,” he said. Politico | L.A. Times
10.
The fiancée of Ryan Clinkunbroomer, the Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who was shot and killed last Saturday, spoke publicly for the first time on Wednesday. “Ryan was the best guy I’ve ever met,” said Brittany Lindsey, who had become engaged to Clinkunbroomer just days before his killing. “I am so happy I was able to love him. It was not long enough.” L.A. Times
Kevin Cataneo Salazar, the man accused of killing Clinkunbroomer, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity on Wednesday. A.P.
11.
Two teenagers were charged with murder after being accused of deliberately mowing down a former Southern California police chief as he rode his bicycle in Las Vegas, a killing filmed from inside the vehicle. Andreas Probst, 64, retired as the top law enforcement official in Bell in 2009 before moving to Nevada. His killing was thrust into national spotlight last weekend when Elon Musk stoked false claims that the Las Vegas Review-Journal had downplayed the story because the victim was white, unleashing a wave of threats against one of the paper’s journalists. L.A. Times | Poynter
12.
El Pueblo Mexican Food, a small family-owned chain based in San Diego County, sells their full-sized Baja-style fish tacos for $1.19. People share rumors about how they do it. Some say a wealthy fan of the restaurant subsidizes the tacos. Others claim they “grow the fish in the back.” Neither is true. A store manager attributed the low price to the benevolence of the chain’s owner, Jack Ballo, who, he said, believes everybody “no matter what their economic status is” should be able to enjoy good food. LAist
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The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
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