Good morning. It’s Monday, July 28.
- Democrats look to California in redistricting fight.
- A nightmarish home-remodel dispute in Sausalito.
- And walking the secret staircases of Los Angeles.
Statewide
1.
As Texas presses ahead with a redistricting blitz designed to solidify Republican control of the House of Representatives, Democratic leaders are desperately looking for ways to counter. There are few good options, Politico wrote: “In conversations with more than a dozen state lawmakers and redistricting experts, Democrats’ best shot at redrawing a map lies in California, a heavily blue state with a huge number of congressional districts.” Politico | CalMatters
2.
The planet is drying. A new study found that unchecked groundwater pumping now accounts for 68% of the total loss of fresh water at the latitudes where most people live. In California’s Central Valley, where decades of pumping has literally caused the ground to sink, something has to give, said Jay Famiglietti, a water researcher at Arizona State University. The U.S. might not have much choice, he added, but to move California’s agriculture production somewhere else and retire the land. ProPublica
3.
Dispatches on the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown:
- A recent CNN poll found that 55% of Americans think Trump has gone too far in his pursuit of undocumented immigrants, up 10 percentage points since February. As raids ramp up, the reality of deporting normal, everyday people will only grow starker, wrote Politico Magazine: “As unprecedented as all this might seem, we’ve been here before.”
- Two staff members at an Inland Empire surgery center were arrested and charged Friday with obstructing immigration officers as they tried to detain a landscaper in their office. The authorities said the “target alien” was not a patient and had run into the clinic, where a scuffle ensued. L.A. Times | KABC
4.
Kyle Langford, a Republican candidate for California governor, posted a picture of himself in front of Auschwitz on Friday along with the suggestion that the Nazi concentration camp presented a model for eliminating homelessness. “My 0% unemployment plan,” he wrote. Langford has no realistic shot in the governor’s race, even if he outperformed most other Republican candidates in an April poll. But his provocation drew outrage in Europe and beyond. The Auschwitz museum called it a “profound moral failure.” Jerusalem Post
Northern California
5.
Three people were killed when their small plane crashed in the waters off Monterey County shortly after taking off from San Carlos Airport late Saturday, the U.S. Coast Guard said. A number of people on land heard the crash, approximately 200 to 300 yards from Point Pinos. “We heard it come around a second time really low,” said Ron Beach. “Last thing we heard was a thump.” The crash site was not far from where John Denver crashed his plane in 1997. A plaque memorializes the musician on the shores of Pacific Grove. KGO | KSBW
6.
In April 2024, a group of scientists stirred up controversy when they boarded a decommissioned aircraft carrier in San Francisco Bay and tested a machine designed to slow global warming by brightening clouds. Alameda’s City Council ordered the researchers, backed by Silicon Valley investors, to stop. Now they have quietly made plans for a much larger study over the ocean. When news about the project spread on Sunday, it immediately set off alarms in conspiracy-minded corners of the internet and Congress. Politico
7.
In 2023, a couple in Sausalito set out to enlarge their home and add an attached accessory dwelling unit and found themselves in a vicious battle with neighbors worried about preserving the character of the area. There would be police reports, stay-away orders, and allegations of physical violence in what one local newspaper called the “nightmare on Pine Street.” And that was just the start. The columnist Emily Hoeven said it was wildest of the wildest stories she ever reported. S.F. Chronicle
8.
Sears will soon be down to its last store in California. Founded in 1886, Sears grew from a thriving mail-order business into America’s leading brick-and-mortar retailer with roughly 3,500 locations carrying everything from car parts to appliances. Its slow death began with the rise of Amazon. Planned closures of stores in Whittier and Burbank would make the Concord store the last Sears standing in California. Mercury News | SFGATE
Southern California
9.
A city crew scrubbed away several bright yellow crosswalks just days after they were painted around a Los Angeles park by a group of residents fed up with street danger. The response from Jonathan Hale, the leader of the rogue outfit, was, essentially, game on. “I’m going to keep painting these,” he said. “I’m going to press the issue until either the city condones what I’m doing or replaces them with official crosswalks.” LAist
10.
Nauzhae Drake, a 26-year-old woman in Southern California’s high desert, had three children since 2019. All were born on July 7, an extraordinary coincidence. Then this month, she had a fourth child, little Kailowa — on July 7. None of the babies were induced, and none arrived on their due dates, said Drake. So what are the odds? It’s impossible to nail down precisely because the parents have some control over the timing. But the probability of four random strangers having the same birthday is about 0.000000000056349%, meaning you would be more likely to win Powerball 100 times. L.A. Times
11.
After the rise of the automobile, Los Angeles’ many neighborhood staircases fell into obscurity. But they are still there, and they are arguably the finest way to explore the city. Several staircases are carved into the hills behind the Hollywood Bowl, where a beautiful 1-mile loop takes you through one of the city’s most unusual neighborhoods: an enclave that seems transplanted from the Mediterranean and is accessible only on foot. The Financial Times included the walk in a feature on “the secret staircases of Los Angeles.”
12.
San Diego hosted the 56th annual Comic-Con over the weekend, welcoming an estimated 135,000 fans, including cosplayers who dressed as the Joker, Krieg, Zelda, Rita Repulsa, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Galactus, The Thing, and more. See photos of the best costumes. 👉 S.D. Union-Tribune | The Guardian
Correction
Friday’s newsletter misspelled the name of a California Sun podcast guest. His name is Michael Kauffmann, not Michael Kaufman.
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