Good morning. It’s Thursday, June 11.
- Trump administration plans review of Coastal Commission.
- Girl is missing after being swept off Orange County beach.
- And Greg Bovino flirts with potential White House run.
Statewide
1.
After the 2020 killing of George Floyd, California introduced a law shifting the responsibility for investigations of fatal police shootings from local authorities to the state attorney general. Supporters said the move would remove conflicts of interest, boost investigative firepower, and hasten the process. Instead, it has weakened police accountability, a CalMatters investigation found. To date, not a single officer has faced discipline from the state-led police shooting investigations, which now average more than two years to resolve.
2.
The New York Times’ editorial board said California’s “leisurely approach” to vote counting is damaging faith in government:
“It makes the state government look incompetent. It fails to increase voter turnout. It creates needless uncertainty about results (as has been the case with several races this year). It confuses ordinary voters and serves the interest of conspiracists, including President Trump, who spread lies about election fraud that is in fact virtually nonexistent.”
- Another view: California’s system prioritizes participation and accuracy. “The only reason it’s problematic is because of Donald Trump,” said Rick Hasen, an election-law expert. The Atlantic
3.
The Trump administration is planning a review of the California Coastal Commission, accusing the powerful agency of obstructing federal priorities in the name of environmental extremism. Critics said the move is a pretense to weaken the agency as the administration tangles with California over military plans and fossil fuel development. “This is not a routine review,” said Richard Charter, a longtime oceans advocate. “This is a targeted effort to remove the defenses of the California coast.” S.F. Chronicle
Northern California
4.
After sneaking across the border from Tijuana in 1990, Alberto got a car wash job and learned about one way to get a work permit: serving as an informant for immigration enforcement. He worked short stints at farms and collected names of unauthorized workers, which he handed over to the authorities. He did it without pay, as he was led to believe that one day he would be rewarded with a green card. But after 36 years of building his life in Fresno, Alberto was arrested during an immigration appointment last October. Mission Local
5.
The Republican-led congressional hearing on Wednesday — “Breaking Trust: Attacks on Parental Rights, Inappropriate Content, and Legal Abuses in America’s Schools” — seemed made for political theater, with San Francisco in the role of villain. But Maria Su, the city’s schools superintendent, largely avoided any heated exchanges during her testimony, giving answers like “we follow state and federal law.” Rep. Kevin Kiley, a right-leaning independent, outright praised Su, crediting her for reinstating 8th-grade algebra and scrapping an effort to rename schools. EdSource | S.F. Standard
6.
In the old days, young people who wanted to join San Francisco’s legendary punk scene just saved up a few hundred bucks and moved to town. Soaring living costs have closed that pathway. Yet the punk scene still simmers, with a growing collection of young homegrown bands whose rage is fueled by the hegemony of tech oligarchs and yawning class divisions. The San Francisco Examiner profiled the young punks fighting to keep the subculture alive in a city seemingly determined to squeeze them out.
- See video of a punk takeover of a BART train in 2023.
7.
A new hype video for San Francisco financed by supporters of Mayor Daniel Lurie was released Wednesday, featuring cameos by Joe Montana, Francis Ford Coppola, Dave Eggers, Steph Curry, and other Bay Area figures. Directed by the acclaimed filmmaker Joe Talbot, “Comeback City” portrays the city as enchanting, visionary, and “a little weird.” It was unclear who the video is for, but the Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli identified a likely target: “The three-minute film is a genteel dis track to San Francisco haters.” S.F. Chronicle
8.
“It’s kind of like camp for adults.”
For one week every summer since 1949, dozens of Gold Rush-era enthusiasts pile into a covered wagon train and ride 60 miles through the Sierra, from the eastern side of Lake Tahoe to Placerville. Dressed in cowboy hats, victorian dresses, and denim pants, the group creates a curious spectacle clip-clopping along Highway 50. The photographer Annie Barker got some fantastic pictures of this year’s event, which recently concluded. Stocktonia
Southern California
9.
As a dangerous swell pounded the Southern California coast Tuesday evening, a woman and her two children were swept into the ocean by a wave while walking along the shore in Laguna Beach, officials said. Bystanders helped pull the woman and her son from the water, but her 5-year-old daughter remained missing. After many hours of searching, officials called off the effort late Wednesday. “This is such a tragedy.” Kai Bond, Laguna Beach’s marine safety chief, told the O.C. Register. “Our hearts are literally hurting for this family.” CBS News | KTLA
10.
One Saturday in April, a popular prankster known as Vitaly ambushed Sanjay Singhania, 25, in a Santa Ana park, accusing him of trying to meet up with a 16-year-old. The sting was the latest of a social media genre known as predator catching, in which fringe vigilantes serve up public humiliation as entertainment. As about 24,000 people watched a livestream, police arrived and took Singhania away in handcuffs. “KILL HIM NOW!!!” one commenter wrote. The problem: Singhania was innocent. N.Y. Times
11.
Greg Bovino, the former Southern California Border Patrol official, launched an exploratory committee for a 2028 presidential run, reports said this week. The development comes two weeks after Bovino attended a far-right “Remigration Summit” in Portugal, during which he hailed the views of one of the organizers, an Austrian white nationalist and former neo-Nazi named Martin Sellner. In an X post that was later deleted, Bovino wrote: “My commitment is simple, liberate America from this invasion and restore our quality of life.” NewsNation | The Hill
12.
San Diego has a century-old vaudeville theater, the Balboa, that shows silent movies from the 1920s accompanied by a live organist on Mondays. It’s so popular that the 1,339-seat capacity theater sometimes has to turn people away. Guests are known to dress in 1920s period attire. The Times of San Diego profiled the organist, Russ Peck. “You’re in this time machine and the outside world’s gone,” he said. “You’ve gone back in time 100 years.”
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