Good morning. It’s Friday, April 1.
• | California gambling ring drew bets from pro athletes. |
• | Malibu seeks to move homeless population out of town. |
• | And Los Angeles reports rampant absenteeism in schools. |
Statewide
1
A former pitcher for Oakland Athletics farm teams ran an illegal sports betting operation in California that took wagers from professional athletes still in the game, authorities said Thursday. Wayne Nix recruited three former Major League Baseball players and a former pro football player to serve as fellow bookies, prosecutors said. Court records disclosed no player names aside from Nix. An informant who came forward acknowledged that he wanted to avoid paying off a gambling debt of $6 million. A.P. | L.A. Times
2
Rep. Kevin McCarthy in Washington on Nov. 5.
Kent Nishimura/L.A. Times via Getty Images
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has privately pulled GOP lawmakers aside for making Islamophobic remarks, attending a white nationalist event, and disseminating a video depicting a colleague’s decapitation. But when the Bakersfield Republican talked to Rep. Madison Cawthorn about his claims that lawmakers invited him to orgies and snorted cocaine this week, he did something different: He talked openly about it. The Washington Post reported on how McCarthy’s tendency to get vocal seems to depend on the mood in his conference.
3
Four men wielding a shotgun and a pistol zigzagged across the San Joaquin Valley late Wednesday in a robbery spree that hit five dairies, officials said. Farm workers said they were ordered to hand over their wallets and cellphones. When law enforcement caught up with the group, they fled in a stolen SUV before crashing and exchanging gunfire with deputies, officials said. Three suspects surrendered and the fourth was chased down after darting into a nearby orchard. Visalia Times-Delta | FOX26
Northern California
4
The Salesforce Tower rises 1,070 feet above San Francisco.
Zenstratus
Five years ago, the Salesforce Tower became a jewel of San Francisco’s downtown. Today, as the building’s highly paid tech workers stay home to work, it stands as a symbol of the “before times.” A new San Francisco publication produced a dazzling interactive on the slumping fortunes of the tallest office building in Northern California and its surrounding neighborhood. The report’s conclusion: “It may never be the same.” SF Standard
5
There’s a little-known basement hideaway at UC Berkeley known as The Cave that has nurtured a generation of blind leaders, innovators, creatives, and geniuses who are reshaping the world: “At Berkeley, students who were ostracized in their hometowns, often for being the only blind kid around, became part of a rich lineage, and a vast disability community.” A story that’s never really been told. 👉 STAT
6
The Lost Coast is hard to reach, and hard to leave.
Along Northern California’s isolated Lost Coast, the cliffs are treacherous, the skies moody, and the beaches draped in brilliant grays and blacks. The unusual colors result from dark shale and sandstone churned up by tectonic forces offshore. The TV reporter John Bartell paid a visit to the tiny Lost Coast town Shelter Cove and captured some gorgeous views. ABC10/YouTube (3:50 mins)
Southern California
7
Malibu has a solution to its homelessness problem: Just move people outside of town.
At a meeting last week, City Council members in the beach community of multimillion-dollar homes voted to establish a shelter beyond city limits where homeless people could be dropped off as police enforce a no-camping ordinance. Councilmember Bruce Silverstein explained, “If we build it here, they will come because this is a great place to live.” Westside Current
8
Bruce Willis in Los Angeles in 2018.
Rich Fury/Getty Images
By the time Bruce Willis’ family announced Wednesday that the actor would end his career because of a cognitive disorder, reporters in Los Angeles had already prepared a deeply reported story detailing how people on film sets had been expressing concerns for years. The star was fed lines through an earpiece and at times seemed confused. In one case, he unexpectedly fired a gun loaded with a blank, sources said. The story pointedly notes how much people around Willis were earning as he cranked out performances in 22 films in four years. L.A. Times
9
Nearly half of all students in Los Angeles Unified have been chronically absent this school year, data obtained in a records request showed. That means they’ve missed at least 9% of the academic year. Officials say schools statewide have reported high absentee rates, a problem linked to Covid-19 infection and economic upheaval. Also a factor: Families have felt less connected to their schools after a year of virtual learning. L.A. Times
10
Memo Torres, a writer at L.A. Taco, mapped “what transplants and major media consider as ‘L.A.'” 👇
11
“The Sound of Music,” 20th Century Fox , 1965.
Sandy Carson
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman chats with Thomas Walsh and Karen Maness on the the lost art of the Hollywood backdrop. Walsh and Maness are co-curators of a new exhibit in Florida that displays the titanic artworks once essential to moviemaking in Hollywood’s Golden Age. Pictured above, a 30-foot-wide backdrop used in “The Sound of Music.”
In case you missed it
12
Suitcase Joe said Michael showed up from Montana looking like an average kid. This photo was taken about four months later.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
• | An anonymous photographer named “Suitcase Joe” has spent much of the last decade chronicling the plight of the inhabitants on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. His photos are as raw as any you’ll see from California’s homelessness and mental illness crisis. 👉 @suitcase_joe |
• | When the projector failed during a screening of “The Lost City” at the AMC in Burbank last week, a woman named Tiffany King walked to the front of the theater and delivered an impromptu stand-up set. BuzzFeed news |
• | Kern County is home to a full third of California’s 346 documented ghost towns. A favorite among weekend explorers is Randsburg, where the decaying structures of a once fabulously wealthy gold-mining town are set against a backdrop of mountains and wide-open desert. Atlas Obscura |
• | A diverse city with a youthful vibe from two major universities. A San Francisco suburb with a thriving local arts scene near Diablo State Park. And a family-friendly desert town along Route 66 where typical homes go for around $400,000. MarketWatch ranked 14 of the best and most affordable places to live on the West Coast. |
• | Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, has cultivated an extraordinary level of influence in the Biden administration’s science office. Internal emails and interviews revealed that he indirectly paid the salaries of staffers at the office while quietly lobbying on policy that could affect his stakes in multiple companies. Politico |
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