Good morning. It’s Thursday, Feb. 12.
- Northern Sierra tribe completes major “land back” deal.
- A campaign to keep artists living in San Francisco.
- And Gregory Bovino praises agent who shot woman.
Statewide
1.
Eight months after President Trump deployed soldiers to Los Angeles, and later Chicago and Portland, the administration has now quietly withdrawn all federalized National Guard troops from U.S. cities. Trump had argued that the mobilization of military forces was all that stood between order and mass chaos in American cities, warning in December that it was “Only a question of time!” before crime would “soar again” after pulling out. L.A. crime rates were on pace to historic lows at the time of the June 2025 deployment. Washington Post
2.
“It made me feel like, are we human?”
At Pelican Bay, a supermax state prison in Crescent City, hundreds of inmates were kept in solitary confinement before reforms in 2015. They would spend roughly 23 hours a day alone in 8-by-10-foot cells, with one hour in an “exercise yard,” an open-air cement room. Some men lived this way for more than 30 years. A powerful photo essay explored how the inmates remain haunted by their isolation long after being freed. Marshall Project
3.
A train of storms dropping down from Gulf of Alaska will bury California’s Sierra Nevada in as much as 10 feet of snow next week, meteorologists said on Wednesday. Starting by as early as midday Sunday, snow is expected to fall without a significant pause for as many as six straight days. “It is possible the series of storms next week in California delivers close to an entire month’s worth of rain and snow,” said meteorologist Bernie Rayno. Accuweather | S.F. Chronicle
Northern California
4.
“This is a tremendous tragedy for the Tribe.”
A mental health advocate for California tribes died in an apparent murder-suicide, CalMatters reported on Wednesday. A member of the Yurok tribe, Celinda Gonzales was found dead along with an unnamed individual in the reservation village of Weitchpec in Humboldt County on Feb. 3, the sheriff’s office said. Years ago, Gonzales’ teenage son, and then her 43-year-old brother, took their own lives, leading her to work in suicide prevention. “We have to talk about it, it’s reality and we have to address it, and how do we help,” she told CalMatters in 2020.
5.
“Now we actually have something to call ours.”
The Washoe tribe, whose history in the Northern Sierra goes back thousands of years, just acquired 16 square miles of ancestral land near Lake Tahoe in one of the state’s largest “land-back” deals to date. The tribe, largely forced from their lands during the Gold Rush, bought the $6 million property with the help of a state grant and private donations. They named it the Wélmelti Preserve, a reference to the Washoe word for “northerners.” Mercury News | S.F. Chronicle
6.
San Francisco teachers planned to strike for a fourth straight day on Thursday as contract negotiations remained at an impasse. Early Wednesday, Superintendent Maria Su accused the union of abandoning the bargaining table the night before, just as the district was preparing to present what she called a “generous” offer. “We want to get this done,” Su said. Families urged both sides to compromise. “Everyday that the schools are closed, it comes with incredible pain and cost to many, many, children,” said Mahdi Rahimi, who has a son in public school. S.F. Chronicle | A.P.
7.
The Atlantic’s Matteo Wong went to the March for Billionaires in San Francisco:
“For all the spectacle, the tensions between the pro- and faux-billionaires were sharp and reflective of real animosity. As the main procession chanted ‘Property rights are human rights,’ Vincent Gargiulo, a counterprotester dressed in a white mock-billionaire suit, began shouting ‘Fuck poor people.’ Things briefly escalated as a demonstrator confronted Gargiulo for being ‘not sincere.’ He grabbed and snapped her pro-billionaire sign.”
8.
In San Francsico, artists such as Dorothea Lange, Jack Kerouac, and Janis Joplin helped give the city its cultural cachet. But what happens when the artists are priced out? A crop of Bay Area nonprofits is embracing a pioneering legal entity designed to break the cycle of displacement: Community land trusts ensure that properties are handed down from one artist to another at affordable prices. “These properties are permanently removed from the speculative market for real estate and will never return,” said Meg Shiffler, the director of Artist Space Trust. N.Y. Times
Southern California
9.
Gregory Bovino, the Southern California Border Patrol commander who led President Trump’s traveling deportation campaign, seemed to delight in an agent’s shooting of a 30-year-old Chicago woman, according to evidence released Wednesday in a legal case. After the teacher’s assistant was shot five times on Oct. 4, Bovino reached out to the agent to offer his congratulations: “In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!” he wrote. Other officers gave similar encouragement, with one calling the shooter “a legend among agents.” N.Y. Times | A.P.
10.
“If you hear the siren, ICE is in the community.”
A neighborhood group in Los Angeles is installing an “ICE siren system” to alert people when federal immigration agents are in the area. The Highland Park Community Support Group is working with businesses and homeowners to place the sirens on private property, avoiding the necessity of city permits. “We’d like to ultimately have this along all the different streets so they can take shelter,” said Amanda Alcalde, the group’s founder. KTLA
11.
Organizers of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics said Casey Wasserman would remain as chairman of the group despite calls for his ouster after his name surfaced in files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Wasserman exchanged sexually charged emails with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator, in 2003, years before their crimes came to light. “We found Mr. Wasserman’s relationship with Epstein and Maxwell did not go beyond what has already been publicly documented,” the board said. L.A. Times | Wall Street Journal
12.
A judge on Wednesday ordered Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego to resume gender-related treatments for minors after the facility halted the care last month in response to the Trump administration’s threats to cut funding. Judge Matthew Braner acknowledged that Rady faces an “existential risk” but said that must be weighed against “relative degrees of harm” to transgender children. “You are between a rock and a hard place,” Braner told the hospital’s lawyers. “The issue is how close is the rock and how close is the hard place.” Voice of San Diego | City News Service
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