South Lake Tahoe mayor admits stealing from church // “Snoopy Stomp” dance goes viral

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Oct. 7.

Sierra Nevada’s ancient glaciers are projected to melt.
South Lake Tahoe mayor admits stealing from church.
And the “Snoopy Stomp” dance goes viral.

Statewide

1.

As President Trump signaled his willingness to invoke the Insurrection Act, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday urged all governors — no matter their party — to condemn the administration’s threat to state sovereignty. The bipartisan National Governors Association “has lost its voice and its way in the face of the Trump administration’s onslaught against democratic norms,” Newsom wrote in a letter to association members. If the group fails to take a united stand, he added, California will pull its membership. S.F. Chronicle | Politico

2.

Despite $45 billion in funding to expand ICE, immigration arrests have fallen since June, the Atlantic reported:

“The stream of social-media clips showing masked federal agents kicking down doors, raiding Home Depot parking lots, and pulling people from their car have kept up the appearance of an ever-expanding campaign. ICE’s own data show that the agency’s buildup stalled over the summer.”

A Chinese man became the second immigrant to die in federal detention in California in two weeks. KPBS

3.

Yosemite’s Lyell Glacier in 1883, top, and 2022. (USGS; National Park Service)

By the end of this century, glaciers in the Sierra Nevada are projected to melt completely for the first time in at least 30,000 years, researchers said. A new study examined four glaciers, including Yosemite’s East Lyell, which they concluded has lost roughly 95% of its volume since the late 1800s. “It means that when these glaciers die off, we will be the first humans to see ice-free peaks in Yosemite,” said Andrew Jones, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the study. L.A. Times | S.F. Chronicle

Northern California

4.

The helicopter came to rest mangled and upside down. (Scott Marshall/A.P.)

A medical helicopter crashed on a highway in East Sacramento Monday evening, critically injuring all three people aboard — a pilot, a nurse, and a paramedic — officials said. Video showed the red helicopter hovering above Highway 50 moments before the crash, around the same time that the California Highway Patrol reported receiving a mayday call. No vehicles were struck. Witnesses said a dozen or so motorists helped lift the helicopter to free a woman who was trapped underneath. It was a “horrible, horrible scene,” said Chris Lozano. Sacramento Bee | A.P.

5.

“This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do,” wrote the mayor of South Lake Tahoe, Tamara Wallace.

So began an extraordinary letter published by the Tahoe Daily Tribune on Monday, in which Wallace admitted that she had been stealing “over an extended period” from a church where she worked as a part-time bookkeeper. She was so overcome with guilt, she added, that she tried to take her own life on Sept. 11, her birthday. The local district attorney was said to be investigating the matter. S.F. Chronicle | Tahoe Daily Tribune

If that wasn’t enough, another South Lake Tahoe political leader, Cody Bass, was arrested in connection with an assault at a bar, reports said on Monday. Bass was said to threaten to “have people kill” a worker. KRNV | KCRA

6.

The U.S. stock market has hit new highs this year despite signs that tariffs are pushing up inflation and dragging down growth. That’s because there are two economies: artificial intelligence and everything else, wrote Natasha Sarin, a former Treasury Department official:

“The economy is being bolstered by a remarkable investment boom in artificial intelligence. A credible estimate suggests that A.I. capital expenditures may reach 2 percent of the gross domestic product in 2025. … That means the equivalent of about $1,800 per person in America will be invested this year on A.I.” N.Y. Times

OpenAI announced a deal to buy chips from AMD on Monday. AMD shares surged 34%, adding roughly $80 billion to the Santa Clara’s company market value. Reuters

7.

Dr. Fred Ramsdell, a UC-educated scientific adviser at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, was awarded the honor of a lifetime on Monday — and he may not even know it yet. Hours after Ramsdell was named the joint winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine — along with Mary Brunkow of Seattle and Shimon Sakaguchi of Japan — he was unreachable, “living his best life” on an “off the grid” hiking trip, a SonomaBio spokeswoman said. The honorees were credited with fundamental discoveries on how the immune system keeps itself in check. Agence France-Presse | N.Y. Times

8.

A sculpture at the Albany Bulb. (Thomas Hawk/CC BY-NC 2.0)

On a tiny peninsula jutting into the San Francisco Bay, rogue artists have transformed a former landfill into an anarchic sculpture garden. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub paid a recent visit to the Albany Bulb and found a two-story “castle,” a rainbow archway made of welded nitrous oxide tanks, and an elaborate cement race track for marbles. “I played on it for 20 minutes,” Hartlaub wrote, “my inner child giving standing ovations as I tried new routes.” S.F. Chronicle

See the “Marble Run” in action.

9.

See Revelli do the “Snoopy Stomp.” (via Charles M. Schulz Museum)

The “Peanuts” spirit lives on in the descendants of Charles Schulz. The Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, where the comic strip creator lived, recently posted a video tutorial on the “Snoopy Stomp” dance, demonstrated by Schulz’s 17-year-old great-grandson Micah Revelli. The dance has been circulating online over the summer, with Instagram and TikTok users dancing to remixes of the cartoon’s classic Vince Guaraldi piano theme. Press Democrat | People

Southern California

10.

Mark Sanchez faces a felony battery charge. (Ric Tapia/Getty Images)

Mark Sanchez, a former USC and NFL quarterback from Long Beach, was charged with felony battery on Monday after authorities said he attacked a 69-year-old truck driver in a parking dispute outside an Indianapolis hotel. Sanchez, 38, was in town to call a football game for Fox Sports. According to the truck driver, he was on the job when Sanchez, smelling of alcohol, approached and told him he couldn’t park at the hotel’s loading docks. After an altercation during which the truck driver drew a knife, both men ended up bloodied and hospitalized. ABC News | A.P.

11.

The government shutdown hit air travel on Monday as the air traffic control tower that serves Hollywood Burbank Airport was left with no controllers. Multiple flights were canceled, while others were delayed for as long as three hours. Air traffic controllers are working without pay, and officials said there has been an uptick in people calling in sick. Gov. Gavin Newsom was quick to blame the White House. “Thanks, @realDonaldTrump!” he wrote on X. N.Y. Times | L.A. Times

12.

The conservancy says the deer ravage native plants and grasses. (Allen J. Schaben/L.A. Times via Getty Images)

Last year, the Catalina Island Conservancy scrapped a plan for helicopter-mounted sharpshooters to eradicate the island’s nonnative deer population after a backlash from animal lovers. Now the conservancy, which manages 90% of the island, has returned with another proposal: killing the deer from the ground. Supervisor Janice Hahn, who helped lead opposition to the helicopter plan, was not appeased. The plan, she wrote to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on Monday, “still represents a drastic and inhumane approach.” CBS News

The California Sun surveys more than 100 news sites daily, then sends you a tightly crafted email with only the most informative and delightful bits.

Sign up here to get four weeks free — no credit card needed.

The California Sun, PO Box 6868, Los Osos, CA 93412