Good morning. It’s Monday, Dec. 15.
- Australia terror attack reverberates in California.
- Former DOJ lawyers say UC investigation was political.
- And son is questioned in the killing of a Hollywood legend.
Statewide
1.
The terror attack that left at least 15 people dead at a Jewish holiday celebration at Bondi Beach, Australia, reverberated in California on Sunday.
- Police officers were deployed on Sunday to ensure safety at Hanukkah ceremonies in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and other communities. Speakers implored those gathered not to yield to despair. “Nothing can shake us, nothing can uproot us from our tradition, from our faith, from our beliefs,” said Moshe Langer, a San Francisco rabbi. S.F. Chronicle | L.A. Times
- The Jewish community in Poway mourned the death of Eli Schlanger, a rabbi killed at Bondi Beach who was the nephew of Yisroel Goldstein, rabbi emeritus of Chabad of Poway. Goldstein was himself shot during the 2019 antisemitic attack on Chabad Poway. CBS 8 | Times of San Diego
- Police in Redlands said they were searching for a gunman who fired several shots and yelled an antisemitic slur outside the home of a Jewish family in Redlands on Friday. Investigators believe the home was targeted because it had Hanukkah decorations. Desert Sun
2.
“Virtually everything about the UC investigation was atypical.”
“It was not about trying to find out what really happened.”
“To me, it’s even clearer now that it became a fraudulent and sham investigation.”
Nine former Department of Justice lawyers said they resigned after being pressured to conclude that the University of California had violated the civil rights of Jewish students and staff. With their formal connections to the department recently ended, the career attorneys said they now felt free to speak out their minds: the investigation was rushed, chaotic, and politically motivated. The DOJ declined to comment. L.A. Times
- ProPublica investigation: The UC system’s deep dependence on federal money inhibited its willingness to challenge the legal onslaught.
3.
On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to announce the hiring of two former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials who criticized what they saw as the erosion of scientific rigor under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary. Dr. Susan Monarez was ousted from her role as CDC director in August after resisting Kennedy on vaccine policy. Dr. Debra Houry quit partly in protest over Monarez’s firing. Their hiring as public health consultants comes as Newsom has sought to position California as a Democratic bulwark against the Trump administration. N.Y. Times
4.
Big rains in November have revived Death Valley National Park’s Lake Manly, an ancient ephemeral lake that appears only every few years or so. The hottest place on earth got 2.41 inches of rain in the fall, the wettest autumn since record-keeping began in 1911. While not deep enough for kayaking, the beauty of the mirror-like surface — covering at least 10 square miles within Badwater Basin — has entranced visitors to the park in recent days. ABC News | Accuweather
Northern California
5.
“The last time the economy saw so much wealth tied up in such obscure overlapping arrangements was just before the 2008 financial crisis. If the AI revolution fails to materialize on the scale or the timeline that the industry expects, the economic consequences could be very ugly indeed.”
The Atlantic economics writer Rogé Karma said “something ominous is happening in the AI economy.”
6.
“This is seriously a Christmas miracle.”
After her dog Choco disappeared in May 2021, Patricia Orozco put up signs around her Sacramento neighborhood and contacted local shelters. Months passed with no sightings. Orozco accepted that he was gone for good. Then she got a text. In November, Choco was found tied to a fence outside an animal shelter in Lincoln, Michigan. No one knows how he got there or what he has been up to for nearly five years. Washington Post
7.
A throwback delight with an old union hall, bocce courts, and local bands at Toot’s Tavern.
A charming downtown where 1800s brick-and-stone buildings house the shops and art galleries.
A town square with a sprawling candy shop and 225 Christmas trees.
In 2025, the culture critic Peter Hartlaub explored the unheralded downtowns of the Bay Area. These are his favorite eight. 👉 S.F. Chronicle
Southern California
8.
Speculation swirled about the killings of the legendary director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, after the couple were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Sunday. People magazine reported that sources who spoke to the Reiner family believe the couple’s 32-year-old son Nick Reiner, who had a history of drug addiction and homelessness, killed them. The Reiners had been stabbed, officials told several outlets. Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that investigators viewed Nick Reiner as a person of interest, but police said late Sunday that no suspect had been arrested.
- N.Y. Times obituary: Reiner was a rare Hollywood fixture known for his work both behind the camera and in front of it. He also led a vibrant political life, lending his celebrity to liberal causes. He was 78.
9.
Mia Tretta was a freshman at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita in 2019 when a classmate pulled a gun from his backpack and opened fire. She took a bullet in the stomach; her best friend was killed. The trauma of that event influenced her decision to attend Brown University, a campus that felt secure in a state far away. On Saturday, Tretta, now 21, was studying in her dorm when her phone began buzzing: a shooter was attacking her school again. “I found a place where I finally started to feel comfortable,” she said. “And it’s been taken again.” Washington Post | N.Y. Times
10.
Chinese billionaires have quietly been having dozens of U.S.-born children through surrogacy agencies, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal found. In one disturbing case, a video-game businessman named Xu Bo was said to have more than 100 children through surrogacy in hopes of building a sprawling family dynasty. When a Los Angeles judge ruled against him on a parentage petition in 2023, a social media account linked to Xu lashed out against “sabotage by feminists and malicious rulings by a female judge.”
11.
With funding from a 2022 federal grant, Ventura County has analyzed nearly 2,000 untested rape kits, which preserve the DNA evidence left by an attacker. While such testing has led to many new charges in recent years, Ventura County investigators discovered a shocking case of a wrongly convicted prisoner. DNA from a 1982 rape ruled out Richard Luna, who was sentenced to six years in prison for the crime. Luna, who had vehemently insisted on his innocence, sobbed during a court hearing to formally clear his name last Thursday. “What happened to me should have never happened,” he said. Ventura County Star
12.
On Nov. 11, a 21-year-old solo hiker named Joseph Brambila reached the summit of Mt. Whitney. The temperature was plummeting. Brambila told another solo hiker, Luis Buenrostro, that he intended to take a “short cut” down the mountain. Buenrostro assumed that meant Brambila intended to glissade, or slide, down a snowy slope. It’s a common technique, but Brambila had no helmet and no ice ax, which is used as a brake to prevent hurtling into a deadly fall. Nobody has seen or heard from Brambila since. L.A. Times
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