Good morning. It’s Friday, June 17.
• | Warriors cement their place among the greatest NBA teams. |
• | Legislative deal is reached to dramatically curb plastics. |
• | And Santa Clara and Inglewood will host World Cup soccer. |
Please note: The newsletter will pause Monday. Back in your inbox Tuesday.
Statewide
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The Warriors celebrated their championship win in Boston on Thursday.
Elsa/Getty Images
Last October, the statistical analysis website FiveThirtyEight put the chances of the Golden State Warriors winning the NBA championship at 0.1%, or one in 1,000. Yet in a vintage performance Thursday night, they defeated the Boston Celtics, 103-90, in Game 6 of the Finals, clinching their fourth title in eight seasons and cementing their place as one of the greatest teams ever assembled. As the clock wound down to zero, Stephen Curry, the series MVP, dropped to the hardwood and sobbed. “This one hits different for sure,” he said afterward. “Carrying a belief that we could get back to this stage and win, even if it didn’t make sense to anybody when we said it, all that stuff matters now.” S.F. Chronicle | A.P. | Mercury News
The parade plan: Players and coaches will make their way down San Francisco’s Market Street starting at 11:20 a.m. on Monday. SFGATE
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Environmentalists said they reached a legislative deal to sharply reduce the amount of plastic Californians use, a breakthrough denied by industry opposition in years past. The bill would require manufacturers to sharply curtail the amount of plastic packaging they create, while ensuring that what they do produce is recyclable. The compromise means environmental groups could pull their November ballot initiative that would put the issue before voters. S.F. Chronicle
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FIFA announced Thursday that stadiums in Santa Clara and Inglewood will be among those to host the 2026 men’s World Cup, as the global soccer tournament returns to the U.S. for the time since 1994. In an unusual arrangement, the 2026 contest will be be hosted by three countries — the U.S., Mexico, and Canada — with games spread across 16 venues. Each stadium was expected to host four or five games. ESPN | A.P.
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From left, John Wardlaw, Mark Rumer-Cleary, Dallas Burney, John Molony, and John Dickson.
Gif created from images via John Wardlaw
Five friends from Santa Barbara High School have posed for the same photo at a Northern California lake every five years since 1982. The first photo was taken during a vacation at Copco Lake in Siskiyou County when they were about 19 years old. On Wednesday, after 40 years of graduations, jobs, marriages, and children, they gathered for their ninth photo, still friends and still cranking up the Rush and Pink Floyd. CNN
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On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman chats with the science journalist Matt Richtel, whose latest book, “Inspired,” explores the science of creativity. Richtel talked about why California seems to have more of it. “The culture here is so open to creativity,” he said. “Here, we’ve learned that creativity makes money. If you want to talk about the ultimate incentive, it’s putting food on the table.”
Northern California
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Elon Musk addressed Twitter’s rank-and-file for the first time on Thursday in a 45-minute Q&A session. Despite raising doubts about his $44 billion acquisition of the company, the billionaire entrepreneur made clear that he had grand ambitions for the platform. He said he wants to Twitter to have more than 1 billion users — four times the current number. Asked about free speech, he said people should be allowed to say outrageous things, but that doesn’t mean they are entitled to “freedom of reach.” N.Y. Times | recode
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William Wright Jr. was a defensive backs coach at College of the Sequoias.
College of the Sequoias
A football coach at Visalia’s College of the Sequoias was fatally shot by his own father on Wednesday after a quarrel turned violent, police said. William Wright Jr., 31, a father of two young boys, was visiting his parents at their home in Fresno when he and his father, 52-year-old William Wright Sr., got into an argument about the proper way to discipline children. The elder Wright then retrieved a gun and shot his son in the chest, officials said. He was charged with murder. KFSN | Visalia Times Delta
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“After the Fall,” by David Slater
A photo of a dead sea lion in Monterey Bay was honored in the California Academy of Sciences’ 2022 BigPicture Photography Competition. Colorful bat stars arrayed across the seal’s body were likened to flowers tossed on a grave. The photographer, David Slater, captured the photo during a dive last September. “I had never known death to be this beautiful,” he said. bioGraphic
Southern California
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Sheriff’s deputies disproportionately cite and arrest Black students in Los Angeles County’s Antelope Valley, an inspector general’s report found. The analysis was prompted by a news investigation that found deputies were being called in to settle schoolyard disputes. When the article was published in September, Captain John Lecrivain called it “a very entertaining piece of fiction.” During a Civilian Oversight Commission meeting on Thursday, he struck a different tone, calling racial disparities “a serious concern.” LAist
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“The man who shot and killed two El Monte police officers Tuesday could have faced significantly more time in prison when he was last charged with a crime. But one of Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s most heavily criticized policies probably resulted in a lower sentence, according to documents reviewed by The Times.”
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Video taken from U.S.S. Russell on July 17, 2021, shows drones flying overhead.
In July 2019, a group of drones swarmed Navy destroyers near Southern California’s Channel Islands. Ship logs noted that the drones matched the speed and bearing of the U.S.S. Kidd and stayed aloft for some 90 minutes. The Navy was so alarmed it opened a high-level investigation, but the drones’ origin remains a mystery. One theory: A foreign adversary is spying on Navy ships off California. The Drive recently obtained night-vision video footage of the drones captured from the ship decks.
In case you missed it
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Big rigs lined up at a truck stop in Barstow.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Five items that got big views over the past week:
• | Along the highways of California are dozens of truck stops that serve as havens for the nation’s 550,000 long-haul truck drivers. They have arcades, showers, churches, and laundromats. Jamie Lee Taete produced a great photo essay. N.Y. Times |
• | Merle Haggard’s greatest song, some say, was “Mama Tried,” about turning 21 in prison despite his mother’s best efforts to steer him right. There’s a great video of him performing it to an audience that included his mom. They gave her a standing ovation. 👉 YouTube (3:30 mins) |
• | The art critic Christopher Knight visited an exhibition of Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld’s paintings inside the Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Gallery at the newly renamed Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum. “The art is frankly terrible,” he wrote. L.A. Times |
• | Raw sewage from a wastewater plant south of the border is befouling 15 miles of San Diego County coastline. It’s so bad that the shorelines at Imperial Beach and Coronado have been largely off-limits since May. S.D. Union-Tribune | FOX 5 San Diego |
• | Thousands of the decaying cabins dot the Mojave Desert, remnants of what the L.A. Times called “one of the strangest land rushes in Southern California history.” The photographer Helin Bereket did a fantastic series on “The Abandoned Cabins Of Wonder Valley.” Bored Panda | Creative Boom |
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