Good morning. It’s Thursday, July 3.

• Civil liberties groups sue over immigration crackdown.
• Seven people missing in Yolo County warehouse fire.
• And the story of how Langston Hughes fled Carmel.

Please note: The newsletter will be off through the July Fourth weekend. Back in your inbox on Monday.

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Statewide

1.

A coalition led by the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Wednesday that accuses federal authorities of indiscriminately snatching brown-skinned people off the streets of Southern California and holding them in a “dungeonlike” facility without access to lawyers. Immigration raids on car washes, bus stops, parking lots, and farms have one overriding objective, the filing said: “numbers, pure numbers.” A Homeland Security spokesperson called accusations of racial profiling “disgusting and categorically FALSE.” CalMatters | L.A. Times

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2.

Outside a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, a stream of people have been lining up each morning in hopes of finding loved ones arrested by immigration agents. There’s confusion, frustration, and, most of all, tears. Many are turned away with no news. Others are allowed five-minute meetings. Jasmin Camacho Picazo said her husband told her fellow detainees are so thirsty they’re drinking out of the toilets. “I can’t stop crying,” she said. A.P.

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3.

The legal group co-founded by immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller filed a civil rights complaint against the Dodgers on Monday, accusing the team of engaging in “unlawful discrimination” by sponsoring programs geared to women and people of color. The legal action came two weeks after the Dodgers said it barred immigration agents from using its parking lots as a staging area. In a news release, America First Legal cited the snub, saying the team had invited scrutiny by “publicly opposing federal immigration enforcement.” L.A. Times | Axios

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Northern California

4.

Seven people remained “unaccounted for” after an explosion tore through a fireworks warehouse in a rural town 30 miles northeast of Sacramento, officials said. As of late Wednesday, firefighters were unable to enter the structure in Esparto, which had been burning for more than 24 hours. Syanna Ruiz said she had not heard from her boyfriend, Jesus Maneces Ramos, 18, who was working at the facility along with two of his brothers. “We’re praying to God that they’re alive,” she said tearfully. “Maybe they just need medical attention, that I mean, maybe they’re stuck.” KCRA | KTVU

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5.

Last week, Athletics owner John Fisher held a ground-breaking for his new A’s stadium in Las Vegas. Behind him loomed several large earth movers. But they were props, rented only for the cameras. More than two years after Fisher abandoned Oakland to pursue a new ballpark in Vegas, the project’s financials are looking questionable at best, the Guardian reports: “Fisher is short — way short — and that will mean digging deep into his own pockets and risking his family wealth for a project that makes little fiscal sense to anyone analyzing in good faith.”

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6.

New nurses bristle at overly chatty patients and try to shirk “dirty tasks.” New office hires want to be promoted after only a few months. Some show up in skimpy outfits and FaceTime friends from their desks. Others treat bosses like parents. “They want to be mentored, not managed,” said Jim Rettew, interim CEO at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Bay Area companies are so fed up with their Gen Z workers that they are hiring etiquette coaches to train them how to behave at work, the San Francisco Standard reported.

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7.

California’s first college program for students with intellectual disabilities celebrated the graduation of its first class in June. In the Redwood SEED Scholars program at UC Davis, a network of mentors help scholars who live on campus, participate in social activities, and join courses alongside traditional students. The eight graduates were all smiles in their blue caps and gowns. “It’s a big, big day,” said scholar Cristina Riegos. “I’m emotional and I’m proud.” UC Davis

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8.

In 1933, Langston Hughes arrived in Carmel for a yearlong residency at the invitation of a wealthy patron. The Black writer loved Carmel, but many residents in the village of fairy-tale homes did not return his affection. They whispered that he was seen “in company of white women.” The Carmel Sun wrote: “Langston Hughes has been a very ‘distinguished’ guest in Carmel — not that the town is proud of it.” Anti-communist fervor surged, and the city formed a paramilitary force. Soon after, Hughes got word that he was in danger. Alta recounted how one of America’s great writers produced some of his finest work in Carmel — and was chased out of town.

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Southern California

9.

Treasure Colladay, 29, has a job manning the front desk at a La Jolla hotel. Yet she is one of San Diego’s invisible homeless, spending her nights in her car after getting off work. Estimates for the share of homeless people who hold at least some formal employment range as high as 40%. “The face of homelessness has changed a lot over the last decade,” said the Legal Aid Society’s Gilberto Vera. “It can be really difficult for households who could afford the rent but aren’t able to move into units because what they can’t afford is that big down payment.” S.D. Union-Tribune

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10.

Lee Calvert, 100 years old, moved to a mobile home park in Pacific Palisades in 1967 and never left. Up until January, she kept busy playing ping-pong and hosting meals on her patio. She loved everything about the Palisades, she said. But fate intervened when fire tore through the neighborhood. Now, she’s rebuilding her life in Santa Cruz County, where she has family. “I think that’s a secret to a good life: You have to adapt to whatever happens,” she said. “Doesn’t mean you’re always going to like it.” The L.A. Times shared a moving story of resilience in the wake of disaster.

• A dangerous new toxin has been found in the air after the Los Angeles fires: beryllium. Scientists don’t know where it’s coming from. S.F. Chronicle

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11.

One evening in June 2019, Gail Lerner and her family were driving out to Joshua Tree when a drunk driver going 90 miles an hour struck their car, killing her two teenagers in the back seat. On the six-year anniversary of the crash, Lerner and her husband installed a disconnected rotary phone in the desert. Known as a wind phone, it invites people to speak to lost loved ones. Lerner placed the first call on the Joshua Tree phone. She felt a rush, she said: “It wasn’t like I felt them responding, but I felt like they were hearing it.” Washington Post

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In case you missed it

12.

Five items that got big views over the past week:

• Usha Vance, a daughter of immigrants in San Diego, was once a Democrat and a litigator for a progressive San Francisco law firm. The New York Times talked to old friends bewildered by the turn she has taken as second lady.
• The photographer Randy Robbins spent years trying to capture images of one California’s rarest animals: the Sierra Nevada red fox. After checking a trail camera he left out all winter in the Mount Lassen area, Robbins posted video of a Sierra Nevada red fox atop a beautiful ridge. YouTube | KCRA
• After a construction project of five years and $720 million, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art invited journalists to tour its massive new gallery for the first time. Christopher Knight was struck by the copiousness of a single building material. “Chances are you’ve never seen so much concrete in one place,” he wrote. L.A. Times | The Guardian
  • See photos of the new gallery. 👉 dezeen
• On the eastern side of the Sierra, across the Owens Valley, there’s a little-known overlook partway up the White Mountains. The view rivals any other in California, wrote Doug Robinson. Alta
• At Long Beach Airport, the art deco terminal includes a restored Work Projects Administration mosaic made up of more than 1.5 million tiles. Passengers sip wine near a fire pit in a courtyard lined with palm trees. For those reasons and more, the Washington Post put Long Beach Airport at No. 2 in a new ranking of America’s 50 best airports.

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