All of the must-read news about the Golden State in one place.
Hi, I’m Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times. I survey more than 100 news and social media sites daily, then send you a tightly crafted email with only the most informative and delightful bits.
Each weekday at about 6 a.m., you’ll get an email like this.
Good morning. It’s Friday, Oct. 17.
- Cheap California-branded insulin poised to hit shelves.
- Salesforce seeks to help ICE nearly triple its ranks.
- And father admits killing missing Riverside County baby.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday that California would begin selling insulin under the state’s own label on Jan. 1, making good on a longstanding promise to rein in costs for millions of Californians with diabetes. Insulin, a 100-year-old drug, has been a poster child in the fight against price gouging by the pharmaceutical industry. After slashing their prices under pressure in 2024, brand-name companies now sell five-packs of injections to pharmacies for between $89 and $411, according to state figures. California’s price: $45. Politico | CalMatters
2.
October has historically been a perilous month for California, as Santa Ana winds find fuel for wildfires in dry, post-summer vegetation. But a rare early October atmospheric river this week has fire officials breathing a sigh of relief. Meteorologists said the storm has likely curbed the threat of large wildfires through the end of the year. “In a way this is like a Goldilocks atmospheric river,” said meteorologist Marty Ralph. “It’s sort of just right to be mostly beneficial at this stage of the year.” N.Y. Times | L.A. Times
- Satellite images showed the Sierra buried in snow. 👉 L.A. Times
3.
The Spanish runner Kilian Jornet summited all 72 peaks in the contiguous U.S. that stand over 14,000 feet tall, including 15 in California, cycling between and running up each one — in 31 days. That’s 629 miles of running, 2,568 miles of biking, and 403,638 feet of elevation gained. Put another way, he did roughly the equivalent of riding a Tour de France stage and running a marathon on steep terrain every day for a month. “Most people can’t understand how much truly bigger this is than most any major mountain endurance event we’ve ever seen,” said mountaineer Melissa Arnot. S.F. Chronicle | CNN
Northern California
4.
The venture capitalist Ron Conway stepped down from the board of Salesforce after its chief executive, Marc Benioff, said the National Guard should be deployed to San Francisco. He explained his decision in an email to Benioff. “It saddens me immensely to say that with your recent comments … I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired,” Conway wrote. He continued, about Dreamforce, an annual conference in downtown San Francisco: “Your obsession with and constant annual threats to move Dreamforce to Las Vegas is ironic, since it is a fact that Las Vegas has a higher rate of violent crime than San Francisco.” N.Y. Times | Bloomberg
5.
Benioff’s embrace of President Trump has shocked many in San Francisco, where he had long been regarded as a champion of progressive causes. Any lingering questions about his allegiance to Trump were dispelled Thursday as new reporting revealed that Salesforce is seeking new contracts with ICE to help power the president’s deportation campaign. According to internal documents, the company pitched its “talent acquisition” capabilities to help the immigration enforcement agency nearly triple its ranks. N.Y. Times | S.F. Chronicle
6.
In the video, three men kneel with their heads covered by black plastic bags. Behind them stand a group of what appear to be bearded militants in turbans. “We have one message for America,” one of the standing men says, before ripping the bag off one of the apparent captives. “Welcome to Afghanistan!” the kneeling man says, giving a thumbs up. The travel ad was made by Yosaf Aryubi, an Afghan American from San Jose whose video is part of a growing trend of alt-travel content. The New Yorker coined another name for the phenomenon: “Frommer’s for edgelords.”
7.
Taylor Swift’s outfit choice during a promotional film for her latest album early this month turned into a windfall for the Monterey Bay Aquarium. When fans spotted Swift sporting a 1990s-era Monterey Bay Aquarium otter shirt in the film, the aquarium was surprised to field a wave of donations to support the nonprofit’s otter program. The aquarium followed up by tracking down the original T-shirt artwork and ordering 50,000 units. Within days, they were completely sold out, having raised more than $1.4 million. The Tribune
8.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with filmmaker Ari Gold about his new project, “Brother Verses Brother,” an ambitious one-shot film that follows him and his brother searching for meaning on the streets of San Francisco alongside their 99-year-old father. Critics have raved about the film, struggling to describe it while calling it unlike anything they’ve seen.
- Watch the “Brother Verses Brother” trailer.
9.
UC Berkeley invited the 18-year-old granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola, Romy Mars, to speak on campus. Her response on TikTok went viral:
“So UC Berkeley just asked me to be a speaker at their college. Just to give some kind of backstory, the previous speakers for UC Berkeley are the creators of Khan Academy, PayPal, medical chiefs. Why? What’s going on? I don’t even know what you want me to give advice on. I was born into this. I don’t have work ethic.” S.F. Chronicle | SFist
Southern California
10.
The father of Emmanuel Haro, a 7-month-old whose disappearance attracted national attention, admitted to killing the boy on Thursday, his voice breaking as he told a Riverside judge, “I’m guilty.” Jake Haro, 32, and his wife, Rebecca, 41, initially told the authorities that their son was kidnapped by a stranger in a Big 5 parking lot in Yucaipa on Aug. 14. But inconsistencies emerged in their story, officials said. Rebecca Haro has pleaded not guilty. Emmanuel’s remains have not yet been found. Press-Enterprise | KABC
11.
The University of Southern California on Thursday rejected a White House offer of funding preferences in return for signing a commitment to adhere to President Trump’s conservative vision of higher education. In a letter to the U.S. Department of Education, USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim said the proposal would “undermine the same values of free inquiry and academic excellence that the compact seeks to promote.” The compact, which was also rejected by MIT, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania, drew passionate opposition from USC faculty and Gov. Gavin Newsom. L.A. Times | N.Y. Times
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- As Miles Davis’s 100th birthday approaches, people are celebrating the trumpeter’s vast influence on music. But the man also had style. WSJ. Magazine got a look inside his personal archive in California — the first publication to be granted such access.
- Over the years, scientists have sought to illustrate the influence of groundwater overpumping in the Central Valley by marking the land’s former elevation on utility poles. Last Friday, a crew was making just such a display in Tulare County when a farmer approached and told them to stop. Then he called the sheriff. The clash reflected how deep fractures have become in a region facing state directives to reduce pumping. SJV Water
- In the early 1960s, Rich Eacobacci was a 26-year-old Forest Service engineer when he designed a set of aluminum stairs to the sky in the Northern Sierra. They allowed visitors to reach the Sierra Buttes Fire Lookout, perched like a monastery at 8,587 feet above sea level. Now 88, Eacobacci recently made the pilgrimage up all 180 steps. ABC10
- Daniel Bacon and his family relocated to the Grass Valley area after visiting during the pandemic. “There’s something about living here that grounds you,” Bacon said. “It feels like being on vacation except you never have to pack up and leave.” The New York Times published a lifestyle piece on the twin cities of Grass Valley and Nevada City.
- “We watched them paint with fire.” The Washington Post published a gorgeous multimedia project on tribal fire practitioners burning farmland in Orleans, about 50 miles south of the Oregon border.
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