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 Monday, April 20.
- Lack of talent defines California governor’s race.
- Large-scale layoffs sweep through Silicon Valley.
- And photo highlights from the Coachella music festival.
Statewide
1.
Since January, the Eastern District of California has received more than 2,700 petitions for writ of habeas corpus, which protects people from unlawful detention. The number was 18 in all of 2024. Many of the cases involve longtime U.S. residents taken to jail during routine check-ins with immigration officials. Judges have ordered hundreds of them freed, but Justice Department lawyers say they are being crushed under paperwork, leaving immigrants incarcerated and jurists fuming. One judge accused the administration of inflicting “terror against noncitizens.” L.A. Times
2.
A recent poll found Tom Steyer leading the Democratic field in the race for governor after the exit of Eric Swalwell. Steyer’s one viral moment of the campaign so far came when a TV reporter asked how he would grade Gov. Gavin Newsom’s two terms. He became flustered, refusing to answer. “I haven’t followed it closely enough to give him a grade,” Steyer said.
“The glaring lack of candidate talent, political skill, and personal appeal — let alone star power — has been the defining quality of the race,” wrote the Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich.
- “It wasn’t just with me. It was with a lot of girls. Every time you met him, he was just very handsy.” Swalwell thought he was invincible, wrote Politico Magazine.
3.
The weather looked ominous the day that a German man planned to pop the question to his girlfriend in Yosemite. The photographer he hired to capture the moment, Erica Houck, suggested they postpone. But he insisted. The proposal was a success. The couple laughed and embraced in the rain, soaked. Only later, when Houck reviewed her photos, did she realize that she had captured a once-in-a-lifetime picture, above. “My jaw dropped,” she said. FOX26 | Outside magazine
Northern California
4.
After a car crash in Marin County left four teenage friends dead and two others injured, the girls’ families have been torn apart. The mother of the driver, who is facing a manslaughter charge, made her first public comment in a San Francisco Chronicle story on the resentments that have simmered since the April 2025 tragedy: “We think constantly about the lives lost, and we have deep compassion for the families and the entire community affected. At the same time, our family has also been subjected to ongoing harassment that has gone far beyond grief or accountability.”
5.
“I made a mistake, and I am sincerely sorry.”
A week after making the decision to remove all Pride flags from its shops, the Bay Area chain Philz Coffee reversed itself on Friday. “Every Pride flag that is up stays up, and any Pride flag that was previously removed can be put back up,” the company said. Mahesh Sadarangani, the Philz CEO, had initially said the flag removals would make the chain more welcoming to customers. But the move drew a fierce backlash. S.F. Chronicle | SFist
6.
“Terrible.”
“Completely useless.”
“My arms were squishing all of my groceries.”
Safeway recently switched to paper bags without handles at numerous California locations, citing supply chain issues. Bay Area shoppers interviewed for a local TV news segment found the 1990s-style bags all but intolerable. KGO | SFGATE
7.
Snap is laying off 16% of its staff. Block fired 40%. And Meta, according to a Reuters report, is planning to cut 8,000 positions. Mass layoffs were once seen as a sign of trouble at a company. But such moves are now likely to see a big stock jump, the Wall Street Journal reported. Artificial intelligence has allowed for fewer workers, but there’s more going on, said Amrita Ahuja, Block’s chief financial officer: “It also has given air cover, more importantly, to execute on the right sizing that you probably needed to do a long time ago.”
Southern California
8.
California authorities promised to crack down on hospice fraud after a Los Angeles Times investigation in 2020 drew attention to unscrupulous providers in the L.A. area. Officials crafted regulations to address gaps in licensing requiring. But five years later, those rules have not been enacted, and fraud remains widespread. Sheila Clark, a hospice industry leader, said the inaction is perplexing. “This is not a red versus blue issue,” she said, adding, “We care about the beneficiary and the benefit, full stop. That is who we are protecting.” L.A. Times
9.
In 1992, Kuchamaa Mountain on the southern border of California became the first sacred mountain to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. The peak is a holy site for the indigenous Kumeyaay people. Yet in recent weeks, the federal government has been blasting the mountain as part of a plan to build additional border barriers. The explosions have sparked disbelief among the Kumeyaay. “It’s like a church to us,” said Norma Alicia Meza, a Kumeyaay leader. S.D. Union-Tribune
10.
A Los Angeles woman was arrested Saturday on suspicion of helping Iran traffic weapons to Sudan, which is being ravaged in a bloody civil war. Shamim Mafi, 44, is the third Angeleno from the city’s Iranian diaspora to be arrested by the federal authorities in three weeks. According to the criminal complaint, she got her green card in 2016 and quickly began working for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, using a shell company to move weapons and cash. L.A. Times | A.P.
11.
A flight attendant on a recent Southwest flight made an unusual announcement to the cabin. A San Diego family on the plane was returning home from New York, where their 2-year-old, Cruz Anguiano, underwent four months of cancer treatment, she said: “And he is now officially cancer free.” Everyone broke into applause. The crew then passed around napkins that passengers could use to write words of encouragement for Cruz and his parents. Nearly everyone did. “I couldn’t get through them without crying,” the boy’s mother said. Washington Post
12.
The 25th Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival wrapped up in Indio over the weekend. The mood was joyful, the outfits were skimpy, and the music ran the gamut from Suicidal Tendencies and Iggy Pop to Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Bieber. See photo highlights from the two-weekend festival. 👉 Reuters | FLOOD magazine | USA Today
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