Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Sept. 2.

• Migrants are held for days at San Francisco airport.
• Developer plans homes in path of the bullet train.
• And Carlsbad company chases the dream of a solar car.

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Statewide

1.

After weeks of intense negotiations, California lawmakers on Tuesday unexpectedly shelved a compromise bill aimed at hastening payments to wildfire victims. Gov. Gavin Newsom had criticized the bill for failing to shift more liability away from utility companies, which he warned could be pushed into bankruptcy. “Simply put, this measure did not meet the gravity of this moment,” he said. Critics accused lawmakers of flinching from Wall Street’s reaction to news of the legislation over the weekend, which sent utility stocks into free fall. Wall Street Journal | Politico

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2.

A developer in Kern County is moving ahead with a residential project in the direct path of California’s bullet train. In May, Lennar Homes won approval for a development that would add more than 1,200 homes in the city of Shafter. “It’s raw land, we own it, we plan to develop it,” a company official said. Shafter leaders, who oppose the rail authority’s plan to bisect the town but include no local station, appeared pleased by the mounting showdown. “Let’s talk about going a different route,” said Mayor Chad Givens. “We can still get you from point A to point B.” Fresno Bee | KERO

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Northern California

3.

Under President Trump, San Francisco International Airport has become a “de facto immigration detention center,” an investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle found. This year, 25 immigrants, mostly green-card holders, have been held at the airport for more than three days. They’ve had no attorneys, no medical care, and no beds. A 67-year-old man who has lived legally in the U.S. for 50 years recalled being detained for eight days, sleeping upright in a chair each night under lights that never dimmed. “I feel like I was kidnapped,” he said.

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4.

“I’ve taken two Fed biologists hostage from the Forest Service. What I’d like to have happen, I’d like to have you send me a fucking Fed investigator, with a goddamn badge, preferably from the FBI. And we can talk things through a little bit.”

On July 16, a man with a history of erratic behavior took two frog biologists hostage at Northern California’s Gumboot Lake. As informal settlements increasingly take root in unpoliced national-forest lands, something like this was almost bound to happen, wrote the Atlantic’s Joshua Partlow.

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5.

Monterey County authorities were searching for a 14-year-old girl on suspicion of murder Tuesday after she was alleged to have been raped by her father and gave birth to a baby who was found dead on a roadside. The father, Sergio Galvez Perez, 38, is believed to be concealing the girl from law enforcement, Sheriff Tina Nieto said: “We need to find this 14-year-old child.” Nieto acknowledged that the young girl “is also a victim,” but called her a “murder suspect” nonetheless. S.F. Chronicle | KABC

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6.

All-cash offers of $25 million and more are being outbid in San Francisco’s wildly priced real estate market. Brokers have started referring to the phenomenon, fueled by soaring artificial intelligence wealth, as a “mansion shortage.” In June, 44 homes sold for at least $1 million over their asking prices, a Compass economist said. “You have to laugh just because it is so ridiculous and so beyond the pale,” said Paul Kitchen, a real estate agent. NPR

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Southern California

7.

One of the two shooters in the deadly May attack on a San Diego mosque had gone missing from a residential mental health facility the night before the tragedy, his family said in a lawsuit accusing the facility of neglect. Caleb Vazquez, 18, was being treated at Park Mental Health for severe depression with psychotic episodes, among other issues. His mother, Lilliana Vazquez, said she warned staff about her son’s troubling behavior. On the morning of the shooting, the facility texted her with a question: “Do you have an idea of where Caleb could be?” Times of San Diego | S.D. Union-Tribune

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8.

“Heartbreaking”

A wildfire burned nearly 40% of Santa Rosa Island earlier this summer, but it’s expected to leave up to 80% of the island’s rare Torrey pines dead, according to an assessment released on Tuesday by the National Park Service. The Torrey pine is among the rarest pine species in the world, growing naturally in only La Jolla and Santa Rosa Island. Tests on most damaged trees revealed that the blaze “effectively destroyed” their “internal plumbing,” the report said. Ventura County Star | L.A. Times

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9.

Monday’s conviction in the killing of Tupac Shakur brought catharsis 30 years after the gunshots rang out in Las Vegas. Duane Davis was found guilty of orchestrating the crime and could go to prison for life. But for some people close to Shakur, the result offered little closure. The trial yielded no revelations in evidence, and the question of who pulled the trigger remains contested. “My appetite for justice has not been fed,” William Garland, Shakur’s father, told the New York Times on Tuesday.

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10.

Despite the fearmongering on social media, a hurricane is not likely to slam into Southern California over Labor Day weekend. On Tuesday, Tropical Storm Marie, which is expected to strengthen into a hurricane by Thursday, was churning over the Pacific roughly 1,300 miles south of San Diego. According to meteorologists, models overwhelmingly projected the system would swirl out to sea. Chances appeared at least moderate that remnants of the storm would reach Southern California in the form of rain, big waves, and coastal flooding, the National Weather Service said. Washington Post | S.F. Chronicle

• Track Tropical Storm Marie.

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11.

Philan Le, the Southern California man who drove a guillotine to Washington, D.C., in his pickup truck on Aug. 25, said he didn’t expect to attract so much attention. “I thought at most some influencer might walk by and their post might get out there,” Le, a tattoo artist, told the Washington Post. Before his arrest, Le posted a video outlining his plans. With Illuminati imagery in the backdrop, he complained about “forever wars” and a powerful cabal whose members “are raping people and eating children.” The guillotine, he explained, is a “solution.”

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12.

The lone survivor of the race to produce a commercially viable solar car has vowed to sell its first vehicle by year’s end. The $40,000 Launch Edition by Aptera, in Carlsbad, can travel up to 40 miles a day on sunlight alone. A Washington Post reporter got behind the wheel:

“I’ve never attracted more attention around town than I did test-driving this head-turner. As soon as we came into view, people stopped to snap photos or rushed over, curious or covetous, wanting to know where to buy one or asking if this two-seater spaceship was from the future — which, in a way, it is.”

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