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Good morning. It’s Friday, Sept. 30.
- New law protects transgender youth fleeing red states.
- The Sikh “Peach King” of California dies in Yuba City.
- And a former NFL player dies while climbing near Idyllwild.
Scheduling note: The newsletter will be off on Monday. Back in your inbox Tuesday.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill on Thursday to make California a refuge for transgender children seeking gender transitions. The measure aims to block civil and criminal legal actions from states such as Florida, Texas, and Idaho that have moved to limit interventions such as hormone therapy and surgery for people younger than 18. Newsom said those measures “demonize” the transgender community. Critics of the California law argue that adolescents lack the maturity to consent to gender transitioning. L.A. Times
2.
California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond was accused of creating a toxic workplace. State Treasurer Fiona Ma was sued for sexual harassment. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara broke a vow not to accept campaign donations from members of the industry he was elected to regulate.
Yet all three politicians are gliding toward reelection. Asked why, analysts cited voter apathy and “pervasive polarization.” L.A. Times
3.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Lee E. Ohanian, a professor of economics at UCLA and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is highly critical of how leaders in California have responded to the homelessness crisis. In San Francisco, he said, “The vision is drug use is a choice made by people and the rest of society should accept that. … So we see what that’s done to San Francisco.”
Northern California
4.
The Wednesday shooting rampage at an Oakland high school was the result of a gang conflict, authorities said on Thursday. Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong told reporters that two gunmen entered through the front of Rudsdale High School and fired more than 30 rounds at specific targets, injuring two students, a counselor, a security guard, and two people working at the school. No arrests have been made. East Bay Times | KTVU
5.
In 1958, as the story goes, Didar Singh Bains arrived in the Sacramento Valley from Punjab at the age of 18 with just $8 in his pocket. Four years later, he bought his first plot of farmland, eventually turning it into largest peach operation in California. In 1980, Bains proposed a Sikh parade for Yuba City that grew into a major annual celebration, drawing 100,000 Sikhs from across the country every November. An immigrant farmer who became the “Peach King” of California and one of the most prominent American Sikh leaders, Bains died on Sept. 13 in Yuba City. He was 84. L.A. Times | Appeal-Democrat
6.
On Thursday, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors held a hearing on the strike by Kaiser Permanente therapists, now in its seventh week, over the provider’s failure to offer timely mental health care to its patients. Kaiser itself was a no-show, infuriating supervisors. One question they wrestled with: Why is a provider that made $8 billion in profits last year telling suicidal patients they have to wait a month or longer for an appointment? S.F. Chronicle | S.F. Examiner
7.
Last year, the police chief in Redding offered signing bonuses of $7,500 to new recruits. That didn’t work, so this year Chief Bill Schueller raised the offer to $40,000, more than half a year’s pay. He blamed the negative view of policing that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests. It’s a problem that extends beyond Redding. “We’re hiring people we wouldn’t normally hire,” said Ray Kelly, a spokesman for sheriff’s department in Alameda County. Wall Street Journal
8.
The stars of the fall bird migration, sandhill cranes, have begun returning to their wintering grounds in the Central Valley. Many congregate on a working farm in the San Joaquin River Delta that doubles as crane oasis. Staten Island is operated by the Nature Conservancy, which bought its 9,200 acres in 2001 to make it attractive for cranes and other migratory birds. That’s meant regularly flooding the fields and gradually shifting from corn to rice, which functions as surrogate wetlands. The result is illustrated every fall: As other valley habitat dries up, the skies above Staten Island fill with majestic sandhill cranes. Earth Island Journal
Southern California
9.
A former NFL player was one of two rock climbers who were found dead in a remote area near Idyllwild on Wednesday. The Riverside County coroner identified the victims as Gavin Escobar, 31, and Chelsea Walsh, 33, both of Huntington Beach. Escobar was a standout tight end for San Diego State before joining the Dallas Cowboys in 2013, playing in the league for six seasons. He joined the Long Beach Fire Department in February of this year. The circumstances of the accident remained murky. Escobar left behind a wife and two young children. Desert Sun | S.D. Union-Tribune
10.
New developments in the case of Anthony and Savannah Graziano, the father and daughter killed in a shootout with police in Hesperia on Tuesday:
- Police said on Thursday that Savannah Graziano was with her father the day before the gunbattle when he fatally shot her mother. That contradicts earlier statements by authorities that she had been somewhere else and was later abducted her father. A.P.
- San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus has suggested that Savannah Graziano shot at deputies. The California attorney general’s office said Thursday, however, that she was likely unarmed when she ran toward deputies and was fatally shot. L.A. Times |
11.
In the city of La Puente, 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, you get your donuts by driving through the Donut Hole. According to the Los Angeles Conservancy, the eye-catching structure was “designed by an unknown genius person” in 1968 and has been in continuous operation ever since. KCET cited the Donut Hole as among the finest remaining vestiges of the roadside architectural movement known as “California Crazy” that peaked in the first half of the 20th century.
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- The Santa Clara University men’s cross-country team decided to have a little fun with their team photos this year — and they won new fans in the process. SBNation | USA Today
- Cyril Derreumaux, 45, on Tuesday became the first person to kayak the 2,400 miles from California to Hawaii under his own power. He set off from Monterey in June, and arrived 92 days later with a full beard in Hilo. SFist | Axios
- Robert Downey Jr. built an undulating 6,500-square-foot domed structure on his Malibu property that looks like it could be a home for aliens, or perhaps the Flintstone family. T Magazine
- The Bay Area has invested big in tiny homes as a solution to its homelessness crisis. In Alameda County, an analysis found, participants failed to find stable housing nearly three-quarters of the time. Mercury News
- Andres Gomez filed hundreds of disability lawsuits against small businesses in California, complaining that their websites fail to support screen-reading software, which Gomez claims to use because he is legally blind. But one of his targets has now sued Gomez, producing video that shows him walking around Miami and looking at his 6-inch phone. S.F. Chronicle
Correction
Thursday’s newsletter misstated the location of the town of Coulterville. It is west of Yosemite, not east.
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The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
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