Good morning. It’s Monday, Jan. 29.
- Spectacular fall of America’s largest peach producer.
- Woman spends frigid night trapped in Tahoe gondola.
- And San Francisco 49ers punch ticket to the Super Bowl.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom went to South Carolina last week to stump for President Biden. During a stop at Cliff’s Seafood in Bamberg on Wednesday, a high school baseball coach named Jimmy Sutton passed along a question on behalf of his players: Does the governor know Snoop Dogg?
“Newsom, hunched over a plate brimming with fried fish and hush puppies, retrieved his iPhone, showing Sutton the text he received just Monday evening. He delivered on the surprising ask.
“‘Gov.,’ the message read. ‘it’s snoop.'” Politico
2.
“Get ready for a wet week.”
Meteorologists said an expansive wave of moisture would sweep across California from north to south between Tuesday and Friday, heightening risks of landslides and floods especially along engorged coastal rivers. Upper mountain elevations could get up to 3 feet of snow. “The good news here is it’s going to be strong, it’s going to be heavy at times, but it’s going to be transient,” said meteorologist Bob Van Dillen. “It’s going to be moving pretty quickly,” Fox Weather | Weather Channel
Northern California
3.
Palestinian American plaintiffs accused President Biden of abetting genocide during an unusual judicial proceeding in federal court in Oakland on Friday. The charge came in a case filed in November that aims to force the White House to withdraw support for Israel pending a cease-fire in Gaza, an unlikely prospect given the powers granted to U.S. presidents in foreign policy. Even so, Judge Jeffrey White said he was moved by the grief of plaintiffs who lost family in Gaza, calling the case perhaps “the most difficult judicial decision” he has ever faced. N.Y. Times | S.F. Chronicle
4.
Thousands of Fresno County farmworkers are losing their jobs after the spectacular fall of one of California’s largest tree fruit growers. Prima Wawona, once the largest peach producer in the country, filed for bankruptcy in October after finding itself saddled with more than $600 million in debt. In court filings, the company’s CEO blamed a massive wildfire and salmonella outbreak, both in 2020. When efforts to find a buyer failed, lenders demanded liquidation. This month, Prima Wawona told more than 5,290 workers they’d be out of work by March. Fresno Bee | San Joaquin Valley Sun
5.
Kaiser Permanente, Oakland’s largest private employer, urged employees in its downtown headquarters to eat their lunches in the office rather than risk the danger of going outside, where violent crime citywide jumped 21% last year. The memo also urged workers based in other parts of the state to avoid holding meetings in Oakland’s downtown. Other local employers, including Clorox and Blue Shield, said they’ve started offering security guards to walk employees to BART and parking garages. KTVU | CBS News
- S.F. Chronicle on Oakland: “Feelings of fatigue, desperation and outrage have reached a fever pitch.”
6.
A snowboarder spent 15 frigid hours trapped in a gondola suspended above a Tahoe area ski resort. At around 5 p.m. on Thursday, Monica Laso boarded a gondola heading down Heavenly Mountain because she was too tired to snowboard, she said. But the ride halted after just a couple minutes. She screamed herself hoarse trying to get someone’s attention. “I didn’t have a phone, a light, or anything,” Laso said. Stuck, she shivered through the night as temperatures plunged into 20s. She was only rescued after the gondola resumed service Friday morning. Tahoe Daily Tribune | KCRA
7.
The San Francisco 49ers are headed to the Super Bowl.
In a thrilling comeback, the 49ers scored 27 consecutive points in the second half to erase a 17-point deficit and beat the Detroit Lions, 34-31, Sunday night at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. Celebrating fans packed bars and spilled into the streets of San Francisco. “The Bay prevails; we always do,” declared fan Jeff Walsh. In two weeks, the 49ers face the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs in Las Vegas, a rematch of the 2020 Super Bowl, which the Chiefs won. KQED | ESPN
- Sports columnist Scott Ostler: “Sweetest comeback in Bay Area sports history.” S.F. Chronicle
Southern California
8.
Columnist Gustavo Arellano wrote movingly about a Latino lawmaker’s fall from grace after Jose Huizar, a former L.A. city council member, was sentenced to 13 years in prison Friday for corruption:
“We followed his ascendancy with pride — Boyle Heights to Berkeley, Princeton to UCLA Law, the L.A. Unified school board to City Hall. At family parties where we caught up on who had done good and who had done bad, my cousins told their children that they too could be like Huizar. He wasn’t just the American dream. He was our American dream.” L.A. Times
9.
The Navy captain of a San Diego-based guided-missile cruiser bullied subordinates so severely that sailors were afraid to bring bad news to her attention, according to a military investigation obtained by KPBS. In October, Capt. Danielle DeFant, a native of Oceanside, was removed from her command of the USS Lake Erie over what the Navy said at the time was a “loss of confidence in her ability to command.” Investigators found DeFant routinely lost her temper over even trivial annoyances. On several cases, she struck people, the report said. KPBS
10.
A 79-year-old man shot and killed his wife, adult daughter, and adult son before turning the gun on himself in the San Fernando Valley community of Granada Hills on Saturday night, the authorities said. A surviving witness, described by family friends as an adult daughter with special needs, escaped the bloodshed by barricading herself in a room. Stunned neighbors described the family as quiet but friendly. “This is a nice neighborhood,” said Richard Asperger, a neighbor. The motive remained a mystery on Sunday. L.A. Times | KTLA
11.
The billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times tried to halt work in December on a story about whether his wealthy acquaintance’s dog bit a woman in a park, sources told the New York Times. At one point, Patrick Soon-Shiong demanded to see a draft of the story, threatening to fire any journalist who concealed it from him. Editor Kevin Merida was said to be prepared to quit over Soon-Shiong’s meddling, sources told the Times. This month, he did — giving Soon-Shiong no warning, according to reporting by the Wrap. The dog story has not yet run. N.Y. Times | The Wrap
- In a response to the N.Y. Times article, Soon-Shiong wrote, “This all comes down to ‘did the dog bite?’ It’s that simple.” @BenMullin
California archive
12.
In 1932, Los Angeles’s business elite commissioned David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of the great Mexican muralists, to create a giant outdoor mural, envisioning an idyllic jungle scene with fruits and colorful birds. Ahead of the unveiling, the 80-foot-wide work on the side of an Olvera Street social club was described in the press as the artist’s “greatest triumph,” a visual centerpiece that would lure tourists and art lovers to the commercial district.
But Siqueiros’ patrons were mortified when they saw what he had been up to: In the middle of the mural, “América Tropical,” was an Indigenous person crucified on a cross while a pair of armed peasants perched in the upper right corner appeared to be taking aim at an eagle. At the unveiling, spectators gasped, a reporter wrote. The anti-imperialist messaging did not go over well, and within a few years the mural was completely whitewashed.
Largely forgotten for decades, it was rediscovered in the 1960s as the white paint began to peel away. After a decades-long campaign by conservationists, the mural was painstakingly restored. Today, you can climb some stairs to a viewing platform across from the artwork, still in its original location — a ghost of what it once was but imbued with the resiliency of free expression. Getty.edu | Discover Los Angeles
Get your California Sun T-shirts, phone cases, hoodies, mugs, and hats!
Thanks for reading!
The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
Make a one-time contribution to the California Sun.
Give a subscription as a gift.
Get a California Sun mug, T-shirt, phone case, hat, or hoodie.
Forward this email to a friend.
Click here to stop delivery, and here to update your billing information. To change your email address please email me: mike@californiasun.co. (Note: Unsubscribing here does not cancel payments. To do that click here.)
The California Sun, PO Box 6868, Los Osos, CA 93412
Wake up to must-read news from around the Golden State delivered to your inbox each morning.