Good morning. It’s Friday, May 24.
- UCLA leader concedes errors in handling of protests.
- Silicon Valley investors turn against President Biden.
- And 18 rare photos of a young Marilyn Monroe in L.A.
Please note: The newsletter will pause for a long weekend. Back in your inbox on Wednesday.
Statewide
1.
During a congressional hearing Thursday, lawmakers from both parties berated UCLA Chancellor Gene Block over his handling of student protests. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, said the unchecked violence of the April 30 attack on a pro-Palestinian encampment was appalling. “You should be ashamed,” she said. Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican, accused Block of letting radicalism flourish on campus: “For days, you stood by as Jews were assaulted and illegal checkpoints blocked access to campus in broad daylight.” Block, who is Jewish, conceded errors and said he regretted not acting sooner to dismantle the encampment. L.A. Times | EdSource
- Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA briefly erected a new encampment and took over a building on Thursday before police officers in riot gear disbanded the effort. L.A. Times | N.Y. Times
- UCLA police made what appeared to be the first arrest in connection with the April 30 attack: Edan On, a high school senior who was seen repeatedly hitting a protester with a pole. L.A. Times
2.
“They’re like actively intimidating.”
“I’ll feel like I’m being watched.”
“The sense of alienation is very deeply felt.”
A reporter interviewed 10 Jewish students about antisemitism at UC Berkeley. Some described painful experiences: physical attacks, heckling, classroom justifications for the Oct. 7 attacks. Others said the worries were overblown. For those not active in politics, a freshman said, “nothing’s really happening.” S.F. Chronicle
3.
In March 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a plan to distribute 1,200 tiny homes for the homeless in Sacramento, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego County. “People are dying on our watch,” he said at the time. More than a year later, not a single dwelling has welcomed a resident. “You do sort of see a pattern of broken promises when it comes to projects like this,” said Niki Jones, the director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness. CapRadio | CalMatters
4.
Look carefully and you can make out two people suspended on ropes from the tree pictured above. They are researchers, and this week they became the first people to climb into the canopy of the giant sequoia known as General Sherman, the world’s largest tree, in Sequoia National Park. The purpose: to make sure a scourge of bark beetles hasn’t infested the tree. They came down with good news. “It seems to be a very healthy tree that’s able to fend off any beetle attack,” said Anthony Ambrose, a forest ecologist. A.P. | S.F. Chronicle
Northern California
5.
The New York Times on San Francisco’s controversial approach to “the algebra problem”:
“New York City’s previous mayor, Bill de Blasio, adopted a goal embraced by many districts elsewhere. Every middle school would offer algebra, and principals could opt to enroll all of their eighth graders in the class. San Francisco took an opposite approach: If some children could not reach algebra by middle school, no one would be allowed to take it.”
6.
The joyous mood of a graduation ceremony at an Oakland high school was shattered by gunfire Thursday night in a shooting that left two people with bullet wounds, officials said. Two people were arrested in what appeared to be an isolated incident, police said. The victims, a man and a woman, were in stable condition. Witnesses described panicked families scrambling for cover. “A high school graduation to end like this is horrible,” a mother said, fighting back tears. KTVU | KGO
7.
In 2018, the billionaire developer Jay Paul bought an aging office tower in downtown San Jose with plans to raze it and build a shiny new urban campus. The mayor hailed the proposal as “a great shot in the arm for our city.” One by one, under pressure from the developer, tenants left the CityView Plaza until just one remained: a tiny law firm on the 12th floor run by 83-year-old Bill Gates (no, not that one). The San Francisco Standard published a great yarn about a billionaire who met his match in one stubborn tenant.
8.
In 2021, the Bay Area investor David Sacks said former President Trump’s behavior around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot disqualified him from holding political office again. Now he’s planning a fundraiser for Trump. “I have bigger disagreements with Biden than with Trump,” he said. In Silicon Valley, a place where public support for Trump used to be taboo, some of the most prominent investors are turning against President Biden, the New York Times reported.
9.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Ken Doctor, founder of the Santa Cruz Lookout. Doctor talked about the digital news outlet’s moonshot bid to create a sustainable business in a region starving for journalism, and the validation that came in the form of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting. “We’ve become a community institution that people take pride in,” he said. “And that means so much to me.”
Southern California
10.
Hours after reporting his father missing in August 2018, a Fontana man named Thomas Perez Jr. found himself in an interrogation room being accused of murder. Detectives told Perez they found his father’s body; they said evidence showed Perez killed him; they said the mind works mysteriously, suppressing dark memories. After 17 hours, Perez broke, confessing to the killing. Left alone, he tried to hang himself. But Perez’s father was not dead — or even missing. He had gone to the airport to catch a flight. Fontana has now agreed to pay nearly $900,000 for what a judge called “psychological torture.” O.C. Register
11.
“Few stars of the 1950s were so compelling, so singular, that they came to define the era in which they lived and in which they created their most enduring work. Marilyn Monroe was one of those stars.”
LIFE.com published 18 rare photos of Monroe reading poetry in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park in 1950, when she was 24 and largely unknown.
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- The Sutter Buttes, volcanic remnants that rise from the checkerboard farmland of the Sacramento Valley, contain an oasis of rolling hills, flowers, and wildlife. Nearly 3 square miles of it is state parkland that almost no one is allowed to visit, the L.A. Times reported.
- CNN unmasked counterprotesters who attacked UCLA’s pro-Palestine encampment on April 30. Among them: an aspiring screenwriter, a high school student, and a 42-year-old named Tom Bibiyan.
- More than 30 volunteer stylists from across California gathered at a retreat center in San Juan Bautista over the weekend to treat farmworkers to free makeovers. They called it the Glam Squad. The Mercury News has pictures.
- On a lark, a reporter between jobs named Jeong Park decided to ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco using only municipal and regional buses and trains. It took 38 hours and cost $49.80. SFGATE | @JeongPark52
- Some Native California tribes were said to desensitize themselves to poison oak by ingesting the plant. Modern authorities frown on such methods. But Jeff Horwitz, a nature lover whose Northern California home is surrounded by the plant, was desperate. Wall Street Journal
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