Good morning. It’s Thursday, Sept. 26.
- A man throws a bomb in a Santa Maria courthouse.
- Humboldt County officials threaten to clear commune.
- And dengue cases alarm health officials in Los Angeles.
Statewide
1.
The California Legislature has required more than 2,000 people involved in a renovation of the state Capitol to sign NDAs, including lawmakers, architects, consultants, and utility workers. Under the veil of secrecy, the cost of the project has swollen from $440 million to $1.2 billion. Legal experts called it alarming. “We’re not talking national security, we’re not talking nuclear codes,” said David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition. “This is public money on a public building. It’s exactly the kind of thing the public has a right to know.” KCRA
2.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has been busy signing and vetoing bills. His latest moves:
- He signed several measures targeting the oil and gas industry. One requires companies to accelerate the cleanup of idle oil wells; another gives cities more power to restrict drilling; and a third will shut down the sprawling Inglewood Oil Field by 2030. L.A. Times | A.P.
- Four laws will enhance penalties for sideshows, where groups of drivers burn donuts at intersections. The governor called them “reckless, criminal activities that endanger our communities.” Sacramento Bee | KCRA
- A new “Click to Cancel” rule will give Californians the right to easily halt online subscriptions. “It should be as simple to get out of a subscription as it is to get into one,” a sponsor of the bill said. L.A. Times | engadget
- Newsom also approved measures to further restrict who can own guns; streamline farmworker housing; and ban camping propane cylinders. He vetoed measures that would have helped Black families reclaim taken land; barred police from using “killer drones”; and required schools to offer free condoms to students.
3.
A man threw an explosive into the lobby of a courthouse in the Central Coast city of Santa Maria early Wednesday, injuring five people, the authorities said. Police arrested Nathaniel McGuire, 20, who had been due in court to face a firearm charge. As McGuire was tackled, witnesses recalled, he screamed something about government being corrupt. Undersheriff Craig Bonner said the motive remained uncertain, but added, “we do believe this to be a local incident, involving a local resident, with a local grievance.” KSBY | Santa Maria Times
Northern California
4.
In 2014, an obscure startup called Viridis Fuels proposed building a biodiesel plant in West Oakland. Viridis had no known track record in the industry and its co-founder, Mario Juarez, was facing two fraud lawsuits. Yet Rob Bonta, then an Assembly member, helped steer $700,000 in state funds to the company. Ten years later, the plant is unbuilt, Juarez is the subject of a federal corruption investigation, and Bonta — now attorney general — is trying to distance himself from his efforts to bolster Viridis as he weighs a run for governor in 2026. S.F. Chronicle
5.
A Bay Area startup is releasing pollutants into the sky to combat global warming, vexing experts who say the undertaking risks unintended consequences. The founders of Make Sunsets claim that by putting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, they can reflect some of the sun’s energy back into space. Sikina Jinnah, an environmental studies professor at UC Santa Cruz, described the entrepreneurs as low-information “tech bros.” “They’re not scientists and they’re making claims about cooling credits that nobody has validated,” she said. N.Y. Times
6.
“A Black homeless man killed over a pittance. A Black security guard working to stay afloat. A corporate giant relying on contract workers with limited training to combat a shoplifting epidemic driven by homelessness, addiction, and avarice.”
More than a year after a security guard killed a shoplifter over a pittance at a San Francisco Walgreens, the Wall Street Journal sought to determine who is to blame.
7.
Humboldt County officials are threatening to evict members of a commune that has operated in the redwoods near the coastal town of Trinidad for about a quarter-century. “Yeehaw,” as it’s known, sits on property owned by Charles Garth, a “back-to-the-lander” whose open-gate policy resulted in a ramshackle village populated by a group he once described as “traveling gypsies, hippies, and people on tour.” The commune has fire pits, toilets, a sauna, and a clubhouse with instruments. What it doesn’t have: code compliance. Lost Coast Outpost | Times Standard
Southern California
8.
A gunman fatally shot a passenger on a Los Angeles Metro bus during a hijacking early Wednesday that ended in a dramatic predawn standoff with SWAT officers in downtown Los Angeles. The suspect, identified as 51-year-old Lamont Campbell, held the bus driver at gunpoint as he slowly navigated city streets trailed by a phalanx of police cars in an hourlong chase, officials said. Campbell was taken into custody after officers stopped the bus with spike strips, then deployed flash grenades and stormed inside. L.A. Times | CNN
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9.
Los Angeles County has confirmed four locally transmitted cases of dengue in just over two weeks. Public health authorities called the cluster of cases “unprecedented” in a region where all previous cases have been associated with a person returning from travel. None of the four patients had recently been to areas where dengue is common, suggesting that the mosquito-borne infection could be circulating in Los Angeles for the first time. Bloomberg | CBS News
10.
Over the last two years, an industrial real estate company based in Orange County bought up and demolished more than 100 homes in rural Bloomington to make way for a massive new warehouse, upending the lives of residents who felt powerless to resist. Now a judge has halted the project, citing flaws in its environmental assessment. Opponents of the project welcomed the ruling as a bittersweet victory. “I don’t know at this point if we could ever get the homes that were there back,” said Ana Gonzalez. L.A. Times
11.
After the billionaire Hyatt hotel heir Tony Pritzker left his wife, Jeanne Pritzker, in 2022, their opulent mansion in Beverly Hills became the focal point of a rancorous divorce. At 50,000 square feet, the Pritzker estate is one of the largest private homes in the country, at times staffed by more than 25 people. It has a bowling alley, a hairdressing area, and a gym with changing rooms. With the divorce now settled for an undisclosed sum, the estate is slated to go on the market for as much as $200 million. Wall Street Journal
California the beautiful
12.
☝️ A schoolchild’s old art project? No — what looks like curled construction paper above is the shedding bark of a Pacific madrone, one of California’s most treasured trees. In summer, the madrone exfoliates its rough, red-brown bark, pictured below left, revealing a smooth, pale skin underneath, seen popping against the lush greenery of the Smith River, below right.
That surface, in turn, ripens and curls away the following summer cycle. Scientists have cited several possible benefits of the shedding: ridding unwanted pests, allowing more gas exchange, and making room for new growth. The tree, in other words, grows too big for its shoes. In the case of the madrone, the ritual has made the tree a symbol of renewal and resilience. Some Indigenous people have perceived an even deeper significance. According to one legend, the madrone’s roots hold the earth together. Should they disappear, the world would fly apart.
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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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