Good morning. It’s Friday, Jan. 3.
- New national monuments are planned in California.
- Study finds plastics in samples of Bay Area foods.
- And a plane slams into occupied warehouse in Fullerton.
Statewide
1.
President Biden is planning to create two new national monuments in California, reports said on Thursday. The Chuckwalla National Monument will span roughly 1,000 square miles of desert habitat known for its colored rocks, petroglyphs, and bighorn sheep just northeast of the Salton Sea. The Sáttítla National Monument, measuring about 312 square miles, will encompass the Medicine Lake Highlands in California’s remote northeast, a volcanic landscape with gorgeous lakes and forested hills. Washington Post | Desert Sun
2.
Last year, California tribes spent millions of dollars on lobbyists and politicians to advance a gambling bill. They got the votes they needed for the law, which allows Native American casinos to ask a judge to settle their claim that card rooms have trespassed on their exclusive rights to offer certain Las Vegas-style games. Just hours after it went into effect on Jan. 1, seven tribes sued dozens of card-room operators, accusing them of a scheme to “brazenly profit from illegal gambling.” A lot of money and jobs will ride on the outcome. Axios | Courthouse News
Northern California
3.
Meta elevated a prominent Republican to be its new head of global policy as the company seeks to curry favor with President-elect Donald Trump. Joel Kaplan, a former senior adviser to George W. Bush, is replacing Nick Clegg, a former leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats. Semafor writes: “The shift, three weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration, comes as U.S. companies are embracing the president-elect, courting his inner circle, and backing away from progressive stances many had embraced in recent years.”
4.
In September, Fresno enacted one of the state’s toughest encampment bans: no camping or sitting on public property anywhere, anytime. “It’s time for them to get the help or expect to go through withdrawals in a county jail,” one councilmember said at the time. A reporter tagged along with officers out on patrol as they ordered Amado Real, a 59-year-old heroin addict, to move along from a downtown sidewalk. The encounters had become a daily hassle, Real said. “I can’t even sit down,” he said. “I can’t even be alive.” KQED
5.
A study found that 86% of commonly consumed foods in the Bay Area contained plastic chemicals. A group of independent researchers tested 312 foods — including meals from a college dining hall, chain store coffee, and snack bars — for endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which mimic or interfere with hormones in the body. Topping the list of most contaminated items: a black boba tea from Boba Guys, which contained bisphenol A at levels 32,571% of the daily recommended limit. S.F. Chronicle
6.
A ski resort on Mount Shasta has unveiled a 20-foot-tall bronze statue of the Virgin Mary holding up the baby Jesus on the southern slope of the stark white peak. When Mt. Shasta Ski Park, California’s largest ski resort north of Lake Tahoe, announced plans for the installation last year, detractors asked the U.S. Forest Service to intervene, saying the statue would alienate non-Christians. The resort named the figure “Our Lady of Mt. Shasta.” SFGATE
7.
Andres Amador, a sand artist who uses rakes to create sprawling designs on California’s beaches, invited the public to help him with a collaborative project at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach on New Year’s Day. People who showed up said the mashup of art, nature, and community made for an inspiring start to 2025. Reddit | @howisthisreallife
- See more of Amador’s work.
8.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, the San Francisco nonprofit trying to preserve our digital past. Kahle champions a vision of universal access to all knowledge. “Can we make it so that we can stand on the shoulders of giants? Can we learn from the past?” he said. It’s a question that has proved to be extraordinarily thorny as publishers, creators, and free-information activists brawl over access to digital materials.
Southern California
9.
A small plane crashed through the roof of a furniture manufacturing building in Fullerton Thursday afternoon, leaving two people aboard the plane dead and 19 people working inside the structure injured, officials said. The pilot told air traffic control he needed to make an emergency landing shortly after taking off from Fullerton Municipal Airport. In audio from the transmission, panicked gasping and an “Oh my God” can be heard before the pilot goes quiet. L.A. Times | A.P.
- Hear an excerpt from the pilot’s audio. 👉 @kcalnews
- See a grainy video of the crash. 👉KCAL/YouTube
10.
Less than a decade after a burst pipeline spilled 120,000 gallons of crude oil along the Santa Barbara County coast, a Houston-based energy company is planning to reactivate the defunct pipeline. The 2015 Refugio State Beach spill killed hundreds of marine animals, sullied pristine beaches, and filled with air with the smell of petroleum. Locals are beside themselves with anger over the new plans. “You feel such shame, such anguish on the part of our species and what we’ve done to the natural world,” said Joan Hartmann, a county supervisor. Washington Post
11.
Los Angeles’ twin crises — traffic and housing — have plagued the city for so long that they seem like immutable traits. But in recent years, a critical mass of decision makers has come to realize that the problems are reversible, wrote M. Nolan Gray. Los Angeles is now making an unprecedented investment in transit while easing rules that had locked up housing growth for decades. “If history is a guide,” Gray wrote, “L.A.’s ambitions might once again reshape the American city — this time for the better.” The Atlantic
12.
California once hosted more than a dozen Native American boarding schools, part of a federal project designed to remove children from their homes and forcibly assimilate them into white culture. An analysis has now documented 3,104 deaths across the nationwide system between 1828 and 1970, three times as many deaths as reported by the U.S. Interior Department. At least 100 occurred at the Sherman Institute in Riverside, which was California’s largest school. Washington Post
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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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