Good morning. It’s Monday, April 7.
- Boisterous anti-Trump protests gather across the state.
- Authorities revoke dozens of student visas in California.
- And the Pasadena Playhouse buys back its historic home.
Statewide
1.
Tens of thousands of Californians surged onto the streets Saturday as part of a nationwide “Hands Off!” protest in the biggest show of resistance yet since President Trump’s return to office. Demonstrators sang Woody Guthrie protest songs in Sonoma County and banged drums in Orange County. On a Santa Barbara beach, hundreds of people formed a human “Hands Off!” sign. In Sacramento, an 8-year-old waved a sign that read, “Not even penguins are safe.” And in Eureka, a protester named Mona Dougherty said she feared her country was being lost. “It’s the scariest time in my life,” she said, “and I’m in my 50s.” L.A. Times | Sacramento Bee | Times-Standard
- See rally photos from San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange County, Santa Barbara, Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Redding, and Eureka.
2.
The Trump administration revoked the visas of more than three dozen international students at California universities over the last week, reports said. Students were targeted at UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and UC Davis. No reasons were reported, but the revocations came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed to cancel the visas of students engaged in disfavored political activism. “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” he said on March 27. NBC News | S.F. Chronicle
3.
In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it was eliminating a program that has fed millions of California families and served as a lifeline for small farmers since its inception in 2021. The cutback comes at a time when more Californians are facing food hunger, said Becky Silva, of the California Association of Food Banks. “It’s a huge loss,” she said. In a letter to the USDA on Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom implored the agency to reconsider, calling the cuts “irrational and malicious.” L.A. Times
4.
When applying to colleges, Stanley Zhong had a 4.42 grade point average and a near-perfect SAT score. He thought he was a lock for the University of California. Then the denials came. Davis, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego — no, no, no, no, no. “It was surprise upon surprise upon surprise, and then it turned into frustration and, eventually, anger,” said his father, Nan Zhong. Stanley ended up going to the University of Texas before being hired away by Google. Now he is suing the colleges that rejected him, accusing them of bias against Asian-Americans. L.A. Times
Northern California
5.
Oakland’s mayor fired his chief of staff, Leigh Hanson, over a note she wrote in 2024 during a meeting with her then-boss, former Mayor Sheng Thao, on how to fight a recall effort. “CM Fife can reach out to NAACP — use BP as tokens,” Hanson wrote. “CM” referred to a council member. “BP” was an abbreviation for Black people, Hanson acknowledged. The note became public as part of disclosures related to an FBI corruption investigation. Thao had hoped to portray opposition to her as racially charged, Hanson said. S.F. Chronicle | NBC Bay Area
6.
A university in San Francisco is offering the nation’s first bachelor’s degree in psychedelic studies. The program at the California Institute of Integral Studies does not promote the use of psychedelics, the school is careful to point out. That would be illegal. It will, according to professors, give students a rigorous scientific grounding in the field at a time when interest in the potential of psychedelic-assisted therapy is surging. S.F. Chronicle
7.
Tracy Chapman has barely spoken publicly over the past decade. In a rare hourlong interview, she talked about being a library kid, her emotional duet with Luke Combs at the Grammys, and how she still embraces the values she had when she wrote “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” at 16 years old:
“My grandparents left the South in the Great Migration and moved to Cleveland. I think it changed the course of their lives, but it ultimately changed the course of mine, too. The thing that I take from it is that, now that I’m older, is that it’s this constant practice that needs to occur. A constant vigilance. You can’t expect that things will hold.” N.Y. Times
8.
The most authentically restored Franciscan mission in California.
A stunning mashup of redwoods, wildflowers, and sea.
And a profusion of locavore restaurants sourced by nearby farms.
Daniel Scheffler, a travel writer who lives in Carmel, gave his own city the “36 Hours” treatment in the New York Times.
Southern California
9.
For months, the Texas oil company Sable Offshore Corp. has been moving to revive oil drilling off Santa Barbara in defiance of repeated demands by the California Coastal Commission that it stop. “This is the first time in the agency’s history that we’ve had a party blatantly ignore a cease and desist order like this and refuse to submit a permit application,” Cassidy Teufel, a commission official told a town hall recently. Sable has accused the commission of “overreach.” L.A. Times
10.
“A block may be the most basic unit of community in American life. On Wapello, it was neighbors’ putting on a holiday costume to entertain little kids or teaching another family’s teenager how to drive. It was barbecues, birthday parties, weddings.”
The New York Times Magazine created a visually stunning feature that explores what was lost along a single block destroyed in the January wildfires in Los Angeles.
11.
A new housing development in Escondido has been certified as the nation’s first resilient community. Located in a rural, fire-prone area, its 64 homes are spaced 10 feet apart to slow fire. They include noncombustible siding such as stucco, and their gutters are covered to avoid catching embers. “If there’s a fire in the foothills behind a neighborhood, embers may fly in and land, but they’re going to fizzle out because there’s nothing to ignite,” said Roy Wright, CEO of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety. USA Today | S.D. Union-Tribune
12.
The historic Pasadena Playhouse announced that it had bought back its Spanish Colonial Revival building 55 years after losing the campus in bankruptcy in 1970. The acquisition capped a stunning comeback for the playhouse, a darling of theatergoers that has mentored numerous stars such as Eve Arden, Gene Hackman, and Dustin Hoffman. It was made possible after a run of critical acclaim that helped fueled a robust fundraising campaign. The price for the building was $9.5 million. But in truth, said Artistic Director Danny Feldman, it’s priceless. Pasadena Now | L.A. Times
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