A group of Democratic state lawmakers on Thursday proposed giving every California taxpayer a $400 cash rebate to help defray the surge in gas prices. The figure was chosen because it roughly equates to a one-year gas tax holiday. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Republican leaders were said to support the measure, which could move forward as soon as spring. Sacramento Bee | L.A. Times

California leaders have been leaning into the country’s culture wars over the last week:

In a stirring video shared Thursday, Arnold Schwarzenegger told the Russian people they are being misled by Kremlin propaganda about the war in Ukraine. The former California governor explained how the invasion was declared illegal by 141 countries and how civilian buildings were being bombed. He debunked claims that the war was aimed at “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. “This is not true,” he said. “Ukraine is a country with a Jewish president — a Jewish president, I might add, whose father’s three brothers were all murdered by the Nazis.” By early Friday, the video had tens of millions of views. Washington Post | Hollywood Reporter

Spotted around California. 👇

On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Susan Sorrells, a conservationist who led a renaissance of her hometown of Shoshone on the edge of Death Valley. In a January profile, the New Yorker called Sorrells one of the most interesting people in California. She talked about what it was like growing up in a bustling mining town, her decision to return after traveling the world, and the dark side of solar.

Top officials from Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign are quietly encouraging Rep. Ro Khanna to run for president in 2024 if Joe Biden, now 79, doesn’t seek a second term. The talks suggest that Sanders allies are looking to Khanna, a former Stanford scholar who represents part of Silicon Valley, as a possible new face for progressives. Khanna made clear he does not plan to run in 2024. He kept the door open, however, for 2028. Politico

James Pogue, a journalist who has written extensively on rural American resistance, looked into the secessionist movement brewing north of Sacramento:

“The Jefferson project is sometimes invoked as a gentle nod to regional solidarity — the local NPR network is called Jefferson Public Radio — but it has increasingly come to signify a defiantly conservative strain of politics. To others, Jefferson represents something more insidious: a barely concealed desire to carve an ethnostate out of the only part of California where whites still constitute a majority.” Harper’s Magazine

Every night, an elementary school in San Francisco’s Mission District converts its gym into a shelter for local homeless families with children attending school. The unusual program was created as school officials noticed more and more families in crisis. They wanted to help students avoid sleeping in cars or overcrowded apartments. Some objected, asking “Why us?” Claudia DeLarios Morán, the school’s principal, asked another question: “How could we not?” Hechinger Report

This fall, UCLA will become the first and only University of California campus to guarantee housing for its students. For years, the UC system has been adding more students than beds, forcing thousands of undergraduates into housing limbo. At UC Berkeley, where the student housing crisis has played out most spectacularly, more than 5,500 housing requests were denied last fall. UCLA has managed to provide sufficient housing by building tall and building on campus, avoiding neighborhood fights. L.A. Times

A 77-year-old woman agreed on Thursday to serve 10 years in prison for fatally shooting her 83-year-old friend in what was described as a mercy killing. Whether Sandra Bonertz took Winnie Smith’s life at a Bakersfield nursing home on July 11 was never in dispute. The women, lifelong friends, plotted the killing together after Smith was saddled by pain from a car crash. Joseph Kinzel, a prosecutor, acknowledged that Bonertz acted from compassion. But, he added, “the law does not provide for friends and family killing each other, even if it’s out of mercy.” Bakersfield Californian | KGET

In California’s dusty oil country, rising gas prices have lifted hopes that the state will be forced to expand production.

“We’re ready to meet this God-given opportunity with expertise and a critical natural resource we’ve got plenty of,” said Dave Noerr, mayor of Taft and a veteran oilman. “But we’re not being allowed to do what we do best for what California needs most — local oil.” L.A. Times

Five items that got big views over the past week: