Newsletter
The California Sun gathers all the must-read stories about California in one place.
Good morning. It’s Thursday, March 6.
- California wineries caught in trade war with Canada.
- Assembly speaker is called “liberal Donald Trump.”
- And San Diego rolls back ADU incentive after backlash.
Statewide
1.
“The biggest concern is Canada.”
Canada is California wine’s largest export market, accounting for more than $1 billion in annual retail sales. While President Trump’s trade war has made many Americans uneasy, Canadians are downright furious. This week, several Canadian provinces began pulling all U.S. alcohol products from their shelves. For California wine growers already squeezed by flagging domestic demand, the boycott amounts to, in the words of one industry spokeswoman, “a perfect storm of crisis.” ABC10 | NBC News
- One analysis estimated that a trade war could cost California’s agricultural industry $6 billion a year. Still, farmers who backed Trump have been reluctant to speak openly about their concerns. L.A. Times | GV Wire
2.
Since 2019, California has sharply increased its reliance on for-profit psychiatric hospitals to manage people beset by severe mental illness. But the facilities are “a public health catastrophe,” an investigation found. The companies have used a straightforward business strategy: bring in more patients while stripping workforces bare. The result has been woefully inadequate care for the sick and a windfall for the investors, with hospitals amassing nearly half a billion dollars in profits between 2019 and 2022. San Francisco Chronicle
3.
Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas drew howls of protest from Republicans after he abruptly stripped several outspoken party members of their posts on pivotal legislative committees last Friday. “This is about politics. Pure and simple,” Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher said at the time. In an editorial on Wednesday, the McClatchy California Editorial Boards agreed, likening Rivas to a “liberal Donald Trump.” “His actions are undemocratic and unacceptable,” the board wrote.
4.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced a civil rights investigation into allegations of antisemitism in the University of California system on Wednesday, following widespread pro-Palestinian student protests. The move came a day after President Trump laid out what he considered appropriate penalties for “illegal protests.” Federal funding would be cut to any campus that allows them, he wrote, adding that “agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.” N.Y. Times | Bloomberg
5.
Scientists recently found that a walk in the woods quiets the amygdala, the area of the brain linked to fear and anxiety. The finding came as little surprise to environmental journalists such as Nick Neely. In a piece for the travel publication Wildsam, he wrote about the sensation of melting into Northern California’s ancient redwood forests:
“For twenty minutes I lean against a rail and pace the walkway’s circle at the grove’s center, as if caught in an eddy. The light dims. I begin to feel submerged, as if Mill Creek’s murmur were filling a tank, water rising to the treetops.”
- From the archives: Neely talked about walking 650 miles from San Diego to the Bay Area on the California Sun Podcast.
Northern California
6.
Dispatches from the culture wars playing out in California’s City Halls:
- On Tuesday, Eureka’s City Council unanimously approved a “sanctuary city” resolution that orders police not to help immigration agents unless it involves a serious crime. “What an amazing grift is being played on us, to convince us that immigrants are the problem,” said Councilmember Scott Bauer. Lost Coast Outpost | Eureka Times Standard
- On the same day, Oroville also took up the immigration issue. There, however, lawmakers voted unanimously to declare the community in the Sierra foothills a “non-sanctuary city.” “The resolution is not about politics,” explained Councilmember Scott Thomson. “It’s about protecting our residents from dangerous criminals.” S.F. Chronicle | Chico Enterprise-Record
7.
Facing her likely sacking, San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus was defiant on Wednesday, vowing to fight for her job and declaring: “I will not resign.” Early results of a special election showed 85% of voters supported empowering the county’s Board of Supervisors to remove Corpus after she was accused of misconduct and corruption. Eliot Storch, a deputy sheriff union leader, said the results were gratifying. “What we’ve seen so far is incredible and really shows we have the support of the community.” S.F. Chronicle | KQED
8.
In Silicon Valley, companies were once viewed as a bastion of liberal ideals. Diversity initiatives abounded. But over the first weeks of President Trump’s second term, more and more companies seem to be disavowing those goals. This week, both Uber and Salesforce distanced themselves from their earlier embrace of DEI, removing references to diversity as a core value from their annual reports. Salesforce, whose CEO Marc Benioff has rankled liberals with his unexpected embrace of Trump, said it would also end diversity goals in hiring. Bloomberg | S.F. Examiner
9.
The man who torched Chico’s historic Bidwell Mansion was sentenced on Wednesday to 11 years in state prison, the maximum penalty for felony arson, and ordered to pay restitution of more than $37 million. Judge Corie J. Caraway described Kevin Carlson’s motive, which had been a mystery, as driven in part by class resentment. Carlson believed “the government seemed to be more concerned with maintaining a mansion … while ignoring the less fortunate,” Caraway said. Built in 1868, the pink Victorian-era mansion had served as a symbol of Chico. Sacramento Bee | Chico Enterprise-Record
Southern California
10.
Los Angeles County said on Wednesday that it is suing Southern California Edison, blaming the utility for the January Eaton fire that destroyed more than 9,400 structures and killed 17 people in the Altadena area. The fire’s cause is still under investigation. But the county alleged that witnesses, photos, and videos indicate that the blaze erupted directly under Edison transmission lines in Eaton Canyon. “All evidence is pointing to them,” said Scott Kuhn, a county attorney. The cities of Pasadena and Sierra Madre also planned to file lawsuits against Edison. A.P. | N.Y. Times
11.
When the San Diego Union-Tribune ran the above photo of a 17-unit accessory dwelling unit project on a cul-de-sac of single-family homes in January, reader Greg Gillespie dashed off an angry letter to the newspaper. “I literally became nauseous looking at the photo,” he wrote, echoing a broadly shared view. “Imagine if this was on your street.” Facing backlash over such projects, San Diego lawmakers on Tuesday moved to roll back a controversial incentive that allowed owners of single-family lots to potentially add dozens of backyard apartments. S.D. Union-Tribune | Axios
12.
The L.A. Times recently rolled out a new artificial intelligence feature designed to reveal the political slant of opinion pieces, part of owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s crusade to root out bias at the newspaper. Then the so-called “bias meter” defended the Ku Klux Klan. On a column arguing that Anaheim should not forget its racist past, a note offered a counterargument that the Klan was driven more by culture than hate. On Wednesday, the Times’ ran several reader letters denouncing the AI initiative. “This decision is like a Scud missile detonating on the already-smoldering remains of print journalism,” one wrote. The Wrap | The Guardian
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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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