Newsletter
The California Sun gathers all the must-read stories about California in one place.
Good morning. It’s Thursday, April 3.
- Xavier Becerra joins the race for governor.
- San Francisco rethinks handouts of drug supplies.
- And Mark Zuckerberg buys a Washington mansion.
Statewide
1.
When Xavier Becerra served as California’s attorney general during Donald Trump’s first presidency, he sued the Republican administration more than 120 times. Now he wants to bring that heat to the state’s top job, announcing Wednesday that he will run for governor on a pledge to “rebuild the California Dream.” His entrance in the 2026 contest sets up a potential clash with Kamala Harris, who has yet to reveal her plans. While other candidates have signaled plans to step aside if Harris runs, Becerra, 67, said he’s in it for the long haul. N.Y. Times | Politico
2.
Dispatches on President Trump’s sweeping new tariff regime:
- California car buyers scrambled to make purchases before Trump’s 25% tariff on foreign-made automobiles cars kicked in. At Culver City Honda, more than a dozen people milled about the lot on Tuesday. “I’m all for America first, but a lot of us don’t like American cars,” said a shopper named Rochelle. L.A. Times
- Tech stocks plunged on Wednesday, with Apple posting the steepest decline in late trading — more than 6%. The majority of Apple’s revenue comes from devices manufactured in Asian countries, which were slapped with new import taxes as high as 46%. Bloomberg | CNBC
- Economists and industry experts predicted what items could grow more expensive in California, including lumber, electronics, prescription drugs, toilet paper, avocados, beer, and milk. S.F. Chronicle | Sacramento Bee
3.
The Atlantic’s David Frum argued against relief for American farmers hurt by the global trade war:
“If a farm family voted for Trump, believing that his policies were good, it seems strange that they would then demand that they, and only they, should be spared the full consequences of those policies. Tariffs are the dish that rural America ordered for everyone. Now the dish has arrived at the table.”
4.
After major California wildfires, families commonly discover that their insurance policies won’t pay them enough to rebuild because their coverage limit was set too low. The phenomenon, known as underinsurance, is typically blamed on inflation and surging costs of construction. But an investigative reporting project found that the primary driver of underinsurance is the industry’s reliance on a flawed system to predict rebuilding costs. “Millions have no idea they’re at risk,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
5.
California’s top education official, Tony Thurmond, has held a series of side jobs since being elected in 2018, financial disclosures showed. Most recently, he served as director of the Berkeley Food Pantry in 2024, earning between $10,001 and $100,000, the filing showed. The arrangement is legal, but highly unusual for an officeholder of his seniority. Thurmond’s government salary is $210,460, a sum he portrayed as insufficient. “I have needs,” he said. CalMatters
6.
The state’s Democratic lawmakers are pushing about a dozen proposals that would shield more information from the public, relax rules on financial disclosures, and make it harder to question public officials at meetings, an analysis found. One measure would roll back police transparency in a state where laws are already friendlier to law enforcement than those of some Republican states. CalMatters wrote about California’s move toward “democracy in the dark.”
7.
Starting in 2017, California budgeted $200 million to implement reforms that would lift graduation rates at the state’s community colleges. Known as guided pathways, the program aimed to help students set career goals and map out the courses needed to achieve them. But it ran into stiff resistance from professors, who complained that education would be reduced to job training. College, they argued, should prepare students to correct injustice and make society more equitable. More than seven years later, the program has flopped, while graduation rates remain dismal. Bloomberg.
Northern California
8.
San Francisco’s mayor announced on Wednesday that the city would restrict the distribution of free drug paraphernalia, breaking from a long-held practice of prioritizing safety over abstinence. Starting April 30, city-funded nonprofits will be required to connect people with treatment and counseling before handing out clean foil, pipes, and plastic straws. “We’ve lost our way,” Mayor Daniel Lurie said. “We are no longer going to sit by and allow people to kill themselves on the streets.” N.Y. Times | KQED
9.
Mark Zuckerberg recently bought a $23 million mansion in Washington D.C., a city where he has no particular personal ties. Meta said Zuckerberg owns homes in lots of places. Politico Magazine offered another explanation:
“An out-of-town CEO’s Washington abode isn’t about having a place to sleep during occasional trips to the capital — it’s more like a personal embassy to the administration, a physical embodiment of the good relations between a certain class of corporate titan and the government of the United States.”
- Zuckerberg has made repeated visits to the White House to lobby for a resolution to a federal antitrust lawsuit against Meta. Some of President Trump’s aides have complained that the lobbying has been too aggressive. Wall Street Journal
Southern California
10.
A 29-year-old Ventura County man plans to plead guilty to attempting to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, his attorneys said on Wednesday. In June 2022, Nicholas Roske flew to Washington, D.C., then took a taxi to Kavanaugh’s neighborhood armed with a gun and zip ties. He was arrested after calling 911 and telling the dispatcher he wanted to take his own life. “What was your plan?” a detective later asked Roske. “Break in,” he replied. “Shoot him and then shoot myself.” Roske faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Washington Post | A.P.
11.
In 1972, Christopher Hubbart was locked in a mental hospital after committing a series of sexual assaults in Southern California. Released in 1979, he promptly assaulted more women. He was locked up again from 1982 to 1990. Once free, he raped again. After another stint in prison and mental hospitals, Hubbart was released once again in March and placed in a tiny rural community in the Antelope Valley. Locals are livid. Rachel Purcell said she has taken to walking with bear spray. “If he gets within 30 feet of me, he’s getting sprayed,” she said. CNN
12.
For lovers of the Southern California desert, the flowering of the velvet turtleback is a rare treat. Adapted to extreme dryness, its seeds can lie dormant for many years waiting for the right conditions. They emerge in a mound, likened to the back of a turtle, with curious woolly leaves that deflect heat and retain water. The plants reach peak beauty between March and June, when their flowers add splashes of pale yellow to muted desert landscape. In Defense of Plants
- The naturalist Laura Cunningham recently photographed a gorgeous specimen in Death Valley. 👉 @lauracunningham_art
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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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