Newsletter
The California Sun gathers all the must-read stories about California in one place.
Good morning. It’s Friday, April 25.
- Judge blocks defunding of sanctuary cities — again.
- Apple plans to source U.S.-sold iPhones from India.
- And top USC basketball recruit is in coma after crash.
Statewide
1.
A federal judge in San Francisco blocked President Trump’s efforts to strip federal funding from jurisdictions with sanctuary policies, in one of a string of court decisions on Thursday curtailing the administration’s agenda. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge William Orrick noted that he was retreading old ground, citing Trump’s attempt to use a nearly identical tactic during his first term. “Here we are again,” he wrote. As he did in 2017, Orrick explained that such spending powers are constitutionally vested in Congress. N.Y. Times | Wall Street Journal
- Also on Thursday, three judges issued separate rulings blocking Trump from withholding school funds over DEI programs. They said the directive was overly vague and unlawfully implemented. Politico
2.
Last year, 93.7% of kindergarten students across California received all their childhood vaccines. But at Heartland Charter School in Kern County, just 5% of 810 kindergarteners had done so, an analysis found. Heartland is an independent study charter school, meaning it is publicly funded but does not provide “classroom-based instruction,” allowing parents to skip immunizations otherwise required by state law. Also known as homeschool charters, they boomed during the pandemic. L.A. Times
- “All this time, we’ve been trusting the CDC, the health organizations, but can we really trust them?” Vaccine skepticism has become a growing problem in California, school nurses say. EdSource
3.
California has set ambitious goals for restoring its degraded landscapes, such as farmlands taken out of production or ecosystems marred by megafires. Native seeds are crucial to that work. But the demand for them far outpaces the supply. Enter: Haleigh Holgate. A native-seed specialist for a seed supplier, she spends five days a week, eight months of the year, traveling to remote parts of the state collecting seeds. “I’ve really put my whole heart into this job. … It’s more than just doing this restoration for the land. It’s doing restoration for people,” she said. The Guardian
4.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with Ben Fritz, who covers the entertainment industry from the Wall Street Journal’s Los Angeles bureau. Hollywood, Fritz said, has become consumed by dread as it faces production flight, artificial intelligence, audience disillusionment, and other threats. “Every misstep feels like this could be the end,” he said. In the past, there was a sense of invincibility in Hollywood, he added. “Now, they’re like, ‘How much of this is still going to be around in a few years?'”
Northern California
5.
Apple is planning to shift the production of all of its U.S.-sold iPhones to India as soon as next year, sources told the Financial Times. After President Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement, which hit China hardest, Apple shares plunged a staggering 23% in four trading sessions over the Cupertino company’s reliance on Chinese factories. “We are seeing in real time how a company with these resources is moving at relative light speed to address the tariff risk,” said analyst Daniel Newman. Times of India | Bloomberg
6.
“The woman just kept smoking meth. She didn’t care at all, which is everything you need to know about San Francisco because in that story, there was a problem. Someone tried to fix the problem. Someone attacked the person fixing the problem. And then nothing got done.”
A standup comedian’s bit about a “quintessential San Francisco experience” struck a chord on a local Reddit forum.
7.
The wildlife photographers Vishal Subramanyan and Cynthia Cross spent three years chasing the perfect shot of mountain lions in the Bay Area’s Diablo Range. Then in February, one of their motion-sensor camera traps got it. A mother cougar and her three little cubs lingered in front of the camera for about 20 minutes, Subramanyan said. He called it “one of the most special moments we’ve ever captured.” See a video clip here. 👉 @vishalsubramanyan
Southern California
8.
Alijah Arenas, an 18-year-old USC recruit and son of former NBA star Gilbert Arenas, was placed in a medically induced coma on Thursday after crashing his Tesla Cybertruck into a tree in Los Angeles, law enforcement sources said. His injuries were unclear, but reports said he inhaled significant smoke. Video showed the wrecked vehicle engulfed in flames. Arenas, a 6-foot-6 senior at Chatsworth High School, is considered one of the top high school basketball prospects in the country. ESPN | NBC4
9.
The toxic algae bloom off the Southern California coast has become so severe that it’s killing whales, scientists say. Tests on a dead humpback and a minke whale found high levels of domoic acid, a naturally occurring poison that has stricken hundreds of brown pelicans, sea lions, and dolphins in recent months. “It’s the worst we’ve ever seen here in Southern California on many different fronts,” said John Warner, head of the Marine Mammal Care Center. What’s driving the crisis is unclear, but scientists suspect farm runoff or warming could be playing a role. LAist | KABC
10.
Peter Navarro, a senior White House trade adviser, was once sidelined and jailed. During President Trump’s first term, other officials mocked the California economist’s protectionist views on trade. In the second term, Navarro is upending the global trading system, the New York Times wrote in a new profile:
“He returned to government more confident in his revanchist vision for the American economy, more dismissive of his critics, and with more than a dozen trade-related executive orders already drafted, many of which the president has since signed.”
11.
The potential release of an unauthorized immigrant who killed two 19-year-olds in a 2021 drunk driving crash in Orange County has captivated national Republicans fighting Democrats on immigration policies. Oscar Ortega-Anguiano was sentenced to 10 years, but could get out in July after earning credits. The case had gotten scant coverage before Wednesday, when Fox News began reporting on it. Since then, Attorney General Pam Bondi, border czar Tom Homan, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt have all weighed in. Politico | L.A. Times
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- A decade ago, a German transplant to Los Angeles pitched an idea to a group of friends: What if we run from Los Angeles to Las Vegas? The Speed Project became a phenomenon. A reporter and photographer followed runners on a 340-mile odyssey that featured a sandstorm, a wild dog attack, and lots of tears. Washington Post
- While riding BART, the Bay Area filmmaker Vincent Woo had always wished he could see the conductor’s view from the front of the train. So he secretly adhered GoPros to the front of several trains. The result, “Tunnel Vision: An Unauthorized BART ride,” is mesmerizing to watch. YouTube
- The economics analyst Rachel Dec wrote a skeptical piece about the visions of abundance embraced in the tech world of San Francisco: “Are we heading for fully-automated luxury communism or the Depression-era Hooverville version? No one here can really tell me, but still they sprint full-speed ahead.” Dispatch
- The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” curated a collection of President Trump’s outlandish remarks about California water through the years. The newspaper asked White House officials why Trump seems to believe specific falsehoods. They didn’t answer.
- Long silent, the former San Jose State volleyball player Blaire Fleming talked to a journalist for the first time, confirming that she is in fact transgender. The New York Times Magazine wrote nearly 10,000 words on “how the war over trans athletes tore a volleyball team apart.”
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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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