Good morning. It’s Monday, March 6.
- California officials aim to end incarceration of girls.
- An end-of-week atmospheric river looking more likely.
- And unvaccinated Novak Djokovic pulls out of Indian Wells.
Statewide
1.
In the past, California’s Republicans have often been sidelined during the U.S. presidential primary. This time, they could play kingmaker thanks in part to the competitiveness of the race, Politico reported. In a preview of the likely battle to come, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley on Sunday. The pandemic created “a great test in governing philosophies,” he told the packed audience. “When the world went mad, when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue, Florida stood as a refuge of sanity.” Washington Post | L.A. Times
2.
Not long ago, girls in overcrowded juvenile halls in Santa Clara County used to sleep three to a cell meant for two. Yet during the yearlong period ending in April 2022, there was never more than one girl incarcerated across the entire county of nearly 2 million residents. The emptying of girls’ juvenile halls is part of an initiative that California officials are now trying to replicate statewide: to eliminate entirely the incarceration of girls. Mercury News | EdSource
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3.
More than 30 inches of snow fell in 24 hours in the Tahoe region over the weekend, a total that could double before the storm is done. Forecasters said snow and rain showers would persist across Northern California through at least midweek in a prelude to what increasingly looks like a new atmospheric river by the end of the week. The climate scientist Daniel Swain said it was worth getting prepared. “A modest event is most likely but [a] more severe storm can’t be ruled out,” he wrote on Twitter. @Weather_West | Accuweather
- Video was captured of a pileup on slick roads in the Tahoe area that included an out-of-control jeep smashing into a Tesla. 👉@og_tahoe_memes | @chrisbrinleejr
4.
Locals in the San Bernardino Mountains have taken it upon themselves to deliver food on snowmobiles to their snowbound neighbors. Natalia Hinkleman, a coordinator of the civilian response, expressed frustration at the slow pace of the official emergency response. “We’ve had notifications of newborns that have no food available, kids that are starving,” she said. KABC | O.C. Register
Northern California
5.
In 1990, Congress ordered universities to identify Native remains in their collection and return them to tribal nations. More than three decades later, UC Berkeley, among the most voracious historical raiders of Indigenous burial grounds, says it still has the remains of 9,000 Indigenous people in its anthropology museum. In December, Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ assured the Central Coast’s Chumash Indians that the university was committed to returning Chumash remains. The time estimate: at least another decade. ProPublica
6.
The magazine writer David Zweig investigated the collision between Santa Clara County’s health department, which imposed some of the nation’s harshest pandemic restrictions, and Calvary Chapel, a San Jose church that openly flouted them. The county’s surveillance of the church, he wrote, was “breathtaking” in scope: “The spy operation included stakeouts, forced in-person monitoring of prayer groups and other intimate activities, and tracking the cellular mobility data of churchgoers.” Silent Lunch
7.
“Protect us.”
Police officers were pulled from Santa Rosa school campuses in 2020 during the nationwide protests over police brutality. Now, after a fight between students left a 16-year-old dead last week, many parents are calling for the officers to be brought back. Even school board member Omar Medina, who was a leading voice in removing officers from campus, seemed to suggest a pendulum shift on the issue. “It’s important for all sides to be heard,” he said last week. Press Democrat | KTVU Fox 2
8.
When the daringly brutalist Hyatt Regency debuted in San Francisco in 1973, locals showed up in such droves that management limited elevator access to guests with room keys. In a 2005 essay, the architecture writer Karrie Jacobs recalled walking into the cavernous atrium, rising 17 stories, at age 18 and being rendered speechless by the experience. When she returned decades later, she wrote, she found that she was still amazed. “It occurred to me that this lobby is the one bit of San Francisco that still feels unequivocal in its enthusiasm for the future.” The photographer Thomas Hawk has a nice gallery of pictures showcasing the Hyatt’s geometric flourishes. Flickr
Southern California
9.
Last month, Novak Djokovic, the world No. 1 tennis player, revealed that he had applied for an exemption to U.S. Covid-19 vaccination rules to compete in the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, which begins this week. The unvaccinated Serbian has said he believes people should have the right to decide whether to get vaccinated. Now he has formally withdrawn from the tournament in the Coachella Valley after his request was denied, officials said Sunday. The tennis great John McEnroe called Djokovic’s inability to play “absurd.” Desert Sun | A.P.
10.
On Sept. 11, 2022, Victory Baptist Church in South Los Angeles went up in flames, the work of a serial arsonist. Founded in 1943, the church had been a spiritual home for four generations of Black Angelenos, where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke, Mahalia Jackson sang, and Billy Preston learned the organ. But the neighborhood has changed. Thomas Curwen wrote beautifully about what might become of the historic Black church in a mostly Latino neighborhood. L.A. Times
11.
Six photographs taken by Tyre Nichols, the man fatally beaten by police officers in Memphis, will appear on roadside billboards in the Southern California desert. The works by Nichols, who was an aspiring photographer, will be part of the Desert X biennial, the occasionally political art exhibition that takes place in outdoor locations across the Palm Springs area. “We think about this as a way of celebrating Tyre’s imagination,” said Neville Wakefield, the Desert X artistic director. N.Y. Times
12.
There’s a collection of gray lots covered in what look like bar codes scattered across the Mojave Desert. The bars are actually calibration arrays used by satellite cameras during the Cold War, the equivalent of super-sized optometrist’s charts, where the smallest bar that can be resolved marks a camera’s limit of resolution. The targets were established throughout the Southwest in the 1950s and 1960s, with the largest concentration on the outskirts of Kern County’s Edwards Air Force Base. Scan the desert in Google Maps and you can easily spot more than a dozen of them, including here, here, and here. CLUI | 99% Invisible
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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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