Good morning. It’s Friday, April 26.
- USC commencement cancellation faces intense backlash.
- Kern County politician is said to sexually assault daughter.
- And “Accidentally Wes Anderson” exhibit comes to L.A.
Scheduling note: The newsletter will be off on Monday. Back in your inbox on Tuesday.
Statewide
1.
USC’s announcement Thursday that it was canceling its main May commencement ceremony over safety concerns drew furious condemnation from students and faculty. “It’s a farce,” said one student. William Tierney, a professor emeritus, assigned blame to President Carol Folt, who has said nothing publicly in the 11 days since the university canceled valedictorian Asna Tabassum’s speech. “She’s gone. She’s invisible,” Tierney said. He added, “We could protect the campus at other times. But now it’s simply too dangerous? That just fails the leadership test across the board.” L.A. Times | Washington Post
2.
Other campus protest developments:
- Student activists established new encampments at UCLA and Stanford on Thursday, making them the latest to join the nationwide antiwar protest wave. “We’re planning on being here until our demands are met,” a UCLA organizer said. LAist | Stanford Daily
- “An egregious lack of leadership.” A faculty group at Cal Poly Humboldt demanded the resignation of President Tom Jackson, criticizing him for summoning police to remove protesters barricaded in an administration building. Lost Coast Outpost
- Republican Senate candidate Steve Garvey called the protesters “terrorists” during a rare news conference on Thursday: “What they’re saying is: They’re pro-Hamas. They’re supporting terrorism.” CalMatters | Politico
3.
Last month, when reporters tried to figure out how an unusual exemption got inserted into California’s fast food minimum wage law that benefited a Gov. Gavin Newsom donor, they learned that the parties involved in the negotiations had signed confidentiality agreements. Galled, a Republican Assemblyman introduced a bill to ban secrecy pacts in lawmaking, a practice critics called plainly anathema to the spirit of government transparency. On Thursday, Democrats killed the measure in committee on a party line vote. KCRA | Courthouse News
4.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was dragged into Donald Trump’s hush-money trial on Thursday as the former National Enquirer publisher, David Pecker, described his past deals with prominent figures to bury unflattering stories. In 2002, Pecker agreed to avoid negative stories about the former bodybuilder before his run for governor. “A number” of women reached out to the tabloid with accounts of Schwarzenegger’s womanizing, Pecker said: “I would call him and advise him of any stories that were out there, and I ended up acquiring them and buying them for a period of time.” It worked. Schwarzenegger was elected and served from 2003 until 2011. N.Y. Times | Deadline
5.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with Max Podemski, an urban planner in Los Angeles and author of the new book “A Paradise of Small Houses.” Podemski said Californians tend to harbor a misconception that housing density is somehow antithetical to their way of life. But the state has a rich history of desirable multifamily housing, often open and filled with light, he said: “You would walk past them and not even know that they are multifamily housing. … So I think we really need to change our attitude about density.”
Northern California
6.
In October 2014, an engineer in San Francisco’s building department named Robert Chun was indicted on federal charges for his part in an international prostitution ring. He retired on Feb. 29, 2020.
“Yes, you’re doing the math correctly,” wrote Joe Eskenazi. “For not quite six years, while under federal indictment, Robert Chun kept his job at DBI. More than that: He remained a supervisor, managing teams of both women and men. He even got a raise.” Mission Local
7.
Democratic Senate candidate Adam Schiff, in San Francisco on Thursday for a dinner party, had his luggage stolen from his car while it sat in a downtown parking garage. The heist meant he had to give a speech at the dinner in his shirt sleeves and a hiking vest while everyone else sat in suits. “I guess it’s ‘Welcome to San Francisco,’” said Lee Houskeeper, who was at the dinner. S.F. Chronicle
Southern California
8.
A Kern County supervisor is being investigated over accusations that he sexually assaulted his pre-teen daughter before being stabbed by another of his children trying to defend their sibling, authorities said on Thursday. Sheriff Donny Youngblood said he personally dispatched deputies to the home of Zack Scrivner in the mountain town of Tehachapi after getting a call late Tuesday from Scrivner’s aunt, Kern County District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer, saying that he was suicidal and brandishing a gun. Deputies found Scrivner unarmed but with two stab wounds to the chest. So far, no charges have been filed, the sheriff said. But he added: “I wouldn’t be standing up here if I didn’t believe something occurred.” Bakersfield Californian | KGET
9.
A vacant restaurant at the end of Oceanside Pier erupted in flames on Thursday, sending up large plumes of black smoke over the beach. Firefighting boats doused the flames from below while a helicopter dropped water from the sky, halting the midday fire after a few hours. David Parsons, the city’s fire chief, said the historic pier, the longest wooden pier on the West coast, suffered “significant damage.” The cause of the fire was unknown late Thursday. NBC 7 San Diego | A.P.
10.
A New York appeals court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 sex assault conviction, shocking many of the women who spoke out against the notorious Hollywood producer. In a 4-3 ruling, the panel found that the trial judge erred by allowing testimony from women whose accusations were not the basis for any charges against Weinstein. Permitting such testimony, Judge Jenny Rivera wrote, served to wrongly “diminish defendant’s character before the jury.” Weinstein will stay in prison because of a 2022 rape conviction in Los Angeles. N.Y. Times | L.A. Times
- Weinstein’s lawyers said they expect Thursday’s ruling to help his appeal in the Los Angeles case, which also relied on testimony from women about uncharged assaults. L.A. Times
11.
The photography project “Accidentally Wes Anderson” became a sensation on social media by showcasing places that would fit seamlessly in the whimsical aesthetic popularized by the film director. After a tour of several international cities, a museum exhibition that displays photographs of real-life locations captured on all seven continents is now set to go on view in Santa Monica (home to one of the great Andersonian gems). Santa Monica Art Museum
- The Guardian reviewed the exhibition’s swing through London.
- See “Accidentally Wes Anderson” photos from California. 👉 Reddit
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- Most visitors to Yosemite Falls enjoy leisurely views from the valley below. Travel videographer Yongsung Kim shared footage from his hike to Eagle Peak, where you can look down on North America’s tallest waterfall. YouTube
- Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger demolished a Los Angeles home built by the celebrated modernist Craig Ellwood, and preservationists are furious. In its place, they are building a massive modern farmhouse. Dwell
- Most hikers need two or three days to walk the northern segment of Northern California’s rugged Lost Coast. Ultrarunner Emily Keddie, 37, did it in just under 5 hours and 30 minutes, setting a fastest known time for the famed 25-mile route. S.F. Chronicle
- The photographer Annie Leibovitz is giving up her 65-acre farm in Bolinas. Nestled among other agricultural properties an hour north of San Francisco, the historic estate has panoramic views of a lagoon and a seven-stall horse barn. Yours for $9 million. SF Standard | Wall Street Journal
- In November, local officials gathered along the coastal bluffs near UC Santa Barbara where a college student had recently become the 13th person to fall to his death since 1994 and announced new safety measures. Last Saturday, the death toll grew to 14 after a 23-year-old accidentally fell 50 feet during a daytime alumni party. KEYT | Santa Barbara Independent
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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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