Good morning. It’s Thursday, June 20.
- Another heat wave is on tap as wildfires rage.
- Gunfire erupts after Juneteenth celebration in Oakland.
- And ancestral land to be returned to Shasta Indian Nation.
Statewide
1.
California could soon become the first state to ban legacy admissions at private universities. The state Assembly approved the legislation barring preferences for the children of alumni and donors, and the chair to the Senate committee taking the measure up next said he plans to vote for it. “I’d be surprised if it didn’t get the support of a majority of members of the committee,” state Senator Josh Newman said. The measure could have big consequences for schools such as USC and Stanford, where at least 13% of students accepted in 2022 were legacy admissions. Politico
2.
Forecasters said an incoming heat wave could worsen wildfires burning across the state. Temperatures were expected to soar into triple digits in the interior valleys and deserts between Friday and Tuesday. “Any time the weather heats up, … obviously it’s going to be a driving force for the spread of the fire,” said Jonathan Torres, a Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesperson. “Obviously it makes it a lot harder for the hand crews.” L.A. Times
Temperature forecasts:
- The North State
- The Sacramento Valley
- The Bay Area
- The San Joaquin Valley
- Los Angeles and the Central Coast
- Southern California
3.
A photographer’s delight along Monterey Bay, a star of 1990s sitcom television, and a piece of Los Angeles architectural history. Here are three flashy California homes on the market:
- In the 1920s, a Canadian oil baron built a row of colorful bungalows along the shore in Capitola hoping to transform what was a fishing village into a seaside resort. One of those houses was just listed for the first time in nearly 50 years. Asking price: $5.5 million. SFGATE
- The Victorian home depicted in the 1990s sitcom “Full House” was chosen to evoke quintessential San Francisco. Built in 1900 by the famed architect Charles Lewis Hinkel, it got a head-to-toe renovation in 2019. Yours for $6.5 million. Architectural Digest
- The architect Ray Kappe’s personal home in Pacific Palisades is regarded as among the finest examples of the modernist style. It served as a model for another of his masterpieces, a post-and-beam built in 1991 in the same neighborhood. It’s been offered for the first time at $12 million. Archinect | Realtor.com
Northern California
4.
Four people were shot after a Juneteenth celebration that drew roughly 5,000 people to Oakland’s Lake Merritt late Wednesday, police said. The gunfire erupted as a sideshow formed near the lake, witnesses said. “We were all celebrating, there were sideshows, couple of fights that were going on. … Next thing you hear, another ‘boom, boom, boom, boom, boom'” said Tamia Robinson, a witness. KGO | Mercury News
5.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced the return of more than 4 square miles of ancestral land in northwestern California to the Shasta Indian Nation, the largest land return in California history. The transfer includes land exposed by the dismantling of four hydroelectric dams erected along the Klamath River more than a century ago. The Shasta people, who were forced into exile and never found a place to regroup, hope to return to the riverfront they still call home, the S.F. Chronicle reported in February. L.A. Times | Sacramento Bee
6.
On one end of the political spectrum in San Francisco’s mayoral race, the candidate Aaron Peskin is depicted by foes as a radical progressive. At the opposite end, critics paint Mark Farrell as a reactionary in the pocket of Donald Trump. Yet their positions on key issues can be hard to distinguish, wrote the Chronicle’s editorial page editor, Matthew Fleischer. Both men have taken positions that infuriate pro-pedestrian groups and delight NIMBYs. “As the saying goes, all politics in San Francisco is land use,” Fleischer wrote. S.F. Chronicle
7.
On Thursday, Hulu released a new docuseries, “Perfect Wife,” telling the sensational story of Sherri Papini, the Redding mother of two who faked her own kidnapping in 2016. Reviewer Katie Dowd said the most illuminating part of the series recounted how Papini kept up the ruse after returning home to her distraught husband, Keith. At one point, Keith said, Sherri turned to him and said, “I have to live with the fact you never found me.” SFGATE | Vanity Fair
- See the trailer. 👉 YouTube
8.
The organization of the annual Rainbow Gathering, a countercultural celebration held around the Fourth of July, is loose by design. Toward the end of each event, a “vision council” meets to pick the location of the next gathering. No permits are acquired. As many as 10,000 seekers and aging hippies simply show up to a remote forest and begin pitching tents, drumming, dancing, and communing with nature. As such, Forest Service officials are raising the alarm ahead of this year’s gathering, to be held in Plumas National Forest. KRCR
Southern California
9.
Los Angeles leaders held a grand opening for a new publicly funded residential tower for homeless people in Skid Row with some eye-popping amenities. The 278-unit Weingart Tower includes a gym, an art room, a music room, a library, a TV lounge, six common balconies, and a cafe with a glass wall. The cost: $600,000 per unit. “Skid Row is a community,” said Mayor Karen Bass. “It’s not just throw-away people. It is a community, and to bring that community together in beautiful housing like this is what everybody deserves.” KABC
10.
Last month, crews began dismantling Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes because the shifting earth was slowly destroying it. The instability, linked to ancient slide activity accelerated by heavy rains and erosion, has also upended the peninsula’s main thoroughfare. Fissures and folds along the road, including one bunched-up section known locally as the “Ski Jump,” have become so treacherous that the City Council on Tuesday closed it to motorcyclists and bicyclists. Daily Breeze
11.
“The beauty of the ephemeral is what it teaches us about nature.”
In 1978, the artist Lita Albuquerque dug a shallow 41-foot-long trench in a bluff perpendicular to the ocean in Malibu, where she lived, and filled it with a bold blue powder. She called it “Malibu Line.” Now 78, and still in Malibu, Albuquerque is recreating the earthwork. The New York Times published some striking photos.
California the beautiful
12.
Death Valley National Park doesn’t have America’s loneliest desert road — that distinction belongs to Nevada — but it could contend for hosting the prettiest. Highway 190, the main approach, stretches as far as the eye can see across the stark Panamint and Death valleys before squiggling into colorful mountains. From a distance, the ribbon of pavement is enchanting, like paint strokes across a canvas. For motorists, it can also be unnerving — as cell reception vanishes and visions of car trouble start to invade the mind. A photo tour:
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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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