Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Oct. 1.
- California ends legacy admissions at universities.
- “Dads Against Predators” vigilantes roil North State.
- And San Clemente becomes epicenter of elite surfing.
Statewide
1.
Starting next year, legacy admissions will be banned at private universities in California after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Monday barring the practice of preferential consideration for applicants related to donors or alumni. The law is expected to force significant changes at Stanford University and USC, where roughly 14% of incoming students in the fall of 2023 had such ties. “In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and hard work,” Newsom said. S.F. Chronicle | Bloomberg
- Other laws approved on Monday: a green light for Amsterdam-style cannabis cafes and a ban on AI-generated child pornography. L.A. Times | A.P.
2.
Newsom signed or vetoed the last of nearly 1,000 bills on Monday ahead of a midnight deadline. On the whole, his decisions reflected a more centrist direction for a governor who has stoked culture-war fights with red-state America. As Vice President Kamala Harris faces a contentious race for the White House, Republicans are eager to spotlight liberal excesses in her home state, the New York Times reported: “As such, the governor has been under pressure to make sure that California’s lawmakers don’t give them more ammunition for political attacks.”
3.
California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, sued a hospital in rural Humboldt County on Monday for denying an emergency abortion to a woman who was miscarrying twins at 15 weeks and bleeding profusely. The patient, Anna Nusslock, was told that the doctors wouldn’t terminate a pregnancy when a heartbeat is detected, the lawsuit said. Instead, she was driven to the next closest hospital while in excruciating pain and fearing she would bleed out. “I needed an abortion so that my husband didn’t lose both of his daughters and his wife in one night,” Nusslock said. N.Y. Times | S.F. Chronicle
4.
Pikas, adorable cousins of rabbits often seen with bouquets of wildflowers in their mouths, are among the hardest little workers in the mountains of California. Unlike many other alpine mammals, they don’t hibernate. Instead, the herbivores spend their summers collecting grasses and flowers in giant stacks, drying them in the sun and stashing them in their dens to consume during winter. PBS captured some great footage of a pika’s busy workday in Yosemite, including a close encounter with a coyote.
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Northern California
5.
A Lodi skydiving instructor, Robert Pooley, was sentenced to two years in prison on Monday after he approved the tandem jump in 2016 of a novice and a skydiver who was not properly trained to lead such jumps. Both jumpers, ages 18 and 25, died after their parachute failed to properly deploy. Since 1985, a staggering 28 people have died skydiving at the Lodi Parachute Center, where Pooley taught, a Sacramento Bee investigation found. It remains in business. Sacramento Bee
6.
A growing vigilante movement known as “Dads Against Predators” has spread to California’s North State, where at least two new chapters have attempted to lure alleged sexual predators by posing as minors. Law enforcement officials have denounced the groups, whose posts commonly go viral online, for risking violence. KRCR reported Monday that three members of the Redding Dads Against Predators were arrested on charges of assault and false imprisonment after they demanded a man confess to trying to meet with a teen. He ended up in a hospital. A News Café | KRCR
7.
A San Francisco homeowner, Debbie Mansfield, couldn’t figure out why her PG&E bill — about $4,000 annually — was more than her neighbors’. So she sought the advice of an energy consultant, a free service. Mansfield and her husband replaced their water heater and turned down the temperature. They started doing most laundry in cold water. They changed light bulbs and unplugged a space heater. As a result, their annual costs fell from $4,000 to $2,600, carving $116 out of every monthly bill. S.F. Chronicle
8.
There’s a round home atop a ridge in Sausalito with 360-degree views of the San Francisco Bay, the city skyline, and the Marin Headlands. Built in 1954, it was designed as a “turret in the sky,” Suburbia Today wrote in 1959, “in which every slightest turn of the head brings a new, breathtaking view.” Architectural Digest published a photo-heavy piece on a renovation of the round house.
Southern California
9.
When Raymond Sewer, a 46-year-old working in the mortgage industry, signed up for a $9,000 cloud-computing course on Caltech’s website, he thought the online program could be his ticket to a new career. But he learned that his instructor, who sometimes vanished during class, lived in Mississippi, not Pasadena, where Caltech is located. A course facilitator was in India. Then Sewer learned that Caltech had outsourced the course to a for-profit company called Simplilearn. “It was just a bunch of bogus,” he said. N.Y. Times
10.
Dockworkers on the East and Gulf Coasts went on strike Tuesday, a move expected to send a chill through the economy and force freight diversions to the West Coast. California port officials said lessons learned during the pandemic have put them in a much better position to absorb a surge of ship traffic. Big retailers, anticipating the labor disruption, have already been bringing in products early ahead of the holidays, resulting in the busiest August in the history of the twin ports in San Pedro Bay. “But the good news is we were moving these record volumes efficiently,” said Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman. The Signal | Washington Post
11.
While streaming has left major movie-theater chains struggling to fill seats, young people are fueling a revival of Los Angeles’ independent theaters. Venues like the New Beverly, the Egyptian Theater, and Vidiots are bustling with audiences drawn by elevated food-and-drink offerings, eclectic programming, and a communal connection. Miles Villalon, a Starbucks barista, said he sees up to six films a week in indie theaters. “I always say it feels like church,” he said. A.P.
12.
San Clemente has established itself as the global epicenter of elite surfing. Late last year, seven surfers from the beach city of roughly 64,000 people qualified for the World Surf League’s 2024 Championship Tour. With the exception of a pair of Hawaiian surfers, no other two surfers on the tour hailed from the same city, Inertia reported. Caroline Marks, who has lived in San Clemente since the age of 14, won Olympic gold over the summer. And last week, the WSL named its 2024 rookies of the year: Sawyer Lindblad, 19, and Crosby Colapinto, 23. Both are from San Clemente. Inertia | Surfer magazine
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