Good morning. It’s Monday, Sept. 12.
- California becomes epicenter of guaranteed income.
- Drought devastates rice fields of Sacramento Valley.
- And Bay Area school district builds educator housing.
Statewide
1.
Since Stockton pioneered the first municipal guaranteed income in 2019, roughly 50 programs have been started in cities nationwide, with California as the epicenter of the movement. This summer, Los Angeles launched one of the most ambitious efforts yet, with 1,000 residents receiving $1,000 a month for the next three years. Alondra Barajas, a 22-year-old single mother, is a participant. “It’s helped me from hitting rock bottom,” she said. N.Y. Times
2.
The U.S. has been ranked 37th of 79 industrialized countries in math achievement among 15-year-olds. Among the states, California is well below average. As officials now consider a revised framework to make math more accessible, critics say it will only shut out more students of color. “Everything I’ve read about this proposal is going to make matters worse,” said Adrian Mims, the founder of the Calculus Project, a program aimed at closing the achievement gap in math. New Yorker
3.
In a typical year, Rick Richter’s aviation company drops rice seeds across 42,000 acres of the Sacramento Valley, America’s rice capital. This year, he has seeded just 7,000 acres. California’s prolonged drought has hurt several sources of food, but none more so this year than rice. “This is a year that is just a disaster,” Richter said. Wall Street Journal
4.
Lawns have a powerful hold on the American imagination. But they represent an ecological dead zone that is sucking aquifers dry in a time of intensifying drought. In a video essay, Agnes Walton and Kirby Ferguson said it’s time to kill your lawn, “not just to save the planet, but for your own health and sanity too.” N.Y. Times (~5:30 mins)
Northern California
5.
After a six-month manhunt, the authorities on Sunday announced the arrest of a man accused of helping to kill an 8-year-old girl whose body was found decomposing in a bathtub in Merced. Police said the girl, Sophia Mason, of Hayward, had been dead for a month, having spent the last part of her life malnourished and forced to live at times in a shed. The suspect, 34-year-old Dhante Jackson, was the boyfriend of Mason’s mother, who was arrested in March. S.F. Chronicle | A.P.
6.
Bay Area school districts are increasingly getting into the real estate business. In an effort to retain teachers who are unable to afford housing, Jefferson Union High School District in Daly City opened a 122-unit complex with below-market rents for teachers a few months ago, making it among just a few places in the country with educator housing. CBS News
7.
☝️ An odd structure connects two granite monoliths seemingly in the middle of nowhere in the northern Sierra.
It’s beside the north fork of the Feather River, a place of natural abundance that once drew miners of gold and timber. In the early 1900s, another resource enticed rapidly growing California: the powerful river rushing down from the mountains. So crews went to work creating what would become a cascading hydroelectric system made up of 11 dams, stretching 100 miles from Lake Almanor upstream to Lake Oroville on the valley floor. It was dubbed the “stairway of power.” The brute force required to build it is illustrated by the Cresta Aqueduct, above, part of a 4-mile long tunnel bored through the mountains to convey water from one side of a dam to a power station on the other. Atlas Obscura
Southern California
8.
Rep. Karen Bass said a thief broke into her Los Angeles home on Friday night and stole two firearms. The suspect, she said, left behind cash, electronics, and other valuables. Bass learned her way around firearms as a volunteer in Fidel Castro’s Cuba in the 1970s. In her campaign for Los Angeles mayor, she has said one of her top priorities would be “to get guns off of our streets and out of our communities.” L.A. Times | CNN
9.
While Tim Sgrignoli and his girlfriend were hiking near Santa Barbara on Sept. 4, she fell ill from the high temperature, which peaked that day at 114 degrees. Their plan was for her to would wait in the shade with water and a cellphone while he ventured off to find help. She was ultimately rescued by helicopter. Sgrignoli, a 29-year-old software engineer, was found dead four days later. The authorities believe he succumbed to the heat. L.A. Times
10.
Only one rail line connects San Diego to the outside region. But the route hugs a curve along the coast in Del Mar that is crumbling into the sea. Rather than continue trying to buttress the cliffs, transportation authorities are now moving to bore a tunnel further inland. Last Friday, the project reached a crucial milestone: California paid out $300 million in a grant award to advance the work. S.D. Union-Tribune
11.
A 19-year-old forged a birth certificate so he could play football for a high school in San Bernardino County, the authorities said. After graduating from Pomona High School in L.A. County, Elijah Frisco changed his name to enroll at Montclair High School just across the county line, officials said. He was arrested. The Montclair football coach denied knowing anything about the alleged ruse. “To think that my self as a coach and Montclair as a program would do something like that is crazy,” he tweeted. L.A. Daily News | USA Today
California archive
12.
During a visit to Britain in 1982, President Reagan and Queen Elizabeth II discussed when she might visit the U.S. According to the royal biographer Robert Hardman, Elizabeth felt obligated to go to Washington, D.C. But she was thrilled to hear Reagan say, “Forget all that. Come to Hollywood.” On Feb. 26, 1983, she arrived aboard the royal yacht Britannia to San Diego, where roughly 3,000 souls braved the rain to greet her. Over the next 10 days, she met Hollywood stars, took in the view at Yosemite, and attended a lavish banquet in San Francisco. In Los Angeles, she recalled how 400 years earlier Sir Francis Drake had sailed the coast and claimed the territory as Nova Albion. Addressing Mayor Tom Bradley, she said, “I am happy, though, to give you an immediate assurance, Mr. Mayor, that I have not come here to press that claim.”
Elizabeth died on Thursday at age 96. George Rose, who photographed her visit for the Los Angeles Times, shared a selection of his pictures with the California Sun. 👇
Correction
A photo caption in an earlier version of this newsletter misidentified a state park in Sacramento. It is Sutter’s Fort, not Sutter’s Mill.
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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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