Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Dec. 17.
- A culture of secrecy at California’s most violent prison.
- An evangelical church faces a backlash in Coronado.
- And Hannah Kobayashi makes her first public remarks.
Statewide
1.
On Monday, state Senator Scott Wiener introduced legislation that would rescind California’s seven active calls for a constitutional convention. While such a gathering hasn’t been held since 1787, Congress can convene a rewrite session if two-thirds of state legislatures have called for one. Most states have long-forgotten requests on the books, leading liberal Democrats to raise fears of what Weiner described as a “runaway convention,” where amendments are introduced to restrict abortion access or civil rights. N.Y. Times
2.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday unveiled a jobs program designed to steer Californians without college degrees into high-paying careers. Speaking from a welding shop at Redding’s Shasta College, Newsom said he would seek $100 million in funding to create a centralized “career passport,” essentially a new kind of transcript that showcases both academic and professional know-how to potential employers. Among his other proposals: removing degree requirements from certain state jobs and giving college credits for military service. CalMatters | KQED
- There was a rare sighting at Newsom’s news conference: a Republican state lawmaker. North State Assemblywoman Heather Hadwick said she believed his proposal would help rural Californians. KCRA
Northern California
3.
Injuries caused by police use of force are not unusual at California’s high-security prisons. But one prison stands apart from the rest: New Folsom, the suburban Sacramento facility adjoining the old prison that Johnny Cash made famous. An analysis of data from 2014 and 2019 found that the rate at which officers use deadly force or badly injure inmates was triple that of any other prison in the state. KQED published a jarring investigation into a prison plagued by a culture of secrecy, abuse of inmates, and the deaths of two whistleblowers.
4.
On Monday, San Mateo County’s district attorney, Stephen Wagstaffe, threw out charges against a deputy sheriff who was accused of time-card violations after he spearheaded a union vote of no confidence against Sheriff Christina Corpus. “There just simply wasn’t a crime here,” Wagstaffe said. The deputy, Carlos Tapia, called the charges an obvious attempt at retaliation. Corpus has faced pressure to step down after an independent report found that her administration engaged in “lies, secrecy, intimidation, retaliation, conflicts of interest, and abuses of authority.” Mercury News | Palo Alto Daily Post
5.
Columnist Michelle Goldberg pondered the California tech barons showering praise and money on Donald Trump:
“Different people have different reasons for falling in line. Some may simply lack the stomach for a fight or feel, not unreasonably, that it’s futile. Our tech overlords, however liberal they once appeared, seem to welcome the new order. Many hated wokeness, resented the demands of newly uppity employees and chafed at attempts by Joe Biden’s administration to regulate crypto and A.I. … There are C.E.O.s who got where they are by riding the zeitgeist; they can pivot easily from mouthing platitudes about racial equity to slapping on a red MAGA hat.” N.Y. Times
6.
A San Francisco backpack maker, Peter Dering, has faced a wave of online threats after he reached out to the NYPD to report that the suspected shooter of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson appeared to be carrying one of his company’s backpacks. His remarks, reported in a Dec. 5 article in the New York Times, led people sympathetic to the shooter, Luigi Mangione, to flood the company’s Instagram page with disparaging comments. “Enjoy what is left of your company,” one wrote. Dering, in response, denied playing any role in helping to identify Mangione. S.F. Chronicle | Daily Beast
7.
Marlon Mullen, an artist who is on the autism spectrum and almost entirely nonverbal, has been going to a Richmond studio for artists with developmental disabilities for decades. In recent years, his paintings — often based on covers of art magazines — have soared in popularity, selling for up to $28,000. This month, a solo exhibition of his work opened at the New York’s Museum of Modern Art, making Mullen the first developmentally disabled person to be given such an exhibition at MoMA. The New York Times visited Mullen in Richmond.
- See Mullen at work in Richmond’s NIAD Art Center. 👉 YouTube
Southern California
8.
Awaken Church, a fast-growing evangelical church with six locations across San Diego County, is planning its next expansion in Coronado, sparking a fierce local backlash. Opponents see Awaken less as a church than an extremist political group that preaches intolerance of LGBT people and likens Democrats to evil biblical figures. Even some local pastors have expressed alarm. “That’s not who God calls us to be,” said J.T. Greenleaf, pastor of Coronado’s St. Paul’s United Methodist Church. S.D. Union-Tribune
- Federal regulations bar nonprofits from supporting particular candidates or parties. Yet Awaken has flouted the rules for years, an inewsource investigation found.
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9.
Only one administrator at USC went to prison over the Varsity Blues admissions scandal. In her first media interview since being arrested in 2019, Donna Heinel said she became a scapegoat for USC’s long-standing treatment of applicants seen as potential sources of donations. Her superiors not only knew about the special treatment of well-off applicants, she said, but also encouraged it. “I did my job description, and nowhere in time did I think this was nefarious,” Heinel said. L.A. Times
10.
Hannah Kobayashi issued her first public statement weeks after her November disappearance in Southern California set off a massive search and media storm punctuated tragically by the suicide death of her father. Kobayashi, 30, said she returned to the U.S. from Mexico on Sunday. “I was unaware of everything that was happening in the media while I was away, and I am still processing it all,” she said. Kobayashi’s saga has fueled anger among many people who donated time or money in a needless campaign to find her. People | NBC News
11.
In 2021, George Gascón, then-district attorney of Los Angeles County, hired a former prosecutor to reopen investigations in four fatal police shootings. The move aimed to deliver on campaign promises to improve police accountability. Three years and $1 million later, nothing has come of the cases. Nathan Hochman, the newly installed district attorney, now says he will fire the special prosecutor. Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, said the decision “essentially gives cops the green light to kill our people.” L.A. Times
12.
“The truth is that she was not only a natural to the camera but that she had a sure knowledge of how to use that affinity. It was to her what water is to a fish — it was her element and she exulted in it.”
— Eve Arnold on Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe posed for virtually every major photographer of her day. But few were able to capture her in unguarded moments like Eve Arnold, Magnum’s first female photographer, with whom Monroe shared a special rapport. A new collection of includes several never-before-seen photos of Monroe from Arnold’s archive. People | Huck magazine
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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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