Good morning. It’s Monday, May 1.
- JPMorgan Chase to acquire First Republic Bank.
- Stephen Curry puts on a sublime performance.
- And 1920s-era glamour at a Bakersfield hotel.
Statewide
1.
California regulators approved two landmark rules late last week that ban new diesel trucks by 2036 and phase out old locomotives by 2030. The changes are expected to sharply cut pollution near ports while transforming the way freight is moved around the state, affecting nearly 2 million trucks, including those operated by the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, and Amazon. Gideon Kracov, an air board member, predicted we will look back in 10 years and “say that California has changed the world.” CalMatters | L.A. Times
2.
Yosemite National Park planned to fully reopen on Monday after it was partially closed Friday over flooding fears. A television crew went up in a helicopter and got some fantastic aerial views of the valley’s waterfalls, engorged by copious snowmelt, spilling over the granite cliffs. YouTube/KCRA (~6 mins)
3.
A campground with views of the Golden Gate Bridge.
A wonderland of colorful murals in San Diego.
And a historic inn high up on Mount Tamalpais.
Christopher Reynolds, a travel writer who’s been all over California, shared his bucket list of 19 places to visit in the state in 2023. L.A. Times
Northern California
4.
San Francisco’s troubled First Republic Bank was seized by federal regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase early Monday in a dramatic move aimed at heading off further banking turmoil. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had asked big banks over the weekend to submit offers for the bank, which faced an exodus of spooked depositors after the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. The acquisition makes JPMorgan, already the nation’s largest bank, even more massive. N.Y. Times | Bloomberg
5.
“Male w/machete is back.”
The New York Times reviewed the records of 568 emergency calls placed over 13 months from the San Francisco Whole Foods that announced in mid-April it was closing over safety concerns. They depicted scenes of mayhem as people threw food, tried to defecate on the floor, and threatened employees with guns and knives. Some in San Francisco see the store’s exit as a sign of the city’s decline. N.Y. Times
- A pair of local opinion writers had another take: “We’re not convinced one of the biggest corporations in the world is a victim.” S.F. Chronicle
6.
Meta is facing waves of layoffs, stiff competition from TikTok, and a costly investment in the virtual reality “metaverse” that shows no immediate signs of paying off. Many inside the company now say Mark Zuckerberg has lost the trust of his workforce, according to a report that cited interviews with dozens of current and former employees. “It’s like they went from ‘move fast and break things’ to ‘slow down, break things,’ then ‘maybe fix it later on a case-by-case'” basis, one employee said. Washington Post
7.
“Sublime.”
“Total domination.”
“A joy to watch.”
The Sacramento Kings’ inspiring postseason run, in which they snapped a 16-year playoff drought, came to an end Sunday as the team collided with the force of nature that is Stephen Curry. In a masterful run of 3-pointers and layups, Curry dropped 50 points, the most prolific Game 7 performance ever, to give the defending champion Warriors a 120-100 win. Next up it’s the Bay vs. L.A. as the Warriors face the Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals. S.F. Chronicle | A.P.
- “Steph Curry from way downtown!” See a highlight reel. 👉 @NBA
Southern California
8.
In early 2020, a Riverside County man chased down the car of a group of six teenagers who had ding-dong ditched his house and rammed it from behind, sending their vehicle into a tree. Three of the kids inside died, all aged 16. On Friday, the man, Anurag Chandra, was found guilty on three counts of first-degree murder. The jury foreman, Terry Sherrill, said jurors were troubled by a seeming lack of remorse from Chandra, who claimed that he intended no harm. Press-Enterprise | A.P.
9.
A teachers union on the Central Coast protested angrily after a middle-school teacher was arrested on suspicion of child abuse. A sheriff’s spokesperson said Sarah Watts, 42, a teacher at a middle school in Arroyo Grande, injured a 13-year-old girl by pulling a hairbrush from her hand and throwing some papers. The local teacher’s union called her arrest “egregious” and suggested that it happened because the girl’s father is a sheriff’s deputy. The Tribune
10.
A woman cried out during the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on Friday, and some audience members interpreted the sound as an orgasm. “One can’t know exactly what happened, but it seemed very clear from the sound that it was an expression of pure physical joy,” said Lukas Burton. After the L.A. Times published a report Sunday, others who said they were in attendance challenged the orgasm interpretation, saying the woman appeared to be in distress. L.A. Times
- Yes, there’s audio. 👉 @Phil_Lewis_
11.
The travel writer Annette Leddy spotlighted a building in Bakersfield for a series on cherished landmarks that have changed remarkably little over the years. The Spanish neocolonial Padre Hotel was the tallest structure in town when it opened in 1928, drawing upscale tourists en route to other places. To visit the hotel today, with its nods to cowboy culture and 1920s sense of luxury, is to be transported back in time, Leddy wrote. Wall Street Journal
California archive
12.
Many California towns can trace their origins to the discovery of some precious mineral. In Yreka, the moment was captured in a photograph. The daguerreotype above shows the mule-train packer Abraham Thompson, left, and two partners in March 1851, shortly after he spotted something glistening in the grass where his mules were eating just south of the Oregon border.
Thompson’s gold discovery set off what became known as the “second mother lode” during California’s Gold Rush era. By late summer, 5,000 people had swarmed into the area, creating a boom town with saloons, gambling dens, and restaurants. After a visit in 1853, the poet Joaquin Miller wrote of “a tide of people” that was “as strong as if in New York.” They called the place Yreka, a Native American word for nearby Mount Shasta. As California’s gold fever abated, many other boom towns collapsed. But Yreka grew into a bonafide city. Local historians, pointing to the region’s high granite peaks and lush valleys, will tell you the reason is obvious: it’s too beautiful to leave.
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