Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Sept. 28.
- Rep. Kevin McCarthy aims to sideline G.O.P. rivals.
- Fugitive and teen daughter killed in police shootout.
- And fall arrives suddenly in the Eastern Sierra.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom approved far-reaching new legislation on Tuesday:
- Starting Jan. 1, companies with 15 or more employees will be required to list pay on job postings. Advocates said the transparency is crucial to resolving racial and gender wage gaps. Bloomberg | Sacramento Bee
- A package of 12 news bills strengthens abortion protections, including several measures designed to thwart abortion-related investigations from other states. Clashes with the 13 states where most abortions are now illegal seemed likely. CalMatters | A.P.
2.
Allies of Rep. Kevin McCarthy have been spending millions of dollars this year to weed out G.O.P. candidates that may cause him problems if he becomes House speaker. The sometimes secretive effort has included helping to deny a second term to Rep. Madison Cawthorn, the firebrand lawmaker who delighted in trolling the left. “McCarthy is a political animal, and he has a lot of political animals working for him,” said a Republican operative. “He is not a guy to be trifled with.” Washington Post
3.
On the homelessness crisis:
- San Diego legend Bill Walton on Tuesday: “Things are worse now than ever before. Our lives are being dictated by a large and unruly homeless population. We want the homeless population off the streets, out of the parks, off the sidewalks and bike paths.” City News Service | S.D. Union-Tribune
- Sonoma County and Santa Rosa together spent an unprecedented $44 million to house people during the pandemic. So the results of a new homelessness census came as a punch to the gut: The population surged 43% since 2020. Press Democrat
- Sacramento leaders are now pushing for buffer zones of 500 feet between schools and homeless encampments after kids faced harassment walking to school. “Nothing’s being done. Nothing,” said one mother. Sacramento Bee
4.
☝️ Here’s how Lake Sabrina in the Eastern Sierra looked on Monday.
The fall colors are suddenly popping at higher elevations in the California mountains. Parchers Resort, perched at 9,260 feet in Bishop Creek Canyon, said the explosion of reds, oranges, and yellows from just a few days ago was incredible. “The fall color is blowing up,” the resort said on Instagram. California Fall Color has the latest report and pictures.
Additional views. 👉 @parchersresort | @visitmammoth | @monocountytourism
Northern California
5.
The writers Erika D. Smith and Anita Chabria estimated that it will cost about $1 billion to rebuild Greenville, the Gold Rush-era town ravaged by the Dixie fire last year. Only about 300 people plan to return, and climate scientists say the town could catch fire again in as little as 10 years. Something needs to change, they wrote: “We are #ParadiseStrong, #SantaRosaStrong, #GrizzlyFlatsStrong and now #GreenvilleStrong … But the cold, hard logic of science has a way of poking holes in emotionally driven policies and moral certainties.” L.A. Times
6.
“A blatant abuse of power.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed has been forcing her appointees to sign secret, undated letters of resignation. Brought to light as part of a public records request, the practice is apparently commonplace, including letters signed by at least 40 appointees across commissions and boards. The mayor’s office said they were intended for “extreme circumstances.” Critics called them an effort to strip oversight bodies of their independence. SF Standard | SFist
7.
When Luis Roa Miranda married Maribel Arellano Ramos, a U.S. citizen, in 2006, a lawyer told him he needed to leave California for Juarez, Mexico, to do an immigration interview. That was bad advice. The federal authorities told him he was banned from reentry for 10 years because he had entered the U.S. illegally. More than a decade later, he just returned to Fresno with his green card, his marriage intact and ready to pick up where he left off. CBS47 Fresno
Southern California
8.
An Amber Alert search for a 15-year-old girl said to have been kidnapped by her father — a fugitive wanted in the death of the teen’s mother — ended Tuesday in a highway shootout that left both of them dead. San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said deputies chased John Graziano for 45 miles after a 911 caller spotted his pickup truck in Barstow. Graziano was “constantly shooting” at deputies, Dicus said, adding that the teenager, Savannah Graziano, may have also fired shots. When the truck became disabled, the 15-year-old went down in a volley of gunfire as she ran toward deputies wearing body armor and a tactical helmet, Dicus said. L.A. Times | A.P.
9.
An investigation of the 2020 USS Bonhomme Richard fire found an astonishing array of failures. It determined that the actions of 17 sailors and officers directly led to the loss of the ship, and those of 17 more contributed. A separate investigation, however, placed the blame at the feet of a single young sailor, then-20-year-old Ryan Mays. A military judge recommended against pursuing Mays, citing a lack of evidence. But the Navy did anyway. ProPublica
10.
UCLA announced Tuesday that it made the largest land acquisition in its history, buying the 25-acre campus of Marymount California University, which closed last month, along with an 11-acre residential site in nearby San Pedro. Purchased for $80 million, the satellite campuses are expected to ease pressure on UCLA’s Westwood campus, which is the smallest among the University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses. L.A. Times | LAist
11.
Robert Downey Jr. built an undulating 6,500-square-foot domed structure on his Malibu property that looks like it could be a home for aliens, or perhaps the Flintstone family. It’s called a Binishell, and it’s created by slathering a neoprene air bladder in wet concrete, then slowly inflating it. The architecture critic Mark Lamster called the structure “peak Los Angeles.” T Magazine
12.
By some estimates, there are hundreds of thousands of feral cats across the city of San Bernardino, a problem that exploded when spay and neuter surgeries were halted during the pandemic. So Ivy Spagis is very busy. The work of her cat rescue group, Cats of San Bernardino, has become a bit of a sensation on TikTok. More than a million people followed the progress of Santana, a sweet boy whose health issues were ultimately more than he could bear. @catsofsanbernardino | San Bernardino Sun
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