Good morning. It’s Friday, March 14.
- How Joe Biden demanded Kamala Harris’ loyalty.
- Tariff threat rattles California’s wine industry.
- And tourists face detention at San Diego border.
Please note: The newsletter will be off Monday. Back in your inbox on Tuesday.
Statewide
1.
During the 2024 campaign, as both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris sought to portray themselves as change agents, President Biden said publicly that Harris should do what she must to win. But privately, he delivered another message, repeatedly telling his vice president there could be “no daylight” between them, according a forthcoming book by the journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. The loyalty reminder came during a phone call to Harris on the day of her Sept. 10 debate with Trump. “No daylight, kid,” Biden told her. The Hill
2.
California lawmakers demanded answers a day after the Newsom administration revealed that the state’s Medicaid program needs to borrow $3.4 billion. Republican leaders blamed the budget shortfall on the state’s expansion of coverage last year to all unauthorized immigrants, a cohort whose healthcare has been estimated to cost $9.5 billion. “It’s time for this madness to stop,” Assemblymember Carl DeMaio said on Thursday. “It’s time for us to protect citizens rather than prioritizing illegal immigrants at their expense.” Politico | L.A. Times
3.
As a storm unleashed wild weather across California on Thursday, a brilliant rainbow arched across America’s prettiest bridge in the San Francisco Bay. The photographer Stuart Berman captured the moment, above.
Other dispatches from the storm:
- A rare tornado ripped across roughly a mile of Pico Rivera, in Los Angeles County, uprooting trees and damaging several homes. L.A. Times | KTLA
- UC Berkeley’s snow laboratory in the Sierra Nevada recorded 27 inches of snow in 24 hours, making it the largest single-day accumulation there in two years. More snow was expected on Friday. S.F. Chronicle
- California’s favorite bald eagle mother, Jackie, heroically shielded her three eaglets against snow and whipping wind atop a pine tree in Big Bear. Video showed the family almost totally buried in snow. @Accuweather
4.
The Los Angeles Times fleshed out the story of how the Army Corps of Engineers came to dump irrigation water from two San Joaquin Valley reservoirs at the Trump administration’s behest — despite knowing it was foolish. The decision “made no sense,” Denise England, a Tulare County official who manages flood control, told the Times. “We were just scratching our heads. ‘What is happening here?’”
- “I invaded Los Angeles.” Trump on Thursday added an embellishment to his made-up narrative about turning on water in California. YouTube
5.
California and more than a dozen other states sued President Trump on Thursday to block his plan to effectively dismantle the U.S. Education Department by slashing its workforce in half. “What’s so troubling here is that the reduction in force is so severe and so extreme that it incapacitates the department from performing statutory functions,” said state Attorney General Rob Bonta. “Only Congress can make such drastic changes. Not the agency. Not the president.” CalMatters | Bloomberg
Northern California
6.
President Trump’s threat to impose 200% tariffs on European wines rattled California’s wine industry on Thursday. Domestic brands should benefit if their wines look like a better deal, said Zach Pelka, of Une Femme Wines, a Bay Area sparkling wine. But the tariffs would hurt the ecosystem of distributors, retailers, and restaurateurs that rely on European wines. “If they’re adversely affected, pain will be felt throughout the entire industry,” said Remi Cohen, of Napa’s Domaine Carneros. S.F. Chronicle | Wall Street Journal | N.Y. Times
7.
After two trees were badly damaged by storms along the sidewalk in front of Debra and Carlos Pinzon-Hamilton’s home in San Francisco, they thought it would be nice to replant them. Friends told them to just do it, without seeking approvals. But the self-described “rule-followers” wanted to do it right. So they hired an arborist, researched tree replacements, and contacted the city about permits. Nearly four years of bureaucratic hell followed. “I give up,” Debra wrote to the city last month. Then the S.F. Chronicle got involved.
8.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with journalist Chris Roberts, who wrote recently about human radiation experiments at San Francisco’s Hunters Point Naval Shipyard between 1946 and 1963. His report chronicled how military scientists pushed ethical boundaries in studies that included having soldiers crawl through radioactive dirt. Roberts noted the imperatives of the Cold War. “With the specter of nuclear war, in people digging shelters in their backyards and things like this, there was a real necessity to learn what we could,” he said.
Southern California
9.
Troy Edgar, a former mayor of Los Alamitos who was recently sworn in as deputy secretary of Homeland Security, became a center of focus Thursday in the Trump administration’s effort to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder who led student protests at Columbia University. During an exchange on NPR, Edgar grew flustered as host Michel Martin pressed him to say what law Khalil had broken. “You can see it on TV,” he said. Martin asked if protesting constitutes “a deportable offense.” Edgar didn’t answer. NPR
10.
Several foreign travelers trying to enter San Diego through the San Ysidro Port of Entry have found themselves locked in detention centers in cases that have drawn outrage in their home countries. Jasmine Mooney, a 35-year-old Canadian actress, said agents put her in handcuffs and chains after she sought a visa on March 3. She said guards told her, “‘You’re Canadian. How are you here?'” Jessica Brösche, a 29-year-old German, was told she would be detained for “a couple days.” Instead, she was held for 46. “Just the sheer fact of not knowing what’s going on drove her insane,” said Nikita Lofving, a friend. N.Y. Times | KGTV
11.
A home with a giant overhead shark tank was just listed in the Coachella Valley. The extravagance of the Palm Desert residence, nestled on a flattened ridge above the valley, is reflected in the asking price: $59 million. It looks like a sculpture, with swooping roofs, asymmetrical walls, and three almond-shaped swimming pools. A glass-walled office is carved into a boulder. Then there’s the aquarium: a massive saltwater environment that forms the walls and ceiling of a hallway. The Wall Street Journal has the pictures.
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- In 2005, a director launched a quarter of a million bouncy balls down a San Francisco street for a Sony television ad. The short film was a sensation. Some wondered if computer-generated imagery was involved. But every ball was real. SFGATE revisited San Francisco’s most unforgettable television ad.
- See the making of the ad. 👉 YouTube
- During the pandemic, San Francisco’s population of 20-somethings fell by more than a fifth. Distressingly, the number of young people has only dwindled more since then. In interviews, they complained about street crime, lackluster nightlife, and exorbitant rents. S.F. Chronicle
- Silvertop, a home perched on a Los Angeles hillside, is considered one of the architect John Lautner’s modernist masterpieces. But it was never properly finished. Now the home has undergone a renovation that aimed to realize Lautner’s vision. The architect on the project gave a tour. YouTube (~7 mins)
- People who returned to the ashen remains of their homes in L.A., in many cases, found that nothing remained. Others recovered objects as mundane as a can of cat food that came to hold meaning for them. The New York Times published a photo project on those objects and what they mean to their owners.
- Katherine Kiefer, 82, feared her beloved cat Aggie was dead after the Palisades wildfire destroyed her home. Then, after two months, Kiefer got a call from the a local shelter. Aggie was found in the ruins — alive, if badly injured. A TikTok video showing their reunion drew more than a million likes. FOX 11 Los Angeles
Thanks for reading!
The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
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