Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Nov. 28.
- Instagram pushes users to sexualized videos of children.
- Asian Americans face stress over college admissions.
- And migrants gather in makeshift camps east of San Diego.
Statewide
1.
As the governors of California and Florida prepare to debate on Fox News this Thursday, reporters took stock of the two states’ handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Significantly more Floridians died on a per capita basis, with 4,044 coronavirus fatalities for every 1 million residents. In California, the figure was 2,560. Crucially however, when the numbers are adjusted for Florida’s older and unhealthier population, California’s death rate was actually worse, a Lancet study found. L.A. Times
- “It would be wrong to dismiss the debate as frivolous.” The face-off between Govs. Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis may be a glimpse of what’s to come. The Economist
2.
A story on Asian Americans in California navigating college admissions included some disturbing details:
- One college consultant explained the benefits of having a mother with breast cancer: “That was her trump card. It was a unique situation that she overcame. To be frank, she got really lucky.”
- Another consultant urged parents to give up their hobbies so they can hover over their children.
- A senior with a 4.41 GPA worried about the liability of her last name, Srikanth. “You actually fill out the application and realize there’s no way colleges won’t figure out what race you are,” she said. L.A. Times
3.
California developments connected to the Middle East crisis:
- Elon Musk visited a kibbutz attacked by Hamas and met with top leaders in Israel on Monday. President Isaac Herzog told the X owner that the platform is “a huge reservoir of hatred” of Jews. Following the visit, Musk wrote, “Trite as it may sound, I wish for world peace.” N.Y. Times | A.P.
- Oakland’s City Council on Monday passed a resolution demanding a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages on both sides. “People are dying,” one councilmember said. A Jewish group criticized lawmakers’ refusal to include a condemnation of Hamas. KQED | KTVU
- The office of a Republican Central Valley congressman was targeted by vandals who plastered the windows with fliers showing pictures of children and the words “murdered by Israel.” Fresno Bee | San Joaquin Valley Sun
4.
Big-wall rock climbers are worried that their sport could be regulated out of Yosemite after federal officials drafted new guidelines that say “fixed anchors constitute a prohibited use” under the Wilderness Act of 1964. Yosemite climbers have relied on bolts drilled into rock faces for decades. Critics say the new rules could allow park superintendents to reverse decades of precedent on the placement of new anchors and the upkeep of established ones. “This is an existential crisis for America’s climbing community,” one climbing advocate said. S.F. Chronicle
5.
A monarch butterfly begins its life as a tiny egg on the underside of a milkweed leaf. It hatches after a few days and begins to feed like crazy, growing as much as 2,000 times bigger in a matter of two weeks. The caterpillar then hangs itself upside down and dissolves into a jade green bag of goo, which is the scientific term for it. Over the next couple weeks, the goo rebuilds itself into organs, antennae, and wings until the completed butterfly is ready to wriggle free. If born in the fall and west of the Rocky Mountains, it will perform another miracle: flying hundreds of miles to winter homes along the California coast. Many thousands have now arrived. See the weighed-down branches at Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz. 👉 @friendsofscstateparks | SF Standard
- Watch a great time-lapse video of a monarch metamorphosis. 👉 YouTube
Northern California
6.
Meta’s Instagram is pushing users who follow young people’s accounts toward sexualized videos of children, tests showed. Salacious content — such as a video of a clothed girl caressing her torso and another of a child pantomiming a sex act — appeared alongside ads for Disney, Walmart, and Hims, which sells erectile-dysfunction drugs. Current and former Meta employees said the company knows about the problem, but has declined to fix it. Wall Street Journal
7.
Douglas Rushkoff on the hubris of Silicon Valley’s billionaire tech bros:
“Contemporary billionaires appear to understand civics and civilians as impediments to their progress, necessary victims of the externalities of their companies’ growth, sad artefacts of the civilisation they will leave behind in their inexorable colonisation of the next dimension. Unlike their forebears, they do not hope to build the biggest house in town, but the biggest underground lair in New Zealand, colony on the moon or Mars or virtual reality server in the cloud.” The Guardian
8.
Beginning in 2020, San Francisco rolled out a series of guaranteed income programs for artists; Black and Pacific Islander mothers; and transgender and nonbinary residents. A conservative group has now sued on constitutional grounds, arguing that the handouts rely on “intentional racial discrimination.” After the Supreme Court’s June ruling that struck down affirmative action in college admissions, supporters of the new litigation believe they are on firm legal ground. S.F. Chronicle | KFF Health News
9.
Hundreds of colorful outdoor murals by artists from all over the world. A brewery-farm with fire pits and live music. And a beautiful historic district on the banks of the Sacramento River lined with wooden sidewalks and 19th-century brick buildings.
Four in-the-know locals shared their favorite spots in Sacramento. Wall Street Journal
Southern California
10.
“Someone’s going to die.”
Migrants are camping by the hundreds at makeshift tent camps along the southern border in the desert east of San Diego. Most of the residents sought asylum after slipping through gaps in the wall and were directed by federal authorities to wait at the camps, which immigrant advocates have taken to calling open-air detention centers. With nighttime temperatures dipping into the 30s, they huddle around fires and rely on the kindness of volunteers for food and water. The Guardian
11.
In Los Angeles, roughly 46,260 people sleep on the streets on any given night. In the Scottish cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, with a combined population about a third that of L.A, the number is typically around 70. That’s because Scotland has had a legal right to housing since 2012. It also has free health care and treatment for mental health and substance abuse. A report by Noah Bierman on Scotland’s approach to homelessness underscored how California’s crisis was not inevitable, but rather an outcome of specific policy choices. L.A. Times
12.
“Hideous.” “Monstrosity.” “Unbelievably horrible.”
The city of Rancho Cucamonga installed a giant bright yellow sculpture of a dog at the entrance to its newest dog park — and some residents don’t love it. The local columnist David Allen went down and gave the 12-foot-tall steel canine a look. “I like it,” he wrote. “It’s cheerful — unlike the haters.” Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
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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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