President Trump targets monuments in California // Carlsbad flower fields erupt in color

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, March 18.

President Trump targets monuments in California.
Corporate sponsors pull out of San Francisco Pride.
And Carlsbad flower fields erupt in springtime color.

Statewide

1.

Sen. Adam Schiff, of California, reacted with defiance on Monday after President Trump laid the groundwork to investigate people given legal immunity by former President Biden. “Your threats will not intimidate us,” wrote Schiff, who served on the House committee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol. On Sunday, Trump declared Biden’s pardons of the panel’s members “void,” alleging that he had used an autopen to affix his signature. Another committee member, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, sought to call Trump’s bluff. “Do it,” he wrote. “Or shut up.” L.A. Times | The Hill

2.

Sáttítla protects the Medicine Lake highlands. (Bob Wick/USDA Forest Service)

The Trump administration is planning to eliminate two newly established national monuments in California as part of an effort to free up federal land for resource extraction, reports said. Former President Biden established Chuckwalla National Monument near Joshua Tree and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument near Mount Shasta just before leaving office. Analysts said it remained unclear if Trump has the authority to undo the proclamations. Washington Post

3.

Days after telling lawmakers that the state had borrowed $3.4 billion to cover a shortfall in California’s Medicaid program, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said on Monday that he is seeking approval for another $2.8 billion in funding. Budget figures showed that the biggest contributor to the budget gap is the coverage of undocumented immigrants, which was expanded last year. The rising costs have drawn fierce criticism from the state’s Republicans. L.A. Times | Politico

The Medicaid shortfall featured prominently during the California GOP’s spring convention over the weekend in Sacramento, where it was cited as an example of the ruling party’s misplaced priorities. Politico

4.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has sent prepaid cellphones programmed with his number, commonly known as burners, to roughly 100 business leaders in California since November, his office confirmed on Monday. “If you ever need anything, I’m a phone call away,” the governor wrote in one note included with a phone. It was Newsom’s idea, a spokesperson said. Some of the executives didn’t believe at first that the phones were legitimate. KCRA | Politico

Northern California

5.

Five longtime corporate sponsors dropped out of San Francisco’s 2025 Pride Celebration, leaving event organizers scrambling for another way to raise $300,000. The sponsors — including Comcast, Anheuser-Busch, and Diageo, the parent company of Guinness — cited lack of funds. But Suzanne Ford, Pride’s executive director, suspected other considerations were on their minds. “The tone has changed in this country,” she said. SFGATE | KTVU

6.

In March 2020, Oakland Technical High School went “remote only” in what would become one of the longest lockdowns in the country. Five years later, the New York Times talked to a dozen members of the school’s class of 2021:

“All of them conveyed, in different ways but with deep thoughtfulness and mostly good humor, what might be described as a long hangover of disconnection: a lasting unease communicating with others in person, especially in situations with emotional stakes, where they feel vulnerable or exposed.”

7.

Nisha Acharya, an ophthalmologist and professor at UC San Francisco, was swept up in Trump administration efforts to ban studies of vaccine hesitancy — even though her research had nothing to do with that topic. She had the misfortune to use the word “hesitancy” one time in a summary of her research on the shingles vaccine. For the National Institutes of Health, that appeared to be sufficient to flag Acharya’s work as suspect. Her five-year grant was canceled, effective immediately. “It’s devastating,” Acharya said. Washington Post

8.

A 2-mile stretch of San Francisco’s Great Highway, which hugs the Pacific along the city’s westernmost edge, was permanently closed to traffic on Friday after years of acrimonious debate over its reimagining as a public park. The next morning, visitors arrived to find a mural along the thoroughfare vandalized with spray paint. Phil Ginsburg, a parks official, likened the vandalism to “slashing your own tires to complain about traffic.” On Sunday, more than a dozen volunteers showed up to help restore the artwork, pictured above. KTVU | KGO

Southern California

9.

Forever 21, the Los Angeles retailer that helped popularize fast fashion, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday with plans to close its hundreds of locations across the U.S. At its peak in the early 2000s, Forever 21 had more than 800 stores worldwide and earned billions in revenue. Industry experts attributed the company’s fall to rushed expansion, failure to keep up with trends, and rising competition from cheap online retailers. L.A. Times | Washington Post

10.

A Tesla dealership in Encinitas was vandalized with swastikas and broken windows on Monday after rage over Elon Musk’s role in slashing the federal government turned the electric vehicle company into a target. Multiple vehicles were also spray-painted, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said. Days earlier, the Encinitas dealership had been the site of an anti-Musk protest where demonstrators held up signs that read “No Nazis,” “Save Social Security,” and “Deport Elon.” FOX 5 | CBS 8

“MAGA Teslas?” Tesla is trying to appeal to conservative customers after losing more than half of its value since December. Grist

11.

A jury ordered Starbucks to pay $50 million to a delivery driver who was badly burned by a cup of hot tea at a Los Angeles Starbucks drive-through in February 2020, court records showed. The driver, 30-year-old Michael Garcia, faced multiple skin grafts and permanent disfigurement after an improperly secured drink fell into his lap, his lawyers said. Starbucks said it would appeal. The lawsuit harks back to 1994, when a jury awarded Stella Liebeck $2.9 million after she suffered burns from a McDonald’s coffee. The amount was later reduced to about $500,000. N.Y. Times | L.A. Times

See video of the Starbucks incident. 👉 YouTube

12.

Walking through Carlsbad’s ranunculus fields has been likened to strolling through a Monet painting. The origins of the Flower Fields date to the 1920s, when a horticulturist named Luther Gage began planting the colorful flowers in the buttercup family on a slope overlooking the Pacific. For a century, the seeds of the healthiest specimens have been used to plant subsequent crops, resulting in ranunculuses unlike any in the world, with long stems and spirals of multi-layered petals. They now number some 80 million, arrayed like brushstrokes across more than 50 acres. The public is invited to soak in the beauty of the fields between March and May. S.D. Union-Tribune | L.A. Times

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