Good morning. It’s Monday, Feb. 3.
- Protest against deportations shuts down L.A. freeway.
- Report questions if wildfire preparations were enough.
- And NBA is dumbstruck as Luka Doncic becomes a Laker.
Statewide
1.
Throngs of demonstrators spilled onto the streets of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose, and other cities on Sunday to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. In L.A., protesters blocked the 101 Freeway for hours as they waved Mexican flags and signs with messages such as “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” “Nobody is illegal,” and “MAGA — Mexicans always get across.” Reporters said the demonstration was largely peaceful. The police reported no arrests. L.A. Times | KTLA
- Organizers planned to hold a “Day Without Immigrants” protest on Monday to demonstrate the role immigrants play in the economy. A number of Bay Area businesses said they would close. S.F. Chronicle
2.
Advocates promised a host of benefits from marijuana legalization — and no real drawbacks. That’s proved to be a fantasy, a pair of researchers wrote in the Atlantic. According to the authors:
- In 2000, 2.5 million Americans reported daily or near-daily cannabis use. By 2022, the figure had grown to 17.7 million, surpassing the 14.7 million who reported using alcohol that often.
- In the 1980s and 90s, when marijuana was less potent, a typical consumer ingested roughly 32 milligrams of THC a week. Today, daily users are taking in more than 2,000 milligrams a week. That’s 70 times as much.
- “Most notably, evidence is mounting that frequent use of high-strength products raises the risk of serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.”
3.
As a parade of atmospheric rivers swirled toward California, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Friday directing water officials to “maximize diversions” of stormwater into the state’s reservoirs. This would create “a literal rainy day fund” in preparation for a drier future, he said. But a coalition of environmental groups vehemently denounced the move, saying it threatens vulnerable fish species even as reservoir levels are already high. Newsom appeared to be taking a page from President Trump’s playbook, spurning careful planning in favor of “piecemeal executive orders,” the coalition wrote. L.A. Times | KTVU
4.
“I’ve been doing this 18 years and have never seen something like this.”
— Aaron Fukuda, general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District
“It’s never been done like this before. It doesn’t make sense.”
— Tom Barcellos, president of the Lower Tule River Irrigation District
“This is going to hurt farmers.”
— Dan Vink, Tulare County water manager
Democratic lawmakers reacted with outrage after the Trump administration began dumping water from two federally operated reservoirs into San Joaquin Valley farmlands on Friday, which he implausibly portrayed as a response to fire danger nearly 200 miles away. But so did local water managers in the heavily Republican region. They said the water is held in those reservoirs for an important reason: to supply farms during the dry months of summer. The released water would not be useful for farming or firefighting, wrote water expert Peter Gleick. “It is now lost.” SJV Water | L.A. Times | S.F. Chronicle
Northern California
5.
Law enforcement officials are investigating six deaths linked to associates of an eccentric computer programmer who was born Jack Amadeus LaSota before adopting the name Ziz and feminine pronouns. The “Zizians,” as they’re known, are a group of devout vegans who splintered away from an intellectual movement called rationalism in Berkeley. Anna Salamon, who leads the Center for Applied Rationality, described LaSota’s converts as “smart, mostly autistic-ish transwomen who were extremely vulnerable and isolated.” S.F. Chronicle
6.
Pebble Beach’s iconic Lone Cypress is often called the world’s most photographed tree, a symbol of resilience clinging to a rocky pedestal along the Monterey Peninsula. What many tourists may not notice, however, are the steel cables keeping the tree in place. Estimated to be as many as 250 years old, the Lone Cypress would have slipped in the sea long ago without the supports, SFGATE wrote. It “should be allowed to die.”
7.
San Francisco charges $6,000 to add a bench in Golden Gate Park in memory of a loved one. Chris Duderstadt, a 77-year-old retired machinist, has built, painted, and placed more than 200 benches around the city — for free. He began the unusual hobby in 1977 after making a bench for a friend’s veterinary clinic. After that, he said, “It just exploded.” His favorite placements are along the city’s many steep walkways. “If you’re going to hike up that hill, you need a place to rest,” he said. Mission Local
8.
Spring may seem a ways off, but an unusual California flower is already heralding the beginning of the blooms. The Fetid adder’s-tongue, native to moist redwood forests from Santa Cruz up to the Oregon coast, unfurls between January and March. Why “fetid”? They smell like unwashed gym socks. But they are beauties to behold, wrote Alison S. Pollack in Bay Nature:
“Imagine that Dr. Seuss sketched a flower — how would he stylize it? Clownishly large green leaves with purple polka dots: check. Deep purple-brown stripes running down the length of the bloom: check.”
Southern California
9.
A roundup of wildfire developments:
- Los Angeles had plenty of warning that a “truly historic event” was due in four days. Yet there was no all-hands news conference by public officials, and Mayor Karen Bass left the country. The New York Times did a deep dive on whether Los Angeles did enough to prepare.
- Federal wildland firefighters are notoriously underpaid. After battling blazes in Los Angeles County, they received offers to resign from their jobs, like most of the country’s federal workers. “It was a slap in the face,” one firefighter said. Washington Post
- Alex Ross wrote about hidden histories lost in the fires: “News coverage can’t prepare you for the stupefying endlessness of the destruction, nor for the metallic stench that seeps in through closed windows.” New Yorker
10.
Eric Reinhart, a social scientist, accused the Los Angeles Times of twisting a opinion piece he wrote for the newspaper to turn his criticism of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into a quasi-endorsement. Reinhart said he suspected the meddling of Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, an ardent Kennedy supporter. Soon-Shiong shared Reinhart’s piece on social media with the headline, “Trump’s healthcare disruption could pay off — if he pushes real reform.” Reinhart’s true feelings on Kennedy: he’s a man with an “egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence” who would oversee “mass death,” he wrote. Politico | The New Republic
11.
“The NBA is a wild place, man.”
— Kevin Durant
“I can’t remember in my NBA life a trade this shocking.”
— Greg Anthony
“Last night the Dallas Mavericks made … the most damaging, indefensible trade I’ve ever seen.”
— Michael Pina, sportswriter
The NBA world was dumbstruck late Saturday by the news that the Mavericks’ 25-year-old superstar Luka Doncic, one of the five best players in the league, had been traded to the Lakers for Anthony Davis, who is a great player but 31 years old and going out of his prime. Searching for parallels, Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke recalled when the Lakers acquired Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from the Milwaukee Bucks in 1975. Saturday night was even more shocking, he wrote. L.A. Times
12.
Compton’s own Kendrick Lamar took two home two major awards at the 67th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday. “Not Like Us,” his one-off diss track aimed at Canadian rapper Drake, was named record and song of the year. It also won best rap performance, best rap song, and best music video before the televised ceremony. “We gonna dedicate this one to the city,” Lamar said during his acceptance speech, giving a special shout-out to Altadena and the Palisades. Lamar is scheduled to follow up his win with a performance during the Super Bowl halftime show this weekend. Rolling Stone | L.A. Times
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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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