Good morning. It’s Thursday, June 27.
- Forest Service orders Rainbow Gatherers to leave forest.
- L.A. names Marilyn Monroe’s home a cultural landmark.
- And a list of California’s finest retro motels.
Statewide
1.
California regulators recalled a vape product contaminated by an insecticide on Tuesday after the product was featured in a news investigation into poisons found in cannabis products. But the state knew about the tainted product, a citrus-flavored vape cartridge made by West Coast Cure, since at least November, when it received lab results that showed the presence of the insecticide chlorfenapyr along with unsafe levels of the growth hormone paclobutrazol and the fungicide trifloxystrobin. The state didn’t respond to questions about what took so long. L.A. Times
2.
A New York Times feature on “22 of the best pizza places in the United States” prompted much garment-rending among readers over places not represented on the list, such as Manhattan and New Haven. The food critics who put it together favored newer pizzerias that have elevated “a seemingly limitless number of cultures and ideas.” On that basis, two California restaurants made the cut: Rose Pizzeria, a thin-crust joint in Berkeley; and Pizzeria Sei in Los Angeles, where one-off pies might include “beef tongue, squash blossoms or yuzu.” N.Y. Times
3.
A turreted mansion in Santa Barbara wine country, a pink palace in San Luis Obispo, and a relic of the Atomic Age in Santa Rosa.
National Geographic gave its picks for five of California’s best retro motels.
Northern California
4.
“We’re not messing around.”
The Forest Service on Wednesday issued an unusual order barring anyone from entering a region of Plumas National Forest where a Rainbow Gathering was expected to draw up to 10,000 people over the first week of July. Several hundred free spirits have already arrived for the gathering, an annual unpermitted event dating back to 1972 that features drumming, dancing, and communing with nature. The Service said it had assigned 34 law enforcement officers to the event. S.F. Chronicle | Action News Now
- See photographer Joth Shakerley’s pictures from the secret world of Rainbow Gatherings. 👉 Creative Boom | JothShakerley.com
5.
San Francisco’s population of young people has plunged since the pandemic, with the number of those under the age of 30 falling 18%, an analysis of Census data between April 2020 and June 2023 showed. Some of the sharpest declines were among white residents between the ages of 25 and 34, a group that shrank by a quarter. The trend was reflected across the Bay Area, as young people dwindled in number while the population of older residents grew. The San Francisco Chronicle created some illuminating graphs.
6.
Earlier this month, skeptical City Council members in Alameda ordered a group of scientists aboard a retired aircraft carrier to halt an experiment designed to slow global warming by brightening clouds. Now other scientists are raising alarms about the solar engineering technique: A study published last week found that it could inadvertently cause heatwaves in Europe. “There is really no solar geoengineering governance right now,” said Jessica Wan, one of the authors. “That is scary. Science and policy need to be developed together.” The Guardian
Southern California
7.
The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to designate Marilyn Monroe’s Los Angeles home as a historic cultural monument, thwarting plans by its billionaire owners to demolish the structure. Monroe bought the Spanish Colonial-style house for $75,000 in 1962 and died there six months later after an apparent overdose. “To lose this piece of history, the only home that Monroe ever owned, would be a devastating blow for historic preservation,” said Traci Park, a City Council member. L.A. Times | City News Service
8.
Over in Palm Springs, Monroe is at the center of another dispute. Lawmakers, businesses, and residents have been fighting for years over whether a kitschy 26-foot-tall statue of the Hollywood icon with her skirt flying up should be allowed to remain in a place of prominence downtown. On Wednesday, the pro-statue faction won a key victory as the city’s planning commission moved to allow the statue to remain in place for good. Desert Sun
- Culture writer Dan Kois went to see the statue for himself. “I feel embarrassed on humanity’s behalf,” he wrote. Slate
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9.
In March 2019, border agents detained a 9-year-old girl and her 14-year-old brother as they were crossing the San Ysidro border from Mexico to California with their mother. The children lived in Tijuana but were born in the U.S. and attended school in San Ysidro. Suspicious of the girl’s passport, agents held her for 34 hours while her mother went into a panic. The family later sued, and on Friday a judge ordered the government to pay the siblings $1 million, finding it liable for false imprisonment and infliction of emotional distress. NBC News
10.
“Wind at 30 knots and climbing.
Chop, steep and shallow.
Sheets of rain erased the sky.”
During the pandemic in October 2020, an Orange County engineer named Jack Johnson decided to build a sailboat. He was 47 and married for only two years. Three years later, he found himself 1,300 miles from land in the middle of the Atlantic with another storm barreling in. Thomas Curwen told the story of how one man decided to switch things up. L.A. Times
11.
Sean Penn got the Maureen Dowd treatment. A few takeaways from her column:
- At Penn’s Malibu beach house, a bathroom displays a justification for his cigarette addiction: the Charles Bukowski quote “Find what you love and let it kill you.”
- He said he couldn’t play the gay icon Harvey Milk today, as he did in the award-winning 2008 film “Milk”: “It’s a time of tremendous overreach. It’s a timid and artless policy toward the human imagination.”
- He is not in a serious relationship and feels “thrilled every day.” “I’m just free,” he said. N.Y. Times
Today I learned
12.
During the warmest months of the year, residents of Death Valley use their hot water taps for cold water.
Summer in Death Valley, a giant bowl where low elevation and low humidity create the world’s hottest temperatures, is no place for humans. On Tuesday, the temperature in the valley’s Badwater Basin bottomed out at 105 degrees. But roughly 600 people live there, working jobs and sending kids to school. In summer, the water pipes get so heated that the water from the cold taps comes out at hot tub temperatures. Residents adjust by turning off their water heaters and using them as reservoirs to cool the water down to room temperature. The lukewarm water that comes from the hot tap is said to be refreshing by comparison. NPS.gov | Business Insider
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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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