Good morning. It’s Thursday, March 23.
- A tornado rips across Montebello, damaging buildings.
- Delano votes to no longer fly the pride flag at City Hall.
- And charges are dropped against “Rick and Morty” creator.
Statewide
1.
“Craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The same storm system that formed an eye over San Francisco on Tuesday spun up a tornado on Wednesday in Montebello, a suburb 8 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. The twister — 50 yards wide with winds up to 110 mph — damaged a line of commercial buildings, snapped a utility pole, and injured at least one person. It was the second tornado in Southern California in as many days, after a weaker twister touched down in Carpinteria Tuesday evening. Meteorologist Jan Null said tornados are more common in California than you might think, averaging about six a year. Washington Post | L.A. Times
See videos:
2.
Lauren Steely, a water specialist, created an eye-opening map that superimposes the San Joaquin Valley’s vanished Tulare Lake atop the farming region now overwhelmed by flooding, including labels for the communities of Allensworth and Corcoran. Dried up by agricultural diversions over the last century and a half, Tulare Lake is essentially reasserting itself as levees are unable to hold back the surging waters. A local sheriff on Wednesday described the flooding as biblical. @MadreDeZanjas | KSEE
- Drone views of Corcoran, submerged. 👉 @olenhogenson
3.
Other storm developments:
- The death toll from the latest bout of wild weather grew to five on Wednesday, officials said. All occurred in the Bay Area and all resulted from falling trees. L.A. Times | Reuters
- Dramatic videos showed roads littered with fallen trees and power lines in the Santa Cruz Mountains. @mattmillsphoto | @ksbw
- “Do you want me to get on my knees and beg?” Nearly two weeks after a levee break flooded the farmworker town of Pajaro, federal assistance has failed to materialize. A town hall meeting over the response devolved into a shouting match. Mercury News | KSBW
4.
Debates have been intensifying across California over whether to fly the pride flag on public buildings. After Huntington Beach decided last month to stop flying the flag, lawmakers in Kern County’s Delano took the same action this week, arguing that the symbol is divisive. Other cities have pushed in the opposite direction: Sacramento City Unified School District raised a transgender pride flag this week, while Redondo Beach voted to fly a rainbow flag. It was a first for both. Bakersfield Californian | ABC10 | Easy Rider
Northern California
5.
Nearly three years after San Francisco leaders vowed to shrink funding for law enforcement in the wake of the George Floyd protests, the city is now very much funding the police. The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a request from the mayor for an emergency infusion of $25 million to shore up police staffing amid rising concerns over crime. “The public wants and deserves to feel safe in San Francisco, and the reality is they do not,” said Supervisor Catherine Stefani. SF Examiner | SF Standard
6.
A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the former warden of a Bay Area women’s prison to nearly six years in prison for sexually abusing incarcerated women. Ray J. Garcia came under scrutiny after the FBI found photos of nude inmates on his work cellphone. During the trial, he explained that he was simply documenting violations of prison policy. In announcing the sentence, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers scolded Garcia for what she called “ludicrous” lying on the witness stand. L.A. Times | A.P.
7.
Stanford’s law school on Wednesday ordered mandatory free-speech training for all students after protesters shouted down a conservative federal judge at an event earlier this month. Dean Jenny Martinez also announced the suspension of an associate dean, Tirien Steinbach, who abetted the students’ heckling. In a 10-page letter, Martinez said the school could not function on the premise that “speakers, texts, or ideas believed by some to be harmful inflict a new impermissible harm justifying a heckler’s veto.” Bloomberg | Reuters
Southern California
8.
“They deserve it.”
“How can you not support their cause?”
“The struggles that they have are the same struggles that we have.”
With nearly 90% of households in the Los Angeles Unified School District qualifying as economically disadvantaged, few parents appear to be angry with strikers who have shut down the schools. Many see themselves in the same boat. N.Y. Times | LAist
9.
Orange County prosecutors dropped domestic violence charges against Justin Roiland, creator of the animated series “Rick and Morty,” after finding “a lack of sufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.” NBC News revealed in January that Roiland had been charged in 2020 with domestic battery and false imprisonment of a woman he was dating. Later that month, Cartoon Network, which distributes “Rick and Morty,” announced that it had cut ties with Roiland. In a statement, Roiland said that he was “deeply shaken by the horrible lies that were reported about me during this process.” A.P. | NPR
10.
Jim Jenks, the founder of the surf wear brand Ocean Pacific, died at his San Diego home on March 19. Better known as O.P., the company made super-short corduroy shorts with big front pockets the unofficial uniform of Southern California surf or skate culture in the 1970s and 80s. After eight years of wild success, Jenks left the company to sail the world on a yacht before turning his attention toward creating a new surf competition in Huntington Beach. The O.P. Pro, which began in 1982, became the US Open of Surfing, the largest surf competition in the world. Jenks was 84. O.C. Register | WWD
California archive
11.
In 1967, LIFE magazine sent a reporter and photographer to UCLA to spend time with a 19-year-old sophomore named Lew Alcindor. The future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was such a dominant force in college basketball that some worried he would would ruin the game. In the published article, Alcindor described himself as a loner, burdened by constant attention over his height. “The world wasn’t made for people over six foot two,” he said. LIFE.com published a look back at the photo series, which included a trip to the tailor, above.
12.
Long before the 5 Freeway, the main entry into the Los Angeles Basin from north of the Santa Susana range was a 90-foot deep gash in the mountains known as Beale’s Cut. In the 1860s, a surveyor named Edward Beale employed Chinese laborers to deepen the slot with “pick and shovel and the use of powder” then erected a toll station: a man and a horse cost 25 cents to pass; sheep were 4 cents apiece. With mines booming, traffic was heavy. Beale’s Cut became a prototypical Instagram destination, featured in postcards and photos snapped by travelers. Over time, the cut’s celebrity faded with the development of more modern routes. But it still exists today, obscured behind a fence and surrounded by the hum of nearby freeways. California Landmark Foundation | Atlas Obscura
- See a great collection of old photos. 👉 Elsmerecanyon.com
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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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