Good morning. It’s Friday, July 21.
- Kevin McCarthy said to vow to clear Donald Trump’s record.
- Los Angeles man dies after hike in Death Valley.
- And a raucous school board meeting ejects state official.
Statewide
1.
In June, Speaker Kevin McCarthy infuriated Donald Trump when he said the former president may not be the GOP’s best presidential nominee in 2024. To make peace, the Bakersfield Republican made Trump a secret promise, according to a source cited by Politico: He would get the House to expunge the two impeachments against the former president. “And Trump world plans to hold him to his promise.” Politico
- McCarthy denied the report. “I support expungement,” he said, “but there’s no deal out there.” Washington Post
2.
California’s use of grazing goats as a wildfire mitigation strategy relies largely on Peruvian herders dislocated from families back home. They come on temporary H-2A visas reserved for jobs U.S. workers don’t want to do, offering no realistic path to permanent residency or citizenship. Luis Yauri Oyola, on call 24/7, said he sees his family in Peru every three years. Christmas Eve and Christmas are the hardest days, he said: “The only thing that keeps me going is the phone and talking to my children.” Sacramento Bee
3.
A 71-year-old visitor to Death Valley who was featured in a Los Angeles Times story about the park’s intense heat died hours after giving his interview on Tuesday, park officials said. Steve Curry, of Los Angeles, had hiked roughly 2 miles through the Golden Canyon badlands below Zabriskie Point early in the day when he spoke to a reporter. “It’s a dry heat,” he said. He was photographed wearing heavy sunscreen and a sun hat, above. He later collapsed. The afternoon high was 121 degrees. SFGATE | The Guardian
4.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Dr. Margot Kushel, the lead researcher on a sweeping study of homelessness in California. Among its findings: While the crisis is most visible in urban settings, it has engulfed the whole state. “We found homelessness and deep despair in suburban areas, in rural areas,” Kushel said. “We found folks living on parts of the mountainside or along riverbeds. We found people living in their cars going to work everyday. We found families struggling to hide their homelessness.”
Northern California
5.
“Joe Biden has a Cornel West problem.”
Cornel West, the Sacramento-bred academic and civil-rights activist, is running for president on a Green Party ticket. His candidacy is a long shot, but it has evoked painful memories among some Democrats of Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee in 2016 whose vote total in key states exceeded the margin by which Hillary Clinton lost. As if to heighten the feeling of déjà vu, West enlisted Stein to be his campaign manager. The Atlantic
6.
E. coli got in the water system of a small mountain town in Shasta County, sickening several residents and putting everyone else on high alert. The crisis comes at a terrible time for Burney, a town of roughly 3,000 people that relies on summer tourists who arrive to see nearby Burney Falls. As residents struggle to cope without potable water, guests are abandoning reservations and restaurants up and down the town’s main drag have gone dark. “I can’t take this for very much longer,” said Connie Voltura, a restaurant operator. L.A. Times
7.
While on vacation, a Sunnyvale couple got a call from a man claiming to have their dog, which they had left with a sitter. The dog, Norm, had wandered through an open gate and into the street, where the man picked him up. The phone call was initially cordial. Then it took a turn. “Actually, I changed my mind, I’m taking the dog to my house,” he was said to say. “If you want the dog back, you need to Zelle me $1,000.” Matthias Gafni told the bizarre story of a Silicon Valley collie held for ransom. S.F. Chronicle
8.
There’s a little known wilderness about 50 miles north of Tahoe where about a half dozen pristine alpine lakes and as many campgrounds and lodges are tucked into an area the size of San Francisco — all reachable by car. Outdoors writer Tom Stienstra has called the Lakes Basin region the prettiest in the Northern Sierra, including one lake that he includes among the prettiest in the entire state. With lakes and waterways now brimming, it is especially attractive this summer.
A photo tour. 👇
Southern California
9.
The state Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond was ejected on Thursday from a raucous school board meeting in Chino, where he had come to oppose a policy that would require teachers to notify parents if their child identifies as transgender. During public comment, Thurmond warned that the move would put students at risk. School board President Sonja Shaw later cut him off mid-sentence, saying his allotted minute had expired. The room erupted as Shaw then castigated the Democrat: “We’re here because of people like you. You’re in Sacramento proposing things that pervert children.” The parental notification policy was approved. Daily Bulletin | KABC
- Watch the exchange between Shaw and Thurmond. 👉 @JZachreson
10.
The single winning ticket for an estimated $1.08 billion Powerball jackpot was sold from a convenience store on the edge of Los Angeles’ Skid Row, lottery officials said. Reporter Nathan Solis paid a visit: “As word spread across the largely immigrant-run shops in the Fashion District, thrilled that someone in their neighborhood could suddenly be so rich, there was a giddy excitement in the air.” L.A. Times
11.
“Frugal traveler” columnist Elaine Glusac resolved to explore Los Angeles strictly by subway rather than car and found that not only is it surprisingly well connected to popular sites, the trains run frequently. It’s also a steal at $1.75 for a ride, $5 for a day pass, or $18 for a week. “Wherever I went,” she wrote, “I saved money, emissions and incalculable, gridlock-induced stress.” N.Y. Times
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- A courthouse hailed as the grandest Spanish Colonial Revival structure ever built.” A 37-acre wonderland of more than 3,000 types of plants. And a taco stand with dishes inspired by the chef’s Guadalajaran mother. The N.Y. Times travel desk gave Santa Barbara the “36 Hours” treatment.
- Steph Curry, the greatest distance shooter in NBA history, hit a hole-in-one during a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe last Saturday. He took off on a euphoric full sprint down the fairway as the crowd went bonkers. @PGATOUR
- Erik and Lyle Menendez killed their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. That’s not in dispute. But 27 years after their convictions, attorneys want the court to look at new evidence they say supports claims that the brothers faced violent physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their father. L.A. Times
- For more than a week, water has been spilling over Friant Dam in the foothills northeast of Fresno, a first since 2017. GV Wire got permission to capture drone footage. 👉 YouTube (~1:45 mins)
- In 1873, a renovated adobe school building opened as an opera house in downtown Santa Barbara, 10 years before Los Angeles would open its first opera house. Architectural Digest just named the Lobero Theatre among the 11 most beautiful theaters in the world.
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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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