Westboro Baptist Church drowned out in Fresno // The boy who caught Freddie Freeman’s grand slam

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Oct. 29.

Westboro Baptist Church is drowned out in Fresno.
The mysterious life of Los Angeles’ “Ketamine Queen.”
And the boy who caught Freddie Freeman’s grand slam.

Statewide

1.

Law enforcement destroyed plants at an illegal cannabis operation in the Mojave Desert on March 29. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

The California Department of Justice recently sent a news release lauding its seizures of about 750,000 cannabis plants this year. But sheriffs of counties overrun by illegal pot can’t help but roll their eyes. Siskiyou County alone produces as much as 16 million illegal plants a year, or 20 times the amount of the Justice Department’s haul. Matthew Kendall is the sheriff in Mendocino County, where the 35-square-mile Round Valley has roughly 1 million illegal plants. “The black market,” he said, “is as big and bad as ever.” L.A. Times

2.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday touted the results of a yearlong $267 million crackdown on retail theft that led to more than 10,000 arrests. The announcement was seen, at least in part, as a rejoinder to those pushing the tough-on-crime ballot measure Proposition 36, which appears almost certain to pass. “I just hope people take the time to understand what they’re supporting,” Newsom said. Sacramento Bee | Mercury News

Keenly aware of the public mood, Democrats in tight House races are backing Proposition 36. L.A. Times

3.

Ella Emhoff attended a fashion show in Brooklyn on Sept. 9. (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Tory Burch)

A few facts about Ella Emhoff, 25, Vice President Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter:

She’s a fixture of the New York fashion world, having walked runways for designers including Prabal Gurung, Balenciaga and Miu Miu. Some who encounter her are surprised to learn about her connection to the vice president.
Some conservative figures called her “weird” after she appeared at the Democratic National Convention sporting tattoos and a camouflage baseball hat. She brushed it off, according to people who know her.
She runs a knitting Substack that costs $7 a month.

The New York Times profiled America’s potential first daughter.

Northern California

4.

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church, the anti-gay group from Kansas known for protesting soldier funerals, showed up outside at a high school in Fresno on Monday. They apparently targeted the school for protest because it hosts an LGBT support group. Tipped off, more than 100 counterprotesters were waiting. Wielding rainbow-colored umbrellas, they blocked the church members’ “God hates you” signs and drowned out their voices with chants of “Love wins.” Fresno Bee | GV Wire

5.

Over seven years, caregivers bilked an elderly San Francisco woman out of more than $4 million, according to a trustee’s investigation. Broke, 91-year-old Geraldine Clark was moved into a government-funded nursing home where she died in 2023. The trustee, Heather Yarbrough, presented meticulous evidence of what she believed was brazen theft to San Francisco’s police. They answered in August: the case was “declined.” Yarbrough was stunned. “I had no idea they would do absolutely nothing about a crime of this magnitude against an elderly person here,” she said. S.F. Chronicle

6.

A little over a year ago, an Australian tourist got confused and drove on the wrong side of a highway in the Santa Cruz Mountains, killing an elderly couple in a head-on car crash. Last Friday, Luke Nardini, 32, was sentenced to 60 days in jail after pleading no contest to vehicular manslaughter. San Mateo District Attorney Steve Wagstaff said it was a horrible tragedy. But he added: “Mr. Nardini clearly had no intent to harm anyone.” S.F. Chronicle | KRON

7.

Phil Lesh, center, and the boys in 1966. (Herb Greene/UC Santa Cruz)

Fans made pilgrimages to 710 Ashbury Street in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood over the weekend following the news that Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh had died. That’s the home where band members stayed in the 1960s, playing no small part in turning the neighborhood into a center of the counterculture. The New York Times published a multimedia piece on what it described as a “séance,” filled with music and dancing.

8.

A Barry Goldwater supporter at the Republican National Convention. (Arthur Tress)

Before he came to prominence for his surrealist photography in the 1970s, Arthur Tress captured a series of documentary-style pictures of San Francisco during a visit in the summer of 1964. It was a pivotal time. The Beats were colonizing North Beach; young men were starting to burn their draft cards; and a bitterly divided Republican National Convention in Daly City named a bellicose conservative as its standard-bearer. Viewing Tress’s photos 60 years later, the mood of an anxious country trying to figure itself out feels familiar. See 22 of the images at the New York Times, and more of Tress’s work on his Instagram feed.

Southern California

9.

Jasveen Sangha posed on Instagram in 2022. (via @jasveen_s)

Jasveen Sangha, the woman accused of selling the ketamine that killed Matthew Perry, liked to flaunt her glamorous life on Instagram. Pictures showed her at a five-star hotel in Japan, sitting poolside in Mexico, rubbing shoulders with Charlie Sheen and DJ Khaled. But Sangha, a product of Calabasas High School and UC Irvine, lived in an unglamorous apartment building in an unremarkable part of Los Angeles. When authorities raided it, they found 79 vials of ketamine and three pounds of orange pills containing meth. The New York Times investigated the mysterious life of the “Ketamine Queen.”

10.

Jay Johnston, an actor known for his work in “Arrested Development” and the animated sitcom “Bob’s Burgers,” was sentenced on Monday to one year in prison for participating in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Video showed Johnston, 55, helping rioters push against a police line during one of the day’s most violent clashes. In their sentencing memo, prosecutors noted that Johnston dressed up as the “QAnon Shaman” during a Halloween party two years after the siege. He thinks his crime is “a joke,” they wrote. A.P. | Deadline

11.

Zachary held up the ball from Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam on Friday. (Nico Ruderman)

Last Friday, a 10-year-old boy named Zachary was pulled from school early on Friday to go to a dentist appointment. Or so his parents told him. Instead, they revealed tickets to Game 1 of the World Series. For Zachary, who had worn Dodgers gear to school, that would have been thrilling enough. Then he caught one of the greatest home runs in World Series history, Freddie Freeman’s game-winning grand slam in the bottom of the 10th inning. “He was just crying,” said his father, Nico Ruderman. “The tears streaming down his eyes and a big smile on his face.” NBC Los Angeles

12.

At the Legend tower in downtown San Diego, homes come with views overlooking the Padres’ stadium, Petco Park. Randy and Sylvia Moyers paid $998,500 for their three-bedroom home in 2007 on the outer perimeter of left field in 2007. On game day, they can feel the roar of the fans. “It’s a great lifestyle,” Randy said. The Wall Street Journal wrote about the latest in-demand view for homeowners: baseball stadiums.

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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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