As California enters its third year of drought, it’s not just water that’s disappearing in the Central Valley, where more than 600 square miles of farmland was laid fallow last year, the Washington Post wrote: “So is a way of life, a core of California economic culture, and a place that provides a nation struggling under the rising rate of inflation with a quarter of its food.”

Even after California’s landmark environmental law, known as CEQA, threatened admissions at UC Berkeley, there is little chance of an overhaul. Supporters say occasional headline-grabbing incidents don’t capture all of the good it accomplishes. In Fresno, for example, CEQA has been used to block polluting warehouses. “I can’t tell you how many times that the only thing standing in the way of a community getting a really terrible project is CEQA,” said David Pettit, an environmental lawyer. “I don’t want that taken away.” L.A. Times

All of a sudden, permanent daylight saving seems like a real possibility after the Senate unanimously approved the change. What would it mean for California? The cartographer Andy Woodruff built a great interactive map that depicts how the timing of sunrises and sunsets would change depending on where one lives.

In the Bay Area, for example, the sun currently never rises after 8 a.m.

With permanent daylight saving time, it would do so about 84 days a year.

The number of sunsets before 6 p.m., meanwhile, would plunge from 111 days a year to 47.

Look up your city. 👉 andywoodruff.com

California’s best highway offers no view of the Pacific.

So argues Julie Brown, a Tahoe reporter who recently drove all of Highway 395 in California, from the Oregon border to the Mojave Desert. The Golden State can can be hard to fathom, she wrote: “But a good way to take it all in is by traversing the eastern edge of the state on one road, two lanes, from blue to red counties, from high deserts to mountain portals, from rural ranching communities to Southern California’s endless metropolises.” SFGATE

More than 500 workers walked off the job on Monday at a Chevron refinery in the Bay Area after contract negotiations collapsed. Union members demanded a “Bay Area bump” in wages of 5%, twice what Chevron was prepared to offer. B.K. White, a union negotiator, said employees risked their health while upper management worked remotely and took big raises. “We have nothing left but to withhold our labor,” he said. “That’s the only thing we’ve got. They own the oil. They own the equipment. It’s their land. But the people are ours.” KQED | East Bay Times

A plan to float up to eight wind power generators off the Santa Barbara coastline has collided with efforts to designate a vast area of ocean as a Chumash marine sanctuary. Supporters of the turbine proposal say it could help kickstart California’s marine renewable energy sector as the state races to wean itself off fossil fuels. Violet Sage Walker, a tribal leader, said more was at stake. “Our histories begin and end on this coastline for time immemorial,” she said. “The developers’ proposal is something new, opportunistic and absurd, yet they keep pushing it.” L.A. Times

When Byungsu Kim appeared for a sentencing hearing in January for poaching more than 3,000 succulent plants from Northern California parks, he claimed ignorance of American laws. If only he had known, the South Korean national said with difficulty after his jaw was injured by another inmate, “I would not have done this stupid wrongdoing.” Ludicrous, prosecutors said. As one of the world’s most notorious succulent thieves, Kim is suspected to have exported up to 120,000 wild plants in 50 trips to the U.S. since 2013. The Guardian

“Even among nerds, Heather was considered pretty nerdy.”

The woman accused of conspiring with her husband to launder more than $4 billion in stolen bitcoins grew up in Tehama, a speck of a town in the Sacramento Valley, where she picked walnuts and was bullied for her lisp. But Heather Morgan harbored big dreams. Forbes told the story of how she traveled the world, tried her hand in the Silicon Valley startup scene, adopted a rap alter-ego, and fell for a man who gave Morgan’s best friend a bad feeling.

The search is on for a motorist who raced a rented Tesla up one of Los Angeles’ steepest streets late Saturday and went airborne over the crest, landing nose-first onto the pavement before crashing into parked cars. The poorly executed stunt on Baxter Street was recorded by a huddle of spectators whose videos later ricocheted across social media. The driver, police said, abandoned the Tesla and fled. CBSLA | L.A. Times

Here’s a short clip. 👉 @Fxhedgers

And a longer video, including the aftermath. 👉 YouTube

“It’s a start.”

Los Angeles officials said Monday that the city would give every public school first grader $50 as part of the largest universal children’s savings program in the U.S. The money will be deposited in Citibank savings accounts for more than 44,000 students, regardless of income or immigration status, but won’t be available for withdrawal until high school graduation. Supporters hope the program will help kick-start a habit of saving for college, which has been shown to dramatically increase likelihood of enrollment. Courthouse News Service

A preschool teacher at a private school in Riverside County was captured on video leading her students in chants denouncing President Biden.

“Who’s our President?” the teacher asked the 4- and 5-year-olds.

“Biden!” they responded in unison.

“What do we want to do with him?”

“We want him out!”

The teacher herself shared the video with parents, apparently unworried about potential backlash. But Christina McFadden, a mother, was mortified. She posted the video online and removed her daughter from the school. ABC7 | KTLA

Frank Sinatra’s glass-walled Bungalow in the San Fernando Valley, a midcentury masterpiece in Bel Air once occupied by Tom Jones, and Bette Davis’ Normandy-style estate along the cliffs of Laguna Beach. Architectural Digest featured five old Hollywood homes now for sale.