All of the must-read news about the Golden State in one place.
Hi, I’m Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times. I survey more than 80 news and social media sites daily, then send you a tightly crafted email with only the most informative and delightful bits.
Each weekday at about 6 a.m., you’ll get an email like this.
Good morning. It’s Friday, April 18.
- Visa cancellations sow fear on California campuses.
- Judge rules against Google in another antitrust case.
- And singer Katy Perry can’t seem to get any respect.
Please note: The newsletter will be off on Monday. Back in your inbox on Tuesday.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that California would sue the Trump administration over its gutting of AmeriCorps, the program created by Congress in 1993 as a domestic version of the Peace Corps. The program’s young volunteers responded to the destructive wildfires in Los Angeles, supporting families and distributing supplies up until this week. “We’ve gone from the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society to a federal government that gives the middle finger to volunteers serving their fellow Americans,” Newsom said. S.F. Chronicle | Politico
2.
The Trump administration’s cancellations of international student visas is sowing panic across California’s university campuses. The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed 10 foreign students at UC Berkeley and Stanford; only one would give her name. “It’s ridiculous,” said a 23-year-old Stanford mechanical engineering student from China. “We shouldn’t have to hide our names. It used to be that we could say anything we wanted in the United States.” S.F. Chronicle
- A UCLA international graduate was taken into ICE custody at the U.S.-Mexico border, the school said late Thursday. The circumstances were murky. L.A. Times
3.
“Nobody knows what a smelt is. I still don’t know what a smelt is.”
— President Trump, Oct. 23, 2018
“Just have the valve go in a little different direction. OK? This one is easy. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t do it.”
— Trump, Feb. 19, 2020
“I released billions of gallons of water going in from upstate California from the most northern parts of California, probably comes in from Canada to a certain extent. Thank you very much, Canada, we appreciate it.”
— Trump, April 8, 2025
The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” curated a collection of Trump’s outlandish remarks about California water through the years. The newspaper asked White House officials why Trump seems to believe specific falsehoods. They didn’t answer.
4.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with El Tímpano’s Erica Hellerstein about her reporting on Pedro Romero Perez, who was wounded and lost a brother in the 2023 mass shootings at two Half Moon Bay farms. Perez has emerged as a voice for change since the shooting, which exposed deplorable worker conditions in the region’s agricultural industry. Hellerstein said it’s been harrowing for him: “He’s very vulnerable as a farmworker and, now, as an immigrant in a new political era.”
Northern California
5.
At any given time, 30% of people jailed in Sacramento County are homeless, an analysis found. The incarceration trend has come as authorities have stepped up enforcement of a camping ban since June 2024. More than 700 homeless people are arrested each month on charges that are often tied to homelessness itself. Critics say it amounts to an inhumane and costly revolving door. Regina Camacho was jailed in February for unlawful camping. “Our lifestyle shouldn’t be illegal,” she said. “None of us want to be out here.” Sacramento Bee
- In Fresno, business owners say an anti-camping law is working. Still, some feel uneasy about it. “Jesus and the stranger, the whole thing … I mean, I believe that stuff, so it’s difficult,” said Ed Noriego, who runs a flooring business. Fresnoland
6.
Criminal defense attorney Frank Carson was the bane of the law enforcement establishment for a quarter century in Stanislaus County, where he cultivated a reputation for “putting my thumb in the eye of the man,” as he put it. Then they accused him of being a murderer in a case that relied on a star witness known to be a meth-using braggart who lied repeatedly. Six years after a jury acquitted Carson, the county on Tuesday agreed to settle a malicious prosecution lawsuit for $22.5 million, one of the largest payouts of its kind in California history. L.A. Times | Modesto Bee
- Revisit the L.A. Times’s 2021 investigation, “The Trials of Frank Carson,” told in three parts. 👉 Part I | Part II | Part III
7.
Plummeting crime in San Francisco has become a problem for at least one business sector in the city: auto glass merchants. For years, the companies maintained brisk sales repairing car windows for victims of rampant smash-and-grab car break-ins. In 2024, reports of such crime fell to a 22-year low, a drop police officials attributed to arrests of key people linked to large numbers of break-ins. In & Out Auto Glass, where customers used to line up in the morning, has now trimmed its business hours while contemplating layoffs. S.F. Chronicle
8.
Google lost its second antitrust case in eight months after a judge ruled on Thursday that the Bay Area company operated a monopoly in online advertising technology. In her judgement, U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said Google “has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts” to consolidate control over the almost $300 million U.S. market for digital ads, ultimately harming consumers. The court loss is the latest in an unprecedented reckoning over the tactics that Big Tech companies used to reach dominance. Wall Street Journal | Washington Post
Southern California
9.
Lyle and Erik Menendez were supposed to get a shot at freedom on Thursday, more than 35 years after the brothers murdered their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion. Instead, the proceeding devolved into rancor as prosecutors said they needed more time to review a “risk assessment” document. “This is stupid,” the judge said at one point, before setting a new hearing for May 9. Lawyers for the Menendez brothers accused District Attorney Nathan Hochman of interference. “His personal bias in this is seething through every action that has been taken,” said attorney Bryan Freedman. N.Y. Times
10.
Two U.S. service members killed this week in a vehicle rollover along the U.S.-Mexico border were identified on Thursday. Lance Cpl. Albert Aguilera, 22, hailed from Riverside, and Lance Cpl. Marcelino Gamino, 28, was from Fresno. Their deaths were the first known fatalities associated with President Trump’s expanded mission at the southern border, which has involved thousands of active-duty troops fanning out from the Pacific Ocean to Texas. S.D. Union-Tribune | L.A. Times
11.
People have been relentlessly mocking the Santa Barbara pop star Katy Perry since her brief trip into space aboard Jeff Bezos’ private spaceflight startup, Blue Origin, on Monday. The Atlantic’s Ellen Cushing called her the “perfect pop star for a dumb stunt.” “She is, in a word, cringe,” Cushing wrote. Even the hamburger chain Wendy’s weighed in. “Can we send her back,” it posted on X. The New York Times explored why Perry has always had trouble getting respect.
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- In 2020, three San Diego friends bought a crumbling 1920s resort in the desert east of the city with dreams of bringing it back to life. The journalist Rosecrans Baldwin recently paid a visit and found that they hadn’t just redone the hotel. They revitalized an entire town. Travel + Leisure
- Ivan Dimov had six DUIs in six years. The California DMV reissued him a driver’s license anyway in 2017. The next year, he T-boned another car, killing a 28-year-old man. CalMatters investigated California’s practice of allowing dangerous drivers to keep operating on our roadways.
- Keith Richardson made the leap from Southern California to southern Italy for his retirement. He decided on the picturesque town of Nardò, where he found the house of his dreams for $111,000 in a neighborhood surrounded by churches and lavishly decorated palazzos. CNN
- As the weather warms, the sound of spring arrives in the form of birdsong. Every place in the U.S. has a unique sound. Using recordings from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Washington Post created a fun interactive that lets you hear the sounds of spring in your area.
- In 1943, a military sentry shot and killed James Wakasa at a Japanese incarceration camp during World War II. Fellow prisoners raised a stone monument in his honor. For decades, it was thought to have been demolished, until a pair of archaeologists found it buried in the dirt. High Country News told the fascinating account of “The Topaz Affair.”
Thanks for reading!
The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
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