California deploys rescue teams to help Texas after deadly floods
Chronicle, ANNA BAUMAN: "California is deploying skilled search-and-rescue crews to help with ongoing response efforts in central Texas, where flash floods killed more than 100 people over the Fourth of July weekend, according to officials.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is sending Urban Search and Rescue Team members in coordination with FEMA."
California will not block trans athletes from school sports, defying White House
SacBee, LIA RUSSELL: "California will not ban transgender athletes from competing in K-12 school sports or change its anti-discrimination policies to exclude them, becoming the second state after Maine to defy the Trump administration over the issue.
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon gave California 10 days from June 27 to rescind any sports prizes awarded to trans athletes and ban them after the agency’s Office of Civil Rights said that the state had violated federal anti-discrimination law by allowing transgender girls to compete with cisgender girls."
Federal Agents March Through L.A. Park, Spurring Local Outrage
NY Times, JILL COWAN and MIMI DWYER: "It had been a quiet morning in MacArthur Park, a hub in one of Los Angeles’s most immigrant-heavy neighborhoods. Children at a summer camp were playing outside, but the park was otherwise largely empty.
CalMatters, NIGEL DUARA and JEANNE KUANG: "Carlos was pulled out of a deep sleep by a series of frantic phone calls one Friday morning in June. By the time he arrived at a downtown Los Angeles garment factory sometime after 10 a.m., his brother was in chains.
Agents from a constellation of federal agencies descended on the Ambiance Apparel factory and storefront on June 6, detaining dozens of people. It was the first salvo of the Trump administration’s prolonged engagement in Southern California, where masked federal agents are filmed daily pulling people off the street as part of the largest deportation program in American history."
California, 17 other states challenge ‘suspicionless’ stops by masked ICE agents in L.A.
LA Times, KEVIN RECTOR: "California and a coalition of 17 other states threw their support Monday behind a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of recent federal immigration enforcement raids in Los Angeles, asking a federal court to issue a temporary restraining order against such operations while their legality is challenged.
The states’ action adds substantial heft to a lawsuit filed last week by advocacy groups and detained individuals, who accused the federal government of violating the rights of Los Angeles residents by sending masked immigration agents to detain people in certain L.A. neighborhoods based on little more than the color of their skin."
What Trump’s budget and tax law means for California students
EdSource, BETTY MARQUEZ ROSALES, JOHN FENSTERWALD, VANI SANGANERIA. ZAIDEE STAVELY, LASHERICA THORNTON and DIANA LAMBERT: Hundreds of thousands of California’s low-income children and their families will likely see federally funded food support and health care shrink or vanish in the coming years under the mammoth budget and tax law that President Donald Trump rammed through a divided Congress and signed last week.
“The bill will put young people and families at significant risk,” said Dave Gordon, Sacramento County superintendent of schools. “There’s nothing good about any of that. It’s cruel and it’s mean-spirited.”
What are the very best public colleges? This list says most are in California
Chronicle, JESSICA ROY: "Want a great deal on a college education? According to Money.com, Californians are in the right place to get the most bang for their college tuition buck.
The personal finance website this month published its rankings of the top public universities in America for the 2025-26 school year. Of the 19 schools that merited its top five-star ranking, 14 were in California."
Triple-digit temperatures on deck as heat wave descends on SoCal, ‘squashing’ the marine layer
LA Times, CLARA HARTER: "It’s time to break out the fans and frozen treats as a midweek hot spell is heading to Southern California with temperatures up to 10 degrees above normal expected across the region on Wednesday and Thursday.
The worst of the L.A. County heat is forecast for the San Fernando, Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys, where temperatures are expected to sit in the 90s and potentially push into the triple digits, according to the National Weather Service."
California colleges on edge over suit challenging funds for Latino-serving campuses
LA Times, MICHAEL BURKE: "Each year, most of California’s public colleges and universities are eligible for extra federal funding for a simple reason: They enroll high numbers of Latino students.
The federal government sets aside millions of dollars in grants annually for colleges it classifies as Hispanic-Serving Institutions, a designation earned by having an undergraduate student body that is at least 25% Latino. In total, California universities and community colleges have received more than $600 million in HSI grants since federal funding for the program began in 1995."
Ted Cruz, first in line to politicize tragedy, now wants everyone to stop
Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI: "Former Democratic Minnesota Sen. Al Franken famously captured the feeling in Washington among the co-workers who know Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz best: “I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.” Franken continued during a CNN interview, comparing Cruz to the “toxic guy in the office” who microwaves fish.
Cruz is eminently hateable for many reasons, but his loathsomeness is crystallized by the kind of mean-spirited partisan double-talk he engaged in Monday morning. Cruz was asked at a news conference about the tragic floods in Texas that have killed at least 88 people whether emergency alerts and earlier warnings could have prevented some of the loss."
S.F. tenants caught in legal limbo as their building falls into disrepair: ‘We are stuck’
Chronicle, LAURA WAXMAN: "Kenneth Sullivan moved into the aging, 38-unit apartment building in downtown San Francisco last year because he liked its location.
Sullivan works in Chinatown, which is within walking distance from his home at 618 Bush St. It was this proximity, and the allure of an independent life in the heart of the city, that helped the 60-year-old San Francisco native to reconcile the above-market-rate rent he is charged for his small studio apartment, which is tucked away on the building’s fifth floor and costs him about $2,240 each month."
Obituary: George Steffes, 1935-2025
Capitol Weekly Staff: "Longtime Capitol lobbyist and Reagan aide George Steffes has passed. He died at UCD Med Center after weeks of hospitalization after suffering a fall. He was 90.
Steffes became a fixture around the California Capitol when he joined the administration of newly-elected Gov. Ronald Reagan, first as the governor’s legislative director and later as Reagan’s policy director, a position he held from 1966-1972 before leaving the administration to help form the first multi-partner lobbying firm in Sacramento, Capitol Partners."
Fire that threatened hundreds of Laguna Beach homes possibly sparked by fireworks
LA Times, CLARA HARTER and HANNAH FRY: "Fireworks are the suspected cause of a brush fire that ignited in a hilly area of Laguna Beach on Monday afternoon, prompting evacuation orders for a few hundred homes, officials said.
The Rancho fire started around 2:15 p.m. near Rancho Laguna Road and Morningside Drive, according to the Laguna Beach Fire Department. Fire crews halted forward progress of the blaze at 5 p.m., at which time the fire was estimated to be four to five acres, according to department spokesperson Chip Gilmore."
Earthquake swarms are fueling fear of the ‘big one’ in Japan
LA Times, MAX KIM: "More than 1,300 earthquakes have hit Japan’s Tokara Islands in two weeks, prompting evacuations of dozens of residents from the remote archipelago on the country’s southern tip.
Although no major damage has been reported and no tsunami warnings have been issued, the Japan Meteorological Agency has cautioned that tremors as strong as a “lower 6” on Japan’s seven-stage seismic intensity scale — such as one that occurred Thursday — may continue."
Why nail salons are still being targeted in fights over California gig worker law
CalMatters, JEANNE KUANG: "Like thousands of other Vietnamese-American women in California, Emily Micelli started painting nails to support herself. She turned that weekend job into a two-decade-long career as a manicurist, and now offers her own nail art designs at an upscale Newport Beach salon. This year, she found her livelihood upended by a few words in the state labor code.
Like other workers in the beauty industry, state-licensed nail technicians were granted an exemption from Assembly Bill 5, the sweeping 2019 law targeting the gig economy that required many employers to classify workers as employees rather than independent contractors."
