72 hours in LA: Immigration sweeps, protests and a historic National Guard deployment
CALMatters, STAFF: "Protesters filling the streets. Helicopters circling overhead. Tear gas smoke drifted in the air. The National Guard deployed in the nation’s second largest city despite the objections of the state’s governor.
After a series of immigration raids across the Los Angeles area, demonstrators gathered in various parts of the city to denounce the arrests. In some cases people threw rocks at authorities. Law enforcement’s response—including tear gas, arrests, and the deployment of troops—transformed the city into a flashpoint over immigration enforcement."
READ MORE -- ‘Donald Trump, you are a coward’: Thousands protest in S.F. as president sends more troops to L.A. -- The Chronicle, ALDO TOLEDO/MICHAEL BARBA/DAVID HERNANDEZ; ‘Wildly underprepared’: National Guard troops seen sleeping on floors in exclusive photos == The Chronicle, MATTHIAS GAFNI; Was it legal for Trump to send the National Guard to LA during protests? --- Sac Bee, SHARON BERNSTEIN
Exclusive: DHS secretary seeks military arrests in Los Angeles in leaked letter
The Chronicle, STAFF: "One day before the Trump administration deployed U.S. Marines to confront protesters in Los Angeles, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to direct the military to detain or arrest “lawbreakers,” a move one expert called “a grave escalation.”
A letter sent Sunday from Noem to Hegseth, obtained by the Chronicle, requested that the Pentagon give “Direction to DoD forces to either detain, just as they would at any federal facility guarded by military, lawbreakers under Title 18 until they can be arrested and processed by federal law enforcement, or arrest them.”"
LAPD pushes to quell unrest downtown as legal battles heat up over Marine activation
LAT, STAFF: "The Pentagon approved the deployment of 700 U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton to Los Angeles with a mission of helping to protect federal agents and buildings. On Monday evening, a military convey was seen traveling from Twentynine Palms toward Los Angeles.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called the deployment a “blatant abuse of power” and said the state would sue to challenge the move. Newsom’s announcement concerning the Marines comes on the heels of a federal lawsuit the state filed Monday morning over the mobilization of the state’s National Guard during the weekend’s immigration protests."
How the federal immigration raids could disrupt California’s economy
LAT, LAURENCE DARMIENTO/SAMANTHA MASUNAGA: "President Trump promised a new “golden age” for America, but it’s been anything but that for Los Angeles, with its dependence on trade and immigrant labor — two backbones of the region’s economy.
First, the president’s tariffs cut deeply into traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and now his push to arrest undocumented immigrants at work sites, which has spurred massive protests after Trump deployed the National Guard, threatens a one-two punch to a region just starting its recovery from January’s firestorms."
How L.A. law enforcement got pulled into the fight over Trump’s immigration crackdown
LAT, LIBOR JANY/JAMES QUEALLY/CONNOR SHEETS: "A phalanx of police officers on horseback surround a person who has been knocked to the ground and repeatedly pummeled with batons.
An Australian TV news reporter winces in pain as she’s shot by a rubber bullet while wrapping up a live broadcast."
CA120: California Republicans definitively choose Trump over Musk
Capitol Weekly, PAUL MITCHELL: "In just 90 minutes last week, the storied bromance between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk imploded in a barrage of X posts, Truth Social rants, and public jabs, shattering their so-called Co-Presidency into a bitter feud.
Unlike the discreet power breakups of yesteryear, this was a table-flipping Real Housewives of DC episode, streamed live for a gawking nation."
California Democrats choose progressive Latina as next state Senate leader
CALMatters, JEANNE KUANG: "Democrats today elected Sen. Monique Limón as the next leader of the California Senate, the first woman of color to hold the position.
A progressive whose major donors are California unions, Limón, from Santa Barbara, is known for pursuing pay transparency legislation, consumer protections such as shielding medical debt from credit reports and efforts to regulate the oil industry. She authored a 2022 law that requires setbacks around new oil and gas wells and steps to protect residents at old wells, and pushed for an unsuccessful 2021 bill to ban oil fracking. Gov. Gavin Newsom later ordered the ban."
Amy O’Gorman Jenkins: Cannabis industry crisis (PODCAST)
Capitol Weekly, STAFF: "Today we welcome Amy O’Gorman Jenkins, the state’s preeminent cannabis lobbyist – so much so that she earned the nickname “Pot Girl” back when Gavin Newsom was still just the Lieutenant Gov. Jenkins was one of the first lobbyists for the state’s once-maligned, now coveted, cannabis industry, first when she worked out of Darius Anderson’s shop, then later at her own firm, Precision Advocacy. She was lead lobbyist for the California Cannabis Industry Association for a decade, but left this year to head up new a new cannabis trade group representing the state’s largest retailers, The California Cannabis Operators Association. Jenkins describes an industry in peril, with legal outlets closing, legal sales dropping, and the state’s cannabis excise tax poised to go up July 1 unless the legislature acts.?
Unions want to chip away at Jerry Brown’s pension law. He has something to say about that
CALMatters, ADAM ASHTON: "California public employee unions think their members are falling behind financially in retirement, and for the first time in recent memory they’re making a serious case to increase their pensions.
They proposed legislation this spring that would allow newly hired police and firefighters to retire two years earlier — at age 55 — and with a more generous pension formula, arguing that the nature of their work exposes them to hazards and takes a toll on their health."
Exclusive: Mayor Lurie unveils plan to eliminate RVs from San Francisco streets
The Chronicle, MAGGIE ANGST: "On a quiet, industrial street in San Francisco’s Hunters Point neighborhood, Marvin Velasquez and Ingrid Lopez had finally found an affordable place to live in the city — inside a travel trailer.
The trailer cost the young couple $4,000, or the equivalent of about three months of rent in Velasquez’s former apartment, which he shared with five people. And parking the trailer on the street is free, making it a relative bargain."
