Good morning. It’s Thursday, Oct. 31.

• Dodger celebrations tip into mayhem in Los Angeles.
• Oakland cafe ousts man for wearing Star of David.
• And a Russian River home with a redwood fairy ring.

Please note: The newsletter will be off Friday. Enjoy your Halloween, and the Sun will be back in your inbox on Monday.

---

Statewide

1.

Election 2024 roundup:

• In a fascinating visualization, the New York Times showed how America is growing more geographically polarized. California has contributed to the trend, the Times wrote, “by exporting Republicans en masse.”
• California expats now make up more than 20% of Nevada’s population. In a state that Donald Trump lost by fewer than 34,000 votes in 2020, the ex-Californian vote could be decisive on Nov. 5, Politico wrote.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s Republican governor from 2003 to 2011, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday, saying Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election was disqualifying. “I want to tune out,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “But I can’t.” Washington Post

---

2.

If the exquisite art and architecture of the Getty Center weren’t enough to lure you, the free museum also happens to offer a glorious view of the city below. “No matter how many times you visit,” art critic Philip Kennicott wrote, “arriving to the Getty Center’s hilltop acropolis in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles is a thrill. The Washington Post named the Getty Center along with three other California institutions in a ranking of “the 20 best art museums in America.”

---

3.

At the moment, there are at least 10 megamansions listed for nine-figure asking prices across California. They include a 74-acre estate on the edge of the Santa Cruz Mountains with its own private reservoir, a hilltop spread in San Juan Capistrano that includes an avocado and agave farm, and a sprawling Bel-Air property with 60 rooms seeking an astronomical $195 million.

Then there’s this little gem: a tiny home near the Russian River that includes a perk in its yard some might call priceless — its own fairy ring of redwoods. Yours for $124,900. Sonoma Magazine

---

Northern California

4.

Having failed to block the renaming of their rural Fresno County town — from Squaw Valley to Yokuts Valley — locals have now embraced a new phase of resistance: vandalism of the new signage. In the weeks since a Yokuts Valley sign went up along the highway in September, it’s been bent, painted, and written over with the town’s former name, which was eliminated at the state and federal levels because the word squaw is considered a Native American slur. Taweah Garcia, a tribal member, had hoped the issue would be put to rest by now. Instead, she said, “It’s getting worse.” Fresno Bee

---

5.

The owner of an Oakland coffee shop ordered a customer to leave because he was wearing a baseball hat emblazoned with the Jewish Star of David, in a confrontation last Saturday that was captured on video. “This is a violent hat and you need to leave,” the owner of the Jerusalem Coffee House, Abdulrahim Harara, told the man. Police said they were investigating it as a possible hate crime. The cafe made headlines previously when it unveiled a juice named “Sweet Sinwar” on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was an architect of the attack. NBC Bay Area | KTVU

---

6.

In the latest sign of San Francisco’s affordability crisis, the city’s planning department has approved a startup’s offering of $700-a-month sleeping pods in a former bank. At Brownstone Shared Housing, tenants sleep in stacked, 4-foot-tall spaces, with a curtain for privacy. Demand is said to be strong among out-of-town transplants hoping to make it big in tech. The median rent for a studio in San Francisco is currently hovering around $2,000 a month, according to Zillow. In Dayton, Ohio, for comparison, it’s $750. KGO

---

7.

At the senior living community Vi at Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley, residents make up-front payments that exceed $1 million on top of monthly fees of up to $13,800. They enjoy meals of porchetta and cheesy polenta, attend lectures at nearby Stanford, and explore their creative side in the art studio. Crucially, the community allows residents to start in an apartment before moving into more nursing-like care. The Wall Street Journal wrote about the wealthy Americans paying millions to age on luxury campuses.

---

8.

A guitarist, a signature-gatherer in tie-dye, a prowling Tyrannosaurus rex.

A 13-second video taken in San Francisco’s Mission Dolores Park earlier this year seemed to encapsulate the vibe that makes many people fall in the love with the city. Nick Tustin, the artist who shot the video, called it “SF in a nutshell.” Reddit

• Another “only in San Francisco” moment: A man was seen slapping cars with a dead raccoon this week. SF Standard

---

Southern California

9.

Dodger fans spilled on the streets of Los Angeles Wednesday night — dancing, waving team flags, and shooting off a storm of fireworks — after the Boys in Blue clinched the franchise’s eighth World Series title. People banged pots and pans on their porches. City Hall and the “D” in the Hollywood sign were illuminated in Dodger blue. And in Little Tokyo, fans gathered at a towering mural of Shohei Ohtani in a celebration of the Japanese sensation that was echoed across the Pacific Ocean in his home country. There were also scenes of mayhem, as looters raided several stores and a Metro bus went up in flames. L.A. Times | Fox 11

• See celebration video:
  • The Las Vegas Sphere paid tribute. @SphereVegas
  • Fans partied in the street. @christinelu
  • Wild fireworks rivaled July 4th. @mariolopezviva
  • Bus flames reached toward the sky. @ShotOn35mm
• A parade is planned for 11 a.m. Friday. See the route. 👉 MLB.com
• Columnist Bill Plaschke: “This was the greatest team in Los Angeles Dodgers history, soaring through the greatest postseason in Dodgers history, cementing the greatest Dodgers dynasty ever.” L.A. Times

---

10.

On Sept. 24, a 15-year-old at Orange County’s Santa Margarita Catholic High School was sexually assaulted by teammates on the varsity football team, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The Orange County Register recounted chilling details:

“The sophomore frantically tried to escape, yelling, ‘No! No!’ ‘Stop! Stop!” as Santa Margarita players took turns sexually assaulting him, ‘touching, grabbing, pulling and twisting’ his genitals while six to eight players held him down, some of his teammates sitting on his shoulders, others holding his legs, players banging on lockers to drown out the sophomore’s cries for help and the other players’ cheering and repeated chants, according to interviews, emails and court filings.”

---

11.

Johanna Turner, a specialist in camera trap photography, studies the individual behavior and travel patterns of wildlife to capture vivid portraits of the cougars, bears, foxes, and other animals in the mountains around Los Angeles. Getting the right shot can take months, she said. But when it works, the results can be breathtaking. “It’s a connection to another, primal world,” she said. My Modern Met featured 12 of Turner’s wildlife photos.

---

12.

On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with Elsa Devienne, whose book “Sand Rush” tells the story of Los Angeles’ artificial beaches. Many people are surprised to hear about the engineering campaign that transformed what was once narrow shoreline into vast expanses of golden, flat beach, Devienne said. People think of beaches as “the one place in L.A. that’s not plastic, that’s not made,” she said. “But no, actually, they are.”

---

I count on word of mouth to grow the California Sun. Please consider sharing it with a friend. Send them here.

---

Thanks for reading!

The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.

Make a one-time contribution to the California Sun.

Give a subscription as a gift.

Get a California Sun T-shirt, phone case, hat, hoodie, or tote.

Forward this email to a friend.

Click here to stop delivery, and here to update your billing information. To change your email address please email me: mike@californiasun.co. (Note: Unsubscribing here does not cancel payments. To do that click here.)

The California Sun, PO Box 6868, Los Osos, CA 93412