Palm Springs ♥️ Canadians (and more)

This week in Golden State whiplash: Congress threatens to actually help fix something (housing!), the USDA yanks funding from farmers mid-planting, and Palm Springs panic-flirts with Canada to save its snowbird economy. Escondido builds fireproof homes that insurers don’t hate, Altadena mourns a block brimming with memories, and UC Berkeley explains the internet in under two minutes. Plus: border crackdowns, lead in the LA soil, plummeting San Francisco crime, and a celestial light show on California Street. Scroll on, it’s a ride.

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Let’s do this…

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GOOD HOUSING NEWS FROM DC! WAIT…WHAT?!?

A bipartisan group of members of Congress just reintroduced the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, a bipartisan no-brainer that actually lives up to the hype. It boosts the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit — the country’s best tool for affordable housing — by restoring expired provisions, expanding credit allocations by 50%, and cutting infuriating red tape that has thrown sand into the gears of housing construction. The bill could unlock 1.6 million homes, generate over 2.4 million jobs, and pour $271 billion into local economies. Last Congress, the AHCIA had 273 bipartisan cosponsors in the House and 34 in the Senate, attracting support from the distant poles of the ideological spectrum and everywhere in between. <READ MORE>

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🤫 Everything you should know

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🧑‍🌾  💸 😕  -  NO DOUGH FOR THE GROW — The USDA quietly killed a food program that paid small California farmers to grow crops for food banks — right as planting season hit. Farms planted crops with promised funds that vanished overnight. Food banks, already drowning in demand, now face massive shortfalls. One saw a 150% spike in need. At the same time, state funding is also drying up. So: more hungry families, more bankrupt farms, and an economy that just keeps tightening the screws. —  LA Times

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💡 🏠 🔥  -  BUILT DIFFERENT — After watching a fire roast a demonstration shed built to 1980s code in 45 minutes, KB Home Coastal’s president had a revelation: maybe don’t build with matchsticks in fire zones. Enter Dixon Trails — America’s first fully fire-resilient community — which has since sprouted in Escondido. Swapping flammable fluff for smart, ember-proof design, the homes now act as passive firebreaks. Bonus: insurance companies actually like them! Proof that a few thousand bucks in smarter materials might stop your house from becoming kindling.  —  USA Today

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🌴 ♥️ 🇨🇦  -  PALM SPRINGS WOOS CANADIANS  — Palm Springs is in full damage control mode as President Trump's Canada-bashing tariffs and annexation fantasies send Canadian snowbirds packing. With 300,000 annual visitors from the north contributing $300 million to the local economy, the city is plastering “We Love Canada” signs everywhere, hoping to stop the exodus. But with canceled bookings, home sales, and even ICE detentions at the border, the message may be too little, too late. — The Guardian

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🎧 🔊 🎧 ON THE POD: THE HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA PODCAST

The History of California Podcast, hosted by Jordan Mattox, delivers tight, no-frills stories and expert interviews covering everything from prehistory to present-day California. The narratives are short and dense; the interviews are for history nerds who’ve done the reading. It’s not here to hold your hand—it’s here to talk shop. Preferably after you've cracked the book. History of California Podcast

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🔥 🏚️ 😢  - THE GHOSTS OF ALTADENA

In a hauntingly intimate photo essay, The New York Times Magazine walks readers down a single fire-ravaged block in Altadena. But the focus isn’t the scorched earth — it’s the decades of memories that once made Wapello Street a rare kind of home, now reduced to ash. It’s not just what burned — it’s what can never be rebuilt. - NY Times Magazine

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🌐 🧠 📽️ - IT’S A SERIES OF TUBES!!!

UC Berkeley produces charming (and informative!) videos called “101 in 101,” which endeavor to explain a complicated topic in 101 seconds by engaging some of the world’s foremost experts in the field. In this week’s installment, Professor Nicole Starosielski explains how the world is held together by a series of undersea cables that transmit 99% of the world’s internet data. Check out her 101 installment (and all the others) on YouTube: 101 in 101

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🏃‍♂️ 💨 ✋ FAST FIVE

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1. Immigration enforcement activities come to LA elementary schools  - EdSource
2. Crime is plummeting in San Francisco, leaving similar cities in the dust - SF Chronicle
3. “Californiahenge” draws crowds to witness celestial event - The Weather Channel
4. It will take 30 years for Los Angeles to have its own water supply - LA Public Press
5. Elevated lead levels found in soil downwind of Eaton Fire - LA County

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