ICE, ICE BABY - TOO COLD.

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You could be forgiven for thinking that California’s stitching is coming undone: ICE is shackling seamstresses in L.A. while the National Guard stages a shocking show of force in MacArthur Park, sending a chill through the immigrant communities that undergird key sectors of the state’s economy. Also this week, UCLA warns our lengthening heat waves are outrunning climate models, and a $859k median price has house-hunters on strike. If that sounds bleak, there’s fresh Trader Joe’s gossip for your earbuds and 17 days of fried escapism at the State Fair — plus five quick hits to keep your brunch chatter dangerously informed.

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Onward!

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RAIDS RIP THE SEAMS OF CA ECONOMY

The Trump administration’s immigration dragnet recently stormed a Los Angeles garment factory, shackling 14 seamstresses and Jose, whose grieving family has now lost two brothers in a month. The raid is an opening salvo in a mass deportation campaign ostensibly aimed at ‘saving American jobs.’ It’s a pithy campaign slogan, even if the outcome bears little resemblance to reality. Decades of data demonstrate that wages fall, economies contract and classrooms empty after such theatrics. Employers in low-wage industries (think garment manufacturing, meatpacking, agriculture) panic, nativists work themselves into a xenophobic lather, and entire towns freeze as the workforce that quietly feeds and dresses them vanishes overnight. 

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🤫 Everything you should know

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🥵 🔥 🫠 - CALIFORNIA MELTIN’ — UCLA scientists say heat waves are outpacing planetary warming itself: every extra degree now stretches hot spells disproportionately longer. In Southern California that means more multi-week furnace cycles, bone-dry vegetation, and wider wildfire bullseyes, plus crop stress in the Central Valley. Adaptation has to speed up — cooling centers, grid upgrades, fire-wise land management — just as federal cuts shred the climate models and early-warning systems planners rely on. The thermometer is rising, and the clock keeps ticking. — LA Times

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🏠 💰 🙅 - CA HOME SALES PLUMMET — Is California’s housing carnival finally pricing out its audience? Sales are down 37 percent from the 2021 frenzy, yet the median listing still demands an $859,700 cover charge. With 30-year mortgages stuck near 6.7 percent — and insurance, HOA dues, and repair bills ballooning — buyers are increasingly taking a pass, inflating inventory by 19 percent. Analyst Nick Gerli dubs it a “home-buyer strike”; economists call it unsustainable when the median household must sink 62 percent of gross pay into shelter. If California sneezes, expect boomtowns in Nevada and Idaho to catch the rising-cost cold. — Newsweek

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🪖🐴 🚓 - SHOW OF FARCE — Humvees, tactical vehicles, horseback patrols, and 90 National Guard troops turned LA’s immigrant-heavy MacArthur Park into a military photo-op Monday, herding campers indoors, aiming rifles at outreach workers, and evaporating after an hour with no arrests announced. Mayor Karen Bass called it an “armed occupation,” while locals saw a “reality-TV spectacle” that stoked terror, emptied streets, and shredded trust in City Hall’s ability to protect residents. Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino shrugged: “I don’t work for Karen Bass. Better get used to us now, cause this is going to be normal very soon. We will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles.” — Associated Press

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🎙️ 💬 🎧 - ON THE POD: INSIDE TRADER JOE’S PODCAST

Is there anything more quintessentially Californian than Trader Joe’s? Probably, but it’s up there! The plucky grocery store from Pasadena became a nationwide phenomenon on the back of clever sourcing, viral products and high-quality items at achievable prices. But did you know they also have a podcast? You better believe it. Inside Trader Joe’s lifts the tiki curtain on its 579-store empire in this breezy podcast where crew members dish on fearless product experiments, cult-favorite snacks, and why 67,000 Hawaiian-shirted iconoclasts still call it grocery utopia. If you’re addicted to Everything But the Bagel, plug in — insider intel is served twice monthly. — Inside Trader Joe’s

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🎡 🌞 🍗  - HEAT, BEATS, FAIR TREATS

The California State Fair kicks off today in Sacramento — 17 days of fried-everything therapy wrapped in heat and nostalgia. Expect Ludacris tonight, Bret Michaels tomorrow, En Vogue on the 27th, plus pig races, hypnotists, motocross and — because it’s California — Shaq spinning bass drops. Doors fling open weekends at 10 a.m.; sanity closes whenever the fireworks stop. — CA State Fair

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🏃‍♂️ 💨 ✋ FAST FIVE

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1. ☀️ Solar is now California’s top source of electricity. PV Magazine
2. 🧑‍⚖️ California schools buckle under sex abuse payouts. CalMatters
3. 🪵 California explores cleaner uses for forest-thinning waste. SLO Tribune
4. 🧐 Seagull hitches ride on garbage truck from SF to Modesto. SF Gate

👴🏽 SF’s newest dining trend? Old restaurants. SF Chronicle