Newsletter: Essential California: Did you care what your neighbor thought about your lawn?

Good morning. It is Wednesday, July 29. Dodger Stadium now has a kosher food stand, which will offer three kinds of kosher hot dogs. The stand will close on Friday nights and Saturdays as Jews celebrate Shabbat. Here's what else is happening in the Golden State:

TOP STORIES

Not-so-fresh air

Four national parks in the state of California have hazy, polluted air, according to a new report. The air is particularly bad in the summer, when millions of visitors come to take in nature’s beauty. “It’s sad that the viewpoint is marred by what we have done with cars and power plants and everything else,” said one visitor to Sequoia and Kings Canyon. Los Angeles Times

First-hand account

When Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo exploded after just passing the sound barrier last October, one of its pilots, Peter Siebold, prepared himself for a 10-mile fall back to earth. “At that point, there was nothing else around him. The cabin was gone. And he was falling through the clouds. He went into the freefall position, spreading his arms and legs.” A second pilot died in the explosion. Los Angeles Times

Santa Cruz killing

The Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz was built to foster a sense of community among low-income artists and their families. That 8-year-old Madyson Middleton would disappear from there was shocking enough, but then police arrested a 15-year-old neighbor whom they believe is responsible for her death. “We're just devastated. These are two of our kids, and one is dead and one has been taken away. And it's horrible,” said one resident. Los Angeles Times

DROUGHT

Social experiment: It’s the new “keeping up with the Joneses.” While ripping out your lawn isn’t the best way to save water, it is the most visible, and the Metropolitan Water District believes that may have been behind the rush to get a turf rebate. Installing new appliances, like a low-flow toilet, would actually have saved more water, but then your neighbors can’t see the toilets in your home. Los Angeles Times

Legal troubles: A small water agency near Tracy is in the spotlight as state water officials begin to take enforcement actions in the ongoing drought. The West Side Irrigation District, a junior water rights holder, is accused of continuing to pump the Old River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta even though it was ordered to stop. An attorney for the agency says the disputed water was actually runoff from fields. San Francisco Chronicle

Water resources: Is the drought enough to make California, and the rest of the United States, finally embrace desalination, despite its costs and impact on the environment? “No matter how long the drought lasts, the time has come to reduce demands on imported water and develop local sources,” said Tim Quinn, the executive director of the Assn. of California Water Agencies. The New Yorker

This is not the end: An MSNBC correspondent visited California and discovered that folks on the East Coast should stop asking if the drought marks the end of the Golden State. “That’s a tempting story for a lot of reasons, but I don’t think it’s right. The most surprising thing is how much slack is left in the system,” he said. Salon

L.A. AT LARGE

Not so fast: The Los Angeles City Council rebuffed its former colleague Tom LaBonge by rolling back his allocation of $600,000 from a discretionary account. The councilman’s successor, David Ryu, who took office July 1, asked that he be given the opportunity to review how the money would be spent. “All I did is what you should always do -- think of the people and put the money where the people are,” LaBonge told the council members during public comment. Los Angeles Times

Urban wildlife: The National Park Service is launching a program to better understand how coyotes live in urban environments. In Los Angeles, that means putting collars on the animals and learning where they roam and how they eat. “You have many more generations of both coyotes as well as people living with coyotes occurring in L.A. And so that could create some different patterns than what we see,” said  Stan Gehrt, a professor of wildlife ecology at Ohio State University. 89.3 KPCC

Architectural landmark: In 1968, architect Harold Williams was tasked with designing the new City Hall in Compton, which had recently transformed from a mostly white community to one that was mostly black. The project took eight years to complete, but Williams said he stuck with it because it was a rare opportunity for an African American architect. Williams died June 21 at 90. Los Angeles Times

Tree falls: Eight children were injured, two critically, Tuesday when a tree in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco area toppled. Some of the children appeared to be waiting for their parents to pick them up from the Kidspace Children's Museum camp. It’s unclear why the tree fell in the first place. Los Angeles Times

New vineyards: In Malibu, 28 permit applications for vineyards will move forward with some restrictions. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors wants winemakers to use water from a municipal water district, install drip irrigation systems and have an approved erosion control plan. Los Angeles Times

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Gun control: The Los Angeles City Council voted to outlaw magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds, but the ordinance drew criticism from both sides of the gun control debate. The National Rifle Assn. is threatening to sue the city for what it sees as an infringement on the 2nd Amendment. Meanwhile, Women Against Gun Violence voiced opposition to a provision that would allow retired police officers to keep larger magazines. Los Angeles Times

COURTS AND CRIMES

Peace and calm: South L.A. has not experienced a gang-related shooting since Saturday. Police say they have not found any evidence to support social media rumors that there would be 100 days of violence in the area in response to a 27-year-old man’s murder. Los Angeles Times

Art theft: A small Auguste Rodin bronze stolen from a Beverly Hills home more than 20 years ago has finally been recovered. The art thieves were never identified, but in 2010 the director of the Comité Rodin spotted “Young Girl With Serpent” at Christie’s in London. That set off the five-year process of determining who took the bronze and who might be its rightful owner. Los Angeles Times

Noise pollution: A Michigan-based charter airline will pay $54,000 for violating Long Beach’s airport noise ordinance, which is one of the strictest in the country. The payment was part of a plea agreement in which Kalitta Charters agreed to plead guilty to 12 misdemeanor charges. Long Beach Press-Telegram

HOUSING

More evictions: There’s been a sharp rise in evictions in San Francisco, and a new law may to blame. A new rule prevents landlords from converting apartments to condos for 10 years if the apartment was vacated due to a buyout. Now that buyouts and evictions are both subject to a condo conversion ban, landlords would rather save their money and just kick out a tenant. San Francisco Chronicle

Boom, bust: This is discouraging: New statistics show the Los Angeles housing market is even more frenzied than it was during the housing bubble that preceded the recession. “Prices are at bubble highs again and the number of sales has surpassed those highs, but the square footage of houses sold is also swelling back to bubble sizes and the number of days a house spends on the market has shrunk dramatically.” Curbed LA

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

California’s future: Writer Joe Mathews believes Salinas is California’s most frustrating city. It faces a host of challenges despite obvious strengths like its location, rich culture and booming agricultural economy. “If this Monterey County town of 155,000 can’t build itself a brighter future, it’s hard to imagine other struggling places doing the same,” he writes. Zocalo Public Square

Live on stage: You can thank a 1916 performance in Beachwood Canyon for Los Angeles’ outdoor amphitheaters, from the Hollywood Bowl to the Greek Theatre. Curbed LA

GOLDEN STATE PERSPECTIVES

An “F” for infrastructure: That’s the assessment by Steven P. Erie, a political science professor at UC San Diego, who tells Patt Morrison that “California voters have nobody to blame but themselves for this fiscal straitjacket that they’ve put public goods and infrastructure into.” Good political leadership is needed to overcome voter skepticism about badly needed infrastructure upgrades and maintenance. Los Angeles Times

Face of justice: Prosecutors are the most powerful officials in the criminal justice system. They decide what cases to bring before grand juries, what punishments to recommend and, with mandatory minimum sentencing laws, what the penalty will be by picking the charges. And in California, where Latinos outnumber Caucasians in the general population, they’re overwhelmingly white, write Debbie Mukamal and David Alan Sklansky of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. Los Angeles Times

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Look for hot and humid conditions. San Diego could see an afternoon thunderstorm, with highs expected to reach 78 degrees. Los Angeles will have low clouds followed by sunshine and a high of 87. Riverside will be sunny and humid, with a high of 98. San Francisco will have plenty of sunshine and 77 degrees.

AND FINALLY

One of the delights of writing Essential California is that readers will often share with us their memories of the state. It could be the beautiful hike they took last weekend or a road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway 40 years ago. If you have a great memory or fun story about the Golden State, please share it with us, and we will occasionally feature those stories in Essential California. Send us an email here and let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Send any other comments, complaints and ideas to Alice Walton or Shelby Grad.