I’ve covered California for more than four decades. That’s why I’m taking on Essential California

For more than 40 years, I have reported on some of California’s biggest ruptures, contradictions, characters and conundrums. Now I’ll be working the phones, roving this blessed and sometimes cursed state and arriving most mornings here in your inbox as the regular host of Essential California.

I’ll be trying to help you understand the people, places and events that are changing California, though we know it’s a place that’s always a little beyond our grasp, a place, as John Steinbeck said of “Cannery Row” that “is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.”

I hope that the rest of you essential Californians, expatriate Californians and Californians-in-waiting will respond with inspiration, recriminations and story ideas for me and the rest of our crackerjack crew: fellow reporter Andrew Campa, multiplatform editor Kevinisha Walker and Times newsletters czar Karim Doumar. You can reach us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com

Inspired by Watergate, and the touchdown of the century

Here’s how I got here: Though I was born in New York City, my parents moved us to L.A. when my brother was a toddler, and I was an infant. My sister soon joined us, born in Beverly Hills.

One of my earliest memories was of grabbing the L.A. Times off the front stoop the morning after Bobby Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel, right here in Los Angeles. His sudden, inexplicable death was a 9-year-old’s introduction to the concept of impermanence.

Journalism found me at Santa Monica High School, where you signed up for the school paper, the Samohi, because faculty advisor Larry Knuth was way cool and because Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had just sent President Nixon packing for San Clemente.

At UC Berkeley’s Daily Californian I covered sports, including football, and witnessed the greatest play in college football history, which I write about as often as I possibly can.

I entered the pro newspaper ranks with a tiny daily in Danville, east of Oakland. I wrote about playwright Eugene O’Neill’s historic home and came face to face in a prison interview with Sara Jane Moore, the suburban housewife who tried to gun down President Ford.

More than four decades on, California and its people have remained the center of my reporting world.

From Mayor Bradley to Mayor Bass

I was on the streets the fearful night when L.A. burned, after a Simi Valley jury decided not to hold rogue LAPD officers responsible for the savage beating of motorist Rodney King. I’ve covered every L.A. mayor from Tom Bradley to Karen Bass. I wrote about torment in the state’s youth prisons and heartbreak in the overburdened foster care system.

I rode horseback into the Sierras to watch a biologist reestablish trout in a high mountain lake. I swam along (for a mile or two) with a young doctor who conquered the Catalina Channel. I hung out with nudists, wearing nothing but combat boots, in a remote desert oasis.

On rare occasions, my family became part of the news. It happened joyously, when I wrote about my dad on his 90th birthday, celebrated as a working actor. It happened tragically, when someone beat my older brother to death in his Culver City chiropractic office, a crime that remains unsolved.

The news blasted onto the Rainey family doorstep again in January. The epic Palisades fire incinerated the Malibu home where I grew up. I’d be reporting on the fire recovery anyway. Now it has become extra personal.

The fire reintroduced me to an old friend named Bill Stange. He’s a surfer, fisherman, contractor and a bit of a sage. After Bill’s home burned he said something about Malibu that might apply to California as a whole.

“No matter what, [it] goes back to its wildness,” he said, in part. “It turns out we are all just renters here.”

As I help shepherd Essential California, I am fortunate to remain on the story of this singular place. I hope you’ll spend some time with me, seeking out the serious, the silly and the sublime.

Today’s top stories

Federal immigration agents near MacArthur Park in the Westlake area on Monday.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Heavily armed immigration agents descend on MacArthur Park in L.A.

• The move comes days after President Trump signed a budget that will provide a mass infusion of funds to the Department of Homeland Security to ramp up its immigration enforcement to levels unseen before in the United States.
• Los Angeles has become the poster child of Trump’s mass deportation plan, as more than 1,600 people have been arrested from June 6 to June 22.
• For many Angelenos, the spectacle of armed federal agents — faces hidden behind neck gaiters and balaclavas — jumping out of unmarked vans to snatch people off the streets presents a clear threat to public safety.
• California and a coalition of 17 other states threw their support behind a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of recent federal immigration enforcement raids in L.A.

California colleges are on edge over a lawsuit challenging funds for Latino-serving campuses

• Federal funding for colleges designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions is threatened by a lawsuit brought by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, the same group that successfully sued Harvard to end affirmative action in admissions.
• The suit alleges that the criteria to become an HSI are unconstitutional and discriminatory against other ethnic groups and that all colleges serving low-income students should be allowed to apply for the grants currently available to HSIs “regardless of their ability to hit arbitrary ethnic targets.”

California moves closer to ‘30x30’ conservation goals as threats to public lands loom

• California officials have moved closer to their goal of conserving 30% of lands and coastal waters by the year 2030 as the Trump administration advances directives that could claw back areas that were set aside.
• Since launching the so-called 30x30 initiative, the state has safeguarded 26.1% of its lands and 21.9% of its coastal waters, according to a new report.

What else is going on

• Angry homeowners and a state probe. What went wrong with State Farm’s L.A. fire response?
• Triple-digit temperatures are on deck as a heat wave descends on SoCal, “squashing” the marine layer.
• Who’s No. 1? UCLA and UC Berkeley are staking their claims on social media.
• Dealing with extreme heat is a full-time job for parents of young kids — and their schools.
• After more than 100 years in operation, Cole’s French Dip will close permanently.

Commentary and opinions

• Zohran Mamdani’s remarks about billionaires has the defenders of plutocrats in a tizzy. They should stop whining already, argues columnist Michael Hiltzik.
• Trump’s priorities are clear: Derail medical and scientific research, and invade MacArthur Park, writes columnist Steve Lopez.
• In his latest column, Bill Shaikin asks what a baseball team in Los Angeles would want from a retired artist and designer in New York?
• Forget the doomsday predictions about what President Trump’s cuts might do — his “Big Beautiful Bill” has already notched its first major casualty, suggests contributor Matt K. Lewis.
• Guest contributor Shaun Harper writes about what Congress needs to know about DEI but doesn’t want to hear.

This morning’s must-reads

Climate & Environment

Like Texas, California faces major dangers when extreme floods come

The flood disaster in Texas claimed dozens of lives. Extreme floods also bring dangers in parts of California, although experts say there are differences.

July 7, 2025

Other must-reads

• Two Camp Mystic counselors from Mexico describe managing campers through the Texas floods.
• Protests against gentrification in Mexico City target Americans and gentrification.
• These remote control racers aren’t hobbyists — they’re pros.

For your downtime

Favian Salas serves food to a customer at the El Gato Night Market in Los Angeles.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

• Food: A fan-favorite Latino night market flickers back to life after ICE raids.
• Theme parks: What’s new at SoCal theme parks this summer — from lively night shows to “Jaws” doughnuts.

Staying in

• Comedy: Comedian Nate Jackson — interviewed by The Times’ Nate Jackson — made his name on viral crowd work, but his comedy is built on much more than that.
• Books: Brigitte Knightley’s debut romantasy novel is as irresistible as its title.
• Television: ‘Love Island’s Cierra Ortega exited the villa amid backlash for recently resurfaced racial slur posts.
• Recipes: Here’s a recipe for layered green tea and black sesame cheesecake.
• Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.

A question for you: What’s your favorite California beach?

Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally ... your photo of the day

Muralist Jonas Never paints local businesses lost in the Palisades fire at Gladstone’s on July 2 in Malibu.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Juliana Yamada at Gladstone’s in the Pacific Palisades. Six months after closing due to the Palisades fire, the iconic seafood restaurant finally reopened last weekend.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.