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I was a true L.A. snob. Long Beach forced me to open my eyes

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I was a true L.A. snob. Long Beach forced me to open my eyes


Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Saturday, Aug. 17. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:

How Long Beach forced me to leave L.A. snobbery behind

I grew up in the smoggy shadow of Hollywood, which I always felt gave me a bit of unearned cachet.

When the world watched the Oscar afterparties unfold on TV, I just glanced up at the searchlights sweeping the sky in front of L.A.’s most overpriced restaurants and the news choppers circling above the phalanx of limos snaking down Sunset Boulevard. Movie and book backdrops that seemed so exotic to outsiders — “Shampoo,” “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” “Play It as it Lays,” “Double Indemnity,” “Less Than Zero,” “The Big Sleep” — felt like familiar tours through the old neighborhood.

When I got my first job as a reporter in The Times’ suburban Orange County office, my colleagues offered excited suggestions of things to do in my uber-hip West Hollywood neighborhood. The breakfast place where Quentin Tarantino held court. The industrial Thai eatery inhabited by Johnny Depp. The rooftop pool bar used as an “Entourage” backdrop.

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I was too embarrassed to admit my Friday evening plans typically centered on Chinese takeout and a date with Hugh and Barbara on “20/20.”

But it didn’t matter. I felt a bit cooler just because I lived in close proximity to cool people.

Then I moved to the Long Beach area.

Mine was a typical Gen X Southern California migration story: Cheaper housing, shorter commute, “discovering” a place before the hipsters arrived, and in my case, being closer to work friends trying to make it on a journalist’s salary.

At first, I leaned into the Tinseltown snobbery with my L.A. friends. I’ve never seen so many Buicks and Oldsmobiles in my life. Will I ever watch another Wong Kar-wai movie again?

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Learning to love Long Beach

Looking out at downtown Long Beach.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

But few of them ever ventured down the 710 Freeway to visit. And it did not take long for me to find my place here in ways I never could in West Hollywood. I fell in love with the scrappy charm of a city without airs that was never really ready for its close-up.

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The wave-free beach where each view of the ocean must include a cargo ship or an oil well. The rows of vintage bungalows with the chimneys curiously cut off (thanks to the 1933 earthquake). The pickled egg as the city’s favored delicacy and a rickety ocean liner as its top landmark. How one of the most culturally diverse communities anywhere still can’t shake its boring Midwestern roots (Times columnist Jim Murray joked that the city was formed “by a slow leak in Des Moines). The way there were always people dressed down as much as me

Long Beach is the seventh-largest city in California, and its port some years is the biggest in the country. Yet to the outside world, it never could escape second-banana status compared with the glamorous metropolis to the north. Every few years, there was the article declaring Long Beach the next big thing (“A Gleaming New Long Beach Sheds Its Cornfed Iowa Image.” “Once Moribund Long Beach Is Booming.”). But it never lasts. Long Beach remains Long Beach.

During one of its boom periods in the late 1990s, writer Alan Rifkin got the L.A.-L.B. dynamic just right: “L.A. gets the superiority, Long Beach the deaf ear.” Or put another way, he wrote, Los Angeles feels like a place where “anything can happen,” while Long Beach is a place where it probably won’t happen.

Olympics and ‘Long Beach erasure’

 Max Cota and Charlie May reset their lines as the Marjorie C floats toward a lighted up bridge.

Max Cota and Charlie May reset their lines as the Marjorie C nears its dock in the Port of Long Beach.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

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And this brings me to the roars of anger that echoed through the city and beyond Sunday afternoon during the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

France handed off the Games to Los Angeles, which will host in 2028. Cut to the beach, where Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Billie Eilish performed a mini concert. The spot was widely misidentified as being in Venice … 28 miles and about a million vibes away from the actual location … Long Beach.

Residents were not going to let this slight stand. So they took to social media, correcting the record, sending love to the city and letting loose some long-simmering grievances.

“This is Long Beach erasure,” one loyalist fumed.

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An aerial view of the Port of Long Beach at dusk with stacked containers and lighted structures.

An aerial view of the Port of Long Beach at dusk.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

I watched clips of the concert on my phone and felt my own civic pride. I grew up in one of the most filmed places on the planet. But this felt different. This is my chosen home. That beach is where I took my first beach ride after buying my electric bike early in the pandemic and feeling for the first time like things were going to be OK. It was not far from where I perfected my spare rib recipe during a beach barbecue for a friend’s birthday, beginning my love of grilling.

It’s where I stepped out of L.A.’s shadow and became my own person.

And it’s where I had this epiphany: There is much more to life than watching Johnny Depp sample overpriced Pad Thai or eating pancakes a few booths away from Quentin Tarantino.

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The week’s biggest stories

 California state Capitol exterior.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The state Legislature has been busy

Arrests were made in connection to Matthew Perry’s overdose death

Monday’s earthquake was a reminder of California’s vulnerabilities

There’s interesting new polling on Californian voters

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More big stories

Get unlimited access to the Los Angeles Times. Subscribe here.

Column One

Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and longform journalism. Here’s a great piece from this week:

A person stands in a pool filled with storm debris but no water.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Fast, wet and furious: How the North American monsoon floods the California desert. The North American monsoon plays an important role in the climate of the Four Corners states, bringing crucial moisture to areas that would otherwise be dry.

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More great reads

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

For your weekend

Wendy (Shelley Duvall) watches television in the Overlook Lobby in Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining."

Wendy (Shelley Duvall) watches television in the Overlook Lobby in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”

(Lee Unkrich/Warner Bros. Pictures)

Going out

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Staying in

How well did you follow the news this week? Take our quiz.

A collection of photos from this week's news quiz

(Times staff and wire photos)

At the recently wrapped Paris Olympics, the U.S. tied with which other country for the most gold medals at 40 each? Plus nine other questions from our weekly news quiz.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Shelby Grad, deputy managing editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

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Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.





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Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’

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Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’


We are counting down to the California governor’s race. Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, is one of the two biggest names running on the Republican ticket.

In a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News political reporter Josh Haskell, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, “I am the antithesis to California state government because I am going to take a nuclear bomb into that building and absolutely destroy everything that they do to us behind closed doors.”

Although he’s been elected by the voters twice, Bianco says he’s not a politician — which is why he believes his campaign for California governor is resonating, as reflected in the polls.

“President Trump, in one year, from 2025 when he took over, until now, did absolutely nothing to harm California. What’s harming California is 30 years of Democrat one-party rule that have created an environment here that no one can live in anymore. They’ve only been successful here in California because we vote D no matter what. You vote D or die. I mean, that’s it. Charles Manson would be elected in California if he was the only Democrat on the ballot,” Bianco said.

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Bianco isn’t the only conservative Republican running for governor, and according to polling, he’s neck-and-neck with former Fox News host Steve Hilton.

SEE ALSO: CA governor candidate Steve Hilton says ‘everybody supports’ Trump’s immigration policies

Leading in some polls in the wide-open California Governor’s race as the June primary creeps closer is Republican and former Fox News host Steve Hilton.

“Steve has no chance of winning in November. The Democrats know that I’m going to win in November, and so they have to do everything they can to keep me out of that,” Bianco said.

When asked about the affordability crisis in the state, Bianco said, “Almost the entire issue of affordability in California is because of regulation, excessive regulation imposed by government. Every single regulation can be signed away with the governor’s signature.”

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“It is a drug and alcohol addiction problem that, and a mental health problem,” he said about the homelessness crisis. “Every single bit of money that is going to these nonprofits that say ‘homeless,’ zero money. You’re getting absolutely nothing. I can’t tell you that we would end what we see in the homeless situation within a year, but I guarantee you we would never see it again after two years.”

When challenged on that prediction, pointing to how the state doesn’t have the facilities to treat the number of people living on our streets, Bianco responded, “We have been conditioned to believe that buildings take five years to build. It takes 90 days or less to build a house, but in California, it takes three to five years because the government won’t allow it. The regulations that are destroying this state are going to be removed with me as the governor.”

Bianco also said California jails shouldn’t have to play the role of treatment facilities.

Although he says he supports the Trump administration and wants the president’s endorsement, Bianco has been traveling the state — meeting not just with Republicans, but Democrats and independents as well. He says all of our state government officials have failed.

The primary election is June 2.

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No clear front-runner in race for California governor, new poll shows

A new poll shows there’s still no clear front-runner in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.

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PlayOn Sports fined $1.1 million by California watchdog over student data violations

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PlayOn Sports fined .1 million by California watchdog over student data violations


California’s privacy watchdog has ordered PlayOn Sports to pay a $1.10 million fine and change how it handles consumer data after finding the company’s practices violated state law in ways that affected students and schools in the state.

The California Privacy Protection Agency Board issued the decision following a settlement reached by CalPrivacy’s Enforcement Division.

The decision is the first by the board to address privacy violations involving students and California schools.

Schools across the country use PlayOn Sports’ GoFan platform to sell digital tickets to high school sporting events, theater performances, and homecoming and prom dances, with attendees presenting tickets at the door on their mobile phones.

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Schools also use PlayOn Sports’ platforms for other sports-related activities, including attending games, streaming them online, and looking up statistics about teams and players.

In California, about 1,400 schools contract with PlayOn Sports for these services.

[RELATED] X faces possible fines as EU probes Grok nonconsensual, sexualized deepfakes

GoFan is also the official ticketing platform for the California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school sports.

According to the board’s decision, PlayOn Sports used tracking technologies to collect personal information and deliver targeted advertisements to ticketholders and others using its services.

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The company allegedly required Californians to click “agree” to tracking technologies before they could use their tickets or view PlayOn Sports websites, without providing a sufficient opt-out option.

“Students trying to go to prom or a high school football game shouldn’t have to leave their privacy rights at the door,” said Michael Macko, CalPrivacy’s head of enforcement. “You couldn’t attend these events without showing your ticket, and you couldn’t show your ticket without being tracked for advertising. California’s privacy law does not work that way. Businesses must ensure they offer lawful ways for Californians to opt-out, particularly with captive audiences.”

The decision also describes students as a uniquely vulnerable population and warns that targeted advertising systems can subject students to profiling that can follow them for years, expose them to manipulative or harmful content, and develop sensitive inferences about their lives.

Instead of providing its own opt-out method, PlayOn Sports directed students and other users to opt out through the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance, which the decision said violated the company’s responsibility to provide its own way for consumers to opt out. The company also allegedly failed to recognize opt-out preference signals and did not provide Californians with sufficient notice of its privacy practices.

“We are committed to making it as easy as possible for all Californians — from high school students to older adults, and everyone in between — to make the choice of whether they want to be tracked or not,” said Tom Kemp, CalPrivacy’s executive director. “Californians can opt-out with covered businesses, and they can sign up for the newly launched DROP system to request that data brokers delete their personal information.”

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Beyond the $1.10 million fine, the board’s order requires PlayOn Sports to conduct risk assessments, provide disclosures that are easy to read and understand, and implement proper opt-out methods.

The order also requires the company to comply with California’s privacy law prohibiting the selling or sharing of personal information of consumers between 13 and 16 without their affirmative opt-in consent.



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California bill to bar police from taking second job with ICE advances in state Assembly

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California bill to bar police from taking second job with ICE advances in state Assembly


Wednesday, March 4, 2026 4:43AM

CA bill to keep police from moonlighting with ICE advances

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KABC) — A bill that would prevent police officers from moonlighting with federal immigration enforcement agencies, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is advancing through the California State Assembly.

AB 1537 passed the State Assembly’s committee on public safety on Tuesday.

The bill also requires that officers report any offers for secondary employment related to immigration enforcement to their place of work.

Those failing to comply could face decertification as a peace officer in California.

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The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, whose district includes Mar Vista, Ladera Heights, Mid-Wilshire and parts of South Los Angeles.

Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.



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