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It’s July 3, so my guess is you’re counting down the hours until the holiday weekend. So today, we’ll have a handful of stories that would be worth any time you have to spare between meals and fireworks.
But first, speaking of fireworks, here’s a look from The Times at how the big Macy’s show in New York gets planned, tested and perfected starting a year in advance — in the California desert. (Naturally.)
Frank Shyong, a metro columnist for The Los Angeles Times, wrote about how the ad hoc — and illegal — displays Angelenos see every year actually show residents of a culturally expansive city coming together.
And here are a few roundups of fireworks and other festivities, if you’re looking for more officially sanctioned pyrotechnics, in the Bay Area, the Central Valley, the L.A. area and San Diego.
We’ll be off tomorrow and Friday. Have a happy and safe Fourth of July!
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• The Trump administration said it would drop its efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census following a Supreme Court decision last week. [The New York Times]
• Senator Kamala Harris surged in three polls after a strong debate performance on Thursday. She is still trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr. [The New York Times]
• In a private Facebook group, Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, posted violently sexist memes and used racist language. [ProPublica]
• The news, which comes amid reports of inhumane conditions for migrants at Border Patrol facilities, drew a swift response from the agency’s top officials, who condemned the group. [The New York Times]
• Edward Gallagher, the Navy SEAL chief who was accused of war crimes, was found not guilty of murder following a trial that hinged on a number of shocking turns. [The New York Times]
• A young photographer who grew up in Oakland was 19 when he found out he had half siblings who had been conceived using the same donor’s sperm from the California Cryobank. He set out to find and make pictures of all 32 of them — at least. [The New York Times Magazine]
• In a dozen short years, the Sunset Idea House went from being a minimalist, super-green dream home to a San Francisco nightmare: vacant luxury housing. (Although it wasn’t, as it turned out, uninhabited.) Here’s the house’s strange story. [Mission Local]
• The four brothers who started 7 Leaves, a chain of coffee shops that serve boba and flavored milk teas, didn’t tell their parents about their business until they’d opened five locations. Now, the Nguyens are on track to make 7 Leaves a kind of Vietnamese-American Starbucks. [The Los Angeles Times]
CreditPettit’s Studio, courtesy of The Huntington, San Marino, Calif.
How did Californians in decades past celebrate Independence Day? Here are some images — pulled together with help from William Deverell, director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West — that show some things haven’t changed: There are parades and lots of people at the beach.
CreditCourtesy of The Huntington, San Marino, Calif.
California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.
Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, went to school at U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
