Good morning.
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Today’s introduction comes from our Los Angeles bureau chief, Adam Nagourney.
It has long been one of the lesser-known facts about the life of Barack Obama. For all the talk about the former president and his Ivy alma maters — Columbia University and Harvard Law School — he actually spent the first two years of his higher education life, from 1979 to 1981, attending Occidental College in Los Angeles.
For Occidental, or Oxy as it is known, Mr. Obama has long been its little-known claim to fame. That may be about to change for this 2,000-student private liberal arts college founded in 1887.
Occidental is announcing on Wednesday the creation of the Barack Obama Scholars Program, a $40 million endowment intended to cover the $70,000 annual tab of tuition and board for 20 students a year. It will be aimed at providing four-year scholarships to veterans, community college transfers and those who are the first in their family to go to college.
“My years at Occidental College sparked my interest in social and political causes, and filled me with the idea that my voice could make a difference,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. He said he hoped this program would “train the next generation of leaders and active citizens, and fill them with the conviction that they too can change the world.”
Continue reading the main storyThe program has raised $7 million, enough to fund two scholarships, starting next fall. The goal is to create a big enough endowment to fund not only scholarships but post-graduation fellowships for students who head into low-paying fields.
Mr. Obama, who has been doing quite well financially since leaving the White House, has not yet written a check, but the president of Occidental, Jonathan Veitch, said the former president was high on his list of asks.
“I am going all over the world asking people for money,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I ask him?”
“There are not many liberal arts colleges that educate a president,” Mr. Veitch said. “We are very proud of the fact and very proud of him. We thought this would be a great way to honor him and have our students emulate the values he represents.”
° ° °California Online
(Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.)
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• President Trump may set climate policy in Washington, but the nation’s most powerful environmental regulator is in California. [The New York Times]
• “Entitled drivers are getting in the way of California’s climate change efforts.” [Opinion | Los Angeles Times]
• “The California G.O.P.’s last gasp” — a Democratic push to retake the House aims to wipe out some of the last vestiges of Republican power in the state. [CNN]
• San Diego is battling its biggest hepatitis A outbreak in decades and critics say it could have been prevented. [San Diego Union-Tribune]
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• Insects and fungus are killing Los Angeles’s palm trees and the die-off is altering the city’s storied skyline. [Los Angeles Times]
• A Ralphs grocery store told evacuees of a fire in the Santa Ana Mountains, “If you’re hungry, take anything you’d like.” [Orange County Register]
• When can you buy legal weed in California? Don’t hold your breath. [GreenState]
• ”It’s very rare to see mushrooms in this quantity.” The authorities seized nearly 700 pounds of psilocybin mushrooms from a house in Berkeley. [SFGate.com]
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• Tony Bland, an assistant men’s basketball coach at U.S.C., was among 10 people charged in a major bribery investigation. [The New York Times]
• The authorities arrested at least three people — including the left-wing activist Yvette Felarca — during a rally by a politically conservative group at U.C. Berkeley. [Berkeleyside]
• The San Francisco Bay Area economy grew at nearly triple the national rate in 2016. [SFGate.com]
• The editorial head of a socialist website complained that Google is censoring the internet by curbing search traffic to his publication. [The New York Times]
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• “It is easily Hollywood’s hottest start-up.” Dreamscape Immersive is using virtual reality to transport people into cinematic storytelling. [The New York Times]
• Photos: An inside look at the battle over gentrification in Los Angeles’s Boyle Heights. [LA Weekly]
• What $7,000 rents you in San Francisco right now. [Curbed San Francisco]
And Finally ...
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Mastodons, rhinoceroses and saber-toothed cats once roamed Southern California.
We know because of the bones and footprints they left behind in places like Rainbow Basin, in the Calico Mountains just north of Barstow.
Administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the area owes its name to the pink, green, orange and brown sediments that form the basin’s walls.
Over eons, tectonic forces and erosion have lifted the rock and exposed zigzagging strata, made colorful by differing stages of iron oxidation.
It’s a mecca for geologists.
“It’s quite spectacular,” said Robert Hilburn, a Barstow paleontologist. “People come from all over the United States and sometimes all over the world.”
Rainbow Basin was once a lush marshland populated by a unique array of prehistoric animals whose fossils remain scattered across what is now a parched desert.
“Everything that you have on the African savanna today, they had here — except one,” said Mr. Hilburn, who is also vice president of the Mojave River Valley Museum.
Which one? “No man,” he said.
Rainbow Basin is accessible to visitors at the end of a long dirt road. You can walk miles of trails or stay at nearby campsite.
Frank Foster, a photographer based in Victor Valley, shared some images he captured there this year:
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California Today goes live at 6 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com.
The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a third-generation Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Los Osos. Follow him on Twitter.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
An earlier version of the newsletter misidentified where Barack Obama went to law school. It was Harvard, not Yale.
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