It's Monday. More migrants are injuring themselves as they try to cross the southern border in California. Plus, an L.A. Rams training complex could help transform urban sprawl. |
 | | Doctors working in hospitals along the border have reported a surge in patients with injuries and deaths that is significant even when an increase in border apprehensions is taken into account.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times |
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In an effort to deter migrants from illegally crossing into the country, the federal government has in recent years been erecting walls that are taller and harder to scale along the border with Mexico. |
That fortification has had big consequences, especially in California: More migrants are having devastating and costly falls. |
My colleague Miriam Jordan was reporting at the border this year when she noticed an unusual number of migrants in wheelchairs, bandages and casts at shelters. Miriam learned that while there was no comprehensive accounting of wall-related injuries and deaths, doctors at U.S. hospitals along the border have noticed a definite increase. |
"Desperate people try to jump over, and they suffer much more severe traumatic injuries to the head," Miriam told me. "The falls also shatter their extremities, because of greater impact from falling farther." |
Problems continue even after they receive treatment. "Many migrants do not receive the follow-up care that they need after being released from the hospital," she said, "and they may never regain the ability to work at physically arduous jobs, which they came to America to do, or lead a normal life." |
During his presidency, Donald J. Trump ordered the construction in California of a 30-foot-tall steel barrier to replace more than 400 miles of fencing that ranged in height from eight to 17 feet. The project was completed in 2019, and since then, the number of patients admitted to the trauma center at U.C. San Diego Health because of falls related to the wall has increased sevenfold. The hospital has recorded 23 deaths from such falls since 2019; there were none in the four previous years. |
"The problem is getting worse and worse," said Dr. Jay Doucet, chief of the trauma unit at U.C. San Diego Health, which is about 15 miles from the Tijuana-San Ysidro border crossing. "The hospital system is taking a big hit," he told Miriam. |
Last year, U.C. San Diego Health converted a postpartum unit into a ward for border-wall casualties. The sheer number has affected care for local people, too; waiting time for spinal procedures at the hospital has risen to nearly two weeks, from three days. |
"This is at our center alone, and we only see severe trauma," said Alexander Tenorio, a neurosurgeon at U.C. San Diego who has operated on migrants with brain injuries. |
"It's an untold, heartbreaking story of unnecessary human suffering," he said. |
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 | | Election offices nationwide have been bombarded with requests for millions of pages of public records relating to voter rolls and internal election operations.Rebecca Noble for The New York Times |
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- Fentanyl-laced letters sent to local election offices in several states, including California, are a public indicator of what some election officials say is a fresh rise in threats to their safety.
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- The Los Angeles Rams' proposal for a San Fernando Valley neighborhood includes plans to create a walkable community with stores, offices and apartments.
- Cal Poly Humboldt is now enforcing a campus policy, written into parking regulations, that prohibits overnight camping in parking lots, effectively kicking out students who were living in their vehicles in order to afford tuition, The Los Angeles Times reports.
- People living near some San Diego beaches are contracting bacterial infections connected to wastewater spills, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
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- The Fresno City Council promised to spend $2.5 million on a downtown commercial kitchen for vendors after a street vendor was killed in 2021, but there is still no money allocated for the kitchen, The Fresno Bee reports.
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- BART and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will receive a majority of $776 million in state and regional subsidies for Bay Area transit — if they take steps to address fare evasion, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
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 | | Two harbor seals swim in Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing.Nathan Frandino/Reuters |
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Today's tip comes from Lin Daniels, who recommends Moss Landing, a community and state beach in Monterey County: |
"You drive there on scenic Highway 1 toward Monterey. The entrance is a road winding down through an estuary, a wetland laden with an abundance of shorebirds. The road is nestled between the dunes and a small bay, where sea otter and seals take up residence year-round. You can rent a kayak there to respectfully paddle with them, or take time to join a captain who will take you on a very small boat through the slough and take in the magic. Mother otters nurse their babies there, and over 100 shore and migrating birds are seen there daily. We always finish our day of nature at its best with a freshly caught meal at the fish shack nestled on its shore. When the sun sets over the Pacific, we leave sated and warm, thankful that we live in California." |
Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We'll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter. |
Are you seeing fall colors in your part of California? Send us your best photos at CAToday@nytimes.com. Please include your full name and the city in which you live. |
 | | Huntington Library in San MarinoTanveer Badal for The New York Times |
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And before you go, some good news |
After nearly eight years of negotiations and painstaking work, the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino has opened the newest addition to its Japanese Garden: a 300-year-old shōya house that once anchored a farming community in Marugame, Japan. |
Donated to the museum by a Los Angeles couple, Akira and Yohko Yokoi, whose family has owned it for centuries, the house tells the story not only of the Yokoi family but of an interesting chapter in Japan's history. |
The house was built around 1700, after the war that united Japan's disparate factions under the Tokugawa shogunate government. The house was constructed for the Yokoi family, and doubled as a community hub for the surrounding farming village (given the family's position in the new government), with humble spaces for farmers to store their crops and more ornate rooms for high-ranking officials. |
The Huntington acquired the house a few years ago with the hope of creating an immersive historical exhibit, and soon began the lengthy process of deconstructing and meticulously rebuilding the house, stone by stone, on the California museum's property. A garden and surrounding plot of traditional Japanese crops were planted to complete the exhibit, which opened to the public in October. |
Thanks for reading. I'll be back tomorrow. — Soumya |
Maia Coleman and Briana Scalia contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com. |
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