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California Today

California Today: Bay Area Athletes Clash With Trump

Athletes connected to Bay Area teams have taken center stage in a clash with the Trump administration. From left: Bruce Maxwell of the Oakland Athletics, Colin Kaepernick, a former San Francisco 49er, and Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors.Credit...From left: Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images; Denis Poroy/Associated Press; Andrew Burton for The New York Times

Good morning.

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California’s centers of power in politics, culture and business have been among the most forceful critics of the Trump administration.

Now add professional sports.

In an abrupt series of events over the weekend, President Trump lashed out over the national anthem protests spearheaded by Colin Kaepernick, a former San Francisco 49er, calling them grounds for firing.

Mr. Trump then rescinded a White House invitation to the Golden State Warriors after Stephen Curry said publicly that he didn’t want to attend, a break from the tradition of championship teams.

The Warriors organization swiftly closed ranks around Mr. Curry.

“The truth is we all struggled with the idea of spending time with a man who has offended us with his words and actions time and again,” Coach Steve Kerr told Sports Illustrated.

Sports franchises across California — the Chargers, Rams, Lakers and others — issued statements of support for athletes’ right to expression.

Last year, Mr. Kaepernick, then a quarterback for the 49ers, started kneeling during the national anthem to highlight racial injustice, setting off a debate over whether it dishonors the flag.

He left the team this season and has been out of work since. Many believe he’s being shunned by the league.

At the Oakland Coliseum on Saturday, Bruce Maxwell, a catcher for the Athletics, became the first Major League Baseball player to kneel during the anthem.

He said in a statement that he loved his country but wanted to elevate “people that don’t have a voice.”

Harry Edwards, a sports sociologist and professor emeritus at U.C. Berkeley, said he was unsurprised that the Bay Area is figuring prominently in the sports world’s clash with Mr. Trump.

A fierce critic of the president, Dr. Edwards said the region’s diversity fostered “creativity and innovation and a heart and mind for struggle.”

“The reality is that California is a microcosmic, computer-charged model of America,” he said. “Everybody came here from somewhere else and we have to make this work.”

On Sunday, N.F.L. players across the country responded to Mr. Trump’s remarks with displays of protest.

The Oakland Raiders, which has the league’s only all-black starting offensive line, took the field about 10 miles from the White House for a game against the Washington Redskins.

The entire unit, along with most of their other teammates, knelt or sat during the national anthem.

(Please note: We regularly highlight articles on sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.)

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Milo Yiannopoulos addressed a group of supporters on U.C. Berkeley’s Sproul plaza on Sunday.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

• The “Free Speech Week” event at Berkeley turned instead into a 25-minute appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, who spoke briefly and posed for selfies. The security bill? $800,000. [Berkeleyside]

• “Words can be like rape — they can destroy you.” U.C. Berkeley professors wrestled with the question of limiting free speech on campus. [The New York Times]

• The University of California is handing out generous pensions as students pay higher tuitions. A former U.C. president receives a $357,000 pension after working just seven years. [Los Angeles Times]

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A section of the fence separating Tijuana and San Diego.Credit...Gregory Bull/Associated Press

• An examination of the 2000-mile U.S.-Mexico border found that President Trump’s wall proposal could require the seizure of thousands of parcels of private land. [USA Today]

• “Living in a liquefaction zone” — Here are some of the Bay Area neighborhoods at most risk in the event of an earthquake. [SFGate.com]

• For decades, it’s been part of the California fourth grade curriculum to build replicas of Spanish missions, an assignment critics saw as offensive. Now, educators are being advised to scrap it. [Los Angeles Daily News]

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Hattie Stretz, second from left, a survivor of the Seal Beach hair salon shooting in 2011, delivered a statement to Scott Dekraai in court in Santa Ana on Friday.Credit...Mark Rightmire/The Orange County Register, via Associated Press

• Orange County’s worst mass killer, Scott Dekraai, was sentenced to life without parole for the murders of eight people at a hair salon in 2011. [Orange County Register]

Edgar H. Smith Jr. died in a Vacaville prison hospital at 83. He killed a New Jersey girl, duped the conservative commentator William F. Buckley into supporting his release, then stabbed a woman in San Diego. [The New York Times]

• As Uber looks to the future of its business under a new C.E.O., the company is investing heavily in food delivery. [The New York Times]

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James Damore was fired by Google last month after suggesting that there may be biological reasons for gender gaps in tech jobs.Credit...Jason Henry for The New York Times

• Those leading Silicon Valley’s gender equality push said they were astonished that just as the movement was having an impact, it opened up an even more radical men’s rights movement. [The New York Times]

• Photos and video: A spy satellite was launched Saturday night on the Central Coast. [Los Angeles Daily News]

The Kern County Fair is being held all week in Bakersfield. It boasts the largest livestock show in California.

• The Los Angeles Philharmonic holds the opening night of its new season at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Tuesday. Our critic has raved about the orchestra.

A memorial ceremony for fallen firefighters will be held Saturday in Sacramento. More than 1,300 California firefighters have died in the line of duty since 1850.

San Francisco Fleet Week kicks off Sunday. The highlight is a three-day air show featuring the Blue Angels.

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A rendering of Augustynolophus morrisi, California’s state dinosaur.Credit...Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

California isn’t known for dinosaurs.

That’s because it was mostly underwater when the giant creatures roamed the earth.

But there is at least one that we can call our own: a 30-feet long, duck-billed vegetarian called Augustynolophus morrisi (Auggie, for short).

Only two specimens have ever been discovered — both of them in California.

This year, a lawmaker proposed making Augustynolophus California’s official state dinosaur. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the measure into law on Saturday.

Luis M. Chiappe, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said the Augustynolophus displayed some complex social behaviors.

They likely traveled in small herds, he said. And they tended their hatchlings in nests, bringing them food until old enough to venture out on their own.

The two California dinosaurs probably died near the shore, floated out to sea and sank into the sediment.

Over a span of at least 66 million years, tectonic forces pushed their bones to the surface in the hills along the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley, where scientists first discovered them in 1939.

The skeletons are now on display at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

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.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.

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