{"id":397119,"date":"2026-07-13T22:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T22:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397119\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T22:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T22:33:10","slug":"why-flags-across-california-and-the-bay-area-are-flying-at-half-staff-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397119\/","title":{"rendered":"Why flags across California and the Bay Area are flying at half-staff this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flags around San Francisco and at the California State Capitol will be lowered this week out of respect for Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died Saturday<\/a> of a sudden illness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump on Monday ordered American flags to be flown at half-staff until 6\u00a0p..m. Saturday at the White House and all public buildings, military posts and naval stations around the nation to honor Graham.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 71-year-old longstanding Republican leader from South Carolina was close with Trump, who described Graham as a “member of the family.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“What a terrible loss it is,” Trump said in an interview Sunday morning on CNN<\/a>. “He was a great politician. He was a natural. There are very few of them. He was a natural politician. He got along with everybody.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Under federal law, American flags must be lowered to half-mast for at least two days when a member of Congress dies. The president can order flags lowered for other government figures as well to respect their memory.<\/p>\n

In San Francisco, the flag at Fort Mason was among those being lowered this week for Graham, according to a spokesperson for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is owned by the National Park Service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Fort Mason flag was flown at half-staff last week for three\u00a0wildland firefighters who died<\/a> in June while fighting the Knowles Fire in Colorado, the spokesperson said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Flags were also seen at half-staff at San Francisco City Hall on Monday morning. The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether they were lowered for Graham.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Capitol in Sacramento and other state buildings lowered flags Monday morning in response to the presidential proclamation, per protocol.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Graham died from an aortic dissection<\/a>, or a tear in the main artery that carries blood from the heart, according to a preliminary medical examiner’s finding released by his office. The condition, typically seen in older men and triggered by a blood pressure spike, leads to sudden death in roughly half of patients, medical experts said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California lawmakers reacted with shock<\/a> to Graham’s death on Sunday, describing him as a public servant and a “giant,” who aggressively defended national security and fought for what he believed in.<\/p>\n

South Carolina\u00a0Gov. Henry McMaster said Monday that Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, will replace the Senator<\/a>\u00a0to serve out the remainder of his term ending in January, the Associated Press reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chrissa Olson contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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There’s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25\u00a2.<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally published at Why flags across California and the Bay Area are flying at half-staff this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flags around San Francisco and at the California State Capitol will be lowered this week out of respect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11025,7,9,8,8713,159546,28101,64904,159545,2803,101,53206],"class_list":["post-397119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-american-flags","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-state-capitol","tag-darline-graham-nordone","tag-golden-gate-national-recreation-area","tag-half-staff","tag-lindsay-graham","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-city-hall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}