Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Nov. 16.
- Analysts now say a Karen Bass victory is “all but certain.”
- Elon Musk demands workers commit to “hardcore” Twitter.
- And an essay on the ingeniousness of Marilyn Monroe.
Statewide
1.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy won the Republican nomination to become the next speaker of the House on Tuesday, putting the Bakersfield lawmaker a step closer to fulfilling a long-held ambition. But a right-wing challenger, Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, drew dozens of votes, signaling the bitter fight that could await McCarthy as leader of an unruly majority. It also showed that just a handful of conservatives could prevent McCarthy from reaching the 218 votes he will need to secure the post in a poll of the entire House in January, a scenario that could throw the chamber into chaos. N.Y. Times | Wall Street Journal
217 to 208: Republicans are now only one seat from taking the House. 👉 Politico
2.
Other election developments:
- Democrat Malia Cohen won the race for California controller, defeating Lanhee Chen, who was seen as the best shot at ending the Republicans’ 16-year shutout from statewide office. Cohen will be the state’s first Black controller. A.P.
- Alex Villanueva, the Los Angeles County sheriff who faced criticism for investigating political foes and trying to intimidate the press, was soundly defeated after just one term. Robert Luna, his challenger, is a little-known retired police chief from Long Beach. City News Service | A.P.
- Rep. Karen Bass extended her lead over Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayoral race for the fifth straight updated vote total. Most election observers believe Bass is now “all but certain” to win, wrote reporter James Rainey. L.A. Times
- How your neighborhood voted. 👉 L.A. Times
- Rex Richardson declared victory in the race for Long Beach mayor over fellow city councilmember Suzie Price, who conceded defeat. Richardson will become the city’s first Black mayor. Long Beach Post
3.
California has vastly more storage space for water below the ground than above it — as much as 1.3 billion acre-feet in all. State and local officials are now moving more aggressively to fill up these aquifers by converting unused fields into hundreds of massive ponds that capture rainfall in wet years, allowing it to seep underground rather than rush to the sea. Reuters profiled a so-called recharge system near Huron in the San Joaquin Valley, where drought is crippling towns and farms.
● ●
Desalination. Recycling. Lawn removal. Here’s a great explainer on California’s plans to boost the water supply. 👉 CalMatters
4.
“Capitola? More like CRAY-ola,” a dad surely once joked.
The whimsical bungalows of Capitola along Monterey Bay have been traced to the boosterism of Canadian oil baron Henry Allen Rispin, who aimed to turn what was then a fishing settlement into a second Venice in the 1920s. Rispin ended up divorced and destitute. But his bungalows endured, recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as California’s first seaside resort. They are now privately owned but commonly rented out to vacationers. California Through My Lens
Northern California
5.
Too $hort and E-40 shared a byline in the Atlantic on Tuesday. The Bay Area rap legends called for an intervention in hip-hop after the deaths of Nipsey Hussle, Pop Smoke, King Von, PnB Rock, Young Dolph, and Takeoff. Social media, they said, was partly to blame:
“Rappers are trying too hard to flex online to the detriment of their safety. These dudes are getting money at a faster rate than we ever did. We’ve been to the strip club when a rapper was sitting with walls of money — like, walls: Each stack was three feet tall.” The Atlantic
6.
After halving Twitter’s workforce, Elon Musk directed his team to comb through the company’s Slack channel and identify insubordinate employees, who were subsequently fired. Some employees who shared tweets of a colleague’s firing on Slack were also then fired themselves. At the same time, Musk has sought to lift morale among staff. On Monday, he sent a message: “exceptional performance” will be rewarded with “exceptional amounts of stock.” N.Y. Times
Musk issued an ultimatum to employees early Wednesday: Commit to a new “hardcore” Twitter or leave. Washington Post
7.
Fodors, the widely read travel guide, issued a “No List” for 2023, identifying places that are under stress and should be avoided by tourists. The second entry on the list: Lake Tahoe.
“Lake Tahoe has a people problem. Amid the pandemic and the great migration, there was an influx of people moving to the mountains, as well as people with second homes in the area coming to live in Tahoe permanently. And it’s caused traffic along the lake to crawl, as well as kept trails and beaches packed.” Fodors
8.
A decade ago, a prison official at San Quentin found some boxes containing thousands of negatives and showed them to Nigel Poor, a college professor who had been teaching a photography course at the prison. “My heart just exploded,” she later told a magazine writer. The images, taken by corrections officers, offer a prosaic look at life inside the notorious prison from the 1940s to the 1980s. In the years since the discovery, Poor has curated selections of the most compelling pictures — from the the banal to the brutal. The Atlantic | Marshall Project
See a selection below, and take a deeper dive at Poor’s website.
Southern California
9.
Prosecutors announced Tuesday that two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies would not face criminal charges for the 2020 shooting of Dijon Kizzee, whose death in South Los Angeles set off days of protest. Video captured the encounter as deputies tried to stop Kizzee, 29, for riding a bike on the wrong side of the road. When he ran, a struggle ensued and the deputies fired 16 shots, killing him. Though not visible in the video, prosecutors said Kizzee was holding a gun and that the deputies acted in self-defense. L.A. Times | A.P.
10.
On Oct. 3, 2021, a popular vegan food truck called Rollin Roots in San Diego went up in flames, a loss owner Avonte Hartsfield characterized as a hate crime. As local news outlets covered the story, more than $102,000 rolled into a fundraiser set up by Hartsfield, who is Black and gay. More than a year later, the authorities on Tuesday charged Hartsfield with arson and insurance fraud in connection with the blaze. He pleaded not guilty. S.D. Union-Tribune
11.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom could have avoided Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault trial in Los Angeles, Anita Chabria wrote in a column celebrating her bravery.
“The trial would have gone on without her, and she could have remained a quiet footnote in this Greek tragedy of hubris and corrupted power. Instead, she chose not only to face Weinstein but to face us all.” L.A. Times
12.
In an excellent essay, the author Sophie Lewis reflected on how mass appreciation of Marilyn Monroe has been late in arriving. The scholar Sarah Churchwell coined a widespread phenomenon she calls “trashing Marilyn.” It shares an assertion with Marilyn worship — that whatever the actress accomplished she did by accident: “We insistently, defensively, self-deceptively proclaim that she does not matter, that she is minor, worthless,” even “in the teeth of inescapable evidence of her persistent, sustained, astronomical value to our culture.” Harper’s Magazine
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