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Good morning. It’s Thursday, Nov. 17.
- Karen Bass will become the first woman to lead L.A.
- California faces a $25 billion deficit next year.
- And a motorist plows into L.A. County sheriff’s cadets.
Statewide
1.
An Associated Press projection left no doubt: Rep. Karen Bass will become the first woman to lead Los Angeles in its 241-year history. Bass prevailed in her bid for mayor despite being vastly outspent by her challenger, Rick Caruso, who poured upwards of $100 million into his campaign. Her margin of victory over the former Republican in a very blue city was narrower than expected: The latest vote totals put her lead at just six percentage points. On Wednesday, Bass made a big promise: “We are going to solve homelessness.” L.A. Times | A.P.
2.
Other election odds and ends:
- Eight days after election day, Republicans won the 218th seat needed to control the House in northern L.A. County, where Republican Rep. Mike Garcia defeated Democratic challenger Christy Smith. Also decided Wednesday: Democrat Rep. Mike Levin held onto his tightly contested district in Orange and San Diego counties. L.A. Times | S.D. Union-Tribune
- As Rep. Kevin McCarthy exulted in the Republican majority, critics from the right vowed to block his path to the speakership. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick summed up the Bakersfield lawmaker’s situation with a quip Democrats would appreciate: “Everybody’s a Joe Manchin.” Politico
- Matt Mahan, a rookie city councilman, clinched the mayor’s office in San Jose, California’s third-largest city, defeating Cindy Chavez, the choice of labor. Mahan vowed to shake up City Hall. Mercury News | KQED
3.
California is facing a $25 billion deficit next year on the weakest revenue year since the Great Recession, according to new estimates by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. Not long ago, state lawmakers were spending freely — handing out stimulus checks and free preschool for 4-year-olds — thanks to back-to-back historic budget surpluses. California’s tax collections are notorious for their volatility, rising and plummeting on the fortunes of wealthy residents. Sacramento Bee | A.P.
4.
State regulators on Wednesday unveiled a plan to push the world’s fourth-largest economy to carbon neutrality by 2045, one of the most ambitious timelines in the nation. The blueprint envisions a 35-fold increase in zero-emission vehicles, a quadrupling of output from wind and solar energy, and a halt to construction of gas-burning power plants. Danny Cullenward, a climate economist, was skeptical. California isn’t on target to meet current emissions targets, he said, much less tougher ones. CalMatters | Washington Post
Northern California
5.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has made it forcefully known that he expects municipal leaders to set bold targets for reducing homelessness. So he was dumbfounded by Sacramento’s goal: to keep the unsheltered population from rising by more than 71% between 2020 and 2024. “I thought it was a typo,” said Newsom, who cited the number while announcing his decision to freeze homeless funding to local governments. But the figures in Sacramento and other cities were distorted by the massive rise in homeless during the pandemic. Sacramento Bee
6.
In 2019, a group of California prison officials traveled to Norway to see its famed humanistic approach to incarceration up close. Among the group was the warden of Salinas Valley State Prison, which houses some of the most violent offenders in the state. Three years later, the prison has embraced the idea that the loss of freedom should not also mean a loss of dignity. That’s included addressing prisoners by their names rather than numbers. CBS Bay Area | San Quentin News
7.
When the cryptocurrency exchange company FTX soared financially, one of its highest profile boosters was Steph Curry. “I’m not an expert, and I don’t need to be,” the Warriors star said in an ad. “With FTX I have everything I need to buy, sell, and trade crypto safely.” Now, after FTX’s implosion erased billions of dollars in client funds, Curry and other crypto promoters have been listed in a lawsuit filed by an investor on behalf of “thousands, if not millions” of customers. SFist | SFGATE
8.
San Francisco on Wednesday announced the start of a new guaranteed income program for transgender residents, said to be the first of its kind in the U.S. Some 55 transgender people will get $1,200 a month for a year and a half, no strings attached. Two other guaranteed income programs in the city are targeted toward artists and Black and Pacific Islander mothers. Critics have questioned the eligibility criteria in such initiatives. West Hollywood, fearing a lawsuit, dropped the sexual orientation requirement from its guaranteed income program in May. SF Standard | KGO
9.
California’s coastal redwoods array themselves in circles so commonly there’s a folk term for the phenomenon: fairy rings. The term is thought to have originated from European myths about elfin creatures who dance in circles under moonlight and leave behind rings of mushrooms and other vegetation.
The pattern among redwoods is a byproduct of their reproductive strategy. When an old-growth specimen falls or is logged, clones sprout up from its roots. With time, the stump returns to the soil and a circle of new redwoods remains. With still more time, the trees grow so large they nearly touch, as if joining arms. Save the Redwoods | Open Space Trust
Below, a few fairy rings across Northern California.
Southern California
10.
The driver of an SUV veered into opposing lanes and struck a group of about 75 Los Angeles County sheriff’s academy recruits who were jogging in formation in South Whittier early Wednesday, leaving 25 cadets hurt, five of them critically. In a news conference, Sheriff Alex Villanueva called it a “horrific accident” with injuries that included head trauma, broken bones, and “loss of limb.” One person is on a ventilator, he added. The driver was identified only as a 22-year-old man who was on his way to work. A field sobriety check was negative. L.A. Times | Riverside Press-Enterprise
11.
George Gascón, the progressive district attorney of Los Angeles County, became an unlikely hero of election truthers in early October when his office announced the arrest of Eugene Yu, the leader of an elections technology company in Michigan. Gascón accused Yu of improperly storing data about Los Angeles County poll workers on servers in China. But weeks later, Gascón quietly dropped the case. A deep dive by the L.A. Times hinted that he had been played.
12.
When Toyota celebrated its status as the world’s top car manufacturer after 9.5 million sales in 2020, Hot Wheels was already well past the 500 million mark. Little cars are big business, and the Southern California brand introduced in 1968 now has a multigenerational following. “We call ourselves the largest auto manufacturer out there,” said Ted Wu, Mattel’s vice president of design for Hot Wheels. “Over 16 Hot Wheels cars are sold every second and I think the key to our success is variety and freshness.” Financial Times
Correction
An earlier version of this newsletter provided a misleading account of how redwood fairy rings arise. While some redwoods in fairy rings can grow from seeds, genetic studies have shown that approximately nine in 10 are clones of a parent tree.
Thanks for reading!
The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
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