Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Jan. 31.
- First of two atmospheric rivers swirls into California.
- Tech leader’s drunken tweet causes firestorm in S.F.
- And one of California’s most charming Gold Rush towns.
Statewide
1.
Fisherman relocated their boats to better protected harbors. Volunteers warned people to clear out of homeless camps along rivers. And swift-water rescue crews called in reinforcements.
On Tuesday, California prepared for the arrival of powerful back-to-back storms, the first of which began dumping heavy rain on the North Coast early Wednesday. The second storm was forecast to arrive sometime Sunday, posing a threat of damaging floods in Southern California. The New York Times created a series of elegant maps to track the precipitation and flooding.
- Wild winds, intense rain, swollen rivers. See timelines of weather impacts:
- Active weather warnings. 👉 Weather.gov
2.
A coalition of businesses sued California on Tuesday, seeking to overturn a new state law that forces thousands of companies to publicly disclose their greenhouse-gas emissions. The lawsuit argues that the legislation amounts to compelled speech on a “controversial” issue. It also accuses California of assuming the role of a national emissions regulator. “The days of California setting the standard for the rest of the nation are gone,” said Tom Quaadman, of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. State Sen. Scott Wiener, the bill’s author, called the lawsuit “straight up climate denial.” Wall Street Journal | Politico
3.
A new study on global groundwater depletion found alarming trends in California, where underground basins in the San Joaquin Valley have been plunging by several feet a year. “It’s scary,” said Matthew Rodell, a NASA hydrologist. But the data also revealed a surprising bright spot: the Coachella Valley, where officials have implemented new conservation measures, including transitioning its golf courses to recycled water. Data from one monitoring well showed water levels up more than 40 feet since 2010. S.F. Chronicle
4.
After Volkswagen was caught evading emissions rules in 2015, the carmaker was ordered to pay $800 million for a network of new charging stations across California. The penalty was seen as a golden opportunity to kickstart the state’s electric car push. Roughly $600 million and 1,093 chargers later, studies have found that many charging stations are unusable. During a hearing last week, the California Air Resources Board scolded leaders of the charger maker. Then they voted unanimously to give the company the remaining $200 million. “I want to get the money out,” board member Davina Hurt said. CalMatters | L.A. Times
Northern California
5.
A recent immigrant from Romania. A Columbia University star student and athlete. A Minnesota auto mechanic whose father used to tell him he’d be the first Black president.
During one week in San Francisco last year, 24 people died from drug overdoses. In a powerful piece of reporting, Matthias Gafni profiled those who died based on interviews with the people who cared about them. They weren’t just grim statistics, he wrote, “but men and women with lives as complicated as San Francisco’s crisis.” S.F. Chronicle
6.
In a drunken late-night post to X over the weekend, the technologist and San Francisco political donor Garry Tan listed the names of seven progressive county supervisors, then wrote: “Die slow motherfuckers.” He apologized later, but two supervisors took the threat seriously, filing police reports. Then on Tuesday, some supervisors received threatening mailers at their homes. “Garry Tan is right! I wish a slow and painful death for you and your loved ones” one read. Mission Local | SF Standard
7.
Adrienne LaFrance, executive editor of the Atlantic, wrote a stirring takedown of “techno-authoritarianism” in Silicon Valley:
“Our children are not data sets waiting to be quantified, tracked, and sold. Our intellectual output is not a mere training manual for the AI that will be used to mimic and plagiarize us. Our lives are meant not to be optimized through a screen, but to be lived—in all of our messy, tree-climbing, night-swimming, adventuresome glory. We are all better versions of ourselves when we are not tweeting or clicking ‘Like’ or scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.” The Atlantic
- Mark Zuckerberg, Linda Yaccarino, and other tech leaders will testify before Congress Wednesday. Don’t hold your breath for the outcome, Politico wrote.
8.
Travelers often pause to stretch their legs in Angels Camp on their way to Calaveras Big Trees State Park in the central Sierra. Others wisely stay awhile, soaking up the charms of one of California’s best-preserved Gold Rush towns. A walking tour along the historic main drag points out buildings that once housed Crooked Nose Joe’s Saloon, the old Stickle Theater, and the famed Angels Hotel. It was at the hotel that Mark Twain was said to have heard the tale that inspired his popular work “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” At the county fair each May, a semiserious frog-jumping contest is held in honor of the story. Sierra Nevada Geotourism | L.A. Times
Below, a few photos of Angels Camp and nearby Big Trees.
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Southern California
9.
In May of 2020, San Diego County convened a human relations commission to advance the causes of equality, human rights, and civic harmony. Then things fell apart. The panel spent months squabbling about how to respond after a member called transgenderism “an abomination.” Another tempest erupted when a commissioner said Israel was a “racist, fascist state.” Meetings were engulfed by vitriol and procedural gridlock. One by one, commissioners quit. Estela De Los Rios, who resigned last month, said the atmosphere is now “very toxic.” “I don’t see any hope in remedying that,” she said. S.D. Union-Tribune
10.
Fontana’s Black mayor is cracking down on unlicensed street food vendors, pushing regulations that call for their arrest and the impounding of their equipment. “It’s time to take a stand,” Mayor Acquanetta Warren told a packed City Council meeting. “We’ve tried everything we can to help people get legal. … Now it’s time to grab a couple of hammers.” In a city where most residents are Latino, some activists are portraying the moves as a racist attack. The mayor’s supporters says it’s the backlash that’s racist. L.A. Times
11.
A massive crane hoisted NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour into vertical “liftoff” position late Monday, as the retired orbiter assumed its final role as the star of a new museum in Los Angeles. No other space shuttle is displayed in such a way. Crews now plan to complete the partially built Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center around the Endeavour before it is opened to the public in a couple years. “The scale of it is something that really amazes people,” said Jeffrey N. Rudolph, the museum’s leader. “Everyone who sees it, even those who’ve seen the shuttle before, they say wow.” A.P. | L.A. Times
12.
Sometime in the mid 1990s, Edna Harper decided to prune the bushes in front of her San Diego home — and got a little carried away. Over time, she and her husband carved the shapes of pyramids, a dinosaur, a surfer, a Buddha, an armadillo, a serpent, and dozens of other figures. Harper’s Topiary Garden is now a bonafide sculpture garden, found in travel guides and featured on Google Maps. It draws visits from retirement homes, garden clubs, school buses full of children, and, most importantly, Pedro Duran, the gardener who arrives daily with his clippers. California Through My Lens | Hidden San Diego
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