Good morning. It’s Thursday, Feb. 22.
- State lawmakers push income-based utility bills.
- The ridiculously expensive cost of skiing in Tahoe.
- And China plans to send giant pandas to San Diego Zoo.
Statewide
1.
As California lawmakers orchestrated an ambitious transition to clean energy over the last decade, utility bills shot up as much as 127%. “My constituents are pissed off,” Democratic state Assemblymember Marc Berman said recently. “I know because they told me over and over again at every community coffee that I had in the fall and in the winter. Their rates keep going up.” A group of lawmakers is now pushing a plan to quell voter anger: making utility bills like the state’s progressive tax system, where wealthy people pay more. Politico
2.
President Biden, in California on a three-day fundraising swing, announced that he is canceling federal student loans for nearly 153,000 borrowers during a stop in Culver City on Wednesday. The $1.2 billion relief package, he said, would allow them to think about buying a home or investing, instead of “working like a devil.” Republicans criticized the move as a ploy to buy votes. Bloomberg said the announcement was “reminiscent of 2020, when former President Donald Trump’s name appeared on Covid-19 stimulus checks sent to Americans.” L.A. Times | Bloomberg
- Hundreds of protesters gathered as Biden attended a dinner hosted by the Getty family in San Francisco. They chanted “free, free Palestine” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” KQED | SF Standard
Northern California
3.
As four major hydroelectric dams are removed from Northern California’s Klamath River, significant stretches of submerged land are reappearing. The question of who gets the property is still under discussion, but the state is expected to hand over some of it to the native Shasta people who were exiled more than a century ago. “The displaced Shasta people never found a place to regroup after the forced diaspora,” wrote Kurtis Alexander. “Many of their descendants, now scattered across California and beyond, hope to come live, work and worship on the riverfront they still call home.” S.F. Chronicle
4.
Some analysts had predicted a stock sell-off ahead of Nvidia’s release of fourth quarter earnings on Wednesday, citing uncertainty over the sustainability of the company’s monster growth. Instead, the Santa Clara chipmaker’s shares jumped nearly 8%, adding more than $129 billion in market value, on revenue numbers that beat Wall Street estimates. “We are one year into generative A.I.,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. “My guess is we are literally into the first year of a 10-year cycle of spreading this technology into every single industry.” N.Y. Times | Reuters
- If you invested $1,000 in Nvidia 10 years ago, it would worth about $150,000 today. CNBC
5.
In the 1970s and ’80s, a peak-season ski lift ticket in the Lake Tahoe area would cost less than $30, or about $60 to $70 adjusting for inflation in 2024. Around 2010, lift prices began to breach the $100 mark, or about $142 today, a development that stirred outrage at the time. Nowadays, skiers can expect to pay more than double that. Ticket prices this month at the Tahoe resorts Northstar, Palisades, and Soda Springs have ranged between $269 and $299. “It’s hard not to wonder,” wrote reporter Suzie Dundas. “Is a Lake Tahoe ski trip only for rich people?” SFGATE
6.
Heavy rains have pushed the level of Whiskeytown Lake in Shasta County above its bellmouth spillway, also known as a glory hole, a spiraling drain that is at once mesmerizing and terrifying. The spillway, which exits into a creek on the other side of Whiskeytown Dam, was last engaged during the barrage of atmospheric rivers in early 2023. The Bureau of Reclamation shared video. @ReclamationCGB | Redding Record Searchlight
Southern California
7.
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed riot charges against two members of a Southern California neo-Nazi gang accused of inciting brawls at political rallies in 2017, saying the government singled the men out while failing to prosecute left-wing activists who had also acted violently. Judge Cormac J. Carney acknowledged the group’s ideas were “reprehensible,” but said it was “constitutionally impermissible” to bring charges against one group, but not the other. One of the defendants, Robert Boman, broke into tears outside the courtroom. “I’m really ashamed from my old antics,” he said. L.A. Times | N.Y. Times
8.
President Biden is considering a plan to bar migrants from seeking asylum if they cross the US-Mexico border illegally, several reports said on Wednesday. The potential change is a stark sign of how alarmed Biden has grown about immigration since he entered office promising a more humane system. “The move, if enacted, would echo a 2018 effort by President Donald J. Trump to block migration, which was assailed by Democrats and blocked by federal courts,” the N.Y. Times reported.
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9.
An executive with an engineering firm that assessed one of the three mansions dangling over an eroded bluff in Dana Point cast doubt on claims by the homeowner and city officials that the structures are secure. Storms are going to keep eating away at the slopes, the executive Kyle Tourjé said. “They just can’t take this kind of beating,” he said of the properties. The city and homeowners declined a reporter’s request for comment. Washington Post
10.
China plans to send a new pair of giant pandas to the San Diego Zoo by the end of summer, zoo officials said on Wednesday. Two pandas — Bai Yun and Xiao Liwu — were stars at the zoo before being sent back to China in 2019 after a loan agreement expired. A meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Biden in Northern California in November rekindled hopes of panda cooperation after Xi told a dinner audience that pandas, which number fewer than 2,000, represented “envoys of friendship” between the countries. A.P.
11.
A roster of A-list directors has bought Westwood’s Village Theater, ensuring the landmark’s future as the threat of streaming forces other venues to contract or close. Founded in 1931, the theater with a white Spanish Revival/Art Deco tower has been a mainstay for movie premieres and Hollywood glamor. The coalition of new owners, led by director Jason Reitman, includes Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Bradley Cooper, and many others. Hollywood Reporter | L.A. Times
California archive
12.
There’s a place in Ontario, Canada, called California, and a place in California called Ontario. The name origins of the Canadian California, in the sparsely populated Lanark Highlands, are sketchy. But the area’s settlement by immigrants from the British Isles occurred not long before the California Gold Rush, an event that riveted the world’s attention and drew a contingent of young prospectors from the highlands.
The name of Ontario, California, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, came from the city’s founders, the Chaffey brothers, Canadian settlers who carried fond memories of their native province. In December 1882, one of the brothers, George Chaffey, hoisted an electric bulb powered by a water wheel on to his roof, dazzling onlookers with the first known electric light in Southern California. Weeks later, Los Angeles hired him to install its first street lights. If the name California evoked a land where fortunes are made, Ontario came to represent a quintessential immigrant story, in which new arrivals help forge the future of their adopted home.
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