Good morning. It’s Thursday, July 25.
- The threat of Vice President Kamala Harris’ laugh.
- “Magnificent Seven” stocks see biggest drop since 2012.
- And a wildfire burns disconcertingly close to Chico.
Election 2024
1.
Before President Biden threw in the towel last weekend, his team was bracing for Nancy Pelosi’s next move. One insider described her as a sort of political Don Corleone: “Nancy made clear that they could do this the easy way or the hard way.” Watching Pelosi work has been refreshing, wrote the columnist Jessica Bennett: “Here was a woman with power, looking supremely competent, unapologetically ruthless — Lyndon Johnson, if Lyndon Johnson had once been a housewife — and seemingly entirely unconcerned about whether anyone finds her ‘likable.’” N.Y. Times
2.
At 1:46 p.m. on Sunday, the moment that Biden quit the race, Vice President Kamala Harris was ready. A giant call list of the most important Democrats had been prepared in advance, and Harris began methodically dialing numbers. “I wasn’t going to let this day go by without you hearing from me,” she said over and over. In 10 hours, she made 100 calls. The New York Times recounted how Harris locked down the nomination in a “well-orchestrated cascade,” as one party leader put it.
3.
Kamala Harris likes to laugh, a trait many of her supporters adore. But for President Trump and other critics, there’s something ridiculous, even depraved, about a woman so lacking in inhibition, wrote the culture critic Sophie Gilbert: “[Trump is] not just calling out a distinctive laugh; he’s helping his audiences draw a connection in their own minds between her emotional composure in public and her moral standing as a political leader.” The Atlantic
Statewide
4.
The tech stocks known as the “Magnificent Seven” saw their biggest wipeout in stock value in more than a decade on Wednesday as investors grew skittish over the potential payoffs of artificial intelligence. Collectively, the stocks lost $768 billion after Tesla and Alphabet reported disappointing earnings. “Despite its expensive price tag, the technology is nowhere near where it needs to be in order to be useful,” Jim Covello, a Goldman Sach analyst, said in a report about AI. Wall Street Journal | Washington Post
5.
The number of journalists working in California has fallen 68% since 2005, according to a 2023 study. Over the same period, the number of newspapers fell by one-third. The retrenchment has coincided with plummeting newspaper subscriptions: the San Diego Union-Tribune is down 50% since 2005; the Los Angeles Times is down 31%; and the Sacramento Bee is down 73%. The Los Angeles Times produced a dismaying report on the state of California journalism.
- Not long ago, Long Beach looked like it had solved the local news crisis. Then a wealthy patron pulled out. L.A. Times
Northern California
6.
A wildfire was burning unnervingly close to Chico late Wednesday after it ignited midday in Bidwell Park and exploded across more than 10 square miles. Dubbed the Park fire, the inferno prompted evacuation orders across a broad area north and northeast of the city. The Thursday outlook appeared grim, with temperatures expected to soar into the triple digits and strong winds likely to accelerate the rate of spread. Chico Enterprise-Record | S.F. Chronicle
- An ALERTCalifornia camera apparently engulfed by the wildfire captured a final image of the approaching flames.
7.
In 2014, the FBI took down the notorious dark web drug bazaar Silk Road 2.0 and its elusive operator, a former SpaceX engineer in San Francisco named Blake Benthall. Many expected Benthall to go to prison for a long time. Instead, he worked for the federal authorities for nearly a decade, helping track down other crypto criminals. Then, with his probation up and his job prospects bleak, he launched his own crypto startup. The FBI agent who arrested Benthall became an investor. N.Y. Times
8.
Police officers are among the highest paid public employees in San Francisco. But in response to a staffing shortage, city leaders are backing a proposal that would lift the average pay of veteran officers even higher — to nearly $500,000 a year. Supervisor Hillary Ronen called the recommended compensation “obscene” and warned that it would cause resentment among other city staff. “If I was a social worker … I would be appalled,” she said. NBC Bay Area | S.F. Chronicle
9.
Dave Benzler, a San Francisco artist and sign painter, has lived for nearly 15 years in a 230-square-foot shack, about the size of a basketball key — and he loves it. After the great 1906 earthquake that flattened much of San Francisco, relief groups speedily assembled roughly 5,600 “earthquake shacks.” Dozens remain, including Benzler’s tiny blue home in Bernal Heights. “I still walk outside my door every day, and I’m like, wow, this is a really beautiful place,” he said. A reporter and photographer did a spread fit for Architectural Digest. SF Standard
- See the locations of San Francisco’s remaining earthquake shacks. 👉 Outsidelands.org
10.
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he wanted to severely restrict the use of smartphones in California’s schools. His proposal would bring the state in line with the policy that has existed in San Francisco since 2020. But the city’s enforcement has not worked out as intended, wrote parent Tamara Straus. At private schools, surreptitious scrollers face serious discipline. But the behavior is tolerated in many public school classrooms, where punishments have been curtailed on racial-justice grounds, wrote Straus: “Students who prefer to burrow into their phones during class time can usually do so with impunity.” SF Standard
Southern California
11.
Here’s what San Diego’s famed mushroom house looked like in 2017. 👇
… and here’s what it looks like now. 👇
In recent years, vandals have blanketed several landmark structures across San Diego in gaudy graffiti tags. Little is being done about it, according to a special report by NBC 7.
12.
San Diego’s Balboa Park is one of the country’s most inviting urban parks. Among its gems: 65 miles of trails, 18 museums, the century-old Botanical Building, and, as of this month, two giant pandas relocated from China to the park’s renowned zoo.
The New York Times highlighted Balboa Park in a “36 hours” feature on San Diego.
- The pandas, who have been acclimating to their new home, have a date for their official public debut: Aug. 8.
Thanks for reading!
The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
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