Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Nov. 12.
- Donald Trump signals his seriousness on deportations.
- L.A. Times owner plans to replace editorial board.
- And the rise and fall of Victorville boxer Ryan Garcia.
Election 2024
1.
President-elect Donald Trump signaled his resolve to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants with the naming of two immigration hawks to his incoming White House. Trump said Tom Homan would be his “border czar” and Stephen Miller would serve as a deputy chief of staff. Homan, a former head of immigration enforcement, said in July: “I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.” Miller, a Trump adviser and graduate of Santa Monica High, proposed deploying the military and setting up detention camps. “The illegals are going home,” he said in February. Washington Post | L.A. Times
2.
In an interview with the New York Times Magazine, Nancy Pelosi rejected an election critique by Bernie Sanders, who attributed Trump’s ascendance to a Democratic Party that “abandoned working-class people.” “Bernie Sanders has not won,” Pelosi said. “Let me, with all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working-class families.” She suggested cultural issues played a larger role: “Guns, God and gays — that’s the way they say it.”
3.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is heading to Washington this week to push the Biden administration to safeguard California programs on the environment and disaster funding. At the top of his agenda: convincing the Environmental Protection Agency to greenlight California’s stricter vehicle-emissions standards. Newsom’s moves since election day have infuriated Trump, who wrote on Friday that the Democratic governor “is trying to KILL our Nation’s beautiful California.” L.A. Times | A.P.
4.
Catching up on election results:
- Democrat George Whitesides defeated Republican Rep. Mike Garcia in northern Los Angeles County, settling one of several swing contests in California that could determine control of the House. Politico
- Santa Ana voters soundly rejected a measure to grant noncitizens the right to vote in local elections in a contest that was seen as nationally significant. Supporters vowed to try again. O.C. Register
- Dean Preston, the most left-wing member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, lost to a moderate newcomer in a stunning upset. The board has now flipped to a slight moderate majority. S.F. Chronicle
- San Franciscans approved the closure of a 2-mile stretch of the Great Highway, a measure that bitterly divided voters. The SF Standard imagined what it could look like with artificial intelligence.
- A proposition that would have done away with forced prison labor failed. Supporters saw the result as tantamount to endorsing slavery. CalMatters
5.
The Los Angeles Times owner whose decision to block a planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris led thousands of readers to cancel their subscriptions is now planning to install a new editorial board. In an announcement on Sunday, Patrick Soon-Shiong said Donald Trump’s election victory underscored the need to make sure “ALL voices” are heard in the Times, saying he would work to make the paper “fair and balanced.” An insider told the Wrap: “The newsroom is pissed.” The Wrap | Deadline
6.
Other election developments:
- The Trump administration is expected to try to weaken environmental laws, but the green revolution has a momentum of its own. “Fundamental market forces are at play,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at the Columbia Business School. Grist
- The 2028 shadow Democratic primary is already underway. Among the names circulating: Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg, and Gavin Newsom. Politico
- California’s state Senate reached gender parity for the first time in its history. Depending on a few undecided races, the Assembly could also. CalMatters
- A Moreno Valley high school history teacher was placed on leave after he delivered an emotional rant about Trump, calling him a “rapist, draft dodging coward” and “treasonous scum.” A recording was shared widely on social media. KABC
Statewide
7.
State lawmakers in both parties expressed alarm on Monday after state regulators approved tighter fuel standards that analysts said could increase gas prices by as much as 47 cents per gallon in 2025. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Democrat, cited commuters in his district, which straddles the agricultural Salinas Valley. “They’re already paying record prices at the pump,” he said. Brian Jones, the Republican minority leader in the state senate, called the board’s action “blatant price gouging.” KCRA | KTLA
8.
Mattel listed a porn website on the packaging for its latest dolls inspired by the movie “Wicked.” The El Segundo toymaker intended to refer consumers to WickedMovie.com, the official landing page of the movie, but instead included a link to Wicked.com, the home of “6,000 + scenes of wicked porn.” Mattel expressed regret for the “unfortunate error,” but declined to explain how it happened. Sellers were listing dolls with the misprinted packaging for hundreds of dollars on eBay. Wall Street Journal | Washington Post
9.
At the start of 2024 the Victorville boxer Ryan Garcia was on top of the world: young, handsome, charismatic, and beaten just once in 25 professional fights. Then he went on an epic run of self-destruction. He tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug; got arrested for tearing apart a Beverly Hills hotel room; broke into and trashed the home of his estranged wife; used slurs against Blacks and Muslims on social media; and told the “LGBTQ + – whatever” to “rot in hell.” “I did make maybe one or two mistakes, for sure,” Garcia told L.A. Times.
10.
A 93-year-old woman complained for weeks about strange sounds from beneath her Los Angeles home. “It was usually late at night, and we just chalked it up to animals being in the house,” her son-in-law Ricardo Silva said. But when the sounds grew louder last Thursday, she called the police. It was no opossum. They found a naked man living in the crawl space, and he refused to leave. He was removed with the help of a SWAT team after an hours-long standoff. NBC Los Angeles | L.A. Times
11.
San Diego — straddling an intersection of ocean, mountains, deserts, and wetlands — has more biodiversity than any county in the continental United States. PBS unveiled a new 52-minute documentary dedicated to the richness of life surrounding what it calls “America’s wildest city.” It includes artful camera shots of the desert exploding in wildflowers, newborn squirrels first opening their eyes underground, and western grebes sprinting across water, pictured above. YouTube/PBS
- See a few highlights selected by the film’s director.
12.
There’s what looks like an altar to a rock along the highway in the Sierra Nevada town of Truckee.
The so-called Rocking Stone sits atop a much larger boulder and is shaped in such a way that it teeters when pushed. A local newspaper editor named C.F. McGlashan was so impressed by the geological happenstance that in 1895 he constructed a gazebo around the rock. It endures today as a so-so-rated tourist curiosity, elevating the mildly interesting into an object of veneration. Noe Hill | ABC10
I count on word of mouth to grow the California Sun. Please consider sharing it with a friend. Send them here.
Thanks for reading!
The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
Make a one-time contribution to the California Sun.
Give a subscription as a gift.
Get a California Sun T-shirt, phone case, hat, hoodie, or tote.
Forward this email to a friend.
Click here to stop delivery, and here to update your billing information. To change your email address please email me: mike@californiasun.co. (Note: Unsubscribing here does not cancel payments. To do that click here.)
The California Sun, PO Box 6868, Los Osos, CA 93412
Wake up to must-read news from around the Golden State delivered to your inbox each morning.