President Biden bans new offshore drilling // Extreme fire danger in Southern California

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Jan. 7.

President Biden permanently bans new offshore drilling.
Barbara Lee signals candidacy for Oakland mayor.
And winds pose extreme fire risk in Southern California.

Statewide

1.

President Biden on Monday announced what he called a permanent stop to new oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters, including along the entire California coast. Analysts said the move, which invokes an obscure provision from a 72-year-old law, could be difficult for President-elect Donald Trump to undo, likely requiring an act of Congress. On Monday, Trump called Biden’s move “ridiculous.” “I will unban it immediately,” he told radio host Hugh Hewitt. “I have the right to unban it.” N.Y. Times | A.P.

Biden arrived in Los Angeles late Monday. He plans to travel to the Coachella Valley Tuesday to announce a new national monument near Joshua Tree. NBC Los Angeles

2.

Kamala Harris, seen on Monday, accepted defeat gracefully. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the certification of her own election loss during a joint session of Congress on Monday. “The votes for president of the United States are as follows: Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes,” Harris said, as Republicans burst into applause. “Kamala D. Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes.” She banged the gavel. The task was done within about 30 minutes, without drama, in a stark contrast to the violence that marred the basic ritual of democracy four years ago. Politico | Washington Post

3.

In September, California’s attorney, Rob Bonta, sued Exxon, alleging that the oil giant perpetuated a “myth” about the recyclability of plastic. On Monday, Exxon responded with its own lawsuit that accuses Bonta of defamation. The Democratic politician engaged in a “deliberate smear campaign” in his “personal capacity to drive up donations and publicity for his political campaign,” the company alleged in its complaint. Bloomberg | Reuters

Northern California

4.

Barbara Lee served in Congress from 1998 to 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

Barbara Lee, a champion of progressive politics who represented the East Bay in Congress for 26 years, filed preliminary paperwork to run for mayor of Oakland on Monday. Sean Dugar, a spokesperson, said Lee would make an announcement later this week. Supporters have rallied around Lee as a potential ray of hope for Oakland, which has been troubled by reports of crime and corruption. “This is exciting,” said lobbyist Isaac Kos-Read. “I really think she can bring us together.” Mercury News | Oaklandside

5.

Berkeley has embraced an innovative strategy to quickly grow its housing stock by thousands of units: granting amnesty to homeowners with unpermitted accessory units. “It’s a situation where people have these units and are nervous about coming clean with the city,” said Jordan Klein, Berkeley’s director of planning and development. “We want to make it as easy for people to come out of the shadows.” S.F. Chronicle

6.

Three young people were hospitalized in Salinas after eating “death caps,” one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world. The invasive fungus has thrived in Northern California at the same time that foraging has surged in popularity, causing unwary victims severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and sometimes death. The Salinas patients initially reported buying the mushrooms from a truck vendor on New Year’s Eve, prompting a public health alert. On Monday, police said they now “strongly believe” the group foraged the mushrooms themselves. Salinas Californian

7.

A few years ago, a San Francisco photography hobbyist made a splash on social media with his color-themed photo collages of San Francisco. Now Travis Monson has organized his trove of photographs into a series of new works, an effort that he said involved more than 1,700 miles walked and more than 100,000 pictures taken. “I truly love this city,” he wrote. See 14 of Monson’s collages on Reddit.

Southern California

8.

Red shows areas of “critical” fire risk on Tuesday. Orange shows “elevated” risk. See larger map. (via @NWSSPC)

The National Weather Service warned that Ventura and Los Angeles counties face a “life-threatening, destructive windstorm” packing gusts as strong as 100 mph from Tuesday into Wednesday. Residents were urged to hunker indoors against the threat of snapping trees and shattered windows. With drought conditions widespread, officials issued the most extreme fire weather alert. “Any spark, any ignition source, could lead to something very, very dramatic, very, very quickly,” said Rich Thompson, a meteorologist. Utilities were preparing to preemptively cut power to nearly 500,000 customers. Accuweather | N.Y. Times

See outage maps. 👉 SDGE | Southern California Edison

9.

Before his Monday sentencing for peddling bogus Covid-19 cures, the Huntington Beach actor and pro-Trump influencer Keith Middlebrook told a reporter that he was “innocent completely” and that “this is going to be appealed.” The judge then gave Middlebrook, 57, more than eight years in federal prison. “It is clear that Mr. Middlebrook still denies that he has committed any crime, which causes significant concern that he will continue to commit similar crimes in the future,” said U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer. L.A. Times | Los Angeles magazine

10.

2023 was considered a brutal year for Los Angeles restaurants, with at least 65 notable casualties. Then in 2024 it got worse, with more than 100 restaurant closures, including some with Michelin stars and others operated by influential chefs. Just days into 2025, the pace of closures remains brisk as two of the city’s most influential restaurants — Guerrilla Tacos and Sage — announced that they would shutter. Restaurateurs have cited rising wages and inflation, among other stressors. “We had hope that things were going to get better,” said Brittney Valles-Gordon, of Guerrilla Tacos. “They simply have not.” L.A. Times

11.

The presenters and honorees at the Golden Globes on Sunday, which took place 15 days before the planned presidential inauguration, had surprisingly little to say about politics. Culture critic Hannah Giorgis wrote in the Atlantic:

“With Trump poised to take office again, the industry is perhaps rattled by the inefficacy of its previous calls to action — or at least lacks a vision of how to meet the political moment through either art or activism.”

12.

In California — home to largest, tallest, oldest, highest, and hottest natural wonders — the catalog of superlatives also extends to more mundane objects. Take the world’s largest paper cup replica, pictured above. Appearing like a coffee lover’s mirage on the dusty outskirts of Riverside, the 68-foot-tall concrete sculpture once heralded the former Lily-Tulip Cup company, which operated a factory there from 1958 to 1997. It makes a fine complement to the world’s largest Swedish coffee pot, located up Highway 99 in the historic Swedish village of Kingsburg. Atlas Obscura

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The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.

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