Good morning. It’s Friday, Jan. 24.
- State leaders approve $2.5 billion fire aid package.
- Governor plans to crash President Trump’s L.A. visit.
- And S.F. plans to install giant sculpture of nude woman.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a $2.5 billion wildfire relief package for Los Angeles on Thursday after the bills were approved unanimously in both legislative chambers. The money will be available immediately, Newsom said: “This is about distilling a sense of hopefulness.” Lawmakers cited the occasion of bipartisan unity to call out President Trump, who has called for federal aid to be contingent on changes to water policy. “Tens of thousands of our neighbors, our families and friends, they need help,” said Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire. L.A. Times | CalMatters
- Climate columnist Sammy Roth: “The Republican Party is betraying a devastated Los Angeles.” L.A. Times
2.
“He doesn’t really have a clue how California water systems work.”
“That idea is completely far-fetched and detached from reality.”
“It’s difficult to explain what he’s talking about because nobody knows what he’s talking about.”
Journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post, and L.A. Times reached out to water policy specialists to help make sense of President Trump’s recent pronouncements on California water.
3.
Calmatters reviewed the public comments of 58 California sheriffs and reached out to each one for comment on how they planned to respond to requests for additional cooperation with immigration officials under President Trump. Only one said he would cooperate: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican who has teased a bid for California governor. If that means circumventing California law, “I’m going to do that,” he said.
- Jesse Arreguín, a Bay Area state lawmaker, struck a different tone on Thursday. Responding to Trump administration warnings to sanctuary cities, he projected defiance. “Come after us,” he said. Mercury News
Northern California
4.
In 2023, Rep. Nancy Pelosi announced a $200 million federal grant to fix up San Francisco’s Presidio, a former Spanish military fortress that has been transformed into a haven for art and recreation. Now House Republicans are talking about taking it back. The lawmakers circulated the idea in a document laying out ways to help pay for President Trump’s agenda, including an immigration crackdown and a tax cut. Critics said the proposal appeared to be aimed to hurt San Francisco and Pelosi, two symbols of Republican disdain for Democrats. S.F. Chronicle | SFist
5.
Over the last two weeks, Instagram and Facebook have been blurring or blocking posts by two abortion pill providers, the New York Times reported. Instagram also suspended the accounts of several abortion pill providers. The moves by Meta, which owns both platforms, came after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced a sweeping overhaul of the company’s approach to online speech in what critics saw as a “MAGA makeover” to win the favor of President Trump.
6.
San Francisco has a plan to help revive Union Square: the installation of a 45-foot-tall sculpture of a naked woman standing in a yoga pose. Known as “R-Evolution,” the mesh wire sculpture debuted at Burning Man in 2015 and has been displayed in Washington, D.C., Miami, and Las Vegas. Union Square, the city’s historic shopping district, was decimated by the pandemic and never fully recovered. “R-Evolution” will be the largest public artwork of its kind ever displayed there. SFist | Petaluma Argus-Courier
7.
Authors and poets have described the experience of seeing an ancient redwood as perspective-shifting, confronting us with our smallness and transitory lives. People tend to fall silent or speak in reverent tones. “One feels the need to bow to unquestioned sovereigns,” John Steinbeck wrote.
It’s relatively easy to find redwoods in the Bay Area. “But one must really seek out old-growth for that walk back into the well of time,” wrote Bay Nature. The magazine offered seven recommendations, including lesser-known parks like Hendy Woods, pictured above, where crowds are rare.
Southern California
8.
On Thursday, at least five wildfires erupted across Southern California, including those in Camarillo, Bel-Air, Hemet, La Jolla, and Otay Mountain. The outburst of fires, all brought under control, punctuated a nerve-wracking three weeks for Southern California as forecasts called for sorely needed rain over the weekend. L.A. Times | A.P.
- Many structures survived within the fire perimeters of the Eaton and Palisades blazes. But that doesn’t mean the residents will be allowed back in any time soon. Wall Street Journal
- Track California’s fires.
9.
President Trump invited California Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla to join him during a visit to fire-ravaged Los Angeles today. Both declined, citing a scheduling conflicts. As of Thursday, no invitation had been extended to Gov. Gavin Newsom, however. No matter, Newsom said. He planned to greet Trump on the airport tarmac anyway. This month, Trump has called the Democratic governor “incompetent, “an idiot,” and “Newscum,” and said the city’s wildfires “are all his fault.” Politico | Wall Street Journal
10.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with Stephen Pyne, a fire historian at Arizona State University. It’s no surprise that fires came for Los Angeles this month, Pyne noted. But their ferocity suggests a shift in our ancient companionship with fire. “It’s all happening at a scale and a speed that I don’t think any of our models or imaginations had projected,” he said. “So in that sense it does look like you’ve crossed a line. But I have to say, we’ve been crossing that line for several decades now.”
11.
Bandits attacked a group of hikers in the mountains on Wednesday outside San Diego, near the Mexican border, shooting one man in the leg, officials said. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection described the assailants as “armed suspected Mexican cartel terrorists,” dropping the agency’s usual formal tone for language reminiscent of Donald Trump rallies. “Cartels think they can bring their war here. Think again!” Gregory K. Bovino, the chief of the Border Patrol’s El Centro sector, wrote in an X post. “Americans won’t be intimidated.” Washington Post | S.D. Union-Tribune
- Active-duty U.S. troops began arriving in Texas and San Diego Thursday to support border security. A briefing document said the deployment could eventually be increased to 10,000 troops. Washington Post
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- “Across the Los Angeles basin, feeling the same draw, new dreamers were joining old ones in a migration to the wildland. The higher up the hill, the more quixotic they became. Among the truest believers, a sort of madness took hold.” The veteran journalist Mark Arax reflected on the fantasy of living in a fire-prone ecosystem. N.Y. Times
- In the early 1980s, someone bought a bag filled with hundreds of rolls of unprocessed film at auction. The film eventually reached two Bay Area historians, who discovered that it contained a remarkable record of the Bay Area between 1966 and 1970, captured by a talented photographer. S.F. Chronicle | Bold Italic
- Hotel booking websites are charging people browsing from the Bay Area far higher prices than people from other places. Tech writer Keith A. Spencer conducted an experiment to see what variables might affect prices on sites like Kayak and Orbitz. The conclusion, he wrote: Geography trumps everything. SFGATE
- “It was Sunday afternoon and the Arco gas station was buzzing. Four lowriders, parked alongside gas pumps, gleamed in the afternoon sun in Altadena. Carne asada sizzled on a grill at a pop-up taco stand in the corner.” A photo-rich dispatch from the New York Times captured a vignette of Los Angeles’ spirit during a tragedy.
- Phillip and Claire Vogt spent the last decade building one of the most fire-resistant homes in the country, a Spanish-style estate in the Santa Monica Mountains. As wildfires swirled around them this month, Phillip assured Claire: “We prepared for this.” The home survived. But the next disaster was coming, wrote the N.Y. Times.
Thanks for reading!
The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
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