Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Jan. 29.
- California scrambles to respond to Trump funding freeze.
- Atmospheric storm takes aim at Northern California.
- And killings are linked to cultish Bay Area group.
Statewide
1.
A nonprofit leader in Santa Rosa warned of “catastrophic” ripple effects.
A Watsonville food bank pleaded with the president to “please have mercy.”
And San Diego officials were bombarded by questions they couldn’t answer.
Californians scrambled on Tuesday to make sense of the Trump administration’s order to freeze all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government as part of an effort to eliminate funding for “DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.” California joined a coalition of states suing to block the order, which was temporarily paused. “This directive is unprecedented in scope and would be devastating if implemented,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said. “Already, it has created chaos and confusion among our residents.” CalMatters | S.F. Chronicle
2.
In 2021, Attorney General Rob Bonta accepted a $16,200 campaign donation from a casino that was under investigation by his office, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Bonta ultimately dropped the case. He also collected hefty sums from figures who were later ensnared in a bribery scandal in Oakland and lawyers for Southern California Edison. Days after the Edison contribution, Bonta announced that he had declined to pursue criminal charges against the utility in a wildfire case. S.F. Chronicle | SFist
3.
During Carl DeMaio’s political rise in San Diego, critics and colleagues portrayed the “own-the-libs” conservative as a hothead, relentless self-promoter, and “political sociopath.” When he decided to run for state government, the Republican Party fought hard to defeat him. Now, as DeMaio, 50, takes his seat in the Assembly, he says he wants to break the “Stockholm Syndrome” of Republicans serving in a deep blue state. “I am not accepting crumbs,” he said. “I want to be an opposition party.” CalMatters
4.
On the same day President Trump claimed that the military had entered California and “turned on the water,” officials from his Department of Government Efficiency visited a federal pumping station in the California Delta and later touted increased water flows “toward” Southern California. The station, however, pumps water out of the delta for use by farms and communities in the San Joaquin Valley, not Southern California. It had been down for a few days for routine maintenance, state officials said. Politico
- Senator Alex Padilla sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday demanding to know which military units had been assigned to the water mission and where “specifically” they were deployed. KCRA
5.
The most potent atmospheric storm in more than two months is poised to deliver copious rain to the northern half of California between Friday and early next week, forecasters said on Tuesday. Projecting further out, there was growing confidence that Southern California would get doused around the middle of next week, the National Weather Service said. S.F. Chronicle | Accuweather
- People have been posting some pretty images of snow-covered Southern California after a recent storm. A sampling:
- The quaint mountain town of Julian.
- Snowy scenes in Joshua Tree National Park.
- A mother eagle protecting her eggs in Big Bear Valley.
- The whitened San Gabriel Mountains.
Northern California
6.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors appointed a new district attorney Tuesday to fill the office left vacant by the November recall of Pamela Price, a progressive prosecutor whom critics accused of being soft on crime. Recall supporters were thrilled by the choice of Ursula Jones Dickson, a state judge who described herself as moderate and apolitical. Virginia Nishita, whose husband was killed in Oakland, said she cried tears of joy. “I feel very hopeful,” she said. “I see the light at the end of the tunnel.” KRON | Berkeley Scanner
7.
Two young people charged in separate January killings appear to be connected to a cultish Bay Area group known as the Zizians, a journalism investigation found. Suspected members of the group once lived in box trucks on a Vallejo property, where a bloody battle unfolded with the landlord in 2022 that left one person dead. Then on Jan. 17, the landlord was fatally stabbed. A source close to the Zizians described it as a “murder gang” and said its members believe in timeless decision theory, the Rationalist idea that human decisions are mathematically quantifiable. The story gets stranger. Open Vallejo | SFist
8.
Mihir A. Desai, a Harvard economist, offered a sobering view of the financial health of Silicon Valley after Monday’s stock market swoon:
“These companies — like all companies — will one day disappoint those who view them as safe assets. And the self-cannibalization will reveal itself to be not just a mediocre investment but also a shaky bet on an illusion propagated by a mythical and messianic belief in technology and these companies.” N.Y. Times
9.
“Take anything from us — our cable cars, our bridges, even our bay — but leave us our hills.”
— San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen
San Francisco, a landscape rumpled by the collision of two great tectonic plates, is one of the world’s hilliest cities. Depending on how you define hill, there are anywhere between 42 and 74 of them within the city’s modest 47 square miles, according to various counts. The drone photographer Eric Thurber recently shared a video highlighting the visual pleasures of San Francisco’s hills. @thurber_shots
Southern California
10.
A civilian jet broke the sound barrier during a test flight in the Mojave Desert on Tuesday, making it the first independently developed aircraft to accomplish the feat. Boom Supersonic, a Denver-based jet builder, wants to introduce the first supersonic airliner since the Concorde retired 22 years ago. The XB-1 reached an altitude of 35,290 feet and accelerated the plane to Mach 1.122, or 750 mph, the company said. Washington Post | A.P.
- “A thrilling moment.” See the XB-1 surpass Mach 1. 👉 YouTube
11.
After natural disasters, relief organizations are often inundated with used clothing donations that do more harm than good, gumming up the relief effort. A Los Angeles clothing recycler, Suay Sew Shop, is now figuring out what to do with 50,000 pounds of donated T-shirts, socks, jackets, and other items that community groups were unable to distribute after the wildfires. “To see the overwhelming influx of textiles donations here in Los Angeles in response to the devastating wildfires just shows how the current systems in place have failed us all,” said Lindsay Rose Medoff, Suay’s CEO. The Guardian
12.
Other wildfire developments:
- Google Maps added satellite imagery of the Los Angeles wildfire areas, providing an astonishing perspective on the scale of destruction. Pictured above: Altadena.
- Southern California Edison, the utility that has said it detected no electrical anomalies leading up to the Eaton fire, denied causing a 2017 fire in the Angeles National Forest. The federal government now believes the utility suppressed evidence. L.A. Times
- Public health officials indefinitely closed several miles of coastline from Malibu to Playa del Rey after rainfall washed toxic debris into the sea. L.A. Times | LAist
- A research group found that climate change made Southern California’s dangerous wildfire conditions in early January 35% more likely than they would have been before the industrial era. A.P. | Grist
Correction
An earlier version of this letter misstated the name of Alameda County’s former district attorney. She is Pamela Price, not Pamela Paul.
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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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