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The California Sun gathers all the must-read stories about California in one place.
Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Jan. 21.
- Silicon Valley tycoons salute Donald Trump.
- Adam Schiff calls Joe Biden pardons “unwise.”
- And deaths followed delayed warnings in Altadena.
Trump’s inauguration
1.
A historic concentration of wealth gathered under the Capitol Rotunda on Monday as Silicon Valley magnates — including Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Tim Cook — assumed pride of place for Donald Trump’s swearing-in as president. They were seated in front of Trump’s own potential Cabinet, whose members were forced to crane their necks to see. “[The executives] joked with each other. Pumped fists at Trump’s vow to plant the U.S. flag on Mars. Showed, in unusually raw and transparent form, the hierarchy of the new Trump era in American life,” wrote the Washington Post.
- Steve Bannon on the tech leaders: “It’s like walking into Teddy Roosevelt’s lodge and seeing the mounted heads of all the big game he shot.” The Atlantic
2.
Several of Trump’s first executive orders appeared designed to undercut California’s environmental ambitions. He called for streamlining oil and gas drilling, revoking electric vehicle rules, and blocking offshore wind projects. The U.S. is blessed with oil and gas — “and we’re going to use it,” Trump told supporters. “We’re not going to do the wind thing.” His agenda, however, is likely to face a formidable foe in California, which sued his first administration more than 120 times. On efforts to dismantle environmental protections, judges consistently sided with California. Mercury News | Bloomberg
3.
President Trump on Monday granted clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 members of the mob that stormed the Capitol in his name on Jan. 6, 2021, including some of the most notorious perpetrators of the attack. “We hope they come out tonight, frankly,” Trump said of the defendants he has called “political prisoners.” Several convicts with links to California stood to be freed. Among them:
- Stewart Rhodes, the Fresno-born founder of the Oath Keepers militia who was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of sedition.
- Daniel Rodriguez, a San Bernardino County man who was sentenced to 12 years in prison after he drove a stun gun into a police officer’s neck, leaving him unconscious.
- Alan Hostetter, a former police chief of La Habra who was sentenced to 11 years in prison after helping to organize a “brigade” of armed California “fighters” to travel to the Capitol. N.Y. Times | A.P.
4.
Organizers of the massive protests that poured into the streets at the start of President Trump’s first term settled for much smaller gatherings in cities across California and the nation over the weekend. In San Francisco, Danza Azteca dancers led a march that focused on Trump’s deportation threats. “We’re immigrants, and we know this is a worrying time for our community,” said Blanca Fabiola Catalán. “But we’re here to show Trump and everyone who is against us that we’re prepared for whatever they bring our way.” El Tecolote | S.D. Union-Tribune | Lost Coast Outpost
- In red pockets of the state, Trump supporters basked in his return to power. Some shed tears of joy. “We used to be proud of America,” said Greg Hammel at a watch party in Goleta. “Thank God Donald Trump is getting it back for us.” KEYT | S.D. Union-Tribune
5.
Jill Biden, the former first lady, has publicly nursed a grudge against former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for pushing her husband to withdraw from last year’s campaign. Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, lashed out in astonishingly bitter terms on Saturday:
“If I was Lady McBiden,” she said, “I’d put on my big girl pants, play the long game and think about my husband’s legacy. There aren’t that many people left in America who have something nice to say about Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi is one of them.” Politico Magazine
6.
Other inauguration day developments:
- Sen. Adam Schiff was among three California members of the Jan. 6 committee who were granted preemptive pardons by President Biden on Monday. But Schiff said he was proud of his work. He called the pardons “unnecessary” and “unwise.” KQED
- After being sworn in, Trump told reporters that he would have won California in the November election if not for voter fraud. He vowed to have House Speaker Mike Johnson “really get involved” in the issue. L.A. Times
- During his inauguration speech, Trump addressed the natural disaster in Los Angeles, lamenting that “we’re watching fires still tragically burn from weeks ago, without even a token of defense.” Senator Alex Padilla called the remark a “slap in the face” to first responders. KRON
Los Angeles wildfires
7.
Immigrant labor has been vital to the recovery of U.S. cities devastated by natural disasters, including Houston in 2017 and Southwest Florida in 2022. As Trump moves to enact a deportation program that includes worksite enforcement, Los Angeles faces a colossal reconstruction effort in a state where immigrants make up roughly 40% of construction workers, many of them in the country illegally. A reporter asked a work crew at a house near the Pacific Palisades about their mood. “Everyone is scared,” said Melvin Merino, a painter. L.A. Times | A.P.
- Columnist León Krauze: “It is crucial to acknowledge who truly builds America.” Washington Post
8.
Some neighborhoods in Altadena received orders to evacuate within an hour of a wildfire roaring out of Eaton Canyon around 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 7. But residents on the west side of town didn’t get the order until 3:25 a.m. It was there that all of the 17 deaths confirmed so far occurred. Claire Robinson recalled waking at 2:20 a.m. with smoke in her lungs. No one had told them to flee. “We were 100% alone,” she said. “There was no system to alert people.” L.A. Times
9.
The professional surfer Strider Wasilewski lost his Malibu home to fire in November 2018. After more than six years of permitting, a litigious neighbor, new blueprints, and more permitting, he’s still awaiting a certificate of occupancy that will allow his family to move into the new home they built. “It’s really, really, really intimidating, to say the least,” he said. Wasilewski’s experience provides a grim preview of what likely lies ahead for many Californians, the Wall Street Journal wrote.
10.
“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. They saw the houses and gardens they had planted above and below the canyons and the cars they parked on the sloped driveways, and they believed they had settled a place. And yet it was a place that could not be settled.”
The veteran journalist Mark Arax reflected on the fantasy of living in a fire-prone ecosystem. N.Y. Times
11.
In a bonus episode of the California Sun podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with Jim Carlton, a Wall Street Journal reporter who recently embedded with a wildfire strike team in Topanga Canyon. He likened the atmosphere to war: The fire is the Third Reich and the fire companies from all over North America are the Allies. While an aerial fight plays out overhead, soldiers advance on the ground. When he arrived in the canyon, his heart dropped, Carlton recalled. He thought, “Why did I sign up for this?”
12.
Other wildfire developments:
- The Palisades fire wiped out a half-mile stretch of 70 luxury homes along the Malibu coast, pictured above. An analysis of property data suggested at least $300 million was lost. Wall Street Journal
- A man in a full-size fire engine pulled up to a checkpoint on the perimeter of the Palisades fire and offered help. Suspicious, an official checked his ID. He was convicted arsonist. L.A. Times | Los Angeles magazine
- “Soon, they wouldn’t be painters, welders or builders. They would be firefighters.” The Washington Post told the remarkable story of a construction crew’s 36-hour struggle to defend their hometown.
- On Jan. 10, while the L.A. fires were still raging, the world’s leading scientific organizations announced that global temperatures in 2024 had reached a new high. “Honestly, I am running out of metaphors to explain the warming we are seeing,” the director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service told reporters. New Yorker
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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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