Good morning. It’s Thursday, Dec. 21.
- A push to remove Donald Trump from primary ballot.
- Huntington Beach extends culture war campaign.
- And Sergey Brin gives $1.3 billion to Parkinson’s fight.
Statewide
1.
Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat who is running for California governor in 2026, asked the secretary of state on Wednesday to “explore every legal option” to remove former President Trump from the March 5 primary ballot. “California must stand on the right side of history,” she wrote, pointing to the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to bar Trump from the ballot in that state. Election law experts said the U.S. Supreme Court is unlikely to uphold the Colorado case, in part because justices don’t want to be seen as depriving voter choice. Courthouse News Service | L.A. Times
2.
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked a California law that would have barred licensed gun holders from carrying firearms in most public places starting on Jan. 1. U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney wrote that the law’s “coverage is sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.” Gov. Gavin Newsom immediately hit back in a statement. “What is repugnant,” he said, “is this ruling, which greenlights the proliferation of guns in our hospitals, libraries, and children’s playgrounds — spaces which should be safe for all.” A.P. | L.A. Times
3.
An overhaul of campsite reservations that punishes no-shows.
Mandatory gender-neutral toy sections in large retail stores.
And the installation of speed cameras across six major cities.
Here are 16 new California laws that could affect your life starting on Jan. 1. 👉 S.F. Chronicle
4.
Researchers set out to learn what would happen if you gave 100 homeless people $750 a month, no strings attached. Results from the experiment, conducted in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas, were so dramatic that the authors released an interim report after only six months. Participants became significantly less likely to be unsheltered, spending 74% of the money on food, housing, clothing, and health care. “I do think it dispels this myth that people will use money for illicit purposes,” said study author Benjamin Henwood. L.A. Times | Business Insider
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Northern California
5.
A federal judge on Wednesday excoriated prosectors for failing to seek harsher penalties for two suspected fentanyl dealers in San Francisco, rejecting plea offers that would have allowed the defendants to avoid prison time before being deported to Honduras. U.S. District Judge William Alsup said freeing the suspects would amount to “a valuable recruitment tool” for cartels in Honduras that oversee much of the drug trade in San Francisco, where fentanyl deaths this year hit a record high. S.F. Chronicle
6.
“The public address announcer explained to the confused crowd that the game was over. One grandmother on the McClatchy side objected to the decision, shouting, ‘What are you teaching these kids?'”
In California, roughly 14,000 fewer boys played high school football in 2022 than a decade earlier. As a result, struggling programs are increasingly forced into lopsided contests against football juggernauts that have continued to draw top talent. Reporter Albert Samaha wrote a gripping account of what happened when the boys of C.K. McClatchy faced the elite squad from Grant Union in Sacramento. Washington Post
7.
In more than 7 million miles, Waymo’s driverless cars were involved in just three crashes with injuries. That’s according to a new peer-reviewed study by the Alphabet company that found its driverless cars 6.7 times less likely than human drivers to be involved a crash resulting in an injury. The data comes at a fraught time for the industry after the rollout of Cruise robotaxis in San Francisco led to a drumbeat of negative headlines. Waymo’s Trent Victor sought to draw a distinction with rival companies. One difference, he said, “is we are scaling responsibly.” The Verge | Ars Technica
8.
Sergey Brin, the Google cofounder, has one of the most common Parkinson’s risk mutations. He has donated $1.3 billion to pushing for a cure to the disease, the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s. Groups funded by Brin are now putting more than $350 million a year into Parkinson’s research, more than the National Institutes of Health. “The family has been very good to us,” said Michael J. Fox, the “Back to the Future” actor with the disease. Bloomberg
9.
In 2018, Bird was on top of the world. A gold-rush mentality gripped the “micro-mobility” market, and the electric scooter maker founded just a year earlier in Santa Monica was one of the hottest startups. Its valuation rocketed to a mind-boggling $2 billion. On Wednesday, five years later, Bird filed for bankruptcy. Analysts attributed the comedown in part to multiplying injury lawsuits and scooter bans in cities whose citizens are fed up with clogged sidewalks. Wall Street Journal | TechCrunch
Southern California
10.
Leonard Glenn Francis, a Malaysian fugitive defense contractor at the center of a Navy bribery scandal, has been returned by Venezuela to the U.S. as part of a prisoner swap between the estranged countries, President Biden said Wednesday. In September 2022, Francis, known as Fat Leonard, cut off his ankle monitor and fled house arrest in San Diego three weeks before he was due to faced sentencing. He was later apprehended in Caracas. Washington Post | Wall Street Journal
- Among the Americans released were two California men detained while traveling in Venezuela. The state department described both as political prisoners. S.F. Chronicle | City News Service
11.
Since rising to power in late 2022, Huntington Beach’s conservative majority has embraced the culture wars with vigor, voting to bar the rainbow flag from flying over City Hall, declaring Huntington Beach a “no mask and no vaccine mandate city,” and establishing a committee to screen children’s books at libraries. Their latest act came Wednesday: doing away with Black History Month, Pride Month, and other cultural celebrations. In 2024, new monthly themes will include “We Love Our Libraries,” “History of Our Military Services,” and “Honoring the Discovery of Oil.” Voice of OC | LAist
12.
The chief executives of Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery met this week to discuss a possible merger, reports said on Wednesday. Analysts said the union made sense for two TV companies struggling to compete in a streaming-dominated world. A combined Max and Paramount+ could be a formidable offering to rival the likes of Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu, they said. N.Y. Times | CNN
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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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