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Good morning. It’s Thursday, No. 9.
- Forecast calls for major winter storm next week.
- Hollywood prepares to return to work after contract deal.
- And the American Apparel billboards of 2010s Los Angeles.
Please note: The newsletter will pause tomorrow. Back in your inbox Monday.
Statewide
1.
Latest California developments connected to the Middle East crisis:
- Roughly 150 people attended a private screening of footage from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli citizens at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Audience members wept, gasped, and cried out during horrific sequences. Protests outside descended into violence. L.A. Times | Hollywood Reporter
- Stefany Ferrer Van Ginkel, a former player for the Los Angeles soccer club Angel City, was captured on video shouting “Heil Hitler!” and giving the Sieg Heil salute out of the passenger side of a vehicle during a pro-Israel rally in Beverly Hills on Sunday. L.A. Times
- The mayor of El Cajon called on Wednesday for “the immediate shutdown of the U.S. border to Palestinians.” The call echoed earlier demands by a San Diego County supervisor to close the border over fears of terrorism. A Middle East expert called the proposal “completely unhinged.” Times of San Diego
2.
Latinos make up about 40% of California’s population but just 6% of licensed physicians. The language and cultural gaps are felt most acutely in rural parts of the Central Coast and Central Valley, where immigrants form the backbone of the farming economy. In 2002, lawmakers approved a bill to bring Mexican doctors to serve farmworkers, but it’s taken nearly two decades to implement. Today, 24 Mexican doctors are working in agricultural hubs across the state. Many see the work as a civic duty, a way to serve their fellow countrymen seeking a better life. L.A. Times
3.
Seven in 10 Californians think kids growing up in the state will be financially worse off than their parents, a new survey found. The level of pessimism is a record high for the poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, which has posed the question for 25 years. Five years ago, just 50% of Californians held the same view. The survey also found that 57% of residents think the state is going in the wrong direction. Bloomberg
4.
In 2022, far more Californians moved to Texas — about 102,000 — than to any other state. For neighboring Oregon, the number of transplants was just 36,000. West Virginia drew 879 Californians. For years, Marie Bailey has managed a Facebook group where members swap recommendations on how to make the move from California to Texas. As for their motivations, she said, “No. 1 is cost of living and No. 2 is politics.” Many appear to be happy there. L.A. Times
5.
“This is really our first winter storm.”
Meteorologists expect a major storm to roll into California between Tuesday and Saturday next week in the first heavy soaking of the wet season. While the timing remains uncertain, forecasters said the slow-moving system could dump a foot of snow in the Sierra and several inches of rain at lower elevations. SFGATE | Weather West
- See an animation of the projected storm. 👉 UCSD.edu
6.
A rare ephemeral lake formed from the remnants of Hurricane Hilary in Death Valley’s Badwater Basin is only a few inches deep, but it covers eight square miles. NASA released a series of satellite images on Wednesday that show the transformation of the driest place in North America into an aquatic wonderland. 👉 Earth Observatory
- Park officials recommended visiting the lake on Veterans Day, when entry will be free. NPS.gov
Northern California
7.
A viral story about the slaughter of a little girl’s pet goat by a livestock fair in Shasta County generated such outrage that the columnist Nicholas Kristof published a lament over our failures of compassion. But California Attorney General Rob Bonta isn’t letting it go. Seventeen months after the story made headlines, he’s countersued the girl’s mother, blaming her for the ordeal and demanding she pay the legal fees of fair officials. Sacramento Bee
8.
Netxdoor: Nearly 180 layoffs
Block: At least 1,000 layoffs
LinkedIn: About 670 layoffs
Informatica: 545 layoffs
Splunk: About 500 layoffs
In late September, a TechCrunch writer declared the tech layoff wave “all but a thing of the past.” He spoke too soon. After a lull, staff cuts have returned to Silicon Valley with a vengeance in recent weeks. Analysts have attributed the retrenchment to high interest rates and a shift in investor mindset from growth to efficiency. “You’re seeing a lot of companies realizing that the layoff they did last year was not enough,” said Roger Lee, the founder of layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi. Mercury News | SF Standard
9.
Ever wondered what’s like to wake up on the side of El Capitan? Ascending Yosemite’s 3,000-foot-tall granite monolith typically takes climbers several days, which means sleeping on beds improbably attached to its vertical sides. They are known as a portaledges, a portmanteau of the words portable and ledge, and according to those brave enough to spend the night on one — enveloped by stars, quiet, and half a mile of air below — nothing compares to it. As climber Mark Synnott put it: “It really is just kind of the most spectacular spot that you can be on planet earth.” A group of climbers gave a tour of their morning on El Capitan. YouTube (~1 min)
- Fall has come for Yosemite Valley. See the colors. 👉 California Fall Color
Southern California
10.
Hollywood’s actors union announced a breakthrough deal with studios to halt their strike on Wednesday, ending one of the longest labor crises in the industry’s history. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said the agreement “represents a new paradigm,” including higher compensation for streaming shows and films, better health care funding, and protections in the use artificial intelligence. The end of the standoff clears the way for Hollywood’s $134 billion movie and television business to swing back into motion after 118 days on strike that left many workers struggling to make ends meet. Hollywood Reporter | N.Y. Times
- Revving Hollywood back up won’t be easy. N.Y. Times | Deadline
11.
Los Angeles County agreed to pay $700,000 to a public radio reporter after she was slammed to the ground and arrested by police officers while covering a protest in 2020. Deputies had claimed LAist correspondent Josie Huang interfered with the arrest of a protester. But a judge later found her factually innocent. Her settlement includes a requirement that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department re-train deputies on the rights of journalists. A.P. | CNN
12.
In the early 2010s, American Apparel billboards displayed half-naked young women contorted into suggestive poses all over Los Angeles. In lower-income neighborhoods, the imagery hung low among the storefronts and bus stops just above the heads of pedestrians, rather than high up against uncluttered blue sky. For the photographer Thomas Alleman, the juxtaposition of urban blight and escapist fantasy raised all sorts of questions: was it genius? exploitative? just plain weird? See Alleman’s series, “The American Apparel.” 👉 Lens Culture | feature shoot
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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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