"Raw water" devotees reject the tap // Justin Baldoni sues the New York Times

Good morning. It’s Thursday, Jan. 2.

“Raw water” devotees don’t trust the tap.
Justin Baldoni sues the New York Times.
And 12 bucket list travel destinations for 2025.

Statewide

1.

Sea otters hung out in Monterey Bay last year. (Melina Mara/Washington Post via Getty Images)

Since their introduction to San Francisco Bay in the 1980s, invasive green crabs have wreaked havoc along the West Coast. To remove them, officials have pondered costly trapping strategies. But a new study points to a simpler solution. Researchers found that a colony of roughly 120 sea otters in Monterey Bay were eating as many as 120,000 of the green crabs per year, suppressing their numbers. The discovery underscored the value of protecting native otters, which abounded before being driven to near extinction by the California fur rush. Washington Post

2.

While campaigning for governor in 2017, Gavin Newsom unveiled a plan to build out the state’s housing supply with roughly 500,000 new homes per year. The actual number of home permits has averaged around 110,000 a year, an analysis showed. In the meantime, home prices and homelessness have soared. In 2019, the year Newsom took office, the median California home was about $760,000 in today’s dollars. It’s now reached around $850,000, according to the latest data. The homeless population grew from roughly 150,000 in 2019 to 180,000 last year. S.F. Chronicle

3.

It’s a new year, which means hundreds of new California laws. Here’s a look at five noteworthy measures that took effect on Jan. 1:

Credit agencies are now barred from including medical debt on people’s credit reports. Proponents of the law argued that medical debt, which burdens an estimated 40% of Americans, is a poor predictor of credit risk.
School districts can no longer require staff to inform parents about their child’s gender identity or sexual orientation. The notification policies, known as “forced outing” among critics, had spread to more than a dozen districts. Opponents of the new law vowed to fight it in court.
Local officials can now permit cannabis retailers to sell food and host live music, opening the way for Amsterdam-style cannabis cafes. The change is meant to boost a legal cannabis marketplace that has struggled to compete with the black market.
Public schools are now required to teach students about California’s historical mistreatment of Indigenous peoples. The law marks a departure from the fourth-grade tradition of building Spanish missions out of Popsicle sticks, an assignment that critics said euphemized what were cauldrons of repression.
Californians now face hefty fines for parking cars within 20 feet of a crosswalk — even if no sign is posted. The law is designed to ensure that drivers can see pedestrians who might otherwise pop out from behind a parked vehicle.

Peruse more new laws at CalMatters.

4.

A drive through impossibly green hills along the Central Coast.

A strong contender for California’s prettiest waterfall.

And a kayaker’s paradise that is “chronically under-visited.”

The veteran California travel writer Christopher Reynolds curated a wonderful list of 12 bucket list destinations, one for each month of 2025. L.A. Times

Northern California

5.

Taylen Brooks, who died in a cougar attack, loved the outdoors. (Brooks Family)

Earlier this year, a mountain lion attacked two brothers in the Sierra foothills, killing one of them. Their uncle, Malcolm Brooks, wrote a stirring piece that grapples with how humans can coexist with big cats as the number of attacks rises:

“What we love about this region can never be separated from the ways that it will remain largely untamed, with its plunging river canyons and sheer rock pitches, dense thickets of chaparral and manzanita. It’s perfect habitat for creatures that will also never be tamed, and that’s part of the beauty …” New York Times Magazine

6.

The world’s 500 richest people grew vastly richer in 2024, surpassing $10 trillion in combined wealth, an analysis found. But it was just eight tech moguls, six of whom built their companies in California, who dominated the wealth explosion. Those individuals alone — who included Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, and Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin — added $600 billion this year, accounting for 43% of the wealth gains among the 500 richest people. Bloomberg

7.

A popular family-owned restaurant in the Bay Area closed for good on Wednesday after it was sued for discrimination over a “ladies night” promotion that offered discounted drinks. John Marquez, the embittered owner, said the cost to settle was crippling. “It’s a frivolous lawsuit that took us down,” he said. In California, plaintiffs who sue under the Unruh Civil Rights Act can collect compensation in excess of legal fees, giving rise to serial litigants. “A lot of these small mom-and-pop-type bars honestly might not know about this law,” said Rebecca Nieman, a business professor at the University of San Diego. CNN

8.

There’s a pullout along Highway 1 in Marin County where people line up to fill jugs from a natural spring. Some people drive for hours to get there. Acolytes of so-called “raw water” attribute special qualities to unfiltered and untreated water, having decided tap water is laden with chemicals and bottled water is stripped of minerals. Some scientists scoff at the movement. Natural doesn’t always mean “good for you,” said Daniel McCurry, a water quality expert at USC. “There’s all kind of stuff that’s perfectly natural that can make you very sick.” N.Y. Times

9.

“We can learn to rise above the things holding us down,” said Sajad Shakoor. (Hamid Ahmadi/Al Jazeera)

In 1997, Sajad Shakoor instigated a fist fight and earned a prison sentence of 25 years to life under the California “three strikes” law that meted out harsh sentences to those convicted of multiple felonies. He thought he’d die behind bars. But in 2013, Shakoor was granted parole. Determined to seize his second chance, he took a $9.50-an-hour job at a falafel shop, and after a few years he bought out the owner. Today, Shakoor’s Falafel Corner has more than 30 franchises across Northern California. Al Jazeera

Southern California

10.

Justin Baldoni accused the Times of misleading readers. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)

The actor and director Justin Baldoni sued the New York Times in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, accusing the newspaper of libel over a Dec. 21 article about allegations that he orchestrated a smear campaign against Blake Lively. The lawsuit, which seeks $250 million in damages, alleges that the Times “cherry-picked” communications and uncritically accepted a “self-serving narrative” by the actress. The Times said it would “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.” Washington Post | Wall Street Journal

11.

For a while, it seemed like Erik and Lyle Menendez could be headed for freedom after a sympathetic Netflix documentary revived interest in the case of the brothers who killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. Then Los Angeles County’s progressive district attorney, George Gascón, was replaced by former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman, who accused his predecessor of playing politics with the resentencing case. Now supporters of the brothers are petitioning to have the case moved out of L.A. County, accusing Hochman’s office of a conflict of interest. The Guardian

12.

A developer is planning to stack 800 residential units atop a Costco in South Los Angeles this year. The project, which includes a pool and 184 apartments for low-income households, would be the first residential development in the United States with a built-in Costco. If it works, the developer, Ben Shaoul, said he would replicate the strategy elsewhere. “I want to build thousands and thousands of apartments every year, not hundreds,” he said. Wall Street Journal

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