Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Dec. 13.
- The rise of corporate landlords in California.
- How San Francisco sought to destigmatize drug use.
- And the man who flew to LAX without a passport or ticket.
Statewide
1.
After Rep. Kevin McCarthy announced plans to retire, Assemblymember Vince Fong, a well-positioned ally, initially opted to stay on the sidelines. Then he changed his mind, announcing his candidacy on Monday and picking up McCarthy’s endorsement on Tuesday. But there’s a problem. Fong already declared his bid for reelection to the Assembly, and California bars candidates from appearing on the same ballot twice. The California Secretary of State was unequivocal this week: “no withdrawal is allowed, and a person cannot run for more than one office in the same election.” Politico
2.
Invitation Homes, a Dallas company formed by Wall Street investors after the Great Recession, has accumulated a vast portfolio of single-family homes over the last decade. It includes more than 9,100 properties in California, where the corporate landlord has faced accusations of shoddy maintenance and burdensome fees. Ryan Lundquist, a real-estate blogger in Sacramento, recently mapped every Invitation property across the state. In neighborhoods like South Los Angeles, pictured above, the abundance is “sobering,” wrote Lundquist. “Is this what America should look like?” Sacramento Appraisal Blog
3.
The celebrated British photographer David Hurn made his name capturing the revolutions of the 1950s and 60s, from Hungary to London. In the 1970s, he made a series of pictures in California, where he visited the Salton Sea, Disneyland, and spring breakers in Palm Springs. A few years ago, Hurn donated an extensive archive of his photography to the National Museum Wales, where you can now see more than 50 of his California works online. They are fantastic.
Northern California
4.
In 2020, a billboard appeared in downtown San Francisco showing a group of attractive young people with the message “Do it with friends.” It looked like a beer ad, wrote the addiction scholars Keith Humphreys and Jonathan Caulkins: “But the intoxicant being celebrated was fentanyl.” The campaign arose from the idea, popular in blue cities, that destigmatizing drug use would save lives. It’s profoundly mistaken, the writers argued: “Society is again learning via hard experience that drugs are dangerous.” The Atlantic
5.
Dean Preston, a democratic socialist on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, argued in a new documentary that another sort of idea is to blame for the drug crisis. “I think what you’re seeing in the Tenderloin is absolutely the result of capitalism and what happens in capitalism to the people at the bottom rungs,” he said. Arresting drug users, Preston added, doesn’t help: “It’s actually made it less safe. It increases overdoses.” S.F. Chronicle
6.
Reporter Nilay Patel on how Twitter broke the news:
“I had countless conversations with reporters in the pre-Elon Musk Twitter era who could not fathom doing their jobs without the site, who insisted that Twitter was where sources and scoops and true insight lay. It was utterly wrong and also completely understandable in a way that made arguing about it futile: Twitter could feel like a direct connection to a constantly shifting force in the culture, especially for anyone who grew up outside the corridors of power and influence.” The Verge
7.
While on patrol in South Lake Tahoe, an officer stopped to remove what looked like a rock from the roadway, the California Highway Patrol said in a Facebook post on Tuesday. Upon closer inspection, he discovered the rock was a tiny saw-whet owl, which climbed up his arm, paused for a picture, above, then flew away. Sacramento Bee
- The saw-whet owl is one of America’s smallest birds of prey, standing only about 7 inches tall. They are said to commonly behave as though tame. Here’s a very cute saw-whet at a raptor center in Alaska. 👉 YouTube
Southern California
8.
Earlier this year, the Cheech Museum in Riverside displayed an exhibit called “Life Logistics,” featuring works on the theme of the warehouse boom across the Inland Empire. One piece featured a depiction of an Amazon warehouse in flames with the words “Burn Them All Down.” Internal memos leaked to the Associated Press have now revealed how Amazon executives fumed over the artwork, vowing to cut financial ties with the museum. “We will not fund organizations that have positioned themselves antagonistically toward our interests,” the memo said. Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
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9.
“A Los Angeles nonprofit was given government land in January 2007 to build a few dozen units of affordable housing. They’re finally hoping to open the building next year.”
The Wall Street Journal told the story of how a development in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights faced 17 years of false starts and delays, in a case study of how difficult it is to build affordable housing in California.
10.
A man flew from Denmark to Los Angeles on Nov. 4 with no passport or plane ticket — and everyone involved seems to be very confused. The story emerged in a federal complaint first reported on Monday. Prosecutors said Sergey Vladimirovich Ochigava, who is Russian, told investigators that he didn’t remember how he got through security in Europe. The flight crew said Ochigava sat in a seat that was supposed to be unoccupied and kept wandering around the plane trying to chat up other passengers. He pleaded not guilty to charges of being a stowaway. 404 Media | A.P.
11.
Two years after rape allegations derailed the NFL career of former San Diego State punter Matt Araiza, the woman who accused him dropped her lawsuit against him on Tuesday. In August 2022, Araiza, then 22, and two former teammates were accused of gang-raping a 17-year-old girl at a house party. Araiza professed innocence. But two days later, the Buffalo Bills, where he was a rookie, cut him before he ever took the field. A few months after that, prosecutors declined to file charges, citing lack of evidence. Araiza’s lawyers said that he would try to return to the NFL. ESPN | S.D. Union-Tribune
12.
Since 2017, a Southern California porn maker called Strike 3 has filed more than 12,440 lawsuits accusing defendants of infringing its copyrights by downloading its movies without permission. Virtually none of the cases reached trial, as defendants routinely agreed to pay a few thousand dollars to spare themselves public humiliation. A federal judge said the practice smacks of extortion. “It treats this Court not as a citadel of justice, but as an ATM,” he wrote. L.A. Times
Thanks for reading!
The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
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