Good morning. It’s Friday, Oct. 21.
- Wild horses are causing problems in the Eastern Sierra.
- Report says Elon Musk plans to gut Twitter’s workforce.
- And a floppy disk business thrives in Orange County.
Statewide
1.
“Just east of Yosemite, a bicyclist was pushing through a 100-mile race last month when the unthinkable happened. [He] ran, literally, into one of the biggest quandaries of the American West: wild horses.”
Over the past few years, herds of wild horses have become a familiar sight in the Eastern Sierra for the first time in modern memory. No one knows why they came, but they’re posing major problems. S.F. Chronicle
2.
The Democratic candidate for governor in Oklahoma, Joy Hofmeister, noted in a debate Wednesday that violent crime rates in Oklahoma are worse than in New York or California, the Washington Post reported. The incumbent Gov. Kevin Stitt chuckled, mouth agape. “That’s not true,” he said. “Oh my gosh. Hang on, Oklahomans, do you believe we have higher crime than New York or California? That’s what she just said!”
Latest violent crime rates from the FBI:
- Oklahoma: 459 incidents per 100,000 people
- California: 442 incidents per 100,000 people
Latest CDC homicide data:
- Oklahoma: 9 deaths per 100,000 people
- California: 6.1 deaths per 100,000 people
3.
“Now that’s an avocado-eating dog.”
Huell Howser, the host of the public TV show “California’s Gold” known for his aw-shucks demeanor, would have turned 77 this week. In his honor, KCET shared a classic clip of Howser going to San Diego County to learn about the rich history of avocados. @KCET
SFGATE: The funniest places Howser visited.
Northern California
4.
Elon Musk plans to lay off roughly 75% of Twitter’s 7,500 workers, reducing the San Francisco company to a skeleton staff of a little more than 2,000, according to interviews and documents cited by the Washington Post. But even if the deal falls through, Twitter’s management already had plans to make major cuts by the end of next year. “Musk’s $44 billion bid, though hostile, is a golden ticket for the struggling company.” Washington Post | A.P.
5.
On Monday, Jane Fonda declared her support for Honey Mahogany, a candidate for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. That Hollywood’s ultimate liberal weighed in on a contest to represent one-eleventh of America’s 17th-largest city spoke to how Mahogany is being embraced as a new kind progressive.
SF Standard writes, “As a Black transgender woman whose family arrived decades ago as Ethiopian refugees, Honey Mahogany, 38, is at once an unlikely candidate for office and, in her backers’ eyes, the right person at the right time.”
6.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Alex Shultz, a journalist for SFGATE, about his reporting on Charles B. Johnson. The billionaire owner of the San Francisco Giants has been making large donations to some of the country’s most divisive far-right politicians, such as Lauren Boebert and Laura Loomer. That’s been a source of consternation for some fans in one of America’s most liberal cities.
Southern California
7.
In Kern County, candidates are battling in three toss-up elections for the U.S. House and the state Legislature that make the stretch of the southern Central Valley among the most competitive pieces of political turf in America. Both Republicans and Democrats do share at least one common complaint, however. Kern County feeds and fuels California, and yet, as one politico put it, “We’re treated like a stepchild.” CalMatters
8.
Former UCLA gynecologist Dr. James Heaps was found guilty on Thursday of sexually abusing female patients during his tenure at the university. The Los Angeles County jury delivered a mixed verdict, convicting Heaps, 65, on five counts, acquitting him on seven, and deadlocking on nine. In the wake of the scandal that erupted in 2019, UCLA agreed to pay nearly $700 million in settlements to hundreds of Heaps’ patients, a record amount by a public university. A.P. | Courthouse News
9.
“TOI-1 is now renegade.”
Last Friday, a clueless civilian Cessna pilot flew into restricted airspace above Irvine Valley College, where President Biden was speaking. The situation became so tense that F-16 fighter jets dropped flares and performed three “headbutt” maneuvers to grab the pilot’s attention. Radio communications shared online revealed how frustrated the pilots became. The Drive
10.
Van Nuys Airport is the country’s busiest general aviation airport, which are public use airports without scheduled service. It’s also wedged in one of Los Angeles’ denser urban areas, with half a dozen elementary schools less than a mile from the tarmac. For locals, the smell of fumes from the private jets of the Jenners and Clooneys of the world have become intolerable in the last few years. “I can’t let my son out,” one woman said. “When the fumes come out, I have to bring him inside.” L.A. Times
11.
It has been two decades since their heyday, but a bulk supplier of the iconic 3.5-inch floppy disk says business is still booming. Tom Persky, who runs floppydisk.com in Lake Forest, said he sells about 500 disks a day. His biggest customers: the embroidery business. “Floppy disks are very reliable, very stable, a very well understood way to get information in and out of a machine,” he said. “Plus, they have the additional feature of not being very hackable.” Reuters
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- What is it like to live in Yosemite? After college, Andrew Upchurch reinvented himself as a modern-day John Muir, moving to the Sierra valley to connect with the natural world. A few years ago, a filmmaker made a video vignette about his life. Vimeo (~3:34 mins)
- Born in 1936 in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Bernice Bing became part of the city’s avant-garde scene. But as an Asian American woman and a lesbian, her trailblazing abstract expressionist paintings were overlooked. Nearly a quarter century after her death in 1998, that’s changing. N.Y. Times
- A couple days before Christmas in 2016, Joseph Nevis got drunk and ended up asleep on the pavement with his legs draped over railroad tracks in Marysville. Testifying in a lawsuit against Amtrak and others, Nevis said when he awoke his legs were gone. Sacramento Bee
- The photojournalist Cristina Salvador Klenz chronicled the lives of Southern California’s roughly 50,000 Romani for a fascinating photography book: “Hidden: Life with California’s Roma Families.” Huck Magazine | Long Beach Press-Telegram
- Ralph Lauren, the quintessential New York designer, hosted his first-ever fashion show in Southern California and A-list stars showed up in force, including Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Chastain, and Sylvester Stallone. The A.P. has pictures.
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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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