Good morning. It’s Wednesday, May 14.
- California says tariffs will cost state $16 billion.
- Menendez brothers win a chance at freedom.
- And Lionel Messi gets superstar welcome in San Jose.
Statewide
1.
Beginning in 2018, allegations of child sexual abuse dating back to the 1980s surfaced in a Santa Monica after-school program. Seven years later, the city has paid nearly $230 million to claimants. In March, officials discussed selling a library to replenish the city’s budget. “I’m afraid that we’re careening toward bankruptcy,” said Dan Hall, a city councilman.
The New York Times wrote about similar crises unfolding in municipalities across California after a 2019 law relaxed the statute of limitations on sex abuse claims.
2.
Regulators gave State Farm permission on Tuesday to adopt an emergency rate hike in response to catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles, making it the first insurer to ever to win such an approval in California. The move — which raises the rate for renters by 15% and for homeowners by 17% — followed a judge’s decision that is was “a fundamentally fair, adequate, and necessary measure.” The hike was immediately condemned by a fire survivor group in Altadena, where policyholders have complained of being short-changed by State Farm. CalMatters | S.F. Chronicle
3.
During the pandemic, California granted early release to nearly 15,000 inmates to lower the risk of disease outbreaks in close quarters. Nearly one-third of them found themselves back in prison by early 2025, a new analysis found. Their most common crimes: gun possession, assault, and burglary. Thirty individuals were convicted of murder. The early releases between 2020 and 2021 coincided with growing public anger over crime that led to recalls of progressive district attorneys and new laws to stiffen criminal penalties. CalMatters
4.
As of January, California had a roughly balanced budget thanks in part to robust tax receipts from Silicon Valley. Now it’s bracing for a deficit of at least $10 billion, sources told Politico. On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom is planning to blame President Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs for delivering a $16 billion hit to state revenues. Newsom’s team is calling it the “Trump Slump.” Republican lawmakers accused the Democratic governor of using Trump as a scapegoat for what they said was his own mishandling of the budget. Politico | Sacramento Bee
Northern California
5.
This spring, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s philanthropic organization suspended funding to nonprofits across California, attributing the pullback to a shift toward more science-focused philanthropy. Internally, however, employees said leaders made it clear that the cuts targeted social issues such as criminal justice reform and housing equity to curry favor with the Trump administration. “They are making sure to cut anything that would sound or even be construed as DEI-esque,” one former employee said. S.F. Standard
6.
Vanity Fair said residents of San Francisco have been noticing small changes for the better in their city.
“[Mayor Daniel] Lurie, who has just wrapped his first 100 days in office, is still basking in his political honeymoon. But his largely enthusiastic reception in San Francisco shows the first signs of optimism not only for a blue city that may be on track for real changes, but for the beleaguered Democratic Party at large.”
7.
A 13-year saga over who invented the lucrative gene-editing technology CRISPR turned in UC Berkeley’s favor Monday, after a federal court reinstated the university’s claim seeking rights to the patent. In 2022, the federal Patent and Trademark Office ruled that the intellectual property belonged to a research center affiliated with M.I.T. and Harvard, which published a paper on the technology in 2012. The court ordered the patent board to revisit UC’s contention that it made the original breakthrough six months earlier. Analysts say the CRISPR market stands to generate billions of dollars. S.F. Chronicle | MIT Technology Review
8.
The Warriors are currently battling the Timberwolves to advance to the NBA’s Western Conference finals. But the hottest game in the Bay Area this week is in San Jose, where soccer megastar Lionel Messi and his team Inter Miami CF are set to play the Earthquakes on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the cheapest tickets for the game were selling for around $430; seats for the Warriors game in San Francisco on Monday went for as little as $150. When Messi appeared on the balcony of his San Jose hotel on Monday, the chorus of cheers was likened to the introduction of the pope. NBC Bay Area | KRON
9.
“To trace the true route, venture
only at night: to be certain of
bearing, you’ll need pack a light”
On Tuesday, an anonymous group announced that it had buried a chest filled with $10,000 worth of treasure somewhere in San Francisco, offering a cryptic set of clues to its location. “We always figured treasure hunting would feature more heavily in life,” the organizers wrote on Reddit. So they resolved to do something about it. Hours later, someone claimed to have found the chest at Fleishhacker Pool, posting pictures as proof. “The power of autism + a golden retriever,” the person wrote, by way of explanation.
Southern California
10.
Erik and Lyle Menendez will have a shot at freedom after a Los Angeles County judge agreed to reduce their sentences, making them immediately eligible for parole. The county’s district attorney had opposed the move, saying the brothers who murdered their parents in their Beverly Hills home in 1989 had failed to show proper “insight” into their crimes. Family members, however, argued passionately for their release. “We all on both sides of the family say 35 years is enough,” Anamaria Baralt told the courtroom. The brothers’ fate now resides with the state parole board. L.A. Times | A.P.
11.
The celebrated author Salman Rushdie pulled out of a planned commencement speech at Claremont McKenna College after a Muslim student group objected to the invitation over his criticism of Islam, the university said on Tuesday. Rushdie, an atheist and critic of all religions, became a reluctant symbol of free speech in 1989 when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, supreme leader of Iran, called for his murder over his novel “The Satanic Verses.” In 2022, Rushdie was stabbed 10 times by an admirer of Khomeini as he was about to give a lecture in New York. Claremont Independent | Redlands Daily Facts
12.
The blue whale is among the most awesome creatures to ever inhabit the earth, and San Diego is arguably the best place in the world to see one. That’s according to the whale-watching tour leader Domenic Biagini, who recently explained why seeing one should really be on your bucket list. “It’s not an exaggeration,” he wrote, “few accessible places on earth have had the consistent volume of [blue] whales and the reliability of sightings as San Diego during the early to mid-summer this decade.” @dolphindronedom
- Biagini captures drone videos of blue whales that take your breath away. Here’s a highlight reel. 👉 YouTube
The California Sun, PO Box 6868, Los Osos, CA 93412
Wake up to must-read news from around the Golden State delivered to your inbox each morning.