Good morning. It’s Wednesday, May 27.
- Economists make the case for a billionaire wealth tax.
- Waves of Indian immigrants reshape the Bay Area.
- And tempers flare over Garden Grove chemical tank crisis.
Statewide
1.
Novel transparency laws in California enacted in 2023 have provided the best inside look yet at how creator marketing is radically changing political campaigns. Tom Steyer, a billionaire running on economic populism, reasoned that his bid for governor could be propelled by the fake enthusiasm of left-leaning influencers. What the disclosure rules have shown, wrote Semafor, “is how many large- and medium-sized accounts are effectively small businesses selling the followings they cultivated organically to the highest bidder for paid political speech.”
- Steyer has now spent more than $195 million on ads in the most expensive primary campaign in California history. A.P.
2.
California this year made it easier for the authorities to quickly demolish a recreational vehicle if the owner is unable to move it without help. As local politicians embrace towing sweeps as a strategy against urban blight, RV dwellers say they feel increasingly besieged. Tori Larett, a homeless rights advocate, said the state is “waging a war” against its most vulnerable residents. “It comes down to aesthetics,” she said. “Compassion fatigue around unsheltered homelessness in California has never been higher.” N.Y. Times
3.
The total wealth held by the top 0.0002% of Californians, in today’s dollars, was about $22 billion in 1982. This year, the figure is $1.6 trillion. It’s helpful to picture their fortunes as icebergs, wrote a pair of economists in an essay titled “The Case for California’s Billionaire Wealth Tax.” California, they argued, fails to effectively tax vast amounts of hidden wealth, allowing tech barons “to hoard the rewards of the state’s economic growth while its cities cut services and its workers lose health care.” N.Y. Times
4.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a Florida lawsuit accusing California and Washington of improperly granting commercial truck driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants. The case stemmed from a fatal Aug. 12 crash involving an immigrant from Stockton that set off a chorus of condemnation from Trump administration officials, who cited it to advance for a crackdown on immigrants working in commercial trucking. Washington state officials called the lawsuit “a political stunt,” noting that Florida’s attorney general announced it on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. A.P. | NBC News
Correction
An earlier version of this newsletter misattributed a brief submitted in opposition to Florida’s lawsuit against western states over commercial trucking driver’s licenses. It was written by Washington state officials, not the Supreme Court.
Northern California
5.
“Visitors crowd into Hindu temples to pray to Ganesha and other gods. Some public schools teach Hindi and the thwacks of cricket bats on balls ricochet across the biggest park. Inside the city’s many strip malls, Hyderabadi and Maharashtrian food are devoured by homesick immigrants. Women in saris pop in and out of groceries that sell spices and samosas, dal and ghee.”
No region of the country is an Indian as the Bay Area, the San Francisco Chronicle said in a special report: “And no city in the Bay Area is as Indian as Fremont.”
6.
On the edge of San Quentin’s prison yard is a new $239 million learning complex, where inmates study coding, journalism, filmmaking, digital media, and skilled trades. It’s part of a Scandinavian-inspired effort to prepare the men for productive lives through a focus on education and second chances rather than punishment.
“What was once one of California’s most notoriously violent prisons now resembles, in some ways, a college campus more than a correctional facility,” wrote Axios, which took a recent tour of San Quentin.
7.
The California Academy of Sciences, one of San Francisco’s crown jewels, has been hobbled for years by falling museum attendance, mass layoffs, high staff turnover, and slashed programs. At the same time, the museum’s board has sprung for first-class travel and lavish compensation to its director. Perhaps most gallingly to workers, the museum has maintained a mansion for him for years that he never even lived in. The San Francisco Standard wrote about “the unraveling of the California Academy of Sciences.”
Southern California
8.
“Please shut them down.”
“They’re not welcome in our neighborhood.”
“I never thought that something so dangerous is less than 2 miles away from me.”
Tempers flared during a Garden Grove City Council meeting on Tuesday, as residents sought answers for the chemical tank crisis that upended their lives over the Memorial Day weekend. The lawmakers eventually cut the meeting short after shouting matches erupted. O.C. Register | A.P.
9.
As the wildfire on Santa Rosa Island neared full containment on Tuesday, officials assessed the damage across more than a third of the island off Southern California. At least two historic structures were destroyed, but most of a rare grove of Torrey pine trees “remain largely intact,” according to a firefighter assessment. NASA released an extraordinary false-color satellite image, pictured above, that offered a vivid perspective on the size of the burn scar, measuring roughly 29 square miles, the largest ever in the Channel Islands.
10.
Nearly 40% of the office space in downtown Los Angeles is functionally empty, and about 30% of the retail space for stores and restaurants is vacant. Business owners that haven’t fled say what was once a bustling part of the city has become a shell of its former self. Rampant crime is to blame, they say. Cemal Clik, a gift shop owner, was robbed at gunpoint this month. He is scared every time he opens up shop, he said: “This is what downtown is now. Who would want to come here?” L.A. Times
11.
“What I love about Costco is that it is the perfect expression of how skateboarders can turn even the blandest form of American architecture — the big box parking lot — into a thriving community space. At a time when people are lonely and disconnected, a bunch of 40- and 50-year-olds gather around low-stakes terrain, reconnecting with old friends and joking about tricks they can no longer do.”
Conor Dougherty wrote a surprisingly touching piece about skateboarding in a Los Angeles Costco parking lot. N.Y. Times
12.
A 1955 photo of Marilyn Monroe reading James Joyce’s “Ulysses” is routinely scoffed at whenever it’s posted online. Monroe never graduated high school. But her literary life was sincere, according to Gail Crowther, the author of the new work “Marilyn and Her Books.” Monroe recited poems at parties, read Proust on set, and had strong opinions on Hemingway. Yet doubts about her sincerity have persisted. “Our prevailing cultural reflex, then and now, is skepticism larded with misogyny,” wrote reviewer Mark Athitakis. L.A. Times
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