Good morning. It’s Friday, March 13.
- State’s ultrawealthy plot $500 million political fund.
- White House denies report on Iran threat to California.
- And pictures of the wildflower explosion in Death Valley.
Statewide
1.
Organizers of a proposed political fund said they hoped to raise $500 million from California’s ultrawealthy to counter the influence of unions and progressives. The project, called California Renewal, has been fueled by anger over a proposed billionaire tax and has attracted supporters such as Joe Lonsdale and Garry Tan. “We need to think about politics more like we think about investing,” Tan said. Lorena Gonzalez, a labor leader, scoffed. “You may be able to buy one election or one congressman or one governor even,” she said. “You’re not going to buy California.” Bloomberg
- An analysis of political donations by billionaires found that 300 families gave an average of $10 million each in 2024, equivalent to the combined voice of roughly 100,000 typical donors. N.Y. Times
2.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt demanded on Thursday that ABC News retract what she called its “phony” report on the potential for an Iranian attack against California. “No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did,” she said. California officials confirmed that the FBI warned local police about possible attack drones launched from an ocean vessel, but they said no credible threats had been identified. Military analysts cited in a Sacramento Bee report on Thursday described the potential for such an attack as “plausible” and “realistic.” S.F. Chronicle | The Hill
3.
In California, the housing laws have been loosened, but the houses have not followed. The Atlantic’s Rogé Karma explains:
“The problem in California is that the state’s pro-housing laws try to do a whole lot more than just make it easier to build housing: preserve local autonomy, pay high construction wages, guarantee that new units are accessible to low-income renters. In other words, even as they removed some regulatory barriers, they created new ones. In trying to accomplish every objective and accommodate every interest, all at once, California set up its housing agenda to fail.“
4.
Bill Cosby was freed from prison in 2021, but he still faces sex assault lawsuits from multiple women, including one playing out now in Los Angeles. Donna Motsinger, a former waitress at a Sausalito restaurant, accused Cosby of raping her after he escorted her to one of his comedy shows in the Bay Area in 1972. In court papers, Motsinger, now 84, said the attack happened after Cosby gave her a pill she believed to be aspirin. “She woke up in her house with all her clothes off,” her lawyers said. Cosby denies the allegations and those brought by dozens of other women. N.Y. Times
5.
A reporter asked five neighbors in the East Bay cul-de-sac where Rep. Eric Swalwell says he has lived since 2017 if they had ever seen him. None had. California law requires gubernatorial candidates to live in the state. Swalwell supporters have called doubts about his residency a “MAGA-originated conspiracy.” But some Democrats, including the rival campaign of Antonio Villaraigosa, are now expressing alarm. “It looks like there’s a real problem here,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor of constitutional law at Loyola Marymount. California Post
- Steve Hilton, a Republican candidate for governor, has pursued a potent line of attack against rival Chad Bianco: reminding everyone that the Riverside sheriff kneeled during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. ABC7
6.
In 2015, during California’s worst drought in thousands of years, the scarlet monkeyflower had all but vanished from its habitat along creeks in the Sierra Nevada. But as the drought eased, the plant rebounded with a vengeance. Scientists have now discovered the secret of the monkeyflower’s success: They relied on a type of rapid genetic evolution to become more tolerant of water scarcity. Daniel Anstett, a plant biologist, called the finding a “great source of hope” in the ability of wild plants to survive climate disruption. Washington Post | CNN
7.
The New York Times sent photographer and videographer Gabriela Bhaskar to Death Valley to capture the bonanza of wildflowers that has transformed North America’s driest place:
“Since February, wildflowers have burst from the desert floor of the national park in California, dotting the typically barren landscape with pops of color in shades of lemony yellow, cotton candy pink and deep violet. It has been called the most abundant bloom in a decade.”
- With lupines, fiddlenecks, and poppies on the march, the San Francisco Chronicle tapped a database of wildflower sightings to create a real-time map of blooms across the state.
Northern California
8.
Another child molester is set to be freed after being granted elderly parole under a program created in 2018 to ease prison crowding. Gregory Vogelsang, 57, was convicted of kidnapping and sex crimes involving children between the ages of 5 and 11 in the 1990s. During a news conference on Thursday, Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho called elderly parole a “horrible, unjust” law. “This inmate will molest again,” he said. Vogelsang’s parole comes after another elderly parole of a child molester in September drew howls of outrage. CapRadio | Sacramento Bee
9.
Now that coding is being automated by artificial intelligence, you might expect programmers to feel demoralized. Reporter Clive Thompson interviewed more than 70 software developers and found them surprisingly jazzed about their new powers:
“‘We’re talking 10 to 20 — to even 100 — times as productive as I’ve ever been in my career,’ Steve Yegge, a veteran coder who built his own tool for running swarms of coding agents, told me. ‘It’s like we’ve been walking our whole lives,’ he says, but now they have been given a ride, ‘and it’s fast as [expletive].'” N.Y. Times Magazine
Southern California
10.
A nonprofit academy in Los Angeles is preparing autistic artists for careers in Hollywood. Exceptional Minds is the only full-time, post-secondary arts program of its kind in the U.S. for people on the autism spectrum, a group with a stubbornly high unemployment rate in the U.S. Its artists have contributed to 19 Oscar-winning or nominated films. Jack Zimmerman, a visual effects artist, erased a camera crew that was visible in the background of a scene in “Gladiator II.” “It feels like a dream,” he said of the work. “I’ve always wanted to work on a feature film like this.” Reuters
11.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Joe Flint, a media reporter for the Wall Street Journal. They discussed Hollywood’s economic upheaval as the entertainment capital heads into Oscar weekend. No one watched the news of the Paramount-Warner merger and didn’t see thousands of jobs evaporating in the next couple years, Flint said. “Everything is based on trying to save a few dollars by shooting elsewhere and making less,” he said. “That’s kind of where we’re at right now.”
- Here are your 2026 Oscar predictions, from the L.A. Times, N.Y. Times, and Hollywood Reporter.
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- Nathan Martin, a high school cross-country coach, won the Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday in the race’s closest finish ever. In the final push, Martin looked like a sprinter as he surged from behind, crossing the finish line 00.01 seconds ahead of Michael Kamau, who collapsed before being carried away on a stretcher. O.C. Register | L.A. Times
- After her mother died, the journalist Betsy Andrews made a pilgrimage with her family to the archipelago off Southern California. They dove into an underwater forest, where orange garibaldi fish and blue-banded gobies weaved through the filtered sunlight. Later, they hiked out to a peninsula, sang her mother’s favorite Grateful Dead song, and released her ashes into the water. Andrews wrote about “the life-affirming beauty of California’s Channel Islands.” Conde Nast Traveler
- A Santa Cruz restaurant was compelled to scrap its logo after critics accused the owner of making it with AI. People flooded the Salty Otter with negative reviews over the image of a colorful river otter on a surfboard. SFGATE | Lookout Santa Cruz
- When the photographer Larry Sultan visited a porn shoot in a San Fernando Valley home in 1998, he was riveted by the clash of vice and domesticity. “I knew this was something I had to go back to,” he told the New York Times. The result is “The Valley,” a photobook on the strange suburban mundanity of America’s smut capital. Huck magazine | AnOther magazine
- See more from “The Valley,” 1998–2003.
- Researchers found that nearly 40% of conventionally grown produce in California has residues of PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” which have been linked to cancer and other diseases. “PFAS pesticides went from being the exception to now they’re the rule,” said Nathan Donley, of the Center for Biological Diversity. L.A. Times | KPBS
- It’s virtually impossible to eliminate PFAS from your diet. But there are steps you can take. N.Y. Times
Get your California Sun T-shirts, phone cases, hoodies, hats, and totes!
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.