Good morning. It’s Wednesday, March 23.
• | City leaders embrace crackdowns on homeless camps. |
• | Wealthy white millennials give away their fortunes. |
• | And six charming under-the-radar towns in Northern California. |
Statewide
1
A forthcoming book by New York Times journalists describes the friction Kamala Harris faced in her first year as vice president:
• | The first lady, Jill Biden, criticized the choice of Harris as her husband’s running mate: “There are millions of people in the United States. Why … do we have to choose the one who attacked Joe?” The Guardian |
• | Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director, tired of complaints that Harris was handed an impossible portfolio. She noted that it “was not the first time in Harris’s political career that she had fallen short of sky-high expectations,” the authors wrote. Politico |
• | Harris felt slighted by the “perceived snubs” of White House aides, including failing to stand when she entered a room. Business Insider |
2
Police cleared homeless people from Echo Park in Los Angeles last spring.
Ringo Chiu/AFP via Getty Images
In liberal cities across the West, leaders are pushing policies to address homelessness that would have been unheard of a few years ago. Los Angeles and Oakland both passed laws meant to prohibit camping in designated areas. San Francisco’s mayor declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin. Fresno added new fines. And Modesto, Bakersfield, and Riverside all pushed to add more park rangers to enforce anti-camping rules. The Guardian | A.P.
3
A San Diego appeals court judge was confirmed Tuesday as the first Latina to serve on the California Supreme Court. A daughter of Mexican immigrants, Justice Patricia Guerrero grew up in the agricultural Imperial Valley and attended Stanford Law. Her father Jorge Guerrero, who worked as a farm laborer, sat beaming as she spoke at the hearing about standing on the shoulders of her parents. “Like so many immigrant families,” she said, “they came here to work hard, to seek opportunities and to give better lives to their children.” KQED | Courthouse News
4
Gray whales swam off the coast of California.
Pond5
Spring has arrived, which means animals are running, flying, and swimming to their summer feeding and breeding grounds. Now in full swing off the coast of California is the epic annual migration of gray whales, who journey more than 5,000 miles from their nursery grounds in Baja California to their feeding grounds in Alaska. The Nature Conservancy included the gray whale in its list of “five must-see migrations” in California.
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The eight best spots along the California coast for viewing the gray whale migration. 👉 VisitCalifornia.com
Northern California
5
The L.A. Times profiled Mayor London Breed as she challenges San Francisco’s far left. On her upbringing:
“She never knew her father and her mother was largely absent. A younger sister died of a drug overdose; a brother is imprisoned. A cousin was shot and killed by police. She witnessed her first homicide when she was 12. The men in her family were pimps, hustlers and drug dealers, Breed said.”
6
Wealthy white millennials in the Bay Area are giving away their fortunes in an act of rebellion against capitalism. They are part of a growing movement who call themselves “class traitors.” Clemmy Brown, 36, whose great-grandfather founded Whirlpool appliances, struggled with guilt over her inheritance of $1.2 million. So she gave the entire amount away and moved in with her parents. She now lives on $50,000 a year. Bay Area News Group
7
Dunsmuir’s entire downtown is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sean Boren
A Gold Rush town filled with restaurants, wineries, and art galleries; a tiny East Bay community that was once America’s film capital; and a village nestled at the foot of Mount Shasta where time seems to have stopped in the 1930s.
7×7 gave a tour of six charming Northern California towns you’ve never heard of.
8
Robert Frost in an undated photo.
Bettmann archive/Getty Images
“The Road Not Taken” has been described as the most misread poem in America. Written by Robert Frost, who was born in San Francisco on this week in 1874, the poem became ingrained in American culture, its phrases repeated on refrigerator magnets and in chewing gum commercials. But according to the critic David Orr, almost everyone gets it wrong. The poem is commonly interpreted as an anthem of nonconformity, encouraging readers to take the path less traveled. But the two roads diverging in a yellow wood are, by Frost’s description, interchangeable — they “equally lay / In leaves” and “the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.” According to this reading, writes Orr, “The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives.” Paris Review | The Atlantic
Southern California
9
The top watchdog for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department identified more than 40 deputies who belong to tattooed, gang-like cliques within department stations. Critics say the so-called Banditos and Executioners use aggressive tactics similar to those of criminal street gangs. Sheriff Alex Villanueva has downplayed the issue, demanding that political leaders stop using the phrase “deputy gangs.” But Max Huntsman, the watchdog, said the department has never properly investigated allegations of gang corruption. L.A. Times
10
Marchers carried a Mickey Mouse in rainbow colors in Burbank on Tuesday.
Irfan Khan/L.A. Times via Getty Images
About 100 employees walked out of the Walt Disney Co.’s Burbank headquarters Tuesday to protest the company’s response to Florida legislation that restricts discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary schools. Chief Executive Bob Chapek earlier apologized for failing to take a public stand opposing the bill. But workers felt he didn’t go far enough, mounting a revolt that has shattered norms inside the traditionally tight-lipped company. A.P. | L.A. Times
11
The real estate developer Rick Caruso participated in his first debate in the Los Angeles mayoral race Tuesday, and his rivals took the opportunity to deride him as an out-of-touch billionaire. But there was surprising agreement among the five candidates on issues around homelessness and crime. All favor adding more police and banning homeless encampments, and all rebuked the progressive policies of L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón. Courthouse News | CNN
Steve Lopez: “Anything can happen in two months, but Bass was generally strong and steady in the debate, and if there’s such a thing, she looked the most mayoral.”
12
The McDonald’s in Downey is from another time.
Shutterstock
Driving by the world’s oldest surviving McDonald’s, you might not even recognize that it’s a McDonald’s.
Located in Downey, about 15 minutes southeast of downtown Los Angeles, the Googie-style restaurant was opened in 1953, five years after Richard and Maurice McDonald founded the chain that would alter the landscape of American dining. Rather than golden arches, it features one massive yellow parabola, which serves as a perch for Speedee, the first McDonald’s mascot before Ronald McDonald. At the walk-up counter, a sign compares prices in 1955 to those of today. Gas, it notes, was 20 cents a gallon, the equivalent of about $2 in 2022. Eater Los Angeles | Plain Magazine
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