Good morning. It’s Thursday, Jan. 22.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom gets a chance to speak in Davos.
- Paid parking at Balboa Park causes visitation to plunge.
- And an extraordinary collection of rare plants in L.A.
Statewide
1.
Gavin Newsom’s office said on Wednesday that the governor was barred from an event at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland under pressure from the White House. Newsom had been scheduled to have a “fireside chat” with an editor for Fortune magazine at the USA House, a venue controlled by the U.S. government. But his team was informed at the last moment of “a venue-level decision” to cancel the talk. “How weak and pathetic do you have to be to be this scared of a fireside chat?” Newsom posted online. N.Y. Times | L.A. Times
- Newsom got another chance to speak early Thursday on the forum’s main stage with Ben Smith, editor of Semafor. He went hard at President Trump: “There’s no rule of law. It’s the rule of Don.” Business Insider | Sacramento Bee
2.
In 2012, there were only about 30,000 electric vehicles being driven in California. That year, then-Gov. Jerry Brown announced an audacious goal to put 1.5 million electric vehicles on the road by 2025. Many were skeptical. On Tuesday, the state released final sales figures for 2025. They showed that more than 2.5 million electrical vehicles have been sold in California since 2012. State officials hailed the industry’s resilience, even as the Trump administration has sought to undermine it. Mercury News | L.A. Times
Northern California
3.
Three months after the death of the young chess grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky shocked the chess world, his cause of death was released this week: an abnormal heartbeat caused by an accidental overdose. The North Carolina Medical Examiner said Naroditsky, who grew up in the Bay Area, had methamphetamine, amphetamine, and the primary psychoactive ingredients of kratom in his system. Some chess figures blamed Vladimir Kramnik, a Russian grandmaster, for driving Naroditsky to despair with unsubstantiated cheating accusations. S.F. Chronicle | The Guardian
4.
A report in the Financial Times found that Silicon Valley magnates who plied President Trump with donations and praise have benefited richly from regulatory relief, favorable policies, and government contracts. In the year since Trump’s swearing-in under the Capitol Rotunda — where figures such as Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and Mark Zuckerberg filled front row seats — the tech bosses have seen their combined personal wealth grow by nearly $300 billion, the newspaper reported. Business Insider | People
5.
Sometime in 2023, opioid-overdose deaths inexplicably started to fall across North America. In San Francisco, jubilant city leaders took credit for the local decline, citing efforts to expand addiction treatment. But researchers are now pointing to another explanation: a fentanyl “drought” caused by a crackdown on fentanyl-precursor chemicals in China. The finding offers a disheartening lesson, the Atlantic wrote: “Nothing American or Canadian policy makers did … made deaths start falling, the paper implies. America and Canada’s drug problem might be in China’s hands.”
6.
For more than 80 years, “Pan American Unity” — a 74-foot-wide mural by the Mexican painter Diego Rivera — has lacked a permanent home in San Francisco worthy of its significance. On Thursday, a groundbreaking ceremony will herald a new chapter for the masterpiece, which celebrates the Americas. The forthcoming Diego Rivera Performing Arts Center plans to host the mural in its lobby, behind a glass frontage that makes it visible from the street. S.F. Chronicle
7.
Erin Kistler has a degree in computer science and decades of experience in the tech industry. Out of the thousands of jobs she has sought in the past year, 0.3% of her applications have advanced to a follow-up or interview. Kistler is now part of a group of plaintiffs suing Eightfold AI, a Santa Clara company that sells resume screening tools powered by artificial intelligence. They say the tool amounts to an algorithmic gatekeeper, blocking candidates for reasons that are hidden from view and insulated from challenge. N.Y. Times | Reuters
Southern California
8.
A suspect charged in what authorities have called the largest jewelry heist in U.S. history was abruptly deported last month, bringing the case against him to a halt. Jeson Nelon Presilla Flores was accused in the notorious 2022 robbery of a Brink’s big rig at a Grapevine truck stop. Federal officials declined to explain the deportation, while prosecutors said they were blindsided by the move. The victimized jewelers, who lost everything, are furious. L.A. Times | CBS LA
9.
Last fall, copper thieves plundered about a dozen streetlights along three city blocks in Los Angeles’ Hancock Park neighborhood. City staff told residents repairs would have to wait nine months, or longer, after a municipal yard that stores replacement wire was also cleaned out by thieves. So residents devised their own solution: They attached solar-powered lamps to the disabled lightposts. L.A. Times
10.
In 1908, a former slave created a Black utopia just north of Bakersfield. In its heyday, Allensworth had a church, a school, a library, and a glee club. But water was scarce and the soil harsh. Residents drifted away from what would become a virtual ghost town. A century later, the predominantly Latino farmworkers who live in the area are testing a bold proposition: Can Allensworth be reborn? On Tuesday, residents gathered to celebrate the major milestone: the completion of a new well, financed with a $3.8 million state grant. SJV Water
11.
On Jan. 5., San Diego introduced parking fees at Balboa Park in an effort to ease the city’s budget troubles. But on Wednesday the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, which represents park organizations, pleaded with city leaders to revisit the decision, warning of a museum “death spiral” caused by plummeting visitation. “This is not theoretical,” said Michael Warburton, executive director of the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. “The downward spiral is happening now.” S.D. Union-Tribune | City News Service
12.
Tucked in a converted truck loading bay in an industrial corner of Los Angeles is an extraordinary greenhouse filled with some of the world’s rarest plants. The greenhouse is tended by the landscape design company Geoponika for the sake of preservation, not retail. Landscape designer Carlos Campos Morera took Architectural Digest on a tour: “It’s this feeling of being outnumbered in a really great way. There’s only one of me and there’s thousands and thousands of these other incredibly special beings that are beautiful and smart and interesting and come from all these crazy places. So it’s an ego killer.” YouTube
- “A dense, organic tapestry.” Julien Sage photographed Geoponika. Atmos
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