Good morning. It’s Thursday, Oct. 8.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom may spare all lives on death row.
- Immigration crackdown roils Central Valley cities.
- And Kimberly Guilfoyle is linked to brazen corruption.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is giving serious consideration to sparing the lives of all 563 prisoners on California death row, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing two insiders. Tennessee’s recent botched execution added urgency to discussions between Newsom and top aides as the governor sought advice on what would be the largest clearing of a death row in modern American history. As Newsom considers a presidential bid, the move could be seen as a bold moral stance or an opening for political attack, the Times said.
2.
Real-estate investors across California are converting market-rate developments into “affordable” housing to profit from a lucrative tax break — without lowering any rents, a San Francisco Chronicle investigation found. They get away with it because affordable rent limits have been set so high in some places that landlords can charge market rates and still qualify for the tax break. All told, the exemptions have stripped away tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue for schools, police departments, and other public services.
3.
Immigration agents stopped a van full of farmworkers on their way to their job site in Kern County early Tuesday and detained every one of them, reports said. The action was the latest in a surge of immigration enforcement across the San Joaquin Valley in recent days that has resulted in dozens of arrests. In Fresno, family members said Luis Arreguin, 54, was arrested while on his way to work late last week. He’s lived in Fresno since the age of 5, his daughter said. KFSN | Fox26 | Fresno Bee
- Sources told Washington Examiner that the immigration crackdown in California would last at least 45 days. Officers were told “to go after anybody,” one source said.
4.
Out-of-state Republican billionaires have taken a deep interest in a question on California’s ballot: whether residents should have to show government identification to vote. Among those who have poured enormous sums into the “Yes on 39” campaign: the Winklevoss brothers, of New York; the Illinois shipping supply magnate Richard Uihlein; and Joe Gebbia, an Airbnb co-founder who lives in Austin. Their involvement signals a strategy to tighten voting rules, one state at a time, CalMatters reported.
Northern California
5.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ambassador to Greece, asked a Republican donor to pay $100,000 that she owed on a credit card, promising access to administration officials if he did, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Guilfoyle, a former San Francisco prosecutor and the ex-wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom, at one point sent a text with bill payment instructions: “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” she wrote. Political writers called the story “gobsmacking,” “bonkers,” and “jaw-dropping.”
6.
The Trump administration on Wednesday accused Wells Fargo of favoring Black Americans for home loans. In a letter to Wells Fargo’s chief executive, Charles Scharf, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the San Francisco bank was under investigation for “repeated public promotion of explicit race-based lending policies.” Those included offering Black homeowners lower-cost refinancing and the creation of a $150 million credit program “to advance racial equity in homeownership.” Wells Fargo shares slid on the news. N.Y. Times | Wall Street Journal
7.
The wine glut driven by shifting tastes has been painful for California grape growers, but there is one fortunate outcome: you can find bottles that typically command $150 for less than $30 on the shelves of retailers such as Costco, Kroger, and Aldi. Steve Beckner, a wine buyer for Grocery Outlet, said he’s never seen anything like it in nearly 30 years in the business. “I’m trying to find the words to describe it,” he said. “The quality has gone up exponentially.” Bloomberg
8.
The North Coast’s Yurok tribe sometimes call themselves the salmon people, a reflection of the foundational role the fish played in sustaining the tribe for millennia. So when the Yurok muralist Carl Avery was commissioned to paint the community basketball court in Klamath Glen, a small community nestled along a bend of the Klamath River, he found a way to marry three tribal passions: art, sports, and salmon. Pictured above, it turned out fantastic. Fox26 | Lost Coast Outpost
- See the before picture.
Southern California
9.
A tropical cyclone swirling over the Pacific took a turn toward Southern California, forecasters said on Wednesday. Hurricane Rachel, which was fewer than 900 miles southwest of San Diego late Wednesday, won’t still be a hurricane by the time it makes landfall this weekend, wrote meteorologist Anthony Edwards: “But it could still present hazards characteristic of a tropical cyclone: Heavy rain, strong winds, big waves and potential storm surge.” S.F. Chronicle | CBS News
10.
In years past, Hollywood regularly cast foreign powers such as Russia and China as its on-screen antagonists. Now the industry is looking up the California coast. This fall, a run of films portray as villains Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Elizabeth Holmes. “There is a fundamental feeling — a widespread feeling among most people — that these mega-gigantic tech companies don’t really care about them,” said Tom Rothman, a Sony Pictures executive. “And one of the important roles that Hollywood has often played is holding power to account.” Politico
11.
In-N-Out, the MVP of California fast food, has always had a lamentable shortcoming, according to many fans. Not only does the burger chain fail to offer delivery, it has aggressively sought to banish services like DoorDash. “But nature abhors a vacuum,” reports L.A. Material. Into that breach, a black market for In-N-Out delivery has emerged through Facebook Marketplace, where drivers have found steady work helping customers enjoy the pleasures of a Double-Double without leaving the house.
12.
An architect couple bought a Cold War-era radio tower in the Santa Monica Mountains and converted it into an event space. When John Jennings and Sasha Tarnopolsky bought the structure in 2005 it was made up of a hulking Brutalist block, a 75-foot steel tower, and “broken glass everywhere,” Tarnopolsky recalled. Renovating it involved cutting through walls up to 36 inches thick. The result is one of the most unusual structures of its kind in Los Angeles, with a swimming pool, gravel courtyard, and the still intact 75-foot tower. N.Y. Times
- See pictures of S-A-L-T (Sea-Air-Land-Tower).
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