Good morning. It’s Friday, Nov. 6.
- Mixed reactions as governor moves to clear death row.
- Silicon Valley stocks plummet on midterm results.
- And Harmeet Dhillon quits DOJ after tumultuous tenure.
Statewide
1.
In the largest mass clemency in American history, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday that he would spare the lives of all 548 inmates on California’s death row, saying state-sanctioned killing “diminishes each of us.” The decision is likely to sit well with Democrats who would be crucial to Newsom’s success in a presidential primary. But about two-thirds of Americans still support the death penalty. Critics highlighted the most heinous crimes committed by inmates on California’s death row, including the torture and murder of children. N.Y. Times | S.F. Chronicle
2.
Progressives notched wins across the country on Tuesday. So why does California’s proposed billionaire tax appear headed for defeat? True, the world’s richest people flooded the state with ads opposing Proposition 40, noted political columnist Joe Garofoli. But similar spending in Texas failed to halt the rise of Democrats to statewide offices there. Aside from being outspent, the measure suffered from the fact that virtually no top California Democrats vocally campaigned for it. “I think Newsom gave a permission structure” to oppose the tax, said Igor Volsky, a pro-tax advocate. S.F. Chronicle
Silicon Valley
3.
By midday Thursday, more than $1 trillion had been erased from the collective market value of the Magnificent Seven group of tech giants, which includes Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Nvidia. The wipeout was attributed to fears that the Democrats’ midterm victories would derail the buildout of artificial intelligence. Across the U.S., voters approved dozens of local restrictions on data-center development and elected at least nine governors who support moratoriums on the infrastructure. “It seems like the rug is getting pulled out from under it,” one analyst said. Wall Street Journal
4.
Employees in Google’s artificial intelligence division are so concerned about the repercussions of their work that they are fighting to be released from non-disparagement agreements. The staff members are barred by employment contracts from criticizing Google even if they leave the company. “This technology is just really consequential and it’s also changing really fast,” one of the employees said. “The public wants to know and deserves to know and often this is the only way that people find out about the harms and potential harms that are happening.” Washington Post
5.
Google, Meta, and TikTok filed separate lawsuits against California on Thursday seeking to block a new law intended to limit the risk of children becoming addicted to social media platforms. Meta argued in its lawsuit that the law violates the First Amendment by wrongly appointing the state as “editor, curator and controller of online speech” while overriding Meta’s editorial judgement. Josh Lowenthal, the assemblyman who wrote the law, said he wasn’t surprised. “It’s just a continuation of big tech’s fight to addict children for profit,” he said. Politico | A.P.
6.
In a fascinating new profile of Dario Amodei, the New York Times explored how the the 43-year-old chief executive of Anthropic came to embrace two interwoven philosophies. One is “rationalism,” which aims to apply dispassionate thinking to the world. The other is “effective altruism,” which seeks to maximize social good with mathematical precision: “These schools of thought fused for Dr. Amodei into an unyielding conviction that A.I. could be so dangerous that only he and like-minded technologists could be entrusted with building it.”
Northern California
7.
Harmeet Dhillon, the conservative San Francisco lawyer who radically reshaped the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, resigned on Thursday after conflicts with department leaders. Dhillon repurposed a unit created to address civil rights injustices into a battering ram against the “woke” left. But sources told the New York Times that President Trump felt she underplayed the threat posed by illegal voting. Dhillon also grew frustrated that she was passed over for promotions in the department, insiders said. N.Y. Times | Reuters
8.
In 2024, Serena Arvayo was stunned to learn that her next-door neighbor in San Jose had filed a lawsuit seeking to declare her son, then 11, a “public nuisance.” Arvayo’s son has nonverbal autism and would grunt while chasing bubbles in the backyard. The neighbor called the sounds “disgusting,” Arvayo said. Outraged, she countersued. In September, a court tossed the neighbor’s lawsuit. Last week, a jury sided with Arvayo in the counterclaim, ordering the neighbor to pay $8 million. KRON | NBC Bay Area
9.
For a brief, glorious time, San Franciscans were ferried along the city’s western shore in a gondola. The Sky Tram, which operated between 1955 and 1966, cost a quarter to ride and ran from the Cliff House restaurant to Lands End, a coastal park about 1,000 feet away. But the business model turned out to be unworkable: the tram frequently broke down, the cabin was noisy, and fog obscured the views. San Franciscans lost interest. The Chronicle recalled the Sky Tram in a piece a few years ago with photos pulled from its archive.
Southern California
10.
Thursday morning, Mayor Karen Bass, 73, conceded the Los Angeles mayoral race to Nithya Raman, a 45-year-old democratic socialist whose campaign caught fire with young progressives. But Raman is not expected to represent a radical break from her predecessor, who is also a progressive. Raman, who studied urban planning at MIT, has vowed to create “a city that works.” That means streamlining permits, painting crosswalks, redesigning city streets, and adding bike lanes. The L.A. Times wrote about how Raman is likely to remake L.A. City Hall.
11.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with New Yorker journalist Ava Kofman about her reporting on the Arcadia surrogacy scandal for the podcast series The Journey. Prosecutors say Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang collected 27 children from surrogates who each thought they were the only one. Xuan, 66, has said he wanted to raise children into positions of power. Yet he treated them grotesquely, Kofman said: “It sometimes can be hard to make sense of people who have irrational ideas.”
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week.
- The photographer Carlos Jaramillo has spent years taking meandering walks around South Los Angeles. In a place once synonymous in popular culture with despair, he found everyday beauty: a father on a hammock with his daughter, girls gossiping in clusters, canna lilies curling over a gate. Aperture magazine called the series “luminous.”
- See more from “South Central.”
- The latest hot property of curiosity in the Southern California desert is shaped like an avocado. The curved home is the result of a minimalist challenge: What happens when a home is designed around just three circles? Wallpaper* published a photo series on the hilltop home with stunning views above the Yucca Valley.
- The Avacado House is being offered on Airbnb.
- In June 2025, when immigration raids were roiling Los Angeles, the singer Nezza planned to perform a Spanish-language rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a Dodgers game. But before taking the field, Nezza was instructed to sing the English version. She did it in Spanish anyway. The L.A. Times produced a moving short documentary on “one small act of bravery.”
- Hackers are now using artificial intelligence to clone retail websites and steal from unwitting customers. The popular Bay Area chain Boichik Bagels is among the latest victims. Emily Winston, the owner, was beside herself after discovering that her website had been faked. “This is just bonkers,” she said. SFGATE
- Yosemite in the fall is a time of brilliant colors, crisp air, and fewer people than during summer. Several photographers shared some fantastic pictures captured since the weekend with the website California Fall Color.
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.