Good morning. It’s Friday, May 29.
- Xavier Becerra opens up lead in governor’s race.
- Los Gatos “party mom” gets 35-year prison sentence.
- And Rancho Cucamonga teen wins national spelling bee.
Statewide
1.
“He’s in a very strong position now.”
A pair of new polls this week showed Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, opening his lead in the race for California governor. A survey of likely California voters by UC Berkeley researchers found that 25% support Becerra, followed by 21% for Republican Steve Hilton and 19% for Democrat Tom Steyer. Pollsters said a June 2 primary result that advances Becerra and Hilton would all but ensure the Democrat’s path to the governorship. “We know what the voter registration shows in California,” said pollster Mark Baldassare. Politico | L.A. Times
- Still undecided? See a last-minute voter guide. 👉 CalMatters
2.
California’s Assembly on Thursday voted 72 to 0 to bar children under the age of 16 years old from having social media accounts. The overwhelming support for the measure is the latest sign of a growing backlash against the harms of tech to young people’s mental health and academic lives. Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, a Democrat, said the average California child is spending five hours a day on social media. “We are not prohibiting children from accessing social media,” he said. “We are prohibiting social media from accessing our children.” Courthouse News | Sacramento Bee
Northern California
3.
Shannon O’Connor, dubbed the Los Gatos “party mom” in the press, was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Thursday, the maximum penalty, for hosting gatherings where her son’s teenage friends were pushed to drink and have sex. During the trial, O’Connor, 52, told reporters she was being used as a scapegoat. But she offered an apology to a court filled with victims’ families on Thursday. “I am ashamed and I face every day knowing I was the cause of so many people’s anguish,” she said. Mercury News | KGO
4.
Anthropic said on Thursday that its latest fundraising round valued the San Francisco company at $965 billion, rocketing past OpenAI and cementing its status as the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence startup. Once seen as an also-ran in the AI race, Anthropic’s valuation more than doubled from $380 billion in February on its way to becoming the fastest growing company in venture-capital history, according to PitchBook. It did so in part by focusing on technology that excels in writing code, which has turned into a robust business. Wall Street Journal | N.Y. Times
5.
“Come be here and keep more of your money.”
California’s superwealthy are migrating to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe in a bid to avoid taxes, brokers say. Though most of Tahoe’s shoreline is in California, the Nevada portion has accounted for at least 27 home sales above $20 million since 2008. That’s more than double the 11 on the California side. A proposed billionaire tax in California has effectively “sprinkled rocket fuel” on the migratory trend, said one broker. Wall Street Journal
6.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Ivo Jeramaz, winemaker at Napa Valley’s Grgich Hills, whose founder produced the famed Chardonnay that was victorious at the pivotal Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. Jeramaz trained as a mechanical engineer before joining the family business in 1986. Now 67, he said he hopes to work another 25 years: “I’m like a little kid. I get goosebumps every morning waking up and going into my vineyards.”
Southern California
7.
Shrey Parikh, pride of Rancho Cucamonga, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday, spelling a record 32 words correctly in a thrilling spell-off. After nine rounds, the judges declared a tiebreaker between Parikh, 14, and Ishaan Gupta, a 12-year-old from New Jersey, in which the contenders attempt to spell as many words as possible in 90 seconds. Parikh raced through words such as “melengket,” “rapakivi,” and “bromocriptine,” soundly defeating Gupta, who got 25 words correct. “Right now, I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been,” Parikh said. Washington Post | A.P.
- “Peak Bee drama.” Watch Parikh’s dazzling spell-off performance.
8.
Vulcan Elements, a small rare-earth magnet company backed by Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, was only two years old when it clinched an extraordinary coup: a $620 million loan from the Pentagon. Vulcan’s valuation surged 10-fold to $2 billion. The deal came after a key intervention, ProPublica revealed on Thursday. The loan request was made by Peter Navarro, the one-time California Democrat turned Donald Trump loyalist, in what was said to be the first such deal to be directly tied to White House intervention.
9.
At meetings of the Los Angeles City Council, the highest salaried such body in the nation, residents are allotted time to address concerns to the elected leaders — and they are flagrantly ignored. As individuals speak, the members chat with aides. They eat breakfast, scroll through their phones, and walk in and out of the chamber. “I don’t care if someone is spouting on about the rapture,” said one frustrated speaker. “Listening to the public is literally the job.” Los Angeles Magazine wrote about the “incredible disrespect” shown to constituents at L.A. City Council meetings.
- Watch council members ignore a recent speaker.
10.
Motorists have found an unlikely mecca in the foothills of northern San Diego County: a gas station on land owned by the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians where prices undercut competitors by nearly a dollar. Businesses on tribal land are exempt from state taxes and fees. Horizon Fuel Center, in Valley Center, also sells flavored vapes and hands out free plastic bags, otherwise prohibited in California. Business lately has been booming, the New York Times reported.
11.
California’s last “bubble house” is for sale. Wallace Neff, a starchitect of his day, used giant inflated balloons topped with a sprayed type of concrete to cheaply create futuristic-looking domes to help address the post-World War II housing shortage. Several colonies of bubble houses were built, but they proved difficult to furnish. In time, all but one was demolished: a Pasadena bubble house built for Neff’s brother in 1946. The New York Times said it “still stuns.”
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- In the 1960s, the ballerina Marta Becket rented an abandoned social hall in Death Valley and named it the Amargosa Opera House. It became a cultural institution unlike anywhere else in California. Now it is sinking into the earth, reports High Country News.
- The California Academy of Sciences, one of San Francisco’s crown jewels, has been hobbled for years by falling museum attendance, mass layoffs, high staff turnover, and slashed programs. At the same time, the museum’s board has sprung for first-class travel and lavish compensation for its director. San Francisco Standard
- Mendocino County is 100 miles of rugged coast, rolling vineyards, and hamlets so remote they created their own dialect. Well-situated for a weekend adventure is Mar Vista Farm + Cottages, a working farm with 11 Scandinavian-style fishing cottages. Multiple travel writers have raved about it.
- “At sunset, the whole scene glows — the lens, the tower, the white buildings — like something painted rather than built.” John McKinney, a California outdoors author, shared his three favorite California lighthouses along three very different stretches of coast. The Trailmaster
- The painter Jake Longstreth finds beauty in the everyday buildings and landscapes of California. They have titles like “View From Above The Glendale Sports Complex” and “Joshua Tree Walmart.” The works suggest a commentary on suburban life. But in the artist’s own telling, he portrays what is “just there.”
- See a gallery of Longstreth’s paintings.
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