California’s economy expected to slow as unemployment rate rises
SacBee, DAVID LIGHTMAN: "California’s economy is mired in “economic doldrums” this year, with a recovery not expected until next year, a new report Wednesday by the UCLA Anderson Forecast said.
“The data now indicate slow to negative economic growth and a further decline in jobs for 2025,” the forecast said. “Though there is no firm definition of a recession, particularly at the state level, this decline in payroll employment does represent a mild contraction this year,” it found."
Trump admin eyes Mojave Desert groundwater as potential source for arid Arizona
Politico, ANNIE SNIDER and CAMILLE VON KAENEL: "The situation on the Colorado River — the water supply for 40 million Westerners and half of all Californians — is dire. The waterway’s flows have shrunk 20 percent since the turn of the century and climate scientists say it’s not unreasonable to think that another 20 percent could be lost in the coming decades.
To cities, farmers, tribes and industries from Wyoming to Mexico — but especially in legally vulnerable Arizona — that looks like pain."
TikTok and Sabrina Carpenter: Inside Gov. Gavin Newsom’s social media strategy
SacBee, LIA RUSSELL: "Just hours after President Donald Trump said on June 7 that he would send the California National Guard to Los Angeles, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office launched a steady stream of TikTok, X and Instagram memes, videos, fact-checks and GIFs cutting the administration down to size.
The digital barrage has kept up even as the White House has turned its attention in recent days to the Israel-Iran conflict, and marked a turning point in how Newsom’s office responds to the onslaught of personal attacks, policy missives sent via late-night social media posts and viral soundbites coming out of Washington, D.C."
From San Diego to the Bay Area, California restaurants are on edge over immigration raids
CalMatters, LEVI SUMAGAYSAY and LAUREN HEPLER: "Half food festival, half swap meet, the events draw 100-plus vendors a week in Pomona and San Bernardino. They offer a way to “legalize” street food — vendors get a reliable location, cities collect taxes and enforce health codes — while patrons enjoy delicacies from all over Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Spanglish music plays, people dance and kids flock to facepainting and pony rides.
But in the past week, that’s all come to a screeching halt. As the Trump administration ramps up immigration raids in California, some restaurants, worried about their workers or finding that customers are staying home more, are closing temporarily. Many street vendors are going into hiding, and some food festivals and farmers markets have been canceled."
As Channel 24 moves in next-door, low-key Sacramento bar adjusts to the spotlight
SacBee, ANNIKA MERRILEES: "After 23 years, Daniel Delagnes is working late shifts again, pouring drinks at his beloved Sacramento bar well into the wee hours of the morning. Two or three times a week, lately, tour buses pull in just up the block from his bar on 24th Street.
Then hundreds to thousands of people flood the streets and sidewalks, funneling into the music venue that opened in April, a stone’s throw from Delagnes’ door. Many of them duck into his establishment before or after shows for food, drink and atmosphere."
Hunger strike begins as California prisons hand down biggest restrictions since Covid
CalMatters, CAYLA MIHALOVICH: "Nearly two dozen state prisons last week imposed sweeping restrictions on their incarcerated population — including shutting off all outside communication. Now, hundreds of prisoners are reported to be on a hunger strike to protest the system’s largest restrictions since the pandemic.
The corrections department “significantly limited” the daily activities and movement of roughly 34,000 incarcerated people on June 12 in response to a recent uptick in violence, overdoses and contraband, according to its website."
Unions ask California to lead fight for workers at the state level
SacBee, MOLLY GIBBS: "Unions are pushing for “a real right to unionize” in California — urging senators to pass a bill letting the state resolve labor law and union disputes if the National Labor Relations Board fails to provide timely resolutions.
AB 288 had its first hearing in the Senate on Wednesday morning, where over 100 people shared their support of the bill. Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, D-Hawthorne, the bill’s author, said companies often use slow NLRB processing to their advantage and are trying to further strip the organization’s power through lawsuits."
PG&E may cut power in these California counties due to fire risk. What to know
SacBee, DANIEL HUNT: "Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has placed more than a dozen California counties on notice for a possible public safety power shutoff as hot, dry conditions and gusty winds heighten wildfire concerns through Sunday.
Beginning as early as Thursday, so-called PSPS outages are possible in portions of 13 counties, PG&E said in a forecast update Wednesday morning."
READ MORE on power shutoffs: PG&E: These parts of the Bay Area could see power shutoffs as wildfire season arrives. Chronicle, JESSICA FLORES.
How Trump could sabotage L.A.’s World Cup and Olympics
LA Times, MICHAEL HILTZIK: "Organizers of major sporting events always have a lot to worry about — logistics, transportation, security and weather, to start. The organizers of two major events scheduled to take place in Los Angeles next year and in 2028 would be well advised to worry about one additional factor: Donald Trump.
Trump has made public statements endorsing the Olympics and identifying himself with their successful outcome. L.A. won the 2028 games in 2017, during his first term. In a 2020 meeting with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, he claimed to have played a role in securing the games: “From the day I took office,” he said, “I’ve done everything in my power to make sure that L.A. achieved the winning bid.”
Lakers selling majority ownership of franchise to Dodgers owner
LA Times, DAN WOIKE and BILL SHAIKIN: "The Los Angeles Lakers, a family-run business since Jerry Buss purchased the franchise in 1979, will be sold to Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter and TWG Global, according to multiple people briefed on the deal.
The deal is expected to occur with the Lakers’ valuation being about $10 billion — a record for a professional sports franchise. Walter will now lead the city’s two premier professional sports teams."
Trump bans ‘negative’ signage at national parks, asks visitors to snitch on unpatriotic text
LA Times, JACK DOLAN: "In his ongoing war on “woke,” President Trump has instructed the National Park Service to scrub any language he would deem negative, unpatriotic or smacking of “improper partisan ideology” from signs and presentations visitors encounter at national parks and historic sites.
Instead, his administration has ordered the national parks and hundreds of other monuments and museums supervised by the Department of the Interior to ensure that all of their signage reminds Americans of our “extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity and human flourishing.”
Police, DA refuse to release records on Latina senator’s DUI arrest near Capitol
CalMatters, RYAN SABALOW and JEANNE KUANG: "A Democratic California senator is now considering suing Sacramento police for what she alleges was a “politically motivated” false DUI arrest intended to “silence” an LGBTQ Latina lawmaker, her attorney tells CalMatters.
Officers have insisted that they acted professionally, and they say they had evidence to believe Sen. Sabrina Cervantes was driving under the influence of drugs even though a blood test reportedly later proved otherwise."
‘Abducted by Ice’: the haunting missing-person posters plastered across LA
The Guardian, MATTHEW CANTOR: "“Missing son.” “Missing father.” “Missing grandmother.” The words are written in bright red letters at the top of posters hanging on lampposts and storefronts around
Los Angeles. At first glance, they appear to be from worried relatives seeking help from neighbors.
But a closer look reveals that the missing people are immigrants to the US who have been disappeared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Some of the faces are familiar to anyone who has been following the news – that missing father, for instance, is Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was
deported to El Salvador in March without a hearing, in what the Trump administration admitted was an error. “Abducted by Ice,” the poster reads, under a picture of Ábrego García with his small son. “Did not receive constitutional protections. Currently being held in detention.”