Groups spent $26 million to sway voters over Prop. 50, more than any ballot measure in state history
CalMatters, JEREMIA KIMELMAN: "Voters in Sacramento got a mailer in recent weeks declaring that “California’s landmark election reform — under attack by Sacramento politicians.” Orinda residents have received flyers that shout “Fight back against Trump — Vote Yes.” The narrator on a video ad shared on X intones, “Two wrongs don’t make a right — Vote No.” These are among a barrage of advertisements, yard signs and billboards bombarding Californians with direction to support or oppose redrawing the state’s congressional districts four years ahead of schedule.
But none of it was paid for by the major campaigns advocating for and against Proposition 50, the ballot measure put forth by Gov. Gavin Newsom to counter Republican redistricting efforts in Texas. Instead, nonprofits, political parties and a billionaire have financed an independent effort as election day approaches Tuesday."
Read More on Proposition 50: How Newsom has capitalized on anger with Trump in California ballot fight, Washington Post, MAEVE RESTON; Is that election text legit? Where to find info you can trust, LA TIMES, KAREN GARCIA; Newsom Turns a California Election Into a National Platform, NY Times, LAUREL ROSENHALL
A massive hit to SNAP benefits is coming for California even after the shutdown ends
Chronicle, ALEXEI KOSEFF: "Even once the looming funding lapse for federal food assistance is resolved, hundreds of thousands of low-income Californians and millions more Americans could still lose their benefits in the coming months because of changes to the program adopted this summer by Republican lawmakers.
Stricter work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, approved as part of President Donald Trump’s tax and domestic policy megabill, will hit particularly hard in California, which for years was exempted from those provisions. Experts at the nonprofit California Budget & Policy Center estimate that more than 650,000 people enrolled in CalFresh, the state’s SNAP, are at risk of losing their benefits under the new criteria."
FBI Director Patel says multiple people were arrested in Michigan in a Halloween attack plot
LA Times, MIKE HOUSEHOLDER: "Multiple people who had been allegedly plotting a violent attack over the Halloween weekend were arrested Friday in Michigan, FBI Director Kash Patel said in a social media post.
Patel said more information would be released later. But the law enforcement effort appeared to be in the Detroit area."
Austin Beutner assails Karen Bass over rising city fees he says are ‘crushing families’
LA Times, DAVID ZAHNISER: "Los Angeles mayoral candidate Austin Beutner took aim at the rising cost of basic city services Thursday, saying Mayor Karen Bass and her administration have contributed to an affordability crisis that is “crushing families.”
Beutner, appearing outside Van Nuys City Hall, pointed to the City Council’s recent decision to increase trash collection fees to nearly $56 per month, up from $36.32 for single-family homes and duplexes and $24.33 for three- and four-unit apartment buildings."
California’s own Louvre heist: Jewelry and artifacts stolen from museum
Washington Post, ANGIE ORELLANA HERNANDEZ: "A titanium neckpiece crafted by a famed metalsmith. A marine animal’s tooth etched with a drawing roughly 200 years old. Baskets woven by unidentified Native American artists.
Those items and roughly 1,000 others disappeared Oct. 15 in an overnight burglary of an off-site storage facility belonging to the Oakland Museum of California. The theft was not publicized until Wednesday, when the Oakland Police Department posted on social media that the perpetrators had taken jewelry, laptops and various historical artifacts."
Drugged women, secret photos: Horrific details emerge as USC grad student confesses to police
LA Times, RICHARD WINTON and HAILEY WANG: "While pursuing his Ph.D in electrical engineering at USC, Sizhe Wang maintained ties with female friends, including a fellow graduate student and two women from back home in China.
On outings that started innocently — a trip to San Diego, a ride from the airport, a shared meal — Weng drugged the women, first with powder in their drinks or food and then with syringes and tubing in their anuses, before sexually assaulting them and photographing them, according to a prosecutor’s motion."
Los Angeles will nearly double recycled water for 500,000 residents
LA Times, IAN JAMES: "In a plan that will reverberate more than 300 miles north at Mono Lake, Los Angeles city leaders have decided to nearly double the wastewater that will be transformed into drinking water at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys.
Instead of treating 25 million gallons per day as originally planned, the L.A. Board of Water and Power Commissioners voted to purify 45 million gallons, enough water for 500,000 people."
Capitol Briefs: Bills, a Bay Area shocker and a new CW staffer
Staff, Capitol Weekly: "Schwarzenegger – the real ‘Gov. No’: Lobbyist, McGeorge law professor and regular Capitol Weekly contributor Chris Micheli is nothing if not an intrepid collector of legislative data. With the legislature out until January, Micheli has been using the break to analyze the session through the lens of history. Some of his recent findings:
The vast majority of the bills sent to the governor’s desk over the past four decades have been signed into law.
The lowest veto rate in that timeframe (1 percent) came during Governor Jerry Brown 1.0 and the highest (35 percent) under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The average veto rate over the past 42 years is 17.4%."
Fresno will deploy poll observers in Prop. 50 election on top of federal monitors
Fresno Bee, LILIANA FANNIN: "The City of Fresno will deploy election observers to all city polling sites during Tuesday’s special election to decide Prop. 50, on top of federal and state monitors, city officials announced Thursday. The decision comes less than a week after the U.S. Department of Justice said it will send monitors to polling sites in five California counties — including Fresno — in the Nov. 4 election.
The sole question on the ballot is Prop. 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to temporarily redraw the state’s map of congressional districts to favor Democratic candidates in response to a similar gerrymandering effort in Texas favoring Republicans."
Daylight saving ends this weekend. Here’s why it makes some of us feel so miserable
Chronicle, ERIN ALLDAY: "This Sunday, daylight saving ends across the United States, which means Americans will gain an hour of sleep in the morning and lose an hour of daylight in the evening — and many people will complain that the adjustment is making them miserable.
The biannual time change is unpopular in the U.S., with roughly half of Americans saying they wish it would end, according to surveys. The American Academic of Sleep Medicine also has called for a permanent switch to standard time — that’s what the country will fall back to this weekend — due to the downstream health effects of disrupting sleep patterns."
California and major truck companies clash in clean emissions lawsuit
SacBee, CHAEWON CHUNG: "A judge in Sacramento federal court will hear a lawsuit Friday from four major truckmakers challenging California’s authority to enforce its Clean Truck Partnership, which commits them to cut pollution from heavy-duty vehicles and back the state’s zero-emission goals.
The companies, Daimler Truck North America, Volvo North America, International Motors and PACCAR, sued the state in August, arguing that California can no longer enforce the agreement after the Trump administration used the Congressional Review Act earlier this year to rescind the federal waivers that allowed the state to set its own clean-truck standards."
(OPINION) A new court ruling ‘blows up’ California housing law. Our incoming Senate leader isn’t helping
Chronicle, EMILY HOEVEN: "California continues to stay in the news for its swath of lawsuits against President Donald Trump. Attorney General Rob Bonta teed up his 45th suit against the administration this week — this time over SNAP benefits.
Yet one of the juiciest lawsuits of the year involving California has nothing to do with the president — it was filed against the state on Oct. 24. And it has mostly flown under the radar."
Salmon have flourished since California dam removal. But some may be swimming too far
Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "With the removal of four dams on the Klamath River, salmon are making tremendous progress on their migration upstream, reaching new, previously inaccessible waters along the California-Oregon border. In some cases, however, they may be making too much progress.
This month, workers at the Klamath Drainage District observed chinook salmon in their irrigation complex, a grid of canals and ditches that forks off the river near Klamath Falls, Ore., nearly 250 miles from the river’s mouth. The fear is that these far-roaming fish will get caught in the irrigation water as it’s doled out to farms and swept onto dry land amidst the alfalfa, potatoes and grains."
Plan to kill 450K owls pushes past major obstacle with Republicans both for and against
LA Times, LILA SEIDMAN: "A controversial plan to kill one owl species to save another cleared a major hurdle.
The full Senate on Wednesday struck down a GOP effort to prevent the cull of up to 450,000 barred owls in the Pacific Northwest over three decades, ending a saga that created strange political bedfellows."
Lost La Mesa officer had been victim of LA predator sentenced to 146 years in prison
Times of San Diego, JENNIFER VIGIL: "Late La Mesa police officer Lauren Craven has been named as one of the victims of a Hollywood producer who has been sentenced to 146 years to life in prison.
David Brian Pearce, 43, was convicted of first-degree murder for the drug overdose deaths of a model and her friend in Los Angeles, along with charges that he sexually assaulted seven other women."
