Newsletter: Essential California: Boom time for California real estate, but is a bust coming?
Britain warned of another possible terrorist attack on Tuesday. States are moving fast to protect their pot industries from threats by the White House. The Marciano Art Museum is opening a landmark L.A. building to the public for the first time. Rea
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Wednesday, May 24, and here’s what’s happening across California:
TOP STORIES
Boom times
The median home price in Los Angeles County rose nearly 6% in April from a year earlier, hitting $550,000 and tying a record reached in summer 2007. The milestone comes more than five years after prices bottomed out in early 2012 and as agents say potential buyers are increasingly finding homes harder to afford. Orange County surpassed its pre-bust high last year. In April, it set a new record of $675,000. Los Angeles Times
Plus: Looking at the heated (or overheated) market in:
-- San Diego (San Diego Union-Tribune)
-- Orange County (Orange County Register)
-- Palm Springs (Desert Sun)
-- San Jose (Mercury News)
Controversial deal
A Los Angeles police officer convicted of assault for kicking and punching a man during a South Los Angeles arrest caught on video was spared jail time at his sentencing on Tuesday after fulfilling his end of an agreement made with prosecutors. Richard Garcia, 36, quietly reached the deal with prosecutors last year, pleading no contest to a felony charge of assault under color of authority. Los Angeles Times
Dream delayed
Five days after the Rams announced their Inglewood stadium would be finished in 2020, a year later than the original plan, NFL owners unanimously voted to push the Los Angeles Super Bowl back a year until February 2022. Tampa will play host to the 2021 game originally promised to L.A. — providing both cities can prove by Aug. 25 they can live up to all the terms and commitments of their bids. There has not been a Super Bowl held in the L.A. area since Dallas defeated Buffalo at the Rose Bowl in January 1993. Los Angeles Times
L.A. STORIES
Urban decay tour: Gov. Jerry Brown traveled to southeast Los Angeles County on Tuesday to meet with environmental justice leaders who have criticized his administration for doing too little to protect the health of low-income and mostly Latino residents in California’s most polluted neighborhoods. Los Angeles Times
Architecture show: The Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Park as a theater venue: Audience members must put on protective booties before entering the historic landmark, designed in the early 1900s by Frank Lloyd Wright as a fortress-like Mayan revival style residence and arts complex for heiress Aline Barnsdall. Los Angeles Times
Valley guy: “Encino Man” is turning 25. Looking back on the movie that celebrated and poked fun at the San Fernando Valley. Daily News
Shark stress: Weeks of shark sightings — and one attack — have some surfers on edge. Daily Breeze
Park coming: Check out the new designs for the extension of Grand Park in downtown L.A. More green and less concrete on 1st and Broadway. Curbed Los Angeles
Eastside Con: The first East L.A. Comic-Con was quite the show. LA Weekly
CRIME AND COURTS
Could it happen here? The lessons for Los Angeles venues from the terrorist attack in Manchester: Experts say that while many venues are secure, the areas around them remain soft targets. Los Angeles Times
Wild claims: A San Diego-based Navy SEAL’s sex-crimes conviction was compromised by high-level politics and an admiral’s concerns about his career being torpedoed if he didn’t follow political correctness, according to an unusual flurry of legal appeals. San Diego Union-Tribune
Scripted: It looked easy enough on the FX television series “The Americans,” in which a pair of married Russian spies, posing as U.S. citizens, enlist the aid of Americans to steal national intelligence secrets. It’s not so simple in real life, however. That’s what a defense contracting engineer learned the hard way Monday after agreeing to plead guilty to selling sensitive satellite information to an undercover FBI agent who masqueraded as a Russian intelligence officer, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Who will control UC? The University of California, under fire for controversial budget practices, would lose the autonomy it has enjoyed for 138 years under a state constitutional amendment proposed Tuesday. Los Angeles Times
Hidden issue: In California, the slave next door. In 2017. Sacramento Bee
THE ENVIRONMENT
Danger zone: Winter rains, experts said, could bring a dangerous wildfire season. Los Angeles Times
Huge slide: A new video reveals the massive scale of a devastating landslide that buried a portion of Pacific Coast Highway recently. “No words needed but here’s a few,” officials said. “Millions tons of rock/dirt, about 1/3 mile of roadway covered 35-40 feet deep.” Los Angeles Times
CALIFORNIA CULTURE
Second chance: He took silver at the 1984 Summer Olympics and won three NCAA titles in track. But cocaine addiction brought him down at the peak of his career, leaving him banished from the sport. Now he has a new reason to cheer. Los Angeles Times
Clash of the titans: Inside the war between Google and Uber. Wall Street Journal
Cartoonish: Pixar was once the star of the movie industry, and Hollywood’s biggest success story. What went wrong? And does it have to do with Disney? The Atlantic
Disney history: Looking back at how Disneyland grew ... and grew. Orange County Register
Flip that rock: The Flintstone House, a Stone Age-style estate in the Bay Area, might soon have a new buyer. And it’s not Fred Flintstone. SF Gate
Fox fail: What’s the story behind the seismic shift in cable TV news, with Fox down and MSNBC rising? It’s about Trump — but also more. Los Angeles Times
CALIFORNIA ALMANAC
Los Angeles area: mostly sunny with high in the mid-70s. San Diego: partly cloudy with highs in the low 70s. San Francisco area: mostly cloudy with highs in the low 60s. Sacramento: partly cloudy with highs around 80. More weather is here.
AND FINALLY
Today’s California memory comes from Flemming Toron:
“My family immigrated from Denmark to L.A. in 1955. The first thing I remember was the smog hurt my eyes. We rented a duplex on Irving just down the street from Paramount Pictures. We were excited to find out that ‘Gunsmoke’ was filmed on the next block. My mom, sister and I would wait outside the gate, and we once saw Dennis Weaver come out carrying his lunch box. During the off-season the studio would store the sets in a parking lot around the corner. My friends and I would climb the fence to explore the packed-up ‘Dodge City.’ ”
If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)
Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.
