Newsletter: Essential California: Felicity Huffman and other parents agree to plead guilty in college admissions scandal
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Tuesday, April 9, and here’s what’s happening across California:
TOP STORIES
Felicity Huffman and a dozen other wealthy parents swept up in the far-reaching college admissions scandal have agreed to plead guilty after being charged in the scheme, according to court records. The actress and more than a dozen other parents, including Los Angeles marketing guru Jane Buckingham, will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. The plea agreements added a victory for prosecutors. Los Angeles Times
Plus: California couple Davina Isackson and Bruce Isackson, president of a Bay Area real estate firm, are some of the people to plead guilty. Los Angeles Times
More fallout: Stanford University has kicked out a student whose application allegedly contained false information. Los Angeles Times
Perspective: Columnist Michael Hiltzik says a lax Internal Revenue Service let the college admissions scandal continue for years. Los Angeles Times
Missed warnings
Programmers warned that the 2018 launch of California’s “motor voter” system could be a debacle, but state officials rolled it out anyway, according to interviews and an exclusive Times review of documents. The launch occurred even after engineers detected signs of an international hacking attempt. The apparent hacking incident was the most glaring of several unexpected problems — never disclosed to the public — in rolling out a project that cost taxpayers close to $15 million. The Times conducted a four-month review of nearly 1,300 pages of documents and interviewed state employees and other individuals who worked on the project — most of whom declined to be identified for fear of reprisal. Los Angeles Times
Moving a forest to save the butterflies
The world is losing monarch butterflies at a startling rate, as logging, herbicides and other human activities destroy natural habitats. But the biggest threat yet has only recently come into focus. Climate change, with its extreme storms, prolonged droughts and warming temperatures, is poised to eradicate the forest that serves as the butterfly’s winter refuge. To help his beloved butterflies, Francisco Ramirez Cruz, 75, has partnered with scientists on a monumental experiment: They are trying to move an entire forest in the mountains of central Mexico 1,000 feet up a mountain. Los Angeles Times
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L.A. STORIES
Big LACMA vote: The L.A. County Board of Supervisors meets Tuesday to vote on moving forward with a planned redesign of the L.A. County Museum of Art. Critic Christopher Knight is urging them to reject the plan and go back to the drawing board. Los Angeles Times
RIP: Cho Yang-Ho, the chairman of Korean Air who built L.A.’s highest skyscraper but whose leadership was marred by family scandals including his daughter’s infamous “nut rage” incident, has died at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 70. Los Angeles Times
Blocked again: A federal judge in Northern California has blocked another Trump administration immigration policy, one that required some asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for court hearings in the U.S. Associated Press
Compare and contrast: Peter Guber, a co-owner of the Golden State Warriors and the L.A. Dodgers, explains why the basketball team and the baseball team have different business approaches. Los Angeles Times
IMMIGRATION AND THE BORDER
Behind the scenes: President Trump pushed out Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to get “tougher” on border, but how much further can he go? Los Angeles Times
Bringing it back? “Trump has for months urged his administration to reinstate large-scale separation of migrant families crossing the border.” NBC News
Dispatch from Guatemala: The booming business for smuggling people to the U.S. The Guardian
CDMX: Is this city the PDA capital of the world? Los Angeles Times
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
$$$: Sacramento wants to tax soda, tires, guns, water, pain pills, lawyers, car batteries.… Times columnist George Skelton gives his take. Los Angeles Times
2020 talk: “No other matchup would be as riveting — or as revealing — as Kamala Harris versus Trump. But first she has to get through the primaries.” The Atlantic
A chat with the mayor: ”Los Angeles is having a loud economic boom.” Bloomberg
Not just another dinner in Rancho Palos Verdes: Here’s what happened inside Trump National Golf Club during the president’s South Bay visit. Orange County Register
CRIME AND COURTS
Deadly party: An off-duty San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed his brother after the man attacked other family members with a knife at a party over the weekend, authorities said. Los Angeles Times
Identified: The man arrested in the fatal shooting of a woman during a custody exchange at the Hawthorne police station Sunday has been identified by police as 30-year-old Jacob Munn. Los Angeles Times
Sentenced: A Lennox man was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison Monday for killing a former reality TV show contestant with whom he was having an affair, prosecutors said. Los Angeles Times
THE ENVIRONMENT
Out in the wilderness: Teams from San Bernardino, Los Angeles and San Diego counties are searching the Mt. Baldy area for two hikers who have been missing since Saturday. Los Angeles Times
Rescued: Four climbers descending Mt. Russell chose the wrong path and called for a rescue Sunday after getting stuck on the side of a cliff. They were picked up by helicopter. Los Angeles Times
Tallying it up: From ruined bridges to dirty air, EPA scientists price out the cost of climate change. Los Angeles Times
CALIFORNIA CULTURE
Fun story! Building a $1-million poker game for “Live at the Bike.” Los Angeles Times
No-go: UCLA’s search for a men’s basketball coach will trudge on toward its 100th day. Rick Barnes is staying at Tennessee. Los Angeles Times
A tale of two cities: “Three blocks from Mark Zuckerberg’s $10-million Tudor home in San Francisco, Jake Orta lives in a small, single-window studio apartment filled with trash.” New York Times
History lesson: How black residents of Long Beach fought racist real estate policies and influenced a nation. Long Beach Post
CALIFORNIA ALMANAC
Los Angeles area: Sunny, 78, Tuesday and Wednesday. San Diego: Partly cloudy, 69, Tuesday. Sunny, 71, Wednesday. San Francisco area: Cloudy, 62, Tuesday. Sunny, 65, Wednesday. San Jose: Cloudy, 65, Tuesday. Sunny, 70, Wednesday. Sacramento: Cloudy, 68, Tuesday. Cloudy, 71, Wednesday. More weather is here.
AND FINALLY
Today’s California memory comes from Lou DeCosta:
”When I was a kid growing up in Sacramento during the ’50s, my family would often take ‘Sunday drives.’ These would sometimes take us all the way to Lake Tahoe via the old Highway 40, which was a narrow and treacherous route over the Sierra at Donner Pass. A mountain on one side and a frighteningly steep ravine on the other. I remember quite vividly the rusted-out hunks of cars down the ravine that hadn’t made it. On the trip back, we had to jockey with an endless stream of logging trucks that hogged the road. It was always a scary trip.”
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.
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