Newsletter: Essential California: Mayor Bass pledges to make ‘A New L.A.’

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It is Saturday, April 22.

Here’s a look at the top stories of the last week

Mayor Bass seeks $250-million expansion of the city’s homelessness program in her first State of the City speech. Mayor Karen Bass announced a dramatic expansion of her signature program to move homeless people indoors, while also pledging to create “a new L.A.”

According to documents released by Bass’ office, the money is distributed across 31 departments, including funding for the Police Department and homeless services.

The Great Big Highly Specific Guide to Disneyland. From the best rides to tasty food to unexpected tricks, here’s what to add to your itinerary.

• You can get to Disneyland from L.A. without a car. Here’s how one family did it.
• Everywhere you absolutely have to eat at Disneyland and California Adventure.
• What ex-cast members wish you knew about Disneyland.

Coachella 2023: A Weekend 2 guide to surviving without Frank Ocean’s help. Frank Ocean announced this week that he will not perform his headlining set on Sunday due to a leg injury. But one thing is clear for those still making the trip into Indio this weekend: The show must go on!

• The best fashion at Coachella 2023
• I ate the best food at Coachella. Here’s what to eat if you’re going to Weekend 2

Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan died at 92. The take-charge venture capitalist who as mayor shepherded Los Angeles’ rebound from the 1992 riots died at his Brentwood home. He was the last Republican mayor of what became a liberal city.

A terrifying rampage ended with a teen’s death at Westlake High School. In the span of an hour Tuesday afternoon, law enforcement officials say, a 24-year-old Westlake High School alumnus went on a deadly rampage across southern Ventura County, killing a 15-year-old, injuring five and endangering several others.

The week in photos

See the photos behind this week’s biggest stories. McCarthy leveraged his majority in debt ceiling negotiations; long COVID upends a musician’s life; and a terrifying rampage ends a young life.

Maeve Secor processes a Nashville warbler caught in a net on a ridge-line known as Bear Divide to study migratory birds

(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

This exclusive island town might be California’s biggest violator of the state’s affordable housing law. Coronado is arguably the most flagrant resister of a state affordable housing law designed to give housekeepers and others, from teachers to nurses, a chance at an apartment in places that would otherwise be out of their reach.

$62,000 and three years later: Long COVID continues to upend this California couple’s lives. Courtney Garvin, 37, contracted COVID-19 three years ago and now has long COVID. She and her partner say their world has shrunk.

Column: Older drivers have road rage over DMV test questions. Some would prefer driving test. In response to Steve Lopez’s column about driver’s license renewals for people 70 and older, a lot of people said it would be more useful, past a certain age, to require driving, rather than written, tests.

This dirt parking lot in the San Gabriel Mountains is a magnet for migrating birds. Exactly why the area attracts as many as 13,000 tanagers, orioles, buntings, grosbeaks and warblers on a single day is not entirely understood.

A proposed 50-story skyscraper in this San Francisco neighborhood would stick out. The skyscraper would become the tallest building in the Outer Sunset neighborhood and change its makeup.

The last overnight train between L.A. and S.F. ran in 1968. A startup wants to bring it back. The luxury overnight train could soon provide a new way to travel between San Francisco and L.A., if Dreamstar Lines Inc. can get its plans approved by California rail lines.

California’s shortage of diverse teachers is hurting students, educators say. Studies show that teachers of color serve as mentors and role models and increase the academic outcomes of students of similar backgrounds.

ICYMI, here are this week’s great reads

Avoid squishing wildflowers by soaring over the superbloom. At $90 to $160 a person, the experience is more expensive than parking your car and wading through flowers, but it’s also much kinder to these fragile native plants.

I asked people at Coachella how much money they make — and if their ticket was worth it. From no income to $210,000 a year, The Times’ Julia Carmel talked to festival-goers who spent a lot of money on Coachella.

The (un)holy gospel of Suga Free. The canonized pimp-slash-rapper was once described by Snoop Dogg as “my only competition.” After half a century of hard living — near-death experiences, struggles with substance abuse, multiple incarcerations, the shady travails of the record business, the constant stresses of the world’s oldest profession — Suga Free has learned to value simplicity.

Today’s week-in-review newsletter was curated by Laura Blasey. Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.