Harris drops presidential bid and utilities want more money
The state loses a national voice as Sen. Kamala Harris ends her bid for president. Utilities ask to raise rates to cover investor losses due to — you guessed it — wildfires they helped start. And could the country ever get behind paid family leave and child care?
It's news for Tuesday.
But first, on this day in 1995, Tupac and Dr. Dre drop "California Love," one of mine and Billboard's 15 favorite songs ever written about the Golden State.
Arlene Martínez writes In California, a daily roundup of stories from newsrooms across the Paste BN Network. Sign up here and tell a friend!
'I can't tell you...that I have a path forward'
U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, California’s highest-profile presidential candidate in decades, dropped out of the Democratic primary race on Tuesday, following reports of divisions within her campaign, months of plummeting poll numbers and struggles to raise big bucks. Her candidacy amplified California’s most pressing political issues, including immigration, homelessness and the criminal justice system, on the national stage. But critics questioned how progressive the former prosecutor really was. Harris struggled to simultaneously campaign on her experience as a prosecutor and advocate for now-popular criminal justice reform policies she once eschewed. With Harris’ withdrawal, billionaire Tom Steyer is the only California candidate who will be at the Dec. 19 debate in Los Angeles. Steyer and the five other candidates who have qualified for the debate are white.
Democratic voters wanted Harris to drop out, a poll for the Los Angeles Times found.
Yup, still no housing, but renters get a reprieve
San Mateo doesn't have to build housing units if it doesn't want to, a judge ruled last month. Now, housing advocates worry California's other 120+ charter cities will use the decision to block desperately needed residential units. They've asked for a new trial.
In a surprise to no one, homebuyers are increasingly older and wealthier. Priced out are younger families and people of color. What's a starter home? #sadtears
Ventura becomes the latest city to ban evictions until Jan. 1 when new statewide tenant-protection laws that include annual caps on rent take effect.
Fires hurt profits so...higher rates, please?
Wildfires are hurting the bottom line for California's major utilities, so they're asking regulators if they can raise rates to up their profits and attract more investors. The Public Utilities Commission, which votes on how much utilities can raise rates, is leaning toward rejecting those pleas. In that case, project profit margins would stay level at 10.3% for Southern California Edison, 10.25% for Pacific Gas & Electric, 10.2% for San Diego Gas & Electric and 10.05% for SoCalGas. That basically gives shareholders a dime for every $1 the investor-owned utilities spend on infrastructure maintenance or improvements.
And speaking of PG&E, the company is accepting the latest round of blame for setting off California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire ever, saying it is exploring innovative means of preventing similar disasters in the future. A new report by state regulators details how PG&E failed to properly inspect and maintain the equipment that ignited the November 2018 Camp Fire, which devastated the Northern California town of Paradise, killing 85 people and destroying 18,804 structures. The 696-page PUC report found the utility neglected to conduct detailed climbing inspections that could have detected the equipment malfunction that sparked the inferno, and failed to correctly prioritize a safety hazard.
What else we're talking about
We've probably just lived through the warmest decade ever, the World Meteorological Organization says.
Stadiums and arenas built in the Golden State are increasingly built with private money, a victory for taxpayers whose ROI on such gifts, economists stay, is weak.
Video app TikTok collected large amounts of data on its users and then sent them to China, a class-action lawsuit filed by a Palo Alto student claims.
At a California Catholic school, priests allegedly abused generations of boys, and the order that ran it withheld information from the archdiocese for decades, an investigation found.
A struggle to parent in modern America
Millions of American families are struggling to balance work and kids in a country that has long lacked affordable, quality child care and paid parental leave, despite polling that shows public support for both and research laying out the drawbacks of not having either. Working parents feel the frustration every day, lamenting how difficult and expensive it is to raise a family in America. But it turns out, not everyone shares working parents' urgency. Reporters with USA Today took a deep look into why paid family leave and affordable child care remain hauntingly far from reality.
Congressman pleads guilty
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a federal charge of conspiracy to misuse campaign funds for personal use. Hunter, R-Alpine, faces a possible five-year prison term and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced March 17. After the short hearing in San Diego federal court, Hunter told reporters: "I failed to monitor and account for my campaign spending. I made mistakes and that was what today was all about." Last year, the 42-year-old former Marine, along with his former campaign treasurer wife, was indicted on 60 criminal counts, including wire fraud, conspiracy and falsification of records. Prosecutors say Duncan, who had planned to seek re-election in 2020, spent lavishly on family vacations, dental bills and other personal expenses, then lied to the Federal Election Commission.
Lastly, on this #GivingTuesday, I have a question for those of you who donate:
How do you decide where to give? Do you use Charity Navigator, give locally or donate based on causes personal to you? I'd love to hear your thought process. Reach me at avmartinez@gannett.com or on Twitter @avmartinez.
In California is a roundup of news compiled from across Paste BN Network newsrooms. Also contributing: CNN International, City News Service, California Globe, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily Beast, the Los Angeles Times.