Newsom denounces ‘authoritarians,’ but what about his record?

• April 4, 2023

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has anointed himself as the avenging angel who will rain down righteous – or self-righteous – punishment on ideological heretics in red states such as Florida, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi.

“All across the country rights are being rolled back in real-time by Republicans,” Newsom warned in a fundraising text message last week, just hours after it was revealed that former President Donald Trump was being indicted in New York. “They cry ‘freedom’ but work overtime to dismantle our democracy to protect their power to dictate the choices people are allowed to make.

“I am going to flip that narrative on its head,” Newsom promised.

Two days later, having created a new political organization to finance assaults on prominent Republicans, he embarked on a tour of four red states to rally Democratic opposition to their GOP governors.

Newsom’s message is that those governors and other prominent Republicans, such as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, are “authoritarian threats,” citing such actions as banning books and subverting abortion access, gay rights and gender-affirming care for transgender youths.

The website of Newsom’s new organization, the Campaign for Democracy, singles out McCarthy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott as “threats” to democracy. In a video, Newsom declares, “What’s happening in those red states, that’s not who we are. It’s un-American, it’s undemocratic. All it takes to fight back is a willingness to stand toe-to-toe and say ‘enough.’”

There are three potential explanations for Newsom’s self-declared crusade: that he’s genuinely worried about an “existential struggle” for democracy; that he’s just expanding his years-long drive to raise his national political profile in hopes of someday campaigning for the presidency; or that he craves attention.

Whatever his motives – and it could be a combination of the idealistic, the crassly political and the personal – the most intriguing aspect of Newsom’s campaign is his denunciations of DeSantis, Abbott, et al, as “authoritarian,” meaning that they are acting unilaterally, outside the democratic process, to impose their will on the residents of their states.

That’s patently untrue. Those two governors and those of other red states were duly elected and often re-elected by their voters, and wield the powers that accrue to elected governors. One can certainly take issue, on the merits, with the policies they espouse and enact. But one must also assume that they are doing what majorities of their constituents want them to do, which is the essence of democracy.

Besides, Newsom has been just as adamant in pursuing his own ideological goals.

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Was Newsom being an authoritarian when he declared an emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic, suspended dozens of laws, closed public schools and ordered much of the state’s economy to be shut down, erasing nearly 3 million jobs overnight and pushing the state into a severe recession?

Newsom would say that he was just exercising his executive powers for the greater good.

Was Newsom an authoritarian when he unilaterally stopped executions in 2019, even though the death penalty was and still is state law, and won voter support the last time the issue was placed on the ballot?

Meanwhile, he has signed a number of new laws aimed at restricting or eliminating behavior he and his fellow Democrats consider to be wrong, such as owning guns or resisting construction of new housing. And how about those decrees banning the sale of gasoline-powered cars after 2035?

Newsom’s actions were no less arbitrary the governors he criticizes. When it comes to authoritarianism, he is, to use an old saw, a pot calling the kettle black.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.

​ Orange County Register 

UCLA’s first spring football practice brings optimism and energy

• April 4, 2023

LOS ANGELES — A floor-to-ceiling banner reads “semper optimus” outside the weight room during UCLA’s first spring football practice Tuesday. With promising new coaches and players walking past the words that translate to “always the best,” there’s reason for optimism at Spaulding Field.

Defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn is one of the fresh faces, and brings NFL experience after coaching stints with the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans.

“New coordinator, but we still got the same goals and aspirations going into the year,” Bruins senior linebacker Darius Muasau said. “It’s just another opportunity to learn from a good coach coming from the league. He knows the game inside and out. I’m just looking forward to picking his brain throughout the year.”

Lynn succeeds previous coordinator Bill McGovern, who has moved to the role of director of football administration after missing multiple games last season due to an unspecified health reason.

Lynn flitted around the field during Tuesday’s 8:45 a.m. practice, actively giving direction to defensive players. He’s in his early 30s, making him relatable to players but still respected because of his nine years of experience in the NFL.

“Him being a younger coach just brings a new perspective of the game,” Muasau said. “He’s a great coach, but an even better person, just talking to him every day and being in the meeting rooms.”

Last year’s UCLA defense gave up an average of 29 points per game, just over 2,000 rushing yards and more than 3,500 passing yards.

Muasau ranked first on the team in total tackles with 91 last season. Other players with significant game experience at linebacker include Carl Jones, Laiatu Latu, Kain Medrano, Carson Schwesinger and JonJon Vaughns.

First glimpse of Dante Moore

The starting quarterback position is up for grabs with the graduation of Dorian Thompson Robinson, who led the Bruins’ offense since starting seven games as a freshman in 2018.

Returners Ethan Garbers and Justyn Martin as well as Kent State transfer Collin Schlee each received repetitions during the team periods at Tuesday’s practice, but early enrollee and five-star recruit Dante Moore drew attention.

“We’ve got a lot of potential in that in that quarterback room,” Muasau said. “So I’m really looking forward to going and getting after against those guys competing every day.”

Moore, a product of Martin Luther King High School in Detroit, appeared charismatic though small without full pads on. He showed a strong arm and quick release as the first quarterback to get reps and raised his hands in celebration each time he threw the ball on target during an accuracy drill.

“He’s just very outgoing, easy to talk to,” UCLA offensive lineman Duke Clemens said. “(All the quarterbacks) are mature for their age. Being able to want to get better and being all-in already as a young guy, I’m impressed with that.”

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Youth on the O-line

Clemens is one of the most experienced players on the offensive line heading into spring, with starts in all 13 games last season. Left guard Antonio Mafi (who was in attendance to watch practice on Tuesday) and right guard Jon Gaines II graduated. Left tackle Raiqwon O’Neal declared for the NFL draft.

That leaves Clemens at center, and he’s already taken on a leadership role. He’s been planning and hosting player meetings and making sure everyone is on time for team meetings.

“Guys have just gotta grow and be able to handle what we’ve got going on over here because I feel our system is good,” Clemens said. “Getting everybody on the same page and understanding the playbook is probably the most important thing right now.”

​ Orange County Register 

Local TikTok influencer wants to take her message off social media and to Congress

• April 4, 2023

While still a student at UC Irvine School of Law, Cheyenne Hunt clerked for Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, working on the Judiciary Committee and witnessing firsthand the first impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.

It was that “unforgettable” experience, she said, that cemented her desire to run for office. And that means Hunt, a Fullerton resident and TikTok influencer, is the latest to announce her candidacy for California’s 45th congressional district represented by GOP Rep. Michelle Steel — a race that’s heating up fast.

Hunt found while working in Washington, D.C., she said, that not everybody is motivated by the issues that are keeping people in her community up at night.

“Working on (Capitol) Hill showed me the ways in which our system is designed to prioritize justice and to treat nobody as if they are above the law,” said Hunt, who works in tech policy for Public Citizen, a progressive advocacy group.

“But it also showed me the ways in which our lawmakers are not necessarily always reflecting the interests of their constituents. And I think that a lot of us are looking for somebody who’s really going to be a champion for working families, and that’s why I’m running right now.”

Related: Garden Grove Councilmember Kim Bernice Nguyen launches CA-45 campaign

A progressive Democrat, Hunt hopes to be the first Gen Z — anyone born from 1997 to the early 2010s — woman elected to Congress. Members of the U.S. House must be at least 25 years old; Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost became the first Gen Z person elected to Congress last year.

Hunt has amassed over 60,000 followers and 3 million likes on her TikTok, @cheyennehuntca, where she posts political commentary, various event footage and the occasional “day in my life.”

And as someone who lobbies for big tech accountability for a living, Hunt has a lot to say about TikTok and talks in Congress about banning the Chinese-owned social media app.

“I think there’s a serious lack of understanding and a lack of expertise about social media in our current Congress,” Hunt said. “The concerns about TikTok are certainly warranted. We should not be casual about the fact that the (Chinese Communist Party) may be potentially harvesting our data through the app.”

But to that point, comprehensive data privacy legislation that addresses other apps like Facebook and Instagram, and also the way information is collected online, are what members of Congress should strive for, she said. And it will be one of her priorities in Congress, she said.

Other priorities include addressing the cost of living that has “spiraled out of control” and more regulation of big tech companies.

Garden Grove Councilmember Kim Bernice Nguyen — who has already garnered considerable local support, including that of state Sen. Tom Umberg and Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley — is also vying for the seat, which includes parts of Orange County and a sliver of Los Angeles County.

The district was recently placed on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s target list of competitive Republican-held or open districts that the party’s campaign arm is expected to invest heavily in.

Lance Trover, Steel’s campaign manager, said, “Southern California voters know her record of fighting for lower taxes, standing up to the Chinese Communist Party and ensuring everyone has a shot at the American dream,” maintaining she will be reelected in 2024.

Hunt, who says “it’s time for a change” in Congress, will continue to post on TikTok throughout her campaign.

“I think elected officials could do a better job at having conversations with people in verbiage that they understand,” Hunt said. “I definitely plan on using social media to continue the discussion with constituents, supporters and really anybody else as we move through this campaign and hopefully after we win.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Irvine gaming team spared latest Amazon layoffs

• April 4, 2023

By Cecilia D’Anastasio | Bloomberg

Amazon.com laid off about 100 employees in its video-game divisions as part of its broader cutbacks, affecting workers at Prime Gaming, Game Growth and the company’s San Diego studio.

“Our resources will be aligned to support our focus on content,” Games Vice President Christoph Hartmann wrote in a memo to employees Tuesday. “Going forward, we will continue to invest in our internal development efforts, and our teams will continue to grow as our projects progress.”

Amazon has struggled to capitalize on its resources in gaming, including through its Crown channel, an entertainment show on the Twitch streaming service. Twitch recently cut about 400 positions. The company has canceled and even removed titles from sale since the division kicked off in 2012.

Amazon has only released one internally developed game — the online role-playing title New World, which suffered a steep decline in its player base after the September 2021 launch. The Irvine-based New World team will continue to grow, Hartmann said.

Despite the layoffs, employees working on an unannounced project from the San Diego studio will “double down on the pre-production phase” of the game, Hartmann said. Amazon’s studio in Montreal, also working on an unannounced project, will continue to expand.

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Amazon did see success with publishing the South Korean online role-playing game Lost Ark. Hartmann said the company will grow its third-party publishing efforts, which include a recent agreement with NCSoft Corp.

Shares of Amazon rose 0.9% to $103.29 at 2:02 p.m. in New York.

The company’s gaming group has also seen executive turnover. Hartmann’s predecessor, Amazon Game Studios boss Mike Frazzini, stepped down last year. Veteran gaming executive John Smedley, who helped run the San Diego office, announced plans to leave in January.

​ Orange County Register 

Tesla’s ‘staggering’ tab for racism suit slashed by 98%

• April 4, 2023

By Joel Rosenblatt and Malathi Nayak | Bloomberg

A jury said Tesla Inc. owes $3.2 million to a Black former contract worker for failing to protect him from racial abuse — 98% less than a 2021 verdict in the same case.

The $137 million award that Owen Diaz won two years ago was among the highest ever for an individual suing over discrimination in the US. Diaz elected for a retrial on damages after a judge said the amount was too high and concluded $15 million was the most that the evidence in the case and the Constitution would allow.

Jurors in San Francisco federal court reached Monday’s verdict after about a day of deliberations.

At the close of the five-day retrial, a lawyer for Diaz asked the jury to award as much as $150 million in punitive damages —- equal to 15% of Tesla’s cash flow at the time Diaz was subjected to racial slurs and graffiti at the plant in Fremont, California, about seven years ago.

Instead, the jury came back with $175,000 for economic losses and $3 million in punitive damages.

“I don’t think the truth drove the decisions here,” Lawrence Organ, a lawyer for Diaz, said after the verdict. He said Diaz’s credibility was wrongly attacked by the defense during the trial and said he’s filed a request to the judge to grant a new trial due to “misconduct.” Tesla’s strategy was to “minimize and sanitize” and “it’s just sad that those antics worked,” he said.

Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Tesla, declined to comment.

Elon Musk’s company has faced years of complaints from Black workers that managers at the factory turned a blind eye to the commonplace use of racial slurs on the assembly line and were slow to clean up graffiti with swastikas and other hate symbols scrawled in common areas.

The original jury awarded Diaz $6.9 million for emotional distress and walloped Tesla with $130 million in punitive damages. A juror said afterwards that the panel was sending a message to the company about using contract employees as a way to mitigate its own responsibility for the culture within its factories.

Tesla called the 2021 verdict “staggering” and challenged it as excessive.

US District Judge William Orrick later said he was compelled by legal principles to reduce the jury’s award but he also concluded there was ample “disturbing” evidence to support the outcome of the trial.

Jurors heard that the Tesla factory in Fremont “was saturated with racism,” Orrick wrote in his April 2022 ruling, adding that Diaz’s co-workers called him “the N-word and other slurs,” and that supervisors and Tesla’s broader management failed to help.

In the damages retrial, a lawyer for Diaz, J. Bernard Alexander, told jurors Friday that his client’s experience of a racist attack by a Tesla supervisor was sufficient for them to conclude the contractor had suffered, but that they had heard evidence of at least three such instances.

“Tesla had an obligation to do something about it, because they understand the consequences of a supervisor attacking an employee,” Alexander said.

Turning to damages, the lawyer challenged the jury to be tough with Tesla.

“What is enough money to hold a multibillion-dollar company accountable, to get their attention?” Alexander said. “To get someone in the board room to understand that you do not treat your African American employees the way Mr. Diaz was treated?”

Spiro told jurors that punitive damages must be reasonable and proportionate. He reminded them it’s important that if they think a witness deliberately testified untruthfully, they don’t have to believe anything he said.

Diaz, he said, was caught in numerous lies, including his explanation that after leaving Tesla he went to work as a bus driver to escape the factory setting. In fact, he went to work in another factory for Coca-Cola, Spiro said.

“They’re throwing numbers up on the screen like this is some kind of game show,” he said, referring to the damages Alexander requested. Diaz’s dissembling about his work after Tesla was a lie “to get money dressed as virtue,” Spiro said. “Don’t reward that,” he added. “There are people really suffering. There’s people with real damages who tell the truth.”

Spiro, who wasn’t involved in Diaz’s 2021 trial, has become Musk’s go-to attorney for high-profile matters. He persuaded a jury this year to return a verdict in Musk’s favor in a securities fraud trial over the billionaire’s 2018 tweet about taking Tesla private. He also spearheaded Musk’s successful defense at a 2019 jury trial over defamation claims by a British cave diver whom the billionaire called “pedo guy” when the two traded insults on Twitter.

In a separate case, Tesla is fighting claims by California’s civil rights department that hundreds of African American workers at its factory were subject to mistreatment, including harassment, unequal pay and retaliation.

The case is Diaz v. Tesla Inc., 17-cv-06748, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

​ Orange County Register 

At least 1 dead as train derails near The Hague, Netherlands

• April 4, 2023

By Peter DeJong and Mike Corder | Associated Press

VOORSCHOTEN, Netherlands — A passenger train slammed into a construction crane and derailed near The Hague in the early hours of Tuesday, sending two carriages into a field next to the tracks. One person died and 19 were hospitalized, Dutch emergency services said.

Police opened an investigation to establish if any crime was committed. Another independent probe was opened into the cause of the crash.

Television images showed people using temporary bridges and ladders to cross a narrow drainage canal running alongside the rails to reach the stricken train in the darkness. Many windows in the train carriages were broken. It was not clear if that happened during the accident or as passengers attempted to escape.

Two of the bright yellow and blue train carriages came to rest perpendicular to the tracks across the small canal and partially in a field. What appeared to be the front of the train was badly damaged. Other parts of the train were partially derailed.

Video footage from inside the train in the immediate aftermath of the crash showed chaotic scenes as passengers tried to get out of the wreckage in darkness.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima also expressed their sympathy in a tweet, and Willem-Alexander visited the site late Tuesday morning.

The four-carriage passenger train was carrying about 50 passengers at the time of the crash.

John Voppen, CEO of the rail network company Pro Rail, said that the passenger train and a freight train both hit a crane that was being used to carry out maintenance work. He said the crane was on tracks that were not being used by train traffic and it is not clear how the trains collided with the crane.

“We don’t understand how this could have happened,” he told reporters at a news conference.

The identity of the person killed in the accident was not immediately released. But Dutch media reported that the person was part of a maintenance team from construction company BAM working on the railway. The company did not immediately return a call seeking confirmation.

The maintenance team had been at work on the rails between the cities of Leiden and The Hague when the crash happened around 3:25 a.m. (0125 GMT) in the town of Voorschoten.

Railway company NS also said in a statement that a passenger train, a freight train and a construction crane were involved in a collision, but the company gave no further details.

“Like everyone else, I’m full of questions and we want to know exactly what happened,” NS CEO Wouter Koolmees said in a statement. “A thorough investigation must be carried out. At the moment, all attention is focused on the wellbeing of our travelers and colleagues.”

The regional coordinator of emergency services said that 11 of the injured passengers were treated in homes near the line and 19 were transported in a fleet of ambulances to five hospitals, including a “calamity hospital” opened in the central city of Utrecht.

“A terrible train accident near Voorschoten, where unfortunately one person died and many people were injured. My thoughts are with the relatives and with all the victims. I wish them all the best,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a tweet.

Ingrid de Roos, a spokeswoman for local fire services, told news show WNL that a small fire broke out at the rear of the train but was quickly extinguished.

Corder reported from The Hague.

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County scores and player stats for Tuesday, April 4

• April 4, 2023

Support our high school sports coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribe now

Scores and stats from Orange County games on Tuesday, April 4

Click here for details about sending your team’s scores and stats to the Register.

TUESDAY’S SCORES

BASEBALL

NATIONAL CLASSIC

Quarterfinals

Servite 4, Villa Park 1

Ser: Dominguez (W, 4IP 1H 1R 3K). Vanderhook (Sv, 3IP 1H 0R 2K). Woodson 3-4, 2R. Scott 2-3, RBI.

RYAN LEMMON SPRING INVITATIONAL

Woodbridge 3, Trabuco Hills 2

University 5, Davis (UT) 2

San Clemente 5, Segerstrom 3

Bountiful (UT) 2, Irvine 1

​ Orange County Register 

The Compost: For the love of the distressed desert

• April 4, 2023

Welcome to The Compost, a weekly newsletter on key environmental news impacting Southern California. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox! In today’s edition…

Tesa Madsen-Hepp, an ecology doctoral student at UC Riverside, is sounding the alarm: Even our hardiest desert environments are transforming in alarming ways due to climate change.

I spent time over the weekend in that environment, as my husband and I continued an annual tradition of going on a scavenger hunt to track down all of the Desert X art installations that appear in the Coachella Valley each spring. Several of this year’s installations, which are on display through May 7, comment on climate change and how our planet is transforming.  That includes the interactive exhibit Hylozoic/Desires in my photo above, by Himali Singh Soin of India and David Soin Tappeser of Germany, where poetic commentary and indigenous music wash over the sand as the area’s famous wind turbines spin in the background.

Just south of that spot, the Mojave Desert transitions into the Sonoran Desert, which is the hottest such climate in North America. If any place stands a chance at thriving through climate change, it’s here, right? That’s why the latest findings from Madsen-Hepp are so alarming.

“We tend to have this perspective that deserts are super resilient, ” she said. Instead, her team discovered pinyon and juniper pines, thought to be extremely heat and drought tolerant, have moved up in elevation over the past few decades — and still aren’t thriving. But they found less hardy shrubs, including ocotillo, also have moved down to take their place. If the planet keeps warming, and extreme times of drought and chaotic precipitation continue, Madsen-Hepp told me she fears what’s next will be nothing but barren land.

“Once they reach their threshold, there’s no other plant species we can just go in and plant and hope that they’ll take over and make that ecosystem flourish,” she said.

Some people already see these stretches of desert as wasteland. But visit now and that notion will be quickly pushed aside. Thanks to our wet winter, we saw blooming Joshua trees and cholla cacti. We saw bright yellow brittlebush and desert sunflowers and purple native verbena painting the sand this superbloom season.

One wet winter won’t reverse long-term trends, though, Madsen-Hepp cautioned. Her research shows the desert is responding primarily to rising temperatures, which show no sign of slowing down. So the only cure, she said, is to curb emissions to curtail climate change.

“I shouldn’t overlook the desert when thinking about climate impact,” Julie Babyar wrote on Twitter in response to the story.

Others who emailed me about the story were less convinced.

“Another piece about the ‘climate crisis.’ Perhaps treating your depression with a different psychologist?” one email read.

I’m increasingly encountering this narrative from climate change deniers that anyone who follows the science must be suffering from mental illness. Climate anxiety, of course, is very real, and my conversation with Madsen-Hepp was sobering. But standing in the desert this weekend, thinking about my article as I observed the work of artists Soin and Tappeser and the other Desert X artists, I didn’t feel depressed. I felt more inspired and motivated than ever to help save this special ecosystem that’s one of many reasons I love living in Southern California.

Ignorance may be bliss, but information is power. And I, for one, am feeling empowered.

— Brooke Staggs, environment reporter

 HYDRATE

Record snowpack: The snowpack has gone from 35% of normal this time last year to 237% of normal this year, tying with 1952 as the biggest haul since official records began shortly before that. My family in Big Bear reported they were briefly getting more snow  flurries Monday. Now we just need to hope for no early warm spells, to avoid major flooding risks… Our Bay Area colleague Scooty Nickerson has the tale. …READ MORE…

Key quote: “Once you get up above some level, you are mostly concerned with how fast it melts rather than how big is the snowpack.”

Fill ‘er up: ICYMI, our Monserrat Solis reported that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California was refilling Diamond Valley Lake, its 810,000-acre-foot reservoir near Hemet, for the first time in three years. It had dropped to 60% of capacity during the drought. There also happens to be quite the superbloom happening near the lake, with a special wildflower trail now open. …READ MORE…

 BREATHE

Carbon removal boom: “It effectively needs to be a wartime effort. The oil and gas infrastructure that currently exists out to the horizon needs to be replaced with carbon removal.” Here’s Laura Klivans with KQED on the potential for a carbon removal boom in California that could reduce warming and create jobs, though some are worried about unintended consequences. …READ MORE…

Dive deeper: Brian Kahn writes for Rolling Stone about a $925 million fund Silicon Valley companies have created to pull that carbon from the sky.

Get a roundup of the best climate and environment news delivered to your inbox each week by signing up for The Compost.

 PROTECT

Ditch the flush: Ladies, who’s still flushing period products? I talked with a director at Roundhouse Aquarium in Manhattan Beach who has made it a mission to raise awareness about how microplastics and chemicals in many products can harm marine life, and to push companies to do better. …READ MORE…

Most disturbing detail: Fish eat algae, which can absorb microplastics. We eat fish. So yes, bits of those flushed products might eventually end up inside of us.

Pit update: I told you last week about lawsuits looming over Newport Beach’s plan to deal with contaminated sediment that needs to be dredged from channels in Lower Newport Bay by burying it in an underwater pit at the heart of the harbor. It’s now official: the Orange County Coastkeeper has sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the project, arguing in a 33-page suit that the federal agency didn’t properly study how the pit might impact protected wildlife and what other mitigations and alternatives were possible.

Big park could get bigger: One of Southern California’s largest state parks may soon grow by another 842 acres if a ridgeline is purchased to keep housing off and protect wildlife. Our Steve Scauzillo has the tale. …READ MORE…

 TRANSPORT

Green trucking gets green light: The Biden administration on Friday cleared the way for California’s plan to phase out a range of diesel-powered trucks. The EPA ruling will let California require manufacturers to sell an increasing number of zero-emission trucks in the next couple of decades to help the state reach emissions targets. Some observers are questioning whether the state grid is ready and are expressing concerns over the burden the transition will be on truckers and trucking companies. …READ MORE… 

Speaking of green trucking…: The Long Beach City Council is slated to hold a public hearing tonight on whether to let a company demolish structures on lots on the west end of town and develop a green trucking and outdoor temporary container storage facility for trucks en route to the Port of Long Beach. While the project calls for features such as zero emission charge stations for onsite trucks, our Kristy Hutchings reports it has drawn opposition from at least one group over potential impacts on traffic and the environment. …READ MORE…

Get ’em while they last: The IRS lists more than three dozen electric or plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles made in North America that now are eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit. But some won’t qualify or will get only half once new Treasury Department rules announced Friday take effect, the Associated Press reports. …READ MORE…

 EQUITIZE

Uneven pollution: A new report showed that drought and extreme heat worsened air pollution for low-income and non-white communities throughout California, further degrading health in neighborhoods that have long struggled with environmental inequities. Dorany Pineda with the Los Angeles Times has the story. …READ MORE…

Key quote: “We have a tendency as a state and as a country to really outsource pollution based on needs that are occurring elsewhere.”

 CELEBRATE

Thanks, Earth Day: Enjoy this column from our contributor Rececca K. O’Connor about how Earth Day recently helped her check off something that had been on her bucket list since she was 10 years old. …READ MORE…

Repair Cafe returns: Here’s a fun article on an important sustainability issue, as our contributor Anissa Rivera covers the return of the Pasadena-based Repair Cafe after a pandemic-related hiatus. People can bring damaged items to the pop-up event for free repair by volunteers who are working to end our throwaway mindset. …READ MORE…

Flowers bloom as Roxanne Bradley and Tom McDonnell hike through the new Saddleback Wilderness area in Orange, CA, on Monday, March 27, 2023. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

 EXPLORE

Trails reopen: It was wild. Then it was a popular motocross course. Then it was closed to the public and allowed to become wild again. Now 3.3 miles of trails in a hilly area near Irvine Lake are open to the public again during special access events to protect the delicate ecosystem. Our Heather McCrea as the story. …READ MORE…

 PITCH IN

Share Earth Day events: For this week’s tip on how Southern Californians can help the environment… Know about an Earth Day event happening anywhere in Southern California on or around April 22? Send the details my way to bstaggs@scng.com so I can share a roundup in an upcoming issue of The Compost and hopefully generate more support for the work you all are doing to protect our corner of this wild and wonderful planet.

Thanks for reading, Composters! Don’t forget to sign up to get The Compost delivered to your inbox and to share this newsletter with others.

Related links

The Compost: Is it time to reform California’s bedrock environmental law?
The Compost: How a local university ended up on the front lines of the hydrogen debate
The Compost: Is classroom air clean enough?
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​ Orange County Register