gavin newsom

Eddie Martinez can’t stand Donald Trump. So when Eric Swalwell entered the race for California governor, Martinez had his candidate.

“I liked the way he took Trump on, the impeachment thing in Congress,” Martinez said of the former Bay Area congressman, a Trump nemesis who served as one of the House prosecutors in 2021 when Democrats held the wayward president to account for the second time.

Then, suddenly, Swalwell’s campaign collapsed under the weight of allegations of abuse, including charges he sexually assaulted a former aide. With Martinez’s choice out of the running, the Democrat turned to the candidate who’d been his second pick all along, Xavier Becerra.

Martinez has been familiar with Becerra for decades, going back to when the former congressman, state attorney general and Biden Cabinet member was in the state Assembly. To his credit, said the 65-year-old retired public relations strategist, Becerra has largely kept clear of controversy and there’s never been a whiff of personal scandal — an important consideration after Swalwell’s spectacular self-destruction.

On top of all that, Martinez said as he prepared to drop his mail ballot at a post office in Alhambra, it would be nice for California to elect its first Latino governor in modern times. It’s been, Martinez observed, more than 150 years.

With the gubernatorial primary entering its final two weeks, a contest that had been stubbornly formless has finally gained coherence. Becerra, who’d been widely given up for dead as he foundered near the bottom of polls, has unexpectedly emerged as the Democrat to beat.

“He has the most experience,” said Ruben Avita, a 57-year-old actor who leans Democratic and is tilting toward Becerra over hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer. “At this point,” Avita said as he waited to catch a double feature at a cineplex in Monterey Park, “I want someone with a proven track record.”

Among the Republicans running, Trump’s pick — conservative commentator Steve Hilton — seems firmly ensconced atop the GOP field.

“He’s got a lot more common-sense approach than any of these other idiots,” said Wayne The Flame — yes, he explained, that’s his legal name —which, while not exactly a ringing endorsement, still counts as a vote.

The Claremont independent, retired at 73 after a career selling motorcycles and hot rods, described Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the other major GOP contestant, as a racist and dismissed the entire Democratic field with a string of epithets. “Dumb—,” he said of the voters who keep putting the likes of them in power.

Peaches, a chihuahua/boxer rescue, stands alongside her owner, Wayne The Flame

If not terribly enthused, at least The Flame has made up his mind. Many voters remain undecided — or, at least, not entirely wed to a candidate.

Some are holding on to their ballots longer than usual, awaiting any last-minute developments and weighing the election odds as though wagering in a high-stakes game of poker.

Like many Democrats, Bryce Dwyer’s concern is that Hilton and Bianco will seize both spots in June’s top-two primary, advancing to a November runoff and giving California its first Republican governor in 16 years.

A 40-year-old project manager at the Getty Research Institute, Dwyer held his 2-year-old daughter as his son, 6, romped on a pleasant afternoon in Sierra Madre’s Memorial Park. Across the street, the bells of Christ Church chimed the hour.

“None of the Democrats are putting forth anything that is making me excited,” said Dwyer, who’s ruled out Becerra (he doesn’t see much there) and is deciding between Steyer and former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter. He’s trying to cast his ballot strategically, the East Pasadena resident said, and “it’s the first time in a while I haven’t really had a clue who I’m going to vote for so close to election day.”

Democrat Priscilla Vega of Monrovia has yet to settle on her candidate for governor

This is a deeply unsettled season in California, with precious little hope the next governor — whoever he or she turns out to be — will make things better anytime soon. That mix of discouragement and discontent surfaced repeatedly, like a dull ache, in conversations with dozens of voters across the San Gabriel Valley.

The region’s ethnic and economic diversity — from the working-class neighborhoods of Pomona through the Asian-majority suburbs to the mountainside mansions of San Dimas and Pasadena — make the valley a prime battleground in the race for governor.

Alana H., who asked not to use her last name, said she wasn’t even bothering to vote.

She ticked off some reasons: The soaring price of gas and rising cost of, essentially, everything else. The fear her college-age daughter will never be able to buy a home in California. Worse, is her loss of faith. She no longer believes in the promise, once taken for granted, that each generation will improve its lot over the last. And, Alana said, she’s not alone: “Anyone who’s an average person is in the same boat, we’re all just trying to stay afloat.” Standing in front of the post office in Alhambra, the 52-year-old paddled her arms as though to keep from sinking.

Jaunenito Pavon, in his Glendora wine and chocolate bar, would like California to elect a governor who could unify the state. He’s still deciding on a candidate

The politicians in both parties are “so out of touch,” she said, “all they’re doing is fighting over this and that, when everyone I know doesn’t care what party you’re in. They just want to put food on their table. They want their kids to have a better life.”

Shelby Moore has some of the same concerns. Forget about ever buying a home, said the 30-year-old California native, a Democratic-leaning independent. It’s no small feat scraping up money for rent. “I’ve lost almost every single friend that I went to high school or college with,” Moore said between waiting tables at a Mediterranean restaurant in Glendora. “They’ve all moved out of state.”

Shelby Moore, 30, a waitress in Glendora, said all her friends from high school and college have left California because it’s so expensive.

She’ll definitely vote, Moore said, though she doesn’t know for whom. One of the Democrats. Someone who’ll work to make California more affordable and keep people like her friends from being priced out.

In Claremont, Eric Hurley was another undecided Democrat. He attended last month’s gubernatorial debate at Pomona College, where the 56-year-old professor teaches psychological science and Africana studies. Otherwise, he’s been too busy to pay much attention to the race.

But it’s important, Hurley said, that whoever wins “keep fighting the good fight and standing by our liberal principles. I would hate to see someone in the governor’s office start capitulating to what the current administration is asking.”

Democrat Eric Hurley is undecided in the governor’s race. But he wants someone who’ll stand up to the Trump administration.

Others seconded that notion, that California needs to stand as a bulwark against Trump and his excesses, such as the draconian crackdown that has terrorized the state’s large immigrant population.

But there’s not a great appetite for the sort of performative pushback that’s won the current governor a wide audience on social media and boosted Gavin Newsom’s political stock as he positions himself ahead of the 2028 presidential campaign.

Jennifer Harris, 56, is a single mom in Monrovia who oversees payroll at a food manufacturing company. She has to stretch each of her dollars to make ends meet; soon she’ll be shelling out $30,000 a year for her daughter to go to college. Buying a home, Harris said, is out of the question.

She confessed to chuckling at the governor’s memes — an over-the-top oeuvre that includes Newsom as super hero, Newsom as religious beacon, Newsom as romance-novel hunk — and his other cheeky jabs at the president. “But that’s not an adult way to handle it,” Harris said between errands in Monrovia’s quaint shopping district. “It’s not solving any problems.”

Better, she said, for the next governor — she hasn’t decided whom she’ll support — to focus on practicalities: improving the economy, making housing and healthcare more affordable, dealing with homelessness and the underlying mental health issues.

Jennifer Harris said Gov. Newsom’s over-the-top social media presence is amusing. But she wants the next governor to focus on more practical things.

Britnee Foreman echoed that sentiment.

The 41-year-old, who lives in Azusa and works in the music business, was meeting a friend, Priscilla Vega, 43, for lunch in Monrovia. Along with a meal, the two Democrats shared their concerns about inflation and income inequality.

“Memes are great for publicity,” said Foreman, who’s deciding between Becerra and Porter, based on their policy experience. (Vega, a lifestyle marketer, has yet to narrow down her choice.)

Britnee Foreman says the next governor needs policies “with teeth,” not an active social media presence.

“But I prefer policy,” Foreman went on. “I don’t want them just to be the popular person out there on social media. It’s great if they’re tweeting and have a cute little Insta-story. But I need their policies to have teeth and actively move us forward. And not just look like it’s moving forward.”

After nearly eight years, amid widespread unease, California seems ready to put the Newsom era in the past. It’s just not clear what path voters will choose, or which candidate they’ll prefer to steer the state toward, hopefully, a better place.

When Gavin Newsom ran for California governor in 2018, his support for a state-run single-payer healthcare system was considered a risky move and earned him hefty labor endorsements.

Today, leading Democrats in the wide-open race to succeed Newsom have embraced single-payer healthcare as a political necessity, an answer to voters fed up with rising premiums and other spiraling healthcare costs.

But with no clear front-runner, they are sparring among themselves in debates and political ads over who is most committed to a government-run model. No candidate has outlined how California would fund comprehensive health coverage for its 40 million residents, leaving voters unable to discern which candidate has a concrete plan for the nation’s most populous state.

Healthcare and political experts said the concept of single-payer has shifted from progressive pipe dream a decade ago to today’s mainstream talking points in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1. Democrats have pledged the model as the best way to lower costs in an attempt to woo voters worried about affordability as ballots arrive for the June 2 primary. The top two Republicans, meanwhile, have dismissed government-run healthcare as a “disaster” and “socialism.”

“In many ways, single-payer healthcare has become a progressive litmus test,” said Larry Levitt, a former White House policy advisor and a healthcare expert at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

Few voters fully understand the term single-payer, let alone expect the next governor to achieve it, Levitt said. Rather, he added, the term has become more of a signal to voters about a candidate’s approach to healthcare reform.

Xavier Becerra, the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, who for decades backed single-payer healthcare in Congress, has come under criticism from opponents for a nuanced but clear shift away from single-payer. It came after Becerra secured an endorsement from the California Medical Assn., a powerful group representing doctors and a longtime opponent of single-payer healthcare bills in California.

At a May 5 debate put on by CNN, Becerra declared his support for “Medicare for All,” a proposal for a federally run system that’s been stalled for years, but he declined to say whether he’d pursue a California-led effort. He said his immediate focus would be on mitigating the drastic federal cuts expected to hit low-income and disabled enrollees in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, which covers more than a third of residents.

Becerra is counting on voters not to distinguish between the often-confused terms single-payer, Medicare for All, and universal coverage, noting during the debate that “Californians don’t care what you call it, so long as they have affordable healthcare.”

“A lot of people aren’t clear what single-payer is, and they need a metaphor to understand it,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic strategist and one of the lead pollsters for former President Biden’s 2020 campaign.

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who’s touted his self-funding as a signal he can’t be bought, has emerged as the race’s most vocal advocate of single-payer after opposing it during a short-lived 2020 presidential bid. As governor, Steyer has said, he would pass legislation backed by the California Nurses Assn. that has failed to come to fruition under Newsom’s tenure. Pressed on how he would cover the estimated $731.4-billion cost, Steyer told KFF Health News that “God is going to be in the details.”

At a forum last year, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter said she didn’t believe achieving such a system was realistic in the near term, but the Orange County Democrat later told party delegates that she would “deliver single-payer.” Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, Democrats who are trailing their competitors in the polls, don’t support single-payer. The top two vote-getters — regardless of party — advance to the November general election.

Some of the most seasoned politicians have failed to deliver single-payer. Newsom, who campaigned on the promise of being a “healthcare governor,” dialed back his ambitions upon taking office, choosing instead to pursue “universal access” to health coverage under a series of Medi-Cal expansions and efforts to contain healthcare spending.

The campaign bus for billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who has made single-payer healthcare a central pillar of his run for governor, in downtown Oakland.

(Christine Mai-Duc/KFF Health News)

Vermont, which remains the only state to pass a single-payer healthcare law, reversed course when leaders there couldn’t identify a funding source.

To enact single-payer, California would need permission from the federal government to redirect billions of dollars from Medicaid, Medicare and other funding that currently flows to the system — approval not likely to come from the Trump administration.

More than half of adults nationally say healthcare costs will have a major impact on whom they vote for in November, according an April KFF poll.

Danielle Cendejas, a Los Angeles-based Democratic consultant who works with state legislative candidates, said single-payer healthcare increasingly appears on candidate questionnaires from small-business advocates as well as hyperlocal Democratic clubs, in state legislative races and national union endorsements. What most California voters want to hear, Cendejas said, is how candidates plan to give them more immediate relief from higher premiums, expensive drug costs and long waits to access care.

The high price tag doesn’t faze Jennifer Easton, a 63-year-old Democrat from Oakland, who said other countries with similar models have proved they can lower costs. She said she supports a single-payer health system because it’s clear to her that Americans have reached the limits of working within the existing system. But she isn’t expecting any of the current candidates to succeed in implementing one, and she hasn’t decided whom to support.

“No one can in four years,” she said. Seeing a candidate enthusiastically support the concept gives her a good idea of their philosophy. “It is, if we’re lucky, a 20-year, 25-year plan.”

Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant who advised former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said while Americans may be supportive of single-payer in polls, focus groups suggest that approval drops quickly when voters realize it could mean losing their current doctor or insurance plan.

At the CNN debate, Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate President Trump has endorsed, said Californians would end up with subpar patient care and “taxes sky high to pay for it,” like in his native United Kingdom. Instead, Hilton suggested the state stop providing “free healthcare for illegal immigrants who shouldn’t even be in the country in the first place.”

Mai-Duc writes for KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.

The emails continually fill my inbox: Startups exclaiming they have engineered a solution to protect homes from wildfires.

I’ve been pitched a system that monitors fires via satellite so it can automatically turn on water cannons when fire gets too close. Another offered high-tech speakers that homeowners can place around their home that blasts powerful but silent sound waves designed to disrupt the chemical process of combustion.

One recent one was so outlandish, I couldn’t ignore it:

An entrepreneur together with a former mayor of Malibu were appearing on Shark Tank to pitch a new system to literally lower an entire home into a subterranean vault when a wildfire approaches.

Many fire officials and experts are optimistic we really can find part of the solution to California’s wildfire crisis in the proliferating world of home defense tech. But they also warn these wild ideas are often expensive as well as largely unproven.

Of course I tuned in to Shark Tank.

“I know, this sounds like a magic trick,” entrepreneur Holden Forrest told the Sharks.

“It sounds crazy,” investor and businesswoman Barbara Corcoran interjected.

Nonetheless, Corcoran, who lost her Pacific Palisades home in the 2025 fires, invested $1 million in exchange for a 20% ownership stake in the company — on the condition that its first proof-of-concept home is her own.

If you, like Corcoran, want to put down some serious money for exciting new tech, there are a few things you should know.

This kind of tech is often significantly more expensive than proven, less flashy approaches to reduce the risk of your home burning — such as covering vents with mesh so embers can’t sneak into the home and multipaned windows that are less likely to shatter in the extreme heat, allowing flames and embers to enter.

For example, Forrest expects the retractable homes to cost around $1,000 per square foot. The company hopes to eventually get it down to around $400.

For reference, Palisades fire survivors expect to pay around $800 per square foot to rebuild, while Eaton fire survivors expect to pay just shy of $600. It’s also more than a new series of fire-resilient homes in the Palisades that incorporate both tried-and-true and flashy new tech, sitting around $700.

Fire safety experts also warn that some of this technology can encourage dangerous behavior such as ignoring evacuation orders and staying to defend homes. For example, even when water cannon companies insist their technology can function autonomously, some homeowners nonetheless stay behind to operate them.

Forrest rejected the idea that his technology, HiberTec Homes, would encourage homeowners to disobey evacuation orders — he argued the opposite. The trust that comes with knowing your home will survive actually decreases the likelihood residents will stay behind, he told the Sharks.

Many of the new home protection systems remain unproven, in part because it takes time for researchers to evaluate them. There are three steps to that:

First, scientists head to the lab to see whether the physics behind the tech works as expected in controlled tests.

Second, they investigate individual homes that used the tech in major fires to piece together whether the same physics held together in the chaos and immense power of real-world fires.

Third, they determine whether what they saw in the lab and on the ground translates to a reduced risk at scale. To do this researchers survey thousands of structures that faced wildfires and compare the percentage with the tech that survived with the percentage without the tech that survived.

If you live in a fire-prone area, and you understand the risks and uncertainties of new tech and have money to spare, by all means, build the wildfire bunker of your dreams — just email me an invite to check it out.

Otherwise, Cal Fire maintains a list of the less flashy solutions that have already gone through their scientific paces.

More recent wildfire news

After months of fierce debate between fire officials and residents in fire-prone areas, California released a new “Zone Zero” proposal outlining landscaping restrictions within 5 feet of people’s homes. Unlike previous proposals, many Southern Californians seem to be … OK with this one.

California regulators determined State Farm “delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape.” The Department of Insurance may now seek to suspend the company’s license. Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department filed a brief supporting 60 fire victims who are suing State Farm and other insurers, my colleague Laurence Darmiento reports.

Survivors of the 2023 Maui fires could start receiving their share of a $4-billion settlement with Hawaiian Electric, the state of Hawaii, Maui County and other defendants as early as June. However, few will break even, reports Stewart Yerton of Honolulu Civil Beat. Lawyers will get a slice for legal fees; the Internal Revenue Service may claw back as much as a third if Congress doesn’t resurrect a tax exemption for such settlements; and insurers who paid out claims will get 10% of the money.

Oh — and this Saturday is Fire Service Day. There’s a good chance your local fire station will hold an open house, complete with fire equipment demos and maybe even free pancakes.

A few last things in climate news

Tom Steyer, a Wall Street prodigy turned billionaire who made a portion of his money off investments in coal-fired power plants, is now trying to use that money to convince Californians he’s the best candidate on climate and energy affordability. Read my colleagues Ben Wieder and Hayley Smith’s full profile here.

The last California-bound oil tanker to pass through the Strait of Hormuz before the Iran war reached the Port of Long Beach, my colleague Blanca Begert reports. After the ship finishes offloading its crude oil, California will have to manage a deficit of roughly 200,000 barrels of oil per day.

The company that produces the widely used weedkiller Roundup promised to “provide a small thanks” to the Environmental Protection Agency administrator after the agency asserted it would not approve a label for the weedkiller warning it causes cancer, reports Sky Chadde of Investigate Midwest. The revelation came at a congressional hearing last week as the company seeks immunity in the Supreme Court.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

For more wildfire news, follow @nohaggerty on X and @nohaggerty.bsky.social on Bluesky.

I was on a road trip to visit a friend late in March when my phone started lighting up. The Trump administration had just announced a sweeping reorganization of the U.S. Forest Service. People — among them current and former agency staffers — had thoughts.

Under the overhaul, the Forest Service will move from a regional to a state-based leadership structure, relocate its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City and close nearly three-quarters of its research stations. A news release described this as a much-needed shift to streamline the agency and bring its leadership closer to the forests and grasslands it manages, which are primarily west of the Mississippi.

But a common refrain emerged among the sources I spoke with: The Trump administration is trying to break the Forest Service, they claimed, to pave the way for privatizing or even selling off the 193 million acres of land it oversees.

On a recent podcast, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said this is false, that the reorganization is about prudently stewarding taxpayer dollars, not dismantling the agency. Trump officials have also said that a public lands sell-off is not part of the president’s agenda.

I figured the controversy would die down a bit by the time I wrote this newsletter. But nearly a month later, it’s still top of mind for most of the former firefighters and recreation and environment advocates I speak with.

“I worry that I sound paranoid like a conspiracy theorist — why would anybody want to break a federal agency?” said Rich Fairbanks, a former Forest Service firefighter and board member of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. “But that’s exactly what they appear to be trying to do.”

To him, the reorganization smacks of an attempt to sow chaos and drive experienced employees out the door. He described the decision to move the headquarters to Salt Lake City as a red flag. Not only is it likely to prompt more staff departures, he said, but Utah is widely seen as the epicenter of an ongoing movement for states to take over federal public lands. It’s also home to Sen. Mike Lee, who last year proposed selling off millions of acres of public lands.

Max Alonzo, a former Forest Service firefighter who now works as national secretary treasurer for the National Federation of Federal Employees, similarly believes the administration is setting the agency up to fail. He noted the president has also proposed deep cuts that would slash the USFS operations budget by 44% and eliminate funding for forest and rangeland research to refocus the agency’s mission primarily on timber sales.

The administration plans to replace its nine regional offices with 15 state directors. These changes to leadership structure make little sense to Alonzo unless the intention is to lay the groundwork for an eventual state takeover of the agency and its lands, he said.

“They’re putting the chess pieces in place to get rid of our national forests,” he said. He believes the goal is to open the door to more mineral extraction, logging and drilling.

“It’s all about breaking the government so people decide the government doesn’t work,” echoed Hugh Safford, a UC Davis researcher who worked for the Forest Service for over two decades.

Safford is concerned that the move to shutter dozens of research stations will prevent Forest Service scientists from doing on-the-ground work on issues affecting local lands, like seeing how different ecosystems respond to wildfire, pests and drought. This research has driven some of the most important global advancements in fire planning and forest management, he said. He would know: Until 2021, he managed a staff of ecologists that provided science support to Forest Service leadership.

“They are destroying the research part of the agency,” he said. “These plans are so draconian and so depressing my hair stands up when I even read about them.”

Dave Calkin worked for 23 years at the Forest Service, overseeing a team of scientists that researched wildfire management. He took an early retirement offer last April, just after the agency terminated thousands of probationary employees, including a young researcher in his office.

“The more you can demonstrate government isn’t working, the more you can argue to privatize and sell off public lands,” he said. “And that’s clearly one of the intentions of everything they’re doing.”

More recent land news

Although administration officials would later distance themselves from the effort, the Interior Department helped craft talking points that Sen. Lee used to pitch his controversial proposal to sell off federal public land last summer, Chris D’Angelo of Public Domain reports.

Trump has withdrawn hospitality executive Scott Socha as his nominee to lead the National Park Service, reports Jake Spring of the Washington Post. That comes as many parks face their peak seasons with a dramatically reduced staff and the agency braces for more potential cuts, my colleague Justine McDaniel writes.

It’s not just the Park Service: The president’s budget proposal also seeks to decrease staff at the Bureau of Land Management and eliminate its wilderness management funding in favor of focusing on energy production, reports Christine Peterson of Outdoor Life.

The Trump administration is again planning border wall-related construction inside Big Bend National Park, weeks after U.S. Customs and Border Protection backed away from such plans amid bipartisan backlash, according to Travis Bubenik of Marfa Public Radio, who cited an online map showing the planned construction.

A day after Bubenik’s report, the border wall map disappeared from the Customs and Border Protection website, leaving the public with no way to know where and when construction on the wall will take place, writes Mary Andino of Gear Junkie.

A few last things in climate news

Wildfire, insurance and the price of gas took center stage at the California governor’s debate on Tuesday night. My colleague Blanca Begert broke down each candidate’s defining statements.

In yet another escalation of President Trump’s efforts to obstruct clean energy projects in favor of fossil fuels, the administration said it will pay two energy companies to abandon their offshore wind projects in federal waters — including one off Morro Bay, according to The Times’ Hayley Smith.

Extreme drought is fueling wildfires in the southeastern U.S., Zachary Handlos writes for The Conversation, as concern also grows over intensifying drought conditions in Nevada and Northern California.

Winters have grown shorter in most places across the country, upending everything from tourism and recreation to the transmission season of certain diseases, report Ignacio Calderon, Ramon Padilla, Veronica Bravo and Janet Loehrke in this interactive USA Today project.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

For more land news, follow @phila_lex on X and alex-wigglesworth.bsky.social on Bluesky.

In a treehouse nestled in redwoods north of San Francisco, Gov. Newsom stood cold and hungry as Sergey Brin, the world’s fourth-richest man, and his wellness-influencer girlfriend told him they were leaving the state.

It was late in the evening at a Christmas party hosted by crypto titan Chris Larsen — featuring singer Janelle Monáe and a towering abominable snowman with glowing red eyes — when Brin and his partner, Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto, confronted Newsom about a new proposal to tax billionaires in California, according to people who’ve spoken with the governor. Such a levy could hit Brin’s stake in Alphabet Inc. and his $272.6 billion fortune.

Newsom, who opposes the wealth tax, was still telling people about the lengthy exchange at the party months later, complaining of a lingering cold the pair had given him, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing private conversations with the governor.

Brin, meanwhile, followed through. He left the state, bought a lakeside mansion in Nevada, and started bankrolling a billionaire political uprising in California.

Newsom, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the interaction. “The governor has been very clear with everyone, no matter who they are, that this effort will do serious damage to the state, including for public safety workers and schools, at the expense of one special interest group,” Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson, said.

A representative for Brin didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Brin’s political push reflects a broader awakening among California’s ultrawealthy. Over the past six months, the proposed billionaire tax and a heated governor’s race have drawn tech titans and business leaders more directly into the state’s affairs — a space many of them have traditionally kept at arm’s length.

Prior to this year, Brin’s last contribution in a California election cycle was 2010 when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor and the Google co-founder largely backed climate causes. He’s now spent more than $58 million in the last four months, including an extra $9 million disclosed late Friday, but more importantly has helped mobilize a network of fellow tech titans in a push to sway state issues.

“The wealth tax was a wake up call, it was a fire that just lit up Silicon Valley literally in a matter of weeks,” said Steven Maviglio, a veteran Democratic strategist. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Altogether, ultrawealthy donors have injected more than $270 million into California’s political scene in this election cycle. Outside of the wealth tax, billionaire Tom Steyer is emerging as a top Democratic candidate for governor after the downfall of former Representative Eric Swalwell following allegations of sexual assault. Steyer, a former hedge fund manager, has spent more than $140 million in his election bid, crowding TV airwaves with ads and labeling himself a “class traitor” with a campaign modeled after Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Ballots for the June 2 primary election start going out next week. Brin and a cohort of the ultrawealthy including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and venture capitalists Vinod Khosla and John Doerr have plowed millions into supporting Matt Mahan, a Silicon Valley mayor, with a back-to-basics agenda and a penchant for taking on the state’s Democratic establishment.

That money has helped Mahan buy airtime and attracted controversy, but his polling numbers remain stuck in the single digits while Steyer’s well-funded progressive campaign is gaining favor with voters. Brin has also backed Republican Steve Hilton, who’s currently leading polls.

“You have two polar opposites going on. You have a billionaire running who has actually fully adopted an agenda that the vast majority of voters agree with: Taxing billionaires, funding healthcare, fighting back against ICE,” said Lorena Gonzalez, head of the state’s largest union group, the California Federation of Labor Unions. “And then you have billionaires pushing a candidate whose talking points are apologetic to the tech industry.”

The billionaire political activism in California mirrors larger shifts in Silicon Valley and the nation. President Donald Trump has given tech billionaires broad access to the White House, inviting Brin and other industry captains over for dinner and to join advisory boards.

Back in September, Trump singled out Gilbert-Soto as Brin’s “really wonderful MAGA girlfriend” at a White House dinner also attended by Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and Sam Altman. She has publicly supported Republican Steve Hilton for California governor, a candidate Trump endorsed and Brin has also donated to.

In California, Brin’s newfound political action was catalyzed by the wealth tax proposal, which would levy a one-time 5% tax on billionaires to help offset federal healthcare cuts. In a Signal group chat earlier this year with other Silicon Valley elite, Brin floated the idea of raising hundreds of millions of dollars to influence California politics, according to a person who saw the message.

Brin left California for Nevada ahead of a Jan. 1 residency deadline for the proposed wealth tax. He moved to a $42 million mansion on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, featuring two glass-walled funiculars.

Shortly after leaving California, Brin contributed $20 million to a new group dedicated to fighting the tax while also pushing pro-business and housing affordability policies, Building a Better California, making him the single largest contributor. He added $37 million over the spring, as the group quickly started supporting a trio of anti-wealth tax measures that could nullify a billionaire tax if it gets passed in an election. One of the measures, the so-called Transparency Act, has enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, its backers claimed on Monday.

Building a Better California “remains fixed on long-term reforms supported by most Californians: housing affordability, stable funding for education, infrastructure investments, and government accountability,” a spokesperson said.

Joining Brin in the effort were other billionaires, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison and venture capitalist Michael Moritz. Peter Thiel, who also left California ahead of the New Year’s Day deadline, gave $3 million to a separate committee opposing the wealth tax.

“They don’t trust California anymore,” said David Lesperance, a tax attorney who specializes in relocations and has helped move five families out of the state because of the wealth tax threat.

Brin and his fellow billionaires helped push up the costs to gather the more than 870,000 signatures required to qualify a ballot measure. This forced the union behind the wealth tax, SEIU-UHW, to spend more on their efforts.

Now, the union says it has succeeded in getting the signatures it needed, which will likely force the business leaders opposing it into further spending.

“A very small group of the most controversial billionaires on the planet tried to stop Californians from being able to save their local emergency rooms and hospitals — but our current signature tally proves frontline healthcare workers will prevail in bringing this commonsense proposal to voters,” said Suzanne Jimenez, SEIU-UHW’s chief of staff. “When our growing coalition files these signatures, David will have won the first round against Goliath.”

Other billionaires have bankrolled their own political initiatives, including Larsen, who set up his own network of influence groups with names like Grow California and Golden State Promise.

Many in Sacramento are skeptical that Brin and his fellow ultra-rich will succeed in swaying California state politics. They point to the failed candidacy of former eBay executive Meg Whitman, who spent around $144 million of her own fortune to become governor, or even venture capitalist Tim Draper’s longshot initiative to split California into six separate states.

“They’re trying to extrapolate from their own industry, which might have been fabulously successful, that they know something about political advertising, when they don’t,” said Garry South, a veteran Democratic strategist. “They think, ‘Hey, I’ve got money I can throw it around,’ and they don’t really do their homework.”

Political consultants describe their frustration with some wealthy tech donors, who often view their political giving through an investment lens, promising big checks and not following through if they don’t see momentum. That’s led to questions about whether the California billionaire activism would continue if Mahan’s governor bid fails and the wealth tax passes.

Even Larsen, who’s worth around $13 billion, has expressed anxiety that not enough business leaders are stepping into politics. “It’s a lot of talk, and they’re happy, but we don’t see the firepower we need to take on the SEIUs,” he said, referring to the state’s largest union.

Newsom, for his part, acknowledges that many of the state’s wealthiest residents are willing to donate significant sums of money, but want to do it on their own terms and not through a tax.

“Some will never give a penny away,” he said at a Bloomberg News event in January, not long after his encounter with Brin in the treehouse. “Some I respect. Some I don’t.”

Kamisher and Carson write for Bloomberg.

Right-wing pundits and politicos recently attacked the gargantuan wildlife crossing being constructed over the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills over ballooning costs and delays.

A March 18 post in an outlet published by a conservative think tank set the outrage in motion, calling the now $114-million project a “bridge to nowhere” and “jobs program for environmentalists.” The Murdoch-owned California Post republished it and social media lit up. In an X post, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy compared it with the state’s long-delayed, budget-busting high-speed train.

In short, they painted it as a boondoggle. One that might never get done.

But now the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing has a completion date: Dec. 2, announced at an Earth Day news conference held on the structure rising over a 10-lane stretch of the freeway. Cars whizzed by below.

That’s when the ribbon will be cut and mountain lions suffering from a lack of genetic diversity are expected to get their ticket out of the freeway-locked Santa Monica Mountains to seek mates elsewhere. Lions there have already shown alarming signs of inbreeding, including kinked tails and deformed testicles. The population could go extinct without intervention, and state wildlife officials listed the pumas as threatened earlier this year.

“This is a visionary project that was the impossible dream,” said Beth Pratt, California regional executive director with the National Wildlife Federation and the public face of the crossing. “This is something that’s captured the imagination of Angelenos, captured the imagination of the world.”

Driving under the crossing feels unremarkable; just another concrete behemoth. But it’s another world on top. Under a blue sky and puffy clouds, a gentle wind blew through a sea of about 6,000 native plants — Santa Barbara milk vetch, golden yarrow and purple sage.

It melts into the surroundings — and that’s the point. Soil that was hauled in was inoculated with the same microbes and mycorrhizal fungi that thrive in the nearby hills. The plants were grown just for the crossing, with another 40,000 on the way.

Miguel Ordeñana, senior manager of community science at L.A. County’s Natural History Museum, who discovered the late, great mountain lion P-22 in Griffith Park, saw the whole thing unfold.

Standing atop the suspended habitat, he envisioned bobcats hiding behind the bushes and ambushing ground squirrels: “I can see it now as this thing is coming to life.”

The event drew representatives from Caltrans, National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, Agoura Hills City Council and other partners.

The plight of P-22, a celebrity mountain lion that once inhabited Griffith Park, helped inspire the wildlife crossing being built over the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills

(Miguel Ordeñana)

There’s still significant work to be done before bobcats can come aboard.

Crews are currently building a second overpass over Agoura Road.

Once that’s completed over the summer, they’ll haul in 3 million cubic feet of soil — enough to fill half of SoFi Stadium — to bridge the gap between the two structures. Berms will be constructed to block out noise and light.

Like many dreams in California, the project didn’t come cheap. When it broke ground in 2022, it was expected to cost nearly $93 million. That held until last spring, when bids for the second stage of the project went out and “came back through-the-roof high,” Pratt told The Times earlier this year. The current estimate is $114 million but could potentially top out several million higher.

The surge came amid inflation and tariff-driven price increases. The National Highway Construction Cost Index, a figure calculated by the Federal Highway Administration, has increased by 67% since 2021. Torrential rains in 2022 and 2023 delayed the completion by a year.

There’s also the scale: It’s the largest wildlife crossing in the world, with two structures that together span roughly 320 by 175 feet.

The effort appears to be paying off. Driving down to L.A. earlier this month, Pratt was distressed because she was hitting painted lady butterflies in the midst of their long-distance migration. When she ascended the crossing the following day, she saw the dainty orange, black and white insects fluttering about. It moved her to tears.

They weren’t the only lepidoptera. American lady butterflies were laying eggs and white-lined sphinx moth caterpillars were inching along plants.

Then there’s Bob, a western fence lizard that’s taken up residence at the top of stairs that lead to the crossing. A rattlesnake has claimed the bottom. Birds like yellow-rumped warblers and California scrub jays round out the initial cast.

“I can say with some certainty that this is going to be the most popular reality show that L.A. produces,” Pratt said. Cameras will capture the action, though it won’t be broadcast live because “this is L.A. and someone will go try to pet the mountain lions.”

L.A. deserves a good show. The region is reeling from devastating wildfires, immigration raids and the upending of the state governor’s race. County residents reported record-low quality of life in a UCLA survey this year, with the high cost of living looming large.

Much is uncertain, uneasy. The soon-to-open crossing offers one non-abstract finish line.

More recent wildlife news

California lawmakers are considering a bill to create a statewide program to promote coexistence between people and wildlife, an issue reinvigorated by the euthanization of a beloved black bear with two cubs in Monrovia, writes Times reporter Katie King. The state’s wildlife agency operated a similar program until two years ago, when funding ran dry.

Blondie the bear wanders across a porch in Monrovia. The mama bear was euthanized by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife following two incidents where she swiped at residents.

(Brian Gordon)

The Golden State expanded the area in which boats are asked to slow down in an effort to avoid hitting and killing whales, reports the San Francisco Chronicle’s Brooke Park. Ship strikes are a leading cause of death for several whale species off California, where some of the world’s largest cargo ships pass through key feeding and migration routes.

Nutria, a hefty rodent with the tail of a rat, reappeared in California in 2017 — close to 40 years after it was deemed eradicated. As my colleague Samantha Lee explains, California wildlife officials recently published a study indicating the animal — considered a pest — was deliberately brought back to the state.

A few last things in climate news

California is in the midst of a powerful late-season storm, bringing significant rain to northern regions of the state. However, as fellow Times writer Ian James broke down, the state experienced the hottest March on record — a phenomenon that prematurely melted snow in the Sierra Nevada. The heat and early melt is expected to dry out forests earlier than normal, increasing the risk of wildfires.

After years of debate between fire officials arguing for the removal of anything that can burn within the first five feet of homes and ecologists backing selective landscaping, California proposed a compromise, reports my colleague Noah Haggerty. New regulations create a strict one-foot “Safety Zone” around homes where nothing burnable is allowed, while permitting some spaced-out plants beyond it.

Some who lost their homes in the Eaton and Palisades fires are rebuilding all-electric due to health and climate concerns. Per Times staffer Blanca Begert, burning gas and propane for cooking, as well as water and space heating, in California homes and businesses creates 10% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

One last thing

BEY03F, the wolf pictured, briefly visited L.A. County before making her way to the Eastern Sierra.

(California Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Remember the wolf that stunned everyone by visiting Los Angeles County? She made history again by venturing into Inyo County earlier this month and remains in the Eastern Sierra. Experts believe she’s probably still looking for a mate.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

For more wildlife and outdoors news, follow Lila Seidman at @lila_seidman on X and @lilaseidman.bsky.social on Bluesky.

A powerful dust storm disrupted the first weekend of the Coachella music festival as blustery winds swept over the sprawling grounds and enveloped concertgoers in a whirlwind of desert sand.

Several social media videos from last Friday night showed attendees navigating the festival grounds amid wind-tossed tents and wearing face masks to guard against the airborne dust.

The weather conditions prompted the South Coast Air District to issue dust advisories for parts of the Coachella Valley, warning that strong winds could expose people to unhealthy dust levels. The dust storm caused festival organizers to cancel a highly anticipated performance by Italian EDM artist Anyma, who had been scheduled to perform Friday at midnight on the main stage.

“I don’t have many words other than to say I’m truly devastated and deeply sorry to everyone who showed up to the main stage, and to those watching the livestream at home,” he posted on X. “The dangerous winds not only prevented us and Coachella from building our stage, but also made it impossible for my entire live setup and performance to operate safely.”

It was the latest instance in which dusty conditions hampered one of the nation’s largest and most profitable music festival, which has been called “Dustchella.” But it is just one fragment of the economy disrupted by this natural phenomenon.

Wind-driven dust is an overlooked environmental hazard — and one that carries a hefty price tag. A recent study estimated that dust storms cost more than $154 billion in the U.S. in 2017, alone. The evaluation puts dust events on par with natural disasters in terms of economic costs, eclipsing, for example, the 2017 wildfire season but shy of that year’s hurricane season, according to Irene Feng, the lead author of the 2024 study, who researched dust at the University of Texas at El Paso.

“Dust is kind of a big deal,” said Feng, now a post-graduate student at George Mason University. “The fact that it was even comparable to hurricanes … was a huge surprise to me.”

Since researchers last attempted to calculate the costs associated with dust pollution in the 1990s, the numbers overall numbers essentially quadrupled.

Some of the greatest costs calculated in the new study include:

• $100 billion related to dust-related deaths and lost productivity from health issues, as inhaling dust particles can lead to serious respiratory illness and trigger heart attacks.
• $40 billion from additional household costs from cleaning, painting and property damage.
• $9.6 billion for damages to agriculture from lost water and weaker crop yields.
• $4 billion in lost value of weakened renewable energy generation, because dust obscures solar panels and gum up wind turbines.
• $280 million for traffic crashes caused by reduced visibility due to dust storms.

Among one of the most grave conditions Feng analyzed was a potentially life-threatening respiratory infection known as “valley fever.” Throughout much of Southwest, desert soil can be laced with Coccidioides fungus spores. When inhaled, this fungus can propagate in the lungs, potentially causing scarring and collapse of lungs.

In many cases, valley fever symptoms can mirror the flu or COVID, leading doctors to misdiagnose patients, and to not provide proper treatment.

Coachella, which is hosted at an irrigated polo field surrounded by desert, is particularly susceptible.

“When I heard that there was a dust event at Coachella, I was actually really concerned about the valley fever cases that might come out of that,” Feng said. “Because there’s so many people traveling from outside the state, and they don’t necessarily know what valley fever is.”

But devastating dust-related effects, like valley fever, can be mitigated, at least to some degree, according to environmental experts.

In California, state and local government agencies have launched dust-mitigation efforts by installing windbreaks, such as cultivating native plants or reshaping the topography with more ridges. About 200 miles north of Los Angeles, at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Owens Lake, a critical and controversial source of water for Angelenos, city officials say they have drastically reduced dust near the dry, exposed lake bed in recent years after implementing some of these measures.

Scientists say global warming is causing warmer temperatures and more intense droughts, paving the way for more dust emissions. Feng said that could require more innovative solution, more action and more money.

“From what I’ve seen, it’s projected to be dustier in the future,” Feng said. “So, all these effects, all these costs, they’re just only going to get worse.”

More recent air news

The NAACP sued Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company this week, claiming xAI (the creator of Grok) violated federal clean air laws. The lawsuit, reported by CNBC’s climate tech reporter Lora Kolodny, accuses the company of installing and operating 27 natural gas-fired turbines to power its data center in Memphis without the necessary air permits.

Recent far-flung wildfire smoke has led to air quality risks in unlikely places. Now, Michigan, my beloved home state, is overhauling its air quality alerts system after having endured heavy smoke from Canadian wildfires in 2023 and 2025, per Planet Detroit’s senior reporter Brian Allnutt.

New research suggests methane emissions have been drastically underestimated in the country’s largest cities. An satellite analysis of 12 urban areas, including New York City and Los Angeles, found up to 80% more methane emissions than previously thought, according to ABC reporter Julia Jacobo.

Because methane warms the atmosphere far more than carbon dioxide, the findings underscore the need to investigate large emitters, such as landfills, gas pipelines and wastewater treatment facilities. One other, underreported source is California’s man-made lakes that we tap for drinking water, L.A. Times water reporter Ian James writes. Environmental groups are urging environmental regulators to investigate why.

A few last things in climate news

Sales of new electric vehicles have slumped as Trump has eliminated federal incentives for car buyers. But, as oil prices have spiked due to the war in Iran, used EV sales have jumped 20%, signaling a renewed willingness by Americans to ween themselves off fossil fuels, according to Bloomberg senior correspondent Kyle Stock.

Stingrays injuries in Southern California have been on the rise. LAist climate reporter Erin Stone, who was recently wounded by stingray’s barb herself, writes that warming waters attract more rays and make these painful encounters more likely.

Under an ambitious proposal, the Bay Area could host the world’s largest floating wind farm, taking California closer to its 100% renewable energy goal, L.A. Times climate reporter Hayley Smith writes. The plan would involve building hundreds of Eiffel Tower-sized wind turbines and towing them into the deep, breezy waters of the Humboldt Bay, where they could generate up to 15% of the state’s electricity.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

For more air quality news, follow me at @_TonyBriscoe on X and on LinkedIn.