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If history is any guide, the State of the State speech Gov. Jerry Brown will deliver in Sacramento on Thursday — his last one — won’t be very long. It probably won’t be overly sentimental. And it will probably include a tribute to his home state.
But here are a few things we will be listening for:
1. How much will he talk about perhaps his biggest bit of unfinished business — the bullet train, plagued by cost overruns and delays? Mr. Brown’s strategy is to keep building, hoping to buy time until a (presumably) sympathetic Democratic administration takes office. His real audience on Thursday, should he use the moment, will be the next governor, whose support will be crucial.
2. This will be one of the final opportunities for the famously frugal governor to return to a favorite topic: warning lawmakers and his successor against excessive spending, particularly if a recession is coming.
3. Will Mr. Brown use his platform to push for reforms in California’s notoriously dysfunctional tax system, hamstrung by Proposition 13 and a heavy reliance on volatile capital gains tax revenues? (Don’t bet on it).
4. Count how much time Mr. Brown spends talking about Republicans in Washington versus talking about problems facing California: the affordable housing crisis, the sexual misconduct scandal in the Legislature and the exploding costs of pensions. (Here’s a smart essay by Bill Whalen of the Hoover Institution on things the governor might want to address.)
Continue reading the main storyWhen Mr. Brown delivered his first inaugural address in 2011, the state’s economy was reeling from an economic downturn. Still, he was notably optimistic.
“Well I was the one who was coming in so I had a lot to be optimistic about,” Mr. Brown said in an interview.
California Online
(Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.)
• A tsunami watch was issued — and later canceled — for the California coast after a major earthquake struck 170 miles off Alaska early Tuesday. [The New York Times]
• Tom Steyer, a California billionaire and a major Democratic donor, has become one of President Trump’s most visible antagonists, firing up angry Democrats and unnerving his own party with the ferocity of his efforts to impeach the president. [The New York Times]
• Think it’s getting hotter? Check out this graphic to see how your city did temperature-wise in 2017 during this era of global warming. One example: San Francisco was 1.6 degrees above normal. [The New York Times]
• A riveting story on a Los Angeles Police Department program dealing with substance abuse on the force — run by officers who are recovering addicts. “We called it peer counseling, instead of something like A.A.; didn’t want to scare anyone.” [Los Angeles Magazine]
• Elon Musk has agreed to stay on as the chief executive of Tesla for another 10 years, but his compensation is tied to $50 billion leaps in the company’s valuation. If those targets aren’t reached, he makes zero. [The New York Times]
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• Minnie Mouse gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Mickey got his 40 years ago. She will be the 2,627th star. [Hollywood Patch]
• A problem in this era of legalized recreational marijuana in California: How to tell if someone is high on pot while driving. There is no breathalyzer for marijuana. [The Sacramento Bee]
• A United Nations inspector was appalled as she visited the homeless in the Bay Area. “There’s a cruelty here that I don’t think I’ve seen.” [Curbed San Francisco]
• El Cajon responded to its homeless crisis by prohibiting the distribution of food to people living in parks. Now there is a move to rescind what many see as a heartless policy. [San Diego Reader]
• A fishing and sightseeing pier may be going up under the Bay Bridge at Yerba Buena Island. An $18 million boondoggle? “People would get a new parklike amenity with access to the bay — a thing everyone loves.” [San Francisco Chronicle]
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• Another Oscar mix-up? New safeguards to head off a repeat of the “Moonlight” moment. The biggest change: Onstage accountants will be barred from using cellphones or social media during the ceremony. [The New York Times]
• And the nominees for the 2018 Oscars have been announed. [The New York Times]
• “I survived the California fires and mudslides. Here’s why I don’t leave.” Life after four months of trauma. [The Fresno Bee]
• Not a huge surprise: Senators Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein voted against the bill to reopen the government. [The Sacramento Bee]
• The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board urges candidates for governor to say what they’ll do about Mr. Brown’s bullet train. It had a word for those who dodge the questions: “cowardly.” [San Diego Union-Tribune]
• And the columnist George Skelton warns that Mr. Brown’s legacy project could end up being the boondoggle train to nowhere. [Los Angeles Times]
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• Joe Frank, an announcer at the public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica, who offered “tragic, philosophical and sometimes confessional excursions that trod the line between fact and fiction,” died in Beverly Hills. [The New York Times]
• Rosie the Riveter, the World War II worker who became a feminist touchstone, was actually a California waitress named Naomi Parker Fraley. She died in Washington. [The New York Times]
• The “Back to Session” bash in Sacramento kicks off the legislative year with lawmakers and lobbyists drinking Moscow Mules and swaying to risqué hip-hop music. This year’s bash was more subdued in a capital clouded by sexual harassment accusations. “Several women said — happily — that they weren’t getting as many drunken hugs as usual.” [CALMatters]
• Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former California Republican governor, denounced Mr. Trump’s offshore oil drilling plan. “Don’t touch California. If you want to drill, do it off Mar-a-Lago,” he said in a tweet. [Los Angeles Times]
And Finally …
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Does Los Angeles need two Hollywood signs?
That is one solution being floated to deal with the flood of tourists exploring the windy roads of Hollywood, searching for the best point to snap a selfie with the sign.
Navigation systems are guiding out-of-towners to vistas that once were known only to a select few, resulting in chaos on once quiet and secluded streets — in neighborhoods that people tend to move to get away from it all — and pressure on public officials.
A report by a consulting firm, Dixon Resources Unlimited, ordered by David Ryu, the City Council member who represents the neighborhood, looked at some ideas that have been floating out there, including a tramway to take people to the site.
But the more novel idea is to build a replica Hollywood sign that would face north toward Burbank, almost back-to-back with the one that now looks over the Los Angeles basin.
“This would give the city the opportunity to promote the replica sign viewpoints as more accessible locations for photos than in the residential neighborhoods south of the park,” the report said.
The idea has its drawbacks.
“One downside of this strategy is that it would take away from the history of the original Hollywood sign,” it says.
California Today goes live at 6 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
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