It's Wednesday. Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles moves one step closer to becoming U.S. ambassador to India. Plus, San Francisco's mayor wants to flood the Tenderloin with police officers. |
 | | Eric Garcetti has been nominated to serve as U.S. ambassador to India.Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
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Six months ago, President Biden nominated Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles to be U.S. ambassador to India. Since then, the confirmation process has been unusually slow. |
That is partly because Republicans have held up scores of the president's nominations. But it is also because of turmoil in the Garcetti administration and more generally at City Hall. |
On Tuesday, the mayor finally testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. To cut to the chase, Garcetti denied knowing that a Los Angeles police officer on his security detail had complained of sexual harassment by a top aide. |
Responding to Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, the mayor said he "never witnessed" the alleged harassment, "nor was it brought to my attention." If it had been, he added, he would have acted to stop it, saying that opposition to workplace abuses was "a core issue" for him. |
The mild exchange capped months of speculation over whether Los Angeles's current wave of City Hall scandal would cost Garcetti a long-sought place in the Biden administration. Garcetti, who joined Biden's inner circle after ending his own presidential bid in 2020, had at one point appeared to be in contention for a cabinet post. |
As the pandemic spiked in Southern California, Garcetti took himself out of the running for a gig with the White House. He accepted the ambassadorial nomination in July as infections waned and the city began to look ahead to next year's mayoral election, which he can't run in after serving two terms. Since then, however, anxiety around homelessness and crime has risen, and City Hall has become the hub of a wider-than-usual array of corruption charges. |
And then there's the former member of Garcetti's security detail, who has sued the city, accusing the former deputy chief of staff, Rick Jacobs, of sexual harassment. Garcetti himself has not been charged in any of the cases, but the officer, Matthew Garza, has claimed that the mayor knew that Jacobs, a well-known Los Angeles fund-raiser, was groping and harassing him and failed to stop it. The mayor has repeatedly denied the charge. |
In July, a lawyer for several former City Hall employees wrote to the Senate committee, calling the alleged harassment "common knowledge." By mid-fall, the mayor's nomination still hadn't gotten a hearing, even though the committee had already advanced other potentially problematic picks — Rahm Emanuel, for example, who was mayor of Chicago during a controversial police shooting and is up for ambassador to Japan. |
In November, a committee spokesman confirmed that the senators were reviewing the sexual harassment allegations "in detail." On Tuesday, as the Senate panel convened, the former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson tweeted that "we can't keep covering up abusive behavior and allow enablers to get away with knowing about it." |
But the committee, which will vote at a later date, seemed satisfied. Shaheen's was the only question about the scandal before the hearing was cut short to accommodate other votes in progress. |
Garcetti appeared with the ambassadorial nominees for Pakistan and Germany — Donald Armin Blome, a career diplomat, and Amy Gutmann, the president of the University of Pennsylvania — and promised to prioritize trade, green energy and human rights in dealing with India, a critical strategic ally. |
Shawn Hubler is a reporter for The New York Times who is based in Sacramento. |
 | | A pill of Paxlovid inside a laboratory in Germany. Experts are hopeful it could treat the worst of the coronavirus, no matter the variant.Pfizer, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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If you read one story, make it this |
 | | A major storm hit California on Tuesday, with rain and snow flooding streets in Los Angeles.David Swanson/Reuters |
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- Accusations of inmate abuse: A former Orange County sheriff's deputy is accused of pouring scalding water on a mentally ill prisoner, severely burning his hands, The Associated Press reports.
- Secret recordings: In an "extraordinarily unusual" move, the authorities bugged a San Diego County courtroom's holding area to try to overhear incriminating evidence, The Associated Press reports.
- Lone wolf: The first gray wolf to venture into Southern California in centuries could signal a return of the species, The New Yorker reports.
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- Weather warning: Snow is expected on Wednesday in parts of Modoc, Siskiyou, Shasta, Colusa, Trinity, Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte, Lake and Plumas Counties and the Sacramento Valley.
- Tenderloin: Mayor London Breed of San Francisco called for significantly increasing the police presence in the Tenderloin neighborhood as part of a public safety blitz and drug crackdown, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
- Caldor fire suspects: A father and son charged with sparking the large fire near Lake Tahoe this year were released on bail, The Associated Press reports.
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 | | Linda Xiao for The New York Times |
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 | | Jim Wilson/The New York Times |
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Today's tip comes from the reader Evelyn Howard: |
"One of our favorite places in California is Mono Lake and its environs on the east side of the Sierra Nevada — open spaces, the wild volcanic origin, and the remnants of glacial melt from 20,000 years ago all out in full view. This area should be included as a part of Yosemite National Park because it is definitely worth saving and preserving for future generations." |
Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We'll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter. |
An annual tamales party, New Year's in Palm Springs or an order of Ikeda's pies for Christmas dinner — what are your Golden State holiday traditions? |
And before you go, some good news |
A kind of edible wild mushroom, chanterelles are beloved for their orange hue, delicate flavor and relatively large size. They've also largely defied cultivation, making them all the more coveted. |
So imagine Dan Gebhart and Jordan Anderson's thrill when they found 250 pounds of chanterelles while foraging in California's Lost Coast. Their haul would sell for about $4,000 in a store. |
"We've never seen anything like it," Anderson told SFGate. "It felt like we found the best-kept secret in the forest." |
Thanks for reading. I'll be back tomorrow. — Soumya |
Jack Kramer and Mariel Wamsley contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com. |
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