Thousands of fans poured into downtown Los Angeles for a parade and rally to salute the Stanley Cup champion L.A. Kings. The hockey players drew the biggest cheers, but L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti generated the most buzz when he let an “F-bomb” fly during the celebration. Garcetti’s expletive got a roar from the crowd and some Kings players. But not everyone was thrilled with the mayor’s language. Garcetti’s Facebook page was sprinkled with comments saying his words were inappropriate for kids in the crowd, and unbefitting the mayor of the nation’s second largest city. Later, the mayor appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” offering a sort-of apology by telling children not to use the same language he did. Meanwhile, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio also appeared on Kimmel – making good on a bet with Garcetti to sing Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” if the Rangers lost.
Garcetti had a lot to be excited about yesterday. In addition to the King’s festivities, the mayor and his wife, Amy Wakeland, are celebrating the sale of the Silver Lake home they lived in before moving in to the official mayor’s mansion in Windsor Square. The sale price hasn’t been made public yet. The couple bought the reservoir-view home four years ago for $1.4 million. The buyer is Anthony Gonzalez, a French singer and producer with the electronic rock band M-83. The house has six bedrooms and five bathrooms, a walk-in pantry, media room, and an office.
California just wrapped up its warmest winter and spring on record. Temperatures in the state from January through May were five degrees above the 20th Century average. The National Weather Service says California could be in for a warmer summer than usual as well, all the way into October. The prediction is based on a variety of factors — including recent atmospheric trends and water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. None of this bodes well for fire prevention or water conservation.
Rainbow trout and steelhead are being evacuated from two hatcheries on the American River because a dearth of Sierra runoff could make the water too warmand kill the fish. The state Department of Fish and Wildlife will use tanker trucks today to remove about a million trout from the American River Hatchery. The fish will be moved to lakes throughout the state as usual, but at a much younger age and smaller size. The department is also releasing 430,000 Central Valley steelhead about six months early.
USC is reportedly interested in acquiring the Scripps Research Institute in what would be an unusual merger of two major research organizations. U.T San Diego reports negotiations about a possible merger largely stem from a need to shore up finances at the La Jolla biomedical institute. Scripps receives nearly 90 percent of its funding from the National Institutes of Health, and it’s trying to become less reliant on the federal agency. The Institute has an annual budget of about $310 million. USC and Scripps are not revealing much. The two organizations released a statement saying they were discussing a “relationship,” but haven’t spelled out what that might mean.