Daily Brief: Eric Garcetti Confirmed As India Ambassador; Hollywood Heights Is L.A.’s Newest Neighborhood

TODAY’S ESSENTIAL NEWS

» Massive Three-day LAUSD Teacher And Staff Strike Set For Tuesday After a massive rally and protest at City Hall Wednesday afternoon, LAUSD teacher’s union leaders have announced a three-day strike scheduled to start on Tuesday which would—much to the chagrin of students—shut down all schools in the massive district. While LAUSD Supt. Alberto Carvalho has pleaded with Union leaders to negotiate to avert the strike, claiming that the few days off school could hurt students still recovering from facetime lost during the pandemic, Local 99 Executive Director Max Arias and other union leaders maintain that their demands for higher pay and improved working and learning conditions are in everyone’s best interest, including students. Arias’ big ask would see a jump in the average salary of his members from $25,000 to $36,000. The anticipated walkout of as many as 65,000 workers would represent the largest and longest full disruption of education in the nation’s second-largest school system since the six-day teachers’ strike of 2019. [L.A. Times]

» L.A. Mayor Bass’ Team Is On Track To House 4,000 Homeless Angelenos By Next Week Karen Bass, soon to hit the 100-day mark in her infant Mayoral career, is just about on track to keep her campaign promise of getting 17,000 homeless people off L.A. streets and into housing by the end of her first year in office. Bass expects that by next week more than 4,000 homeless Angelenos will have been housed since her inauguration, 1,000 of those coming from her own Inside Safe initiative. Also, Mercedes Márquez, the mayor’s chief of housing and homelessness solutions, has stated that the Bass administration aims to house 2,000 people from skid row over the next three years. And they’re already on their way— Bass’ team will move 100 people into the L.A. Grand Hotel by the end of next week, and another 150 the week after. [L.A. Daily News]

» Storms End Southern California Water Restrictions For Millions of Residents California’s unlucky eleventh atmospheric river has moved on from the Golden State, leaving in its wake flooded roadways, landslides, and power outages all across the Southland. However, the downpour has also made some miraculous improvements to California’s water crisis. And while this is by no means the end of the state’s long-standing drought, for 7 million SoCal residents it does mean the end of draconian water restrictions implemented by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to protect the state’s dwindling water supply. Despite the relief in water usage, the wet weather isn’t all Jekyll. Some 27,000 people are still under evacuation orders statewide and more than 144,000 utility customers remained without power as of Wednesday afternoon. [AP]

» New Series Pulls Everything Everywhere Stars Into Another Whirling Multiverse After the sweeping, Oscar-raining success of Everything Everywhere All At Once, it seems the world cannot get enough of Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan adventuring through the multiverse. The new Disney+ show, American Born Chinese—based on Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel—will feature the Everything Everywhere pair, alongside fellow martial arts superstar Lucy Lui, navigating a multiversal, comic book-inspired world reimagined for the screen by Kelvin Yu. Destin Daniel Cretton, the director of Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings, will serve as both director and producer on the project. [Inverse]

» 18,000 Gallon Sewage Spill Prompts Closure Of Beaches In Long Beach Long Beach city officials have restricted all water use at beaches west of the Belmont Pier due to a massive sewage spill. According to the City of Long Beach, approximately 18,000 gallons of sewage were discharged into the Los Angeles River in the city of Paramount, after the Southland was doused by heavy rains early Wednesday morning. [CBS]

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