Newsletter: Essential California: Trump tax returns to end the year

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It is New Year’s Eve: Dec. 31, 2022. All of us at The Times wish you a happy, healthy and safe 2023.

Editor’s note: We will be taking Monday off. Essential California will be back in your inbox Tuesday, Jan. 3.

Here’s a look at the top stories of the last week

A House committee released six years of Trump tax returns documenting his aggressive efforts to minimize what he paid the IRS. With that, his seven-year battle to keep the public from seeing his taxes ended in defeat.

The Jan. 6 committee is running out of time. Key documents may soon be locked away for decades.

Southwest meltdown was “perfect storm” of well-known vulnerabilities, not a shock.

Final California inflation relief payments are coming, with debit cards being sent by Jan. 14.

The extensive professional relationships Sam Bankman-Fried cultivated with current and former federal regulators risk embarrassment for all. Good thing the L.A. Times got the emails showing his courtship of federal regulators.

You should take a solo trip in January. Here are seven rejuvenating spots around California.

UCLA football: How Chip Kelly and Dorian Thompson-Robinson’s mutual trust elevated UCLA.

Climate and drought

• Miracle or mirage? Atmospheric rivers end drought year with heavy snow and rain.
• Arizona’s cities and suburbs have been among the fastest growing in the country. But federal authorities are demanding the largest reduction ever in water diversions in an effort to avoid “dead pool.”
  

A deputy killed. A wild pursuit. A deadly freeway gun battle.

• It started with a routine traffic stop and ended with a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy fatally wounded.
• The gunman should have been jailed on “three strikes,” the sheriff says.

Berkeley Police Department

• Berkeley’s top cop faced internal accusations of misconduct as she rose through ranks.
• The city manager failed to reveal a past investigation of the police chief pick, officials say.

TV and movies

• “If we run out, we’re screwed”: The making of that shocking “Glass Onion” scene.
• What’s the real-life Hollywood history behind “Babylon”? We asked the experts. (Caution, spoilers within.)
• If there’s a lesson to be gleaned from the arc of Murray Bartlett’s career, it may be this: Never underestimate the power of a really great mustache.

Opinions

• Bill Plaschke: LeBron James hints at wanting to leave the Lakers. They should let him.
• Michael Hiltzik: Southwest’s meltdown was born in America’s cheapskate corporate culture.
• Op-Ed: I bought a Tesla to help the environment. Now, I’m embarrassed to drive it.

ICYMI, here are this week’s great reads

“The War on Drugs Part II”: California taxes, rules are killing small legal weed farms.

Dancing is in, dissent is out: Saudi Arabia’s crown prince transforms his country.

I’m Mexican American: The L.A. City Council audio leak reminded me that I’m Oaxacan too.

“What’s up! I can’t read”: He went viral after schooling left him functionally illiterate. Meet TikTok’s unlikeliest literary hero.

More great reads from 2022

I asked Column One editor Steve Padilla to share some of The Times’ most memorable reads of the year. Here’s what he wanted you to see:

• A personal essay: California’s abandoned homesteads fascinated me as a kid. Then my childhood home became one.
• A parable for our times: He worked from home and died suddenly. Five days passed before his body was found.
• A world gone mad: Schizophrenia and a journey through California’s failed mental health system.
• Just one helluva yarn: How two COVID swindlers dodged the FBI and joined the European jet set.

P.S.: Here are the best dishes to celebrate New Year’s and beyond. See you in 2023.

Today’s week-in-review newsletter was curated by Karim Doumar. Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.