‘L.A. Influential’ presents powerful people who shape Los Angeles

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Sunday, June 23. I’m Joel Rubin, deputy business editor at The Times. Here’s what you need to know to start your week:

• The influential people who shape Los Angeles
• California wildfires have already burned 90,000 acres, and summer is just beginning
• Five mysteries to read this summer
• And here’s today’s e-newspaper

Through a lens of influence and power, these are the people shaping Los Angeles

A basketball legend turned billionaire. Museum directors. A gang-intervention worker. Elected officials. Actors. Philanthropists. A biking advocate.

At first glance, there’s nothing obviously connecting these people who live and work in disparate corners of Los Angeles. It’s when you start thinking about this fascinating, imperfect, centerless city through the lens of influence and power that you see a common link. Through their work, their creative ideas or the largesse they distribute, they all have an outsized hand in shaping Los Angeles.

I’ve been thinking about these types of people and how they impact Los Angeles for a while now as I’ve helped put together “L.A. Influential,” a project that identifies and illuminates more than 100 people you should know about if you want to understand Los Angeles. Over the past year reporters, photographers, and others from every corner of The Times’ newsroom have been working to decide whom to include and how to bring them to life through words, photos and video.

Each Sunday, we’re publishing one of six categories that together make up L.A. Influential. Today, it’s The Civic Center, a group of people who live and breathe every corner of the city. They know its streets and its people. They are its backbone. There’s our groundbreaking mayor and Cecily Myart-Cruz, the head of the teacher’s union. Landscape design guru Mia Lehrer whose work is “making beauty out of blight.” Michael Govan and Ann Philbin have helped put L.A. squarely at the heart of the art world. The list goes on.

Don’t miss The Creators, The Connectors and The Money, which are already out. And make sure to come back for the last two installments in the weeks to come.

Taken together, the people in L.A. Influential are writing L.A.’s story today. It is, of course, a story that’s never finished. Other people will come to leave their mark, while others fade.

As our fearless columnist Gustavo Arellano wrote in his introductory essay for L.A. Influential: “Los Angeles is at its best when the people who shape us make way for the next generation, when there are people who want to right the wrongs of the past as they try to build a better future. The people you’re about to read up on know it’s the only way to live in the city of the eternal future.”

The week’s biggest stories

Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers have struck a deal to offset the state budget deficit.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Politics

• Newsom and Democrats use cuts, reserves and ‘fiscal emergency’ declaration to solve California budget deficit.
• Why both sides in America’s partisan war feel like they’re losing.

Crime and courts

• Tom Girardi used client money to fund his wife’s entertainment career, prosecutors say.
• California lawmakers reject proposal to curb well-drilling where nearby wells could run dry.
• Police serve warrants, arrest family-run “Dodger Crew” theft ring in South L.A.
• ‘Hard to love’ Justin Timberlake talks DWI arrest at Chicago show: ‘It’s been a tough week.’
• David DePape has been convicted of five state charges in hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

More big stories

• FBI raid of Oakland mayor rocks city, fuels questions over family’s political influence.
• California wildfires have already burned 90,000 acres, and summer is just beginning.
• It’s one of California’s worst freeway bottlenecks. Will fixing it ruin the planet?
• Laguna Beach auto shop owner arrested on suspicion of stealing clients’ cars.
• This L.A. County city is the latest to offer unconditional cash. It aims to provide relief to families.
• Who is Alex Trebek? ‘Jeopardy!’ icon inspires new USPS Forever stamp.
• Tyler, the Creator cancels headlining gigs at Lollapalooza, Outside Lands. It’s not clear why.
• U.S. says avocado inspections may resume in troubled Mexican state, opening way for imports.
• Microdosing mushroom chocolates from Diamond Shruumz linked to illness, hospitalization.
• Former Ace Hotel in downtown L.A. reopens as ‘Airbnb on steroids.’
• A house under $500,000 in the Bay Area? The catch is there’s a tenant until 2053.
• After 22 hours in the wilderness, a 4-year-old boy from Torrance has been found safe.

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Column One

Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and longform journalism. Here’s a great piece from this week:

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Forget the graffiti. L.A.’s most notorious skyscrapers have a much bigger problem. Graffiti artists made Oceanwide Plaza in downtown Los Angeles infamous. But a far more complex question looms over the real estate catastrophe: Can it be salvaged?

More great reads

• Oakwood’s Juneteenth celebration is a homecoming for Venice’s Black community.
• Column: Baseball legend Willie Mays was instrumental in California fight against housing discrimination.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

For your weekend

In late May, Sushi Nakazawa unveiled Hi. Dozo, a delivery sushi operation with set boxes such as the Deep Dive, with nigiri, maki and sashimi.

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

• 🍣 World-famous Sushi Nakazawa launches ‘Hi. Dozo,’ its first delivery-only sushi operation.
• 🥞 A cold plunge and pancakes? Here’s how to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Paul Scheer.
  

Staying in

• 📚Five mysteries to read this summer — and their authors reveal their reading lists.
• 🧑‍🍳 Here’s a recipe for summertime pineapple upside-down cake.
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

(Casey Beifuss / For The Times)

We moved from New York in a doughnut truck. Would L.A. offer new adventures? I had felt unmoored in New York. The depression I had been riddled with in adolescence had returned in a new adult form. But would a return to L.A. win over my Jersey boy?

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor

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