Here the most important news this morning:
Scandal at City Hall: Acting City Council President Mitch O’Farrell canceled a meeting that had been scheduled for Friday after it became clear that neither Councilman Gil Cedillo nor Kevin de León would immediately follow the lead of former Council President Nury Martinez.
She resigned Wednesday from her office after a furious backlash over racist and derogatory comments she made in that recorded conversation.
Two other members — Mike Bonin and Marqueece Harris-Dawson — said they saw no point in having the meeting if Cedillo and De León refused to step aside.
“It’s certainly about money”: Former Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick, who has been observing the scandal in City Hall closely, said she wasn’t surprised that the two council members are holding onto power despite the intense pressure to quit. And part of that reason, she says, is money.
“I’m not surprised, because resigning means giving up their salary and benefits and it affects their pensions,” she said of the council members, who are among the highest-paid city council members in the U.S. at $207,000 per year. “It’s certainly about money,” Chick said.
DACA returns to court today: A federal judge is set to again consider the fate of a program that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the United States as children.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen last year declared the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program illegal.
Hanen has scheduled a hearing Friday to meet with attorneys and discuss the next steps in the decade-long legal fight.
Food, electricity and rents are rising faster than wages: The newest Consumer Price Index figures show that food prices are rising at a double-digit rate and that the price of food people prepare at home is rising even faster than restaurant prices.
As you know, gasoline prices dropped but are still 18% higher than a year ago. That drop in gasoline prices is way offset by an increase in electricity (+16%) and natural gas prices (+33%).
Used car prices cooled a little bit last month but the price of new vehicles just kept going up.
Be careful with electricity bills: The months ahead are going to stretch your budget. Not only will gasoline prices rise again because OPEC+ countries are cutting their production, but the U.S. Department of Energy predicts your winter electric bills will go up significantly this winter, too.
America’s No. 1 source of electricity is natural gas and, compared to a year ago, prices are up 65%. If you compare it to two years ago, natural gas prices have risen 170%.
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