In California: Big spending plans, help for Australia's critters and that photo
The state's biggest-ever budget, sewing for burned koalas and a big-game photo you just can't run away from.
It's Arlene Martínez with news for Friday.
But first, Steve Martin and bluegrass band Steep Canyon Rangers release "California," a song in which he begs his Oklahoma love to grab her manuscript and head west to sell a show to HBO. As he waits, will a girl from Whole Foods he meets while buying goat cheese steal his heart?
In California is a roundup of stories from newsrooms across the USA TODAY Network and beyond. Sign up for M-F delivery here!
What's inside California's largest-ever budget
Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled his second spending plan on Friday — the largest in the state's history — offering a detailed look at his top priorities for the coming year. Plans for the $222.2 billion budget include big investments in wildfire preparation and mitigation, housing and homelessness, and the rollout of new health care benefits for seniors.
Speaking from Sacramento and live on Twitter, Newsom said the budget proposal would help set the "tone and tenor" of the new year. He hopes it shows constituents what matters to him, "so there's no ambiguity."
Here is some of what's in the $222.2 billion budget, by the numbers:
$18 billion: Rainy-day fund
$1.4 billion: Homelessness
$1 billion: Loan to fund low-carbon transportation and agriculture projects
$100 million: To offer teachers stipends of $20,000 if they finish four years of teaching in a high-need subject at a high-need school.
$50 million: For animal shelter to help California become a no-kill state
555: New firefighters over five years
Follow this developing story here.
How we live, what we pay, what we drive
Cities aren't happy with the state easing more rules to get homes built, saying their processes are just fine. OK but #housingcrisis.
The median income in the Golden State's most expensive county is $116,178. So, where is it? Answer's at the bottom (or click here for a state-by-state breakdown).
The Ford F-series pickup was America's top-selling vehicle in 2019. Again. But not here. In fact, we and Florida were the only states not picking SUVs or trucks. So what are we driving? <<<= Click or scroll on down for the answer.
California's new gig law, AB 5, is wreaking havoc on the music industry (OPINION).
Crafting for (burned) critters
Watching Australia ablaze sparked memories of the 2018 deadly Camp and Carr fires for Northern California resident Kim Santry, who turned to a sewing machine to help.
This week, Santry and a group of other volunteers began creating protective cloth pouches for young kangaroos and other marsupials, and bat wraps that rescue volunteers in Australia can use to help recovering animals.
The bags vary in size, from 4-by-7 inches for sugar gliders, a sort of airborne possum that sails through the air like a flying squirrel, to 11-by-12 inches for young kangaroos.
As many as 1.25 billion animals have been killed either directly or indirectly by the fires, according to the World Wildlife Fund in Australia.
What else we're talking about
That photo of you posing with a dead African lion never really goes away, as this newly hired-newly fired executive learned yesterday. He'd just started as the California lead for a land-based fish farm.
Almond milk sales grew 250% over the past five years, and bees are paying the ultimate price. The state's orchards produce 80% of the world's almonds.
OSCAR WATCH: Is it Renee Zellweger's to lose? Could Robert De Niro really get shut out? What about I've-got-myself-to-thank Quentin Tarantino? I've got no answers to these and others, but here are some predictions ahead of Monday's Academy Award nomination announcements.
Speaking of awards, check out these 6 must-know moments from Sunday's 2020 Golden Globes show.
'I couldn’t have done it without my husband, Mark': Ellen DeGeneres accepts the Carol Burnett Award (VIDEO).
A change in law frees woman after 30 years
A 63-year-old woman is expected to be released this week after more than 30 years in prison now that her murder conviction was thrown out under a law redefining accomplice liability.
Bobbi Eichhorn will be free because of a 2019 state law that changed the circumstances in which an accomplice can be convicted of felony murder. Previously, people could be convicted of first-degree (premeditated) murder even if there was no intention to kill, the death was accidental or the accomplice had no idea someone else might kill.
SB 1437 requires a person convicted of murder to have actually been the killer, helped the killer or "acted with reckless indifference to human life."
Eichhorn and two others were convicted of murder and other offenses stemming from a 1987 robbery that turned fatal. The plan was to rob two drug dealers, who were brothers from Jamaica, at an apartment in Ventura County.
Eichhorn's attorney said she wasn't even at the apartment when the robbery occurred and didn't know the men she was with were armed. She did, however, buy cocaine from the victims and tell her co-defendants its location in the apartment, her attorney said.
Prosecutors and others opposed to the law continue battling to overturn it.
And lastly, the answer to what is the state's most expensive county: Santa Clara. And we're driving Honda Civics.
Enjoy the weekend!
In California is a roundup of news from across USA TODAY Network newsrooms. Also contributing: Rolling Stone, Lost Coast Outpost, the Guardian, KPBS, CalMatters.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: In California: Big spending plans, help for Australia's critters and that photo
