Newsletter: Essential California: Amazon-Whole Foods deal: Is this the revolution we’ve been waiting for?

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It is Saturday, June 17. Here’s what you don’t want to miss this weekend:

TOP STORIES

Grocery deal of the century: “This is an earthquake rattling through the grocery sector,” said one expert of the Amazon-Whole Foods mega-deal. Experts expect Amazon will bring its low-price expertise and technology prowess to bear with Whole Foods, putting further downward pressure on prices in the already hyper-competitive, $611-billion U.S. grocery industry. Los Angeles Times

Plus:

Will Amazon change Whole Foods or will Whole Foods change Amazon? Los Angeles Times

The grocery business, notorious for its low-profit margins, is known in the logistics industry as the “last mile” for e-commerce. Will the Amazon-Whole Foods deal change all that? Los Angeles Times

Will robots soon be helping you out at the Whole Foods bakery section? Washington Post

Why Amazon needs food and real estate. The Atlantic

Some smoggy spring days: Air quality officials warned Thursday of “very unhealthy” smog levels in the coming days as a heat wave envelops Southern California and primes the region for a bout of unusually high and widespread pollution. Los Angeles Times

Plus: With a sizzling heat wave expected to drive uncounted Southern California residents to area beaches this weekend, lifeguards in Long Beach are urging anglers and film crews to stop attracting sharks with bloody chum. Los Angeles Times

Gang sweep: Federal agents launched a sweeping operation against the Vagos biker gang Friday, making arrests and conducting searches in a dozen cities throughout California, Nevada and Hawaii. Los Angeles Times

Remembering a fallen fighter: Mourners came out in droves to remember L.A. firefighter Kelly Wong who died in training accident. Firefighters wore black mourning bands, with the name Wong spelled in white letters, across their badges. Wong’s flag-draped casket was driven up Temple Street in the bed of an LAFD truck covered in black and purple bunting. Bagpipers played beneath a blue, cloudless sky. Los Angeles Times

West is back in L.A.: Now that it’s official, and Jerry West is joining the Clippers front office,Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke says that this move to the Clippers is another dagger for Lakers. Los Angeles Times

An arrest months in the making: The wife of a renowned hairdresser has been arrested in his killing, months after his body was found in a pool of blood on the patio of his Woodland Hills home. Los Angeles Times

A coup for Apple: Apple Inc. has lured two Sony television studio veterans to lead its push into original programming, the clearest sign yet of the tech giant’s ambitions to become a force in television and a potential rival to the Hollywood establishment. Los Angeles Times

Taking stock — a year in: Homeless “czar” Susan Price looks back on her first year in Orange County, where hundreds of tents at the Santa Ana Civic Center — the seat of city, county and federal government — were the most visible symbol of how bad things had gotten. Orange County Register

Looking back: From adobe to Art Deco, learn more about the early history of jails in Los Angeles. Curbed LA

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

Today’s “Story Behind the Story” comes from thousands of miles away in Washington D.C. David Butow is California-based freelance photographer who frequently contributes to The Times. A couple of months ago, as politics in the nation’s capital raged, he decided to relocate to the Swamp to see what was going on. Recently he covered the James B. Comey and Jeff Sessions hearings and described the world that is the high-profile Washington hearing and how it contrasts with other subjects.

“I’m fresh here, having worked on Capitol Hill for only a couple of weeks, photographing the whirlwind of activity as the three branches of government wage battles through bureaucracy, media and today, though a solemn but unpredictable event. Even among jaded journalists there seems to be a reverence for this moment. A week before, I was in California covering the first game of the NBA Finals, and even though the volume in Oakland’s Oracle Arena was 100 times louder, the excitement here is more palpable. No one is sure what the former FBI director will say.

The 30 or so photographers — culled days ago from the long list of those credentialed for Congress — have staked out spots along a line of tape laid in a semi-perimeter four feet from the desk where Comey will sit. We wait there, occasionally peeling away to photograph the senators up-close as they stroll in and greet each other … With that sound, the pack of semi-feral photojournalists, competitive but pleasantly collegial, obediently retreats to the prearranged spots in front of the senators, where we will sit on the carpet, shoulder to shoulder, for the next couple of hours.

We focus on every gesture of the hands and nuanced look in the eye. We vary the composition and angles to the extent we can, sometimes shooting tight, sometimes wide. Periodically, a photographer will crawl on hands and knees and head out of the “well,” as it’s called, to transmit pictures and to try other views from special cutout decks around the room.”

Read more from Butow on the Los Angeles Times’ photo blog Framework.

This week’s most popular stories in Essential California:

1. Signs of past California “mega-quakes” show danger of the Big One on the San Andreas fault. Los Angeles Times

2. Three Mid-City houses painted hot pink by local architecture firm. Curbed LA

3. The Internet is mauling America’s malls. Is your favorite retailer closing its doors? Los Angeles Times

4. How do coyotes thrive in Southern California? Scientists dissect 200-plus carcasses to find clues. The Orange County Register

5. He owns a dozen Ferraris and has loads of cash. Why can’t he buy the elusive $2.2-million LaFerrari Aperta? Los Angeles Times

ICYMI, here are this week’s Great Reads

A new kind of studio: Super Deluxe, which launched early last year, is testing different forms of storytelling to engage young viewers. It has sought out unconventional characters to develop scripted programs for television, screwball contests for the Internet, political spoofs and other videos, including the over-the-top telenovela, for Facebook Live, the platform that enables users to share live videos with their friends. Los Angeles Times

Fun at the races: Increasingly SpaceX and other aerospace companies are finding their engineers at a college race-car competition. Next week, 100 university teams will bring their prototype race cars to the Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) competition in Lincoln, Neb., where they will be judged on design, manufacturing, performance and business logic. The aerospace industry will be there too. Los Angeles Times

Crazy harrowing story: A yearlong investigation by the USA TODAY Network found that port trucking companies in southern California have spent the past decade forcing drivers to finance their own trucks by taking on debt they could not afford. Companies then used that debt as leverage to extract forced labor and trap drivers in jobs that left them destitute. USA Today

Those Rotten Tomatoes: Here’s how Hollywood came to fear and loathe Rotten Tomatoes. The power of the review aggregator is looking greater than ever — and studios are looking for a way around it. Vanity Fair

A gang grows again: The MS-13 gang is gaining recruits and power in U.S. as teens surge across border. Today, the gang has 900 to 1,100 members in the D.C. region and roughly 10,000 across 40 states, according to law enforcement estimates. Washington Post

New kind of tourism: A Mexican town is giving Americans something Donald Trump can’t: affordable dental care. Buzzfeed

Looking Ahead

Sunday: Archbishop Jose Gomez celebrates the “immigrant spirit of the U.S.”

Tuesday: The Griffith Observatory holds a celebration of the summer solstice.

Thursday: Angel City Games begin at UCLA.

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.