At present, Christians world wide have fun the delivery of Jesus by giving items, which has turn into a central a part of the vacation. However not all items are tangible or made on December twenty fifth. Actually, the perfect are actions fairly than objects, and acquired after we least anticipated them. Listed below are a few of our favourite “items” from 2023.
Water
Rain and snow this yr got here in such abundance that rainfall broke information and ended greater than a decade of just about unbroken drought. It quenched our thirst, gave life again to a parched land, and graced us with uncommon phenomena just like the return of the tremendous bloom and the long-gone Tulare Lake. Nonetheless, the rain and snow additionally introduced hardships similar to flooding to some communities.
![Bee shacks and farmland are flooded just south of Tulare River Road.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5e57e02/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x2000+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F84%2F3d%2Fcb350c2a4149a933af93f0b27df1%2F1276144-me-0330-tulare-lake-19-rcg.jpg)
Shacks and farmland are flooding as Tulare Lake’s resurgence continues.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Instances)
A strong financial system
Bear in mind how economists stated a recession was inevitable in 2023 (after one failed in 2021 or 2022)? Effectively, that did not occur, though issues did get a bit of scary throughout a interval final spring with the chapter of three regional banks. Client costs are nonetheless excessive, however they’ve stabilised. The US ends the yr with decrease inflation than we began with and a inventory market that has bounced again on the prospect of no new rate of interest hikes and fee cuts subsequent yr.
Falling crime
The nationwide plunge in violent crime was a welcome, if not extensively acknowledged, reward in 2023. Robberies and murders fell from the earlier yr in California and across the nation, in keeping with figures compiled and reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and others organizations.
Limitation of money bail
The Los Angeles Superior Courtroom drastically restricted the usage of money bail between arrest and prosecution for non-violent crimes, regardless of howls of protest from regulation enforcement businesses and a lawsuit from greater than a dozen cities, which proceed to insist this system will enhance the crime. It would not have that.
![The fire scene under Interstate 10 in Los Angeles.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/8b8904f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/9504x6336+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fec%2F56%2F7b3002b54f209d825ce7a2e35f52%2F1374305-me-10-freeway-closure16-et.jpg)
The scene of the fireplace below Interstate 10 in Los Angeles on November 13.
(Eric Thayer / For The Instances)
A fast freeway repair
After a pallet yard hearth broken a bit of the ten Freeway in downtown Los Angeles, it appeared the route can be closed for weeks or months for repairs, throwing visitors in probably the most congested areas into chaos. However the Palletpocalypse did not occur. The structural harm was not as unhealthy as anticipated, and Caltrans and contractors labored additional time to get the highway mounted and reopened in simply over per week. The fast turnaround is a testomony to what’s attainable when leaders use their vitality, organizations and funding to ship fast outcomes.
A therapeutic stratosphere
In a uncommon little bit of unadulterated excellent news for planet Earth, we realized this yr that the ozone layer, the shield-like layer within the stratosphere that protects us from ultraviolet radiation, is therapeutic so quickly that it’s now on monitor to be restored to Eighties ranges throughout massive elements of the globe by 2040. This restoration, which resulted from the worldwide ban on ozone-depleting chemical compounds, reveals what can occur when the world’s nations come collectively to take collective, sustained motion towards an environmental risk. Now we simply have to do the identical for greenhouse gasoline air pollution.
Cleaner vehicles
Californians are beginning to swap to electrical automobiles in droves. The newest figures reveals that about 1 in 4 new automobile gross sales within the state have been zero-emission. There’s nonetheless a protracted solution to go to make electrical vehicles extra inexpensive and accessible to folks of all earnings ranges – we won’t all afford Teslas, in any case – however the rising recognition of electrical vehicles is a promising development that may assist curb local weather change and enhance air high quality.
![A man charges up his blue Kia EV6 vehicle.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/bcd2de2/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5472x3648+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F74%2Fa1%2F38bd78a9454186e2113c3427f55b%2F1321099-me-cc-electric-car-road-trip-02-mjc.jpg)
Electrical automobile gross sales zoomed into 2023. Right here, Los Angeles Instances reporter Russ Mitchell tops an electrical Kia EV6 on the Walmart Supercenter charging station in Santa Clarita in July.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Instances)
Reproductive rights
Ohio voters gave residents of that state reproductive freedom — or not less than the choice of it. In a conservative state with a six-week abortion ban (quickly blocked by the courts), Ohio voters resoundingly handed Proposition 1 in November, enshrining the precise to abortion within the state structure. It wasn’t simple. First, they needed to vote down a sneaky measure placed on a particular poll in August by anti-abortion state lawmakers that will have raised the voting threshold to cross a constitutional modification. After that, abortion rights advocates needed to battle a misinformation marketing campaign towards Problem 1. It was all a reminder of how laborious folks will battle to guard bodily autonomy.
Billionaire Barbie
The bubbly “Barbie” film a few doll’s life opened in July and by September had skyrocketed to greater than $1.4 billion on the field workplace, ultimately changing into the highest-grossing film on the planet for the yr. So did its director, Greta Gerwig, the primary and solely feminine director to have a movie prime the billion-dollar mark. The movie broke a bunch of different information for Gerwig, for the studio, and for toys that come to life — and it confirmed Hollywood how powerfully girls can direct a film.