Good morning. It’s Friday, Jan. 17.

• Toxic smoke could kill thousands in L.A., report says.
• Wildfires become fodder in an endless culture war.
• And Oakland’s former mayor is criminally indicted.

Please note: The newsletter will pause for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Back in your inbox on Tuesday.

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Los Angeles fires

1.

As firefighters extended containment lines around Los Angeles’ wildfires on Thursday, officials were crafting plans to mitigate the next threat: landslides triggered by rainfall on burned slopes. Weeks after the Thomas fire started in December 2017, a debris flow exacted a far deadlier toll, killing 23 people. “After a wildfire, the hazard to the public is not over,” said Jeremy Lancaster, California’s state geologist. The risk was highlighted by a home in Pacific Palisades, pictured above on Thursday, that survived the fire only to be split in half by a landslide. N.Y. Times | CBS News

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2.

“If you’re ever wondering why wildfire smoke is so bad for you it’s because it includes things like ‘an entire bicycle.’”

The number of direct fatalities attributed to the Los Angeles catastrophe was at least 24 as of Thursday. But the eventual death toll is likely to be far higher — plausibly reaching into the thousands — as fire victims die prematurely from breathing high concentrations of toxic smoke, wrote Dr. Jeff Masters, a specialist in air pollution meteorology. Yale Climate Connections

• Officials warned sheriff’s deputies who worked in fire zones that the air is so hazardous they need to decontaminate their uniforms before going home. L.A. Times

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3.

“It was Sunday afternoon and the Arco gas station was buzzing. Four lowriders, parked alongside gas pumps, gleamed in the afternoon sun in Altadena. Carne asada sizzled on a grill at a pop-up taco stand in the corner. A group of old friends sat on camping chairs and passed around a freshly rolled blunt, cracking jokes and showing each other photos on their phones. Hip-hop played on a wireless speaker. This is not what a disaster scene is supposed to look like.”

A photo-rich dispatch from the New York Times captured a vignette of Los Angeles’ spirit during a tragedy.

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4.

Jay Caspian Kang lamented how, in the age of social media, tragedy is just another battleground for politicians in an endless culture war:

“I wonder whether we have reached a place where no political leader in any crisis, regardless of the magnitude, can act as a calming and edifying presence for the public. … Social media, where most of these arguments live, can really only replicate one form of discourse and crudely force it on every story that comes down the assembly line. It is, more than anything, a stubborn, inelegant, and predatory machine.” New Yorker

• “Do the right thing.” Gov. Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Mike Johnson traded social media jabs on Thursday. Newsweek

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5.

On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with David Ulin, the Los Angeles social and cultural critic. Ulin discussed how upheavals, in many ways, root us to the places we live. “The erasure of things, paradoxically, kind of reminds us of how close to the edge we always are, to borrow from [Joan] Didion, how temporary all of this is, and existentially makes our sense of belonging more acute,” he said.

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6.

Other wildfire developments:

• NASA Earth Observatory released new false-color satellite images depicting the altered landscape of the Santa Monica Mountains, above. See the latest Cal Fire figures on the Los Angeles blazes.
• “The Palisades system soon became like a hose pricked a thousand times, its flow severely weakened.” The L.A. Times reconstructed the story of the desperate battle for water as the Palisades fire exploded.
• Altadena was a haven for middle-class Black families. Some now worry it will lose ties to that history. “It feels like a family of people have been destroyed, and I don’t know if that family will come together again,” said Shirley Taylor, a resident. N.Y. Times
• A vast trove of works by the groundbreaking 20th-century composer Arnold Schoenberg was destroyed in the Palisades fire. “It’s a catastrophe,” said the conductor Leon Botstein. N.Y. Times | L.A. Times
• “This is essentially a mobile city.” The Rose Bowl has been the unlikely home for thousands of first responders who arrived from California and even other countries to fight the Los Angeles wildfires. Pasadena Star-News

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Statewide

7.

Former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao was criminally indicted on Thursday in connection with a federal corruption inquiry that figured in to her recall from office in November, sources told several outlets. Details were scarce, but federal authorities said they would announce a “major law enforcement action” on Friday. The development came a day after FBI agents raided the home of a San Leandro city councilman, Bryan Azevedo, who has links to both Thao and another investigative target: Oakland’s politically influential Duong family. Thao has proclaimed her innocence. S.F. Chronicle | Mercury News

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8.

The New York Times ran a new profile of Stephen Miller, the Santa Monica High School graduate who is poised to lead President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. A few takeaways:

• Miller, 39, will re-enter government with far more influence than he had during Trump’s first term. He is already overseeing the drafting of dozens of executive orders, including an attempt to end birthright citizenship.
• Trump has occasionally poked at Miller’s hostility toward immigrants. In one meeting, Trump said if it was up to Miller there would be only 100 million people in the U.S., and they would all look like Miller, a source told the Times.
• Miller told Mark Zuckerberg that Trump would crack down on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in corporate America. Zuckerberg signaled that he was amenable and blamed his former chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, for an inclusivity initiative at Facebook, a source said.

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9.

A major fire burned out of control at a lithium battery storage plant in Monterey County on Thursday, forcing the closure of Highway 1 and evacuation orders in nearby neighborhoods. Doctors warned of health risks posed by airborne toxins unleashed by the ongoing blaze at the Vistra Energy battery plant in Moss Landing, one of the world’s largest. “There’s no way to sugar coat it. This is a disaster,” said County Supervisor Glen Church. KSBW | Monterey Herald

• See video of the blaze. 👉 @FelixKSBW

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10.

Darrin Bell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, was arrested at his Sacramento home Wednesday on charges of possession of child pornography, some of which was computer-generated, officials said. The arrest was said to be the first by a task force created to enforce a new state law criminalizing AI-generated child pornography. Bell, 49, is best known for his comic “Candorville,” which features young Black and Latino characters living in the inner city. He also drew acclaim for his 2023 graphic novel, “The Talk,” about his life growing up in Los Angeles. Sacramento Bee | S.F. Chronicle

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11.

David Lynch, the avant-garde filmmaker whose death was announced Thursday, wrote poignantly about Los Angeles in his 2006 book “Catching the Big Fish”:

“I love Los Angeles. I know a lot of people go there and they see just a huge sprawl of sameness. But when you’re there for a while, you realize that each section has its own mood. The golden age of cinema is still alive there, in the smell of jasmine at night and the beautiful weather. And the light is inspiring and energizing. Even with smog, there’s something about that light that’s not harsh, but bright and smooth. It fills me with the feeling that all possibilities are available. … It was the light that brought everybody to L.A. to make films in the early days. It’s still a beautiful place.” Read the full excerpt.

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In case you missed it

12.

Five items that got big views over the past week:

• Along streets reduced to ash in Los Angeles’ burn zones, there are examples of lone homes standing virtually untouched. The Pacific Palisades residence pictured above was built last summer. Several fire-resilient design strategies were crucial to its survival. Bloomberg
  • An NBC4 reporter captured the moment that the home’s owner learned his home survived. 👉 @nbcla
• The devastation to Southern California’s architectural legacy came into clearer focus as the Los Angeles Conservancy recorded the loss of more than 30 significant structures. Adrian Scott Fine, the group’s president, said the fires have destroyed more of the county’s built heritage than any other single event. N.Y. Times
• A series of pictures released by aerial and satellite imagery companies offered jarring perspectives on the level of destruction across Los Angeles. See before-and-after images. 👉 S.F. Chronicle
• There was a fire in the hills above Pacific Palisades on New Year’s Day, six days before the Palisades fire erupted. Residents think fireworks may have set it off. The New York Times analyzed satellite images that suggest where one of Los Angeles’ most destructive fires began.
• Grown men are riding children’s tricycles around San Francisco’s blacktops and fighting over giant yoga balls. Sportsball, as it’s called, is the city new favorite sport. “Biggest rule: Butt stays in the seat” of the tricycle, Glenn Black, the game’s inventor, told a group of players on a recent Thursday. S.F. Chronicle

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Thanks for reading!

The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.

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