Good morning. It’s Friday, Sept. 13.
- Harsher penalties added for smash-and-grab robberies.
- California’s brutal underground market for puppies.
- And cooler weather aids fight against wildfires.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Thursday reviving harsh penalties for smash-and-grab robberies that have unnerved many voters across the state. The law requires that prosecutors impose tougher sentences against those who take or destroy property while committing a felony. In a statement, Newsom sought to alleviate worries from criminal-justice groups opposed to a return to the era of mass incarceration. “We can be tough on crime while also being smart on crime,” he said. “We don’t need to go back to broken policies of the last century.” A.P. | L.A. Times
2.
California’s residential electricity rates are now double the U.S. average — and they’re about to go even higher. On Thursday, regulators approved the fourth Pacific Gas & Electric rate increase of the year, amounting to an extra $6 per month. During public comment, the commissioners faced a barrage of anger. “They’re pricing me out of my livelihood,” one person said. Another asked how the officials sleep at night. Courthouse News | S.F. Chronicle
- Columnist Liam Denning noted that a sizable portion of every PG&E bill pays for priorities aside from the provision of energy. “Politically,” he wrote, “it is easier to bury charges in electricity bills rather than raise taxes.” Bloomberg
3.
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes has charmed countless visitors to Death Valley with its silky waves of wind-sculpted sand. Often overlooked is the dune field’s namesake: the mesquite trees that add unlikely splashes of bright green to the monochromatic expanse. Appearing as shrubs, they hide roots that burrow as deep as 100 feet in search of water, a feat of survival that has allowed other forms of life to flourish in North America’s driest place. The mesquite creates habitat for desert creatures like road runners and lizards. Their yellow blossoms attract pollinators. And the mesquite’s protein-rich pods have been a dietary staple for all sorts of mammals, including the valley’s Timbisha Shoshone people, who for millennia ground them into a sweet flour and shaped them into cakes. MojaveDesert.net
- Here’s a nice Mesquite Dunes trip report by the Los Angeles photographer Jason Daniel Shaw.
Northern California
4.
A reopening ceremony for San Francisco’s revitalized Transamerica Pyramid on Thursday was held under the shadow of a nasty lawsuit by one of its tenants. CORE: Holdings, the company behind an ultra-luxe club, is seeking $600 million from Transamerica owner Michael Shvo, accusing him of violating the terms of their business deal. On Thursday, as Shvo and local dignitaries gathered at the foot of the tower, a plane flew overhead pulling a banner reading “Shvo must go: Lawsuits claim fraud.” Shvo had no comment, “but suffice it to say his team was pissed off,” SF Standard reported.
5.
It took 50,000 gallons of water to extinguish a flaming battery in a Tesla big rig that crashed along Interstate 80 in Placer County last month, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday. That’s roughly enough water to fill two typical backyard swimming pools. Firefighters said the lithium-ion battery reached 1,000 degrees as it released toxic fumes into the air for hours. Electric vehicle fires are no more likely to go up in flames, researchers say. But when they do ignite, the infernos tend to be furious. A.P.
6.
Silicon Valley leaders are fighting tougher regulation of social media by making an audacious claim: social media is good for young people. Yet paradoxically, tech elites commonly shield their own children from device screens. It’s curious, wrote the Atlantic, “that these elites publicly assert that digital technology helps children — especially the most vulnerable — while expunging it from their own kids’ lives.”
7.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a piece of software that Apple says will transform its new AirPods into professional-grade hearing aids. The move comes two years after the FDA first approved over-the-counter hearing aids. Analysts say the hearing-aid market has billions of dollars of untapped potential as the products become more accessible and affordable. Washington Post | Reuters
8.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with Alison Owings, author of the “Mayor of the Tenderloin,” and Del Seymour, whose incredible journey is chronicled in the book. Seymour, 77, was a military medic and a firefighter before arriving in the notorious San Francisco district in his 40s. He had never even tried drugs, he said. But one hit sent him into a tailspin of addiction, dealing, and pimping that lasted 18 years: “People ask me all the time about, ‘How can these people be into this?’ And I almost want to say to them, ‘Take a hit. Take one hit, and you’re done.'”
Southern California
9.
NASA released a satellite image of an enormous “fire cloud” that exploded over Southern California on Monday. Pyrocumulus clouds form when hot air and smoke force the air above to rapidly rise, which then cools and condenses moisture. All three of Southern California’s major wildfires formed fire clouds, at least one of which matured into a full-fledged thunderstorm that unleashed rain, hail, and lightning over the Inland Empire. Earth Observatory | CNN
- The pace of Southern California’s fires slowed dramatically on Thursday, thanks in part to improving weather, officials said. See live fire map. 👉 Cal Fire
10.
In 2017, California barred pet stores from selling dogs, hoping to curb the cruel treatment of animals at so-called puppy mills. But the change had an unintended consequence: the puppy trade went further underground. A Los Angeles Times investigation found that thousands of doodles, French bulldogs, and other expensive dogs are now flowing into the state from mass breeders in the Midwest, where the animals are born and raised in horrific conditions. They are then sold by people claiming to be small local home breeders.
11.
A magnitude 4.7 earthquake in Malibu on Thursday delivered a record for seismic activity in Southern California. In some years, the region experiences just one or two earthquakes of magnitude 4 or greater. This year, there have now been 14, surpassing the previous high of 13 in 1988 in records going back 65 years, according to seismologist Lucy Jones. The tremors, she added, are “a really good reminder that the quiet of the last couple of decades is not our long-term picture, and we do need to be prepared.” L.A. Times | Deadline
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- Over the last few years, workers have added truckloads of soil and more than 400,000 native plants to Yosemite’s Ackerson Meadow, in the largest restoration effort in the park’s history. A video includes some gorgeous drone views of the meadow, teeming with flowers and birdsong. 👉 YouTube | Mercury News
- The last meal that Susan Horton ate as she began to go into labor with her fifth child was a poppy-seed salad. After she delivered her daughter at a hospital in Santa Rosa, a nurse told Horton that she had tested positive for opiates. A social worker arrived the next day and took her baby into protective custody. The Marshall Project
- Adam Aleksic, a Harvard-educated etymologist with a large social media following, shared a fun video explainer on what he called the “Valley Girl ‘mmm.’” Watch until the end for his spot-on demonstration. @etymologynerd
- A midcentury lodge-style home along the Russian River in Guerneville was recently listed for $1.25 million. It includes a giant skylight that lets the sun spill into the living room and a big wooden deck that looks out to soaring redwoods. Sonoma Magazine
- A few years ago, a startup released a mapping tool that uses AI and satellite imagery of forested land to help predict wildfires. The California Forest Observatory also offered another benefit for nature lovers: it revealed where the state’s tallest trees cluster. See five less-known concentrations of tall trees here, and explore the map for yourself here.
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The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.
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