A rare California tornado // The lure of Joshua Tree

Good morning. It’s Monday, Dec. 16.

Devin Nunes is among latest Trump administration picks.
A rare tornado touches down in Santa Cruz County.
And creatives find inspiration in Joshua Tree.

Statewide

1.

Advisers to Vice President Kamala Harris are debating two possibilities for her next move: try a third time for the White House in 2028 or run for California governor in 2026, CNN reported. Harris, insiders told the outlet, is herself undecided. When asked about her plans by supporters, she has reportedly answered with the stock line, “I’m not going quietly into the night.” CNN

Harris and President Biden made a rare joint appearance in Washington on Sunday. “Our spirit is not defeated. We are not defeated,” Harris told the audience. Reuters

2.

Devin Nunes has been an adamant supporter of Donald Trump. (Thomas Simonetti/Washington Post via Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday that he would appoint Devin Nunes, a former Central Valley congressman and Trump loyalist, to head an independent advisory board on espionage policy. As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes alleged a Democratic conspiracy against Trump and later voted to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. He quit Congress in 2021 to run Truth Social, Trump’s social media company. N.Y. Times | Politico

Trump also tapped two other Californians over the weekend. Richard Grenell will act as “envoy for special missions,” Trump said. Troy Edgar, a former Los Alamitos mayor, will serve as deputy secretary of Homeland Security. L.A. Times

3.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had hip replacement surgery on Saturday after she tripped and fell while descending stairs during an event in Luxembourg, her office said. Pelosi, 84, “is well on the mend,” said Ian Krager, a spokesman. The San Francisco Democrat traveled to Europe as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation attending a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. Washington Post | A.P.

4.

Overdose deaths in California have been falling for nine straight months, echoing a nationwide trend. Epidemiologists, puzzled by the drop, have offered several possible explanations, including the most bleak: after hundreds of thousands of deaths, there may now be fewer drug users left to die. “The big caveat is that nobody knows, because it is a startling finding,” said Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug researcher at UC San Francisco. Mercury News | Vox

Northern California

5.

Several cars were overturned in Scotts Valley on Saturday. (Scotts Valley Police Department)

A rare tornado touched down in the Santa Cruz County town of Scotts Valley on Saturday, felling trees, flipping cars, and injuring five people, reports said. The twister traveled a little more than a quarter mile in five minutes, generating gusts of up to 90 mph as panicked locals ran for cover. It was the most extreme outburst during a day of wild weather across Northern California that included San Francisco’s first-ever tornado warning, issued just nine days after the city faced a tsunami warning (neither materialized). “It does feel vaguely biblical,” one resident said. S.F. Chronicle | KSBW

See tornado videos 👉 @KSBW | @bushmantribe | @brunos.bar.grill

6.

Suchir Balaji, an artificial intelligence researcher at OpenAI who went public with allegations that the San Francisco start-up was violating copyright law, was found dead inside his San Francisco apartment on Nov. 26, police said. The cause was suicide, the medical examiner concluded. In an interview with the New York Times in October, Balaji, 26, said he could no longer be a part of technologies he believed would bring society more harm than good. “If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” he said. Mercury News | CNBC

7.

Fewer than 500 people live in Point Arena. (George Rose/Getty Images)

Someone is buying up Point Arena, a quaint historic city along the rugged Mendocino coast, and the intentions behind the purchases are a mystery. Once a beneficiary of the booming underground pot economy, Point Arena has fallen on hard times since the end of prohibition, as smaller producers have been squeezed out by corporate growers. That has made the rush of investment all the more curious. One name appears to be linked to each of the opaque LLCs behind the acquisitions: a City Council member named Jeff Hansen. He isn’t talking. S.F. Chronicle

8.

Big Basin after the fire. (Jean C Pierre)

In 2020, a monster wildfire tore through 97% of Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains, killing thousands of trees and leaving behind a devastated landscape of a gray and black. Four years later, countless new redwood stalks now crowd the park, many reaching as tall as 20 feet. “It’s so uplifting and inspiring, the resilience of nature,” said Debbie Martwick, a visitor services aide. Travel reporter Christopher Reynolds took a stroll through Big Basin and wrote about the remarkable difference four years can make in the natural world. L.A. Times

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Southern California

9.

A 26-year-old man visiting a San Diego park with his son was mauled to death by his own three dogs on Friday, officials said. Witnesses tried to break up the attack with golf clubs before a responding police officer drove the animals away with a Taser. The dogs were later identified as XL bullies, a relatively new breed that has become popular despite the dangers they pose. The San Diego Humane Society euthanized the animals on Saturday. ABC10 | Fox 5

10.

Longer lifespans of Loma Linda have been attributed to the city’s Seventh-day Adventists.

In 2005, a National Geographic article popularized the concept of blue zones, places where people live longer thanks to their healthy behaviors. Among those identified was just one in America: Loma Linda, California. But Australian researcher Saul Newman has concluded that blue zones are really a fiction underpinned by faulty data. In the case of Loma Linda, Newman acknowledged that lifespans are indeed longer than usual. But he added: “There’s absolutely nothing new about that. It’s just you’re just going to a rich part of town and saying gee, people live a long time in the rich part of town.” AFP | N.Y. Times

11.

Mount Waterman, a small ski resort in San Gabriel Mountains, is so low-key that it doesn’t have a Twitter account. It has just three chair lifts and a modest warming hut. But it has awesome terrain and new owners with big plans, including a snow-making system, an amphitheater, and glamping cabins. This feature about the long-shot bet on Mount Waterman includes some nice photography. 👉 N.Y. Times

12.

In Joshua Tree, the distractions are so few that people tend to spend a lot of time with their thoughts. The solitude imposed by the landscape helps explain why so many creative people wind up there, wrote Paul Martinez, an artist and photographer who lives in Joshua Tree: “The silence, punctuated only by wind and bird song, creates a meditative atmosphere that almost mandates focus and introspection.” Field magazine

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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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