Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Aug. 16.
- California extends the life of three natural gas plants.
- Dianne Feinstein claims to be a victim of elder abuse.
- And scientists make breakthrough in reading brain signals.
Statewide
1.
California officials voted Tuesday to extend the life of three natural gas plants along the southern coast, a decision that reflected the state’s struggle to wean off of fossil fuels. The plants are significant sources of greenhouse gases, but the Newsom administration concluded we still need them — at least through 2026 — to shore up the state’s straining power grid. Climate activists and nearby residents are furious. CalMatters | Politico
2.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein accused the co-trustees of her late husband Richard Blum’s estate of elder abuse in a bombshell lawsuit filed on Aug. 8, reports said on Tuesday. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the 90-year-old senator by her daughter Katherine Feinstein, said the trustees have been improperly financially enriching Blum’s daughters from a previous marriage. Steven Braccini, an attorney for the trustees, vehemently denied the charge. “This has nothing to do with [Feinstein’s] needs and everything to do with her daughter’s avarice,” he said. S.F. Chronicle | SFGATE
3.
Californians keep electing progressive prosecutors, then having second thoughts. In less than 18 months, voters have mounted recall efforts against three reform-minded district attorneys. Chesa Boudin was ousted in San Francisco, while George Gascón dodged a vote in Los Angeles. The latest campaign, which filed paperwork Tuesday, targets Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. The script is familiar, wrote Jeremy B. White: “A candidate opposed by law enforcement wins a DA race in a deep-blue county. They change sentencing policy to lessen time in prison and investigate peace officers who have killed or used force on suspects. Then comes the pushback.” Politico
4.
Seen from above, Death Valley could be confused with a distant roiling planet. Dry creeks squiggle across the hills, shadows dapple caramel-colored sand dunes, and a patchwork of white hexagons spreads across sprawling salt flats. The aerial photography specialist Mitch Rouse captured the otherworldliness of Death Valley during a series of flights over the park. Behance
Northern California
5.
“PLEASE LEAVE THE AREA IMMEDIATELY.”
U.S. Forest Service
A wildfire sparked in the Klamath National Forest west of Yreka exploded to roughly 6 square miles by Tuesday night, forcing hasty evacuations, officials said. The so-called Head Fire is the most menacing of at least 19 fires now burning in Siskiyou County woodland. The blazes came as the National Interagency Fire Center warned that a combination of heat, wind, and thunderstorms posed the highest fire risk of the year across Northern California. Record Searchlight | A.P.
6.
Berkeley scientists reconstructed a Pink Floyd song based only on the brain activity of someone listening to the song. According to the research, published Tuesday, the result was muddy, but the rhythms and words were unmistakable, as “all in all, it’s just another brick in the wall” — the chorus from the seminal 1979 song, “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)” — emerged from the speakers in a neuroscience lab at UC Berkeley. The findings were hailed as breakthrough in the effort to help people with neurological damage to say aloud what they are thinking. Wall Street Journal | Scientific American
- Hear the brain activity recording of “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1).” 👉 YouTube
7.
Elon Musk, who has called himself a “free-speech absolutist,” throttled traffic to news and websites he doesn’t like on X, formerly known as Twitter. Tests conducted by the Washington Post found that users who click links to the New York Times, Reuters, Substack, Threads, and other organizations were made to wait five seconds before the page opened. Hours after the Post published a story on the change, X began reversing the delay. Musk declined to respond to requests for comment. Washington Post | TechCrunch
8.
The music writer Tom Breihan profiled Oakland’s Too Short, a rapper who’s led a “second billing” career despite pioneering some of the genre’s most central elements:
“Too Short showed his stylistic descendants a way to move from local fame to national stardom. He demonstrated the appeal of the charismatically vulgar street talk that eventually became rap’s dominant vernacular. He established the hypnotic appeal of gut-rumbling bass tones exploding from car speakers. And he owns the word ‘biiiiiitch.'” N.Y. Times Magazine
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Southern California
9.
A white nationalist club in Southern California known as the Clockwork Crew has made a concerted effort to recruit from the military and counts several active and former service members among its ranks, according to internal records obtained by the Guardian. They include Mohammed Wadaa, a lance corporal based out of Camp Pendleton; Gunnar Naughton, a former Marine also from Pendleton; and Ezra Liel, a Turlock native who enlisted in the National Guard in 2021. Clockwork Crew members are known for taking their hatred into public spaces and engaging in confrontations. The Guardian
10.
The median price of a home in Los Angeles is now on track to cross a startling threshold, according to data from Zillow: $1 million. It’s an outrage we could have prevented, said Stephen Menendian, a researcher at UC Berkeley: “What we need is deeper density, more multifamily housing and ‘missing middle’ developments that provide a variety of designs suitable to different incomes. We need localities to allow it, and we need the state to mandate it.” L.A. Times
11.
Joe Posnanski, author of the forthcoming book “Why We Love Baseball,” wrote about the singular phenomenon of the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani:
“He truly might be the best hitter and best pitcher — at the same time. There is no precedent in Major League Baseball. The closest thing was Babe Ruth, who devoted baseball fans will know was a great pitcher before he became a legendary slugger. But even the Babe did not do what Ohtani is doing.” Washington Post
12.
One of Frank Gehry’s most recognizable creations is an office complex in Venice with a giant pair of binoculars as the facade. The Pritzker-winning architect known for his free-form designs had the sculptor Claes Oldenburg, a fellow lover of giant objects, create the 45-foot tall binoculars to serve as the main entrance for pedestrians and cars. It also houses two of the structure’s coolest conference rooms. In 2011, Google moved into the building, embracing a symbol befitting of its search theme. Atlas Obscura | RIBA Journal
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