Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Sept. 10.
- Elk Grove woman charged in Nazi-terror group.
- Portuguese Bend residents vow to stay in broken homes.
- And a 35-year-old runner dies at Disney half marathon.
Statewide
1.
A brush fire that erupted midday Monday in Trabuco Canyon, in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, quickly spun out of control, growing to more than 8 square miles and forcing evacuations of more than 1,400 homes. Officials said the Orange County blaze, dubbed the Airport fire, was sparked by county workers operating heavy machinery. During a nighttime briefing, officials said the fire was 0% contained but burning away from homes. KABC | O.C. Register
- See aerial images of the Airport fire by helicopter reporter Chris Cristi. 👉 @abc7chriscristi
- Other major blazes kept residents on edge Monday in the San Bernardino Mountain foothills, the Angeles National Forest, Lake County, and near Lake Tahoe.
2.
Solar farm developers commonly offer to incorporate native vegetation to address the environmental harms of their projects. Whether they follow through is another matter. Four years ago, a subsidiary of BP pledged to create “a pollinator friendly solar farm” just outside Sacramento that would include native grasses and more than 200 native trees and shrubs. A recent tour of the site found it overrun by invasive grasses, with the trees and shrubs nowhere to be found. Reminded of their pledge, BP blamed drought. N.Y. Times
3.
Assemblymember Evan Low voted this summer for a measure that could cost his Silicon Valley district to lose tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue. Now one of the bill’s biggest supporters, the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, is spending $60,000 in radio ads supporting Low’s campaign for congressional office, a race that will be decided by voters nearly 500 miles from the tribe’s reservation in Southern California. Sean McMorris, a democracy watchdog, said the ad buy looks an awful lot like payback. CalMatters
Northern California
4.
Dallas Humber, a 34-year-old woman from Elk Grove, led an international neo-Nazi movement called the “Terrorgram Collective” that exhorted followers to kill immigrants and Black and Jewish people in a bid to start a race war, federal prosecutors said on Monday. Humber and another accused leader, 37-year-old Matthew Allison of Idaho, were arrested Friday and charged with 15 crimes, including solicitation of hate crimes and targeting federal officials for murder. NBC News | KQED
- “Let’s get this party started, terror bros.” Left Coast Right Watch tracked Humber’s life online, from a 13-year-old fond of Japanese fashion subculture to a mouthpiece for white supremacy.
5.
The last meal that Susan Horton ate as she began to go into labor with her fifth child in August 2022 was a poppy-seed salad from Costco. After she delivered her daughter at a hospital in Santa Rosa, a nurse told Horton, who didn’t even like taking Advil, that she had tested positive for opiates. A social worker arrived the next day and took baby Halle into protective custody. Doctors later privately acknowledged that the seeds could have triggered the positive test. The Marshall Project
6.
After 35 years in business, the owner of a deli near downtown San Francisco said he can’t take the drug dealing, shoplifting, and break-ins anymore. “We’ve been spit at, we’ve had knives pulled on us, we’ve been called names,” David Pesusic said. So he’s made the difficult decision to close his Bayside Market, just off the Embarcadero. Asked for comment, a mayoral spokesperson cited data showing crime is down. Pesusic said that may be so, but only because people have grown weary of calling police to little avail. SF Standard | SFGATE
7.
The principle of public feedback is a crucial part of the planning process in San Francisco, where residents address city officials during meetings that can stretch for hours. But an analysis of nearly 1,000 Planning Commission meetings found that those who speak up are hardly representative of the general population. The typical speaker, the study found, was older, whiter, and more likely to be a homeowner than the general population. They also tended to oppose building in a city desperate for housing. S.F. Chronicle
8.
Apple introduced its first artificially intelligent iPhone on Monday, setting up a test of whether the Cupertino company can help make AI mainstream. Starting in October, the iPhone 16’s beta version of “Apple Intelligence” is expected to do things like summarize messages, write emails, and tell you about a restaurant when pointing your camera at it. Apple shares fell by more than 1% during the presentation, reflecting the market skepticism of AI products. Wall Street Journal | WIRED
- Tech writer Ian Bogost was unimpressed: “It is no longer novel to note the lack of meaningful novelty in new smartphones.” The Atlantic
9.
Aaron Rodgers, the Jets quarterback and favorite son of Chico, has entertained conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the Sandy Hook massacre. He has explained that the Covid vaccine is “experimental gene therapy” that “changes your DNA.” And he’s wondered whether we were the good guys in World War II. But his play is transcendent, which presents a quandary for some fans. Being a sports fan is a “deeper commitment than being a fan of Mozart or Colleen Hoover,” wrote Zach Helfand. “We’re not just appreciating — we’re rooting.” New Yorker
Southern California
10.
One resident of the Portuguese Bend neighborhood on the Palos Verdes Peninsula said the pace of landslides quickened so much that nails popped from the walls. “You would hear ‘bang, bang, bang’ like gunshots going off,” she said. Yet even with their power cut, many residents are adamant about staying. Sallie Reeves, 82, noted that Portuguese Bend residents — among them teachers, artists, and handymen — are not as wealthy as their neighbors closer to the shore. It’s not so simple to pick up and leave, she said: “The only way I’m leaving here is in a box.” CNN
11.
The day before he was scheduled to run in Disneyland’s Halloween Half Marathon on Sunday, Caleb Graves posted a TikTok video about competing during a heat wave. “I’m marginally worried,” he said, recounting how the afternoon heat had exhausted him. He added: “I really hope I get through the race tomorrow.” Graves, 35, an experienced runner, crossed the finish line in Anaheim the next morning clutching his chest, officials said. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead an hour later. L.A. Times
12.
In 2015, Robert Quimby, the director of Mount Laguna Observatory in the mountains east of San Diego, began compiling images of the late-afternoon sun taken from the same point every 24 hours. In the time-lapse video that resulted, the sun traced an elongated figure eight across the western sky. Known as an analemma, the phenomenon is caused by the tilt of the earth’s axis and the slightly elliptical orbit that the planet takes around the sun. (This four-minute TED-Ed video has helpful animations). As illustrated in Quimby’s video, we are currently on the downswing toward the bottom of the analemma in December. 👉 YouTube
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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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