Good morning. It’s Monday, Aug. 21.
- Hilary brings floods, mudslides, and closures.
- Ikea opening offers lift to downtown San Francisco.
- And a shop owner is killed after dispute over rainbow flag.
Tropical Storm Hilary
1.
The first tropical storm to hit California in more than 80 years barreled into San Diego County from Mexico’s Baja California shortly after 5 p.m. on Sunday. While Tropical Storm Hilary largely amounted to an annoyance in some coastal cities, it pounded Southern California’s Transverse Ranges and inland deserts, where rain fell as hard an inch per hour and wind gusts reached 60 mph. By nightfall, numerous homes had been flooded, dozens of roads were blocked by trees and mud, and tens of thousands of households had lost power. Accuweather | L.A. Times | Desert Sun | S.D. Union-Tribune
2.
Other storm developments:
- Highway officials shut both directions of the I-10 Freeway in the Coachella Valley, a major link between Los Angeles and points east, after it was submerged by floodwater. Desert Sun
- Monday classes were canceled at dozens of school districts, including California’s two largest, Los Angeles and San Diego. Also canceled or postponed: sporting events, concerts, and hundreds of flights. CBS Los Angeles | SFGATE
- By 3 a.m. Monday, Hilary had passed over the Eastern Sierra and entered Nevada. Forecasters said it would continue to push north, eventually dissipating into a batch of moisture. Track Hilary’s movement. 👉 Zoom.earth
3.
Residents, storm chasers, and news organizations posted dramatic photos and video from the storm. Some highlights:
- A terrifying debris flow pushed through a canyon north of Palm Springs. @BrandonCopicWx
- A pickup truck was nearly submerged by rising waters in Thousand Palms. @KESQ
- The Los Angeles River became a raging torrent. @LAPublicPress | @hearinladotcom
- A major mudslide carried boulders into the street in the San Bernardino Mountains. YouTube/@ohiostormchasers
- Funnel clouds formed over Fresno. @ReubenKSEE24 | @MichaelBrunoArg
4.
In what felt like a synchronized assault as Hillary pummeled Southern California, wildfires raged across the state and a 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck near the community of Ojai. On Sunday, officials said a firefighter was severely injured by a falling tree while battling the Lone Pine fire on Aug. 16 in the state’s northwest, where lightning has ignited numerous fires. The quake toppled some store merchandise, but there were no reports of major damage. A.P. | L.A. Times | Redheaded Blackbelt
- See where wildfires are burning. 👉 InciWeb
Statewide
5.
California’s community college system, which educates nearly 2 million students on 116 campuses across the state, is offering increasing numbers of bachelor degrees, arguing that they offer opportunities for students who can’t afford other schools. But the California State University system is fighting the change, accusing the community colleges of stepping in their lane. One worry: If community colleges attract more state funding, it could eat into Cal State’s share. CalMatters
6.
Cameras were prohibited at Manzanar, the concentration camp in the Eastern Sierra that held roughly 10,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. But Toyo Miyatake, an acclaimed Los Angeles photographer who was sent to the camp with his family in 1942, felt a duty to chronicle what was going on there. He snuck in a lens and had a camera body constructed from wood. Miyatake’s images are striking in their mundanity, a departure from the anger that infused Dorothea Lange’s work and the Norman Rockwell approach of Ansel Adams, wrote Ken Chen: “He saw little need to glorify, humanize, or even individualize the prisoners. For he was one of them.” Aperture
- See more of Miyatake’s photos. 👉 ToyoMiyatake.com | KCET
Northern California
7.
The opening of a new retailer in San Francisco wouldn’t normally make national headlines. But a forthcoming Ikea, opening Wednesday in the city’s Mid-Market corridor, is being embraced as a sign of hope after an exodus of retailers and workers from the city’s downtown. “We do feel it’s a viable place,” said Arda Akalin, the store’s manager. “Our ambition going into that location is to bring in more jobs, bring in more people, and bring in more commercial activity to the Mid-Market area.” Wall Street Journal
8.
Burning Man, the annual tribute to hedonism that kicks off this weekend in the Nevada desert, has espoused a “leave no trace” ethic since its early days on the beach in San Francisco. But it takes a lot of electricity to power the air conditioners and other amenities that keep roughly 80,000 burners in comfort on the inhospitable playa. Generators are everywhere. A few years ago, a climatologist measured the carbon emissions of the temporary metropolis. The levels were on par with Mexico City. 48Hills | WIRED
Southern California
9.
A man fatally shot the owner of a clothing shop near Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains on Friday after making “disparaging remarks” about a rainbow flag outside the store, the authorities said. The suspect, who wasn’t identified, was later shot dead by police. A source cited by the Los Angeles Blade said the store owner, Laura Ann Carleton, 66, had confronted the suspect after he tore down the flag. Carleton is survived by her husband and nine children in a blended family. L.A. Times | Los Angeles Blade
10.
Labor unrest has been surging nationwide, but nowhere quite like Los Angeles. This year alone, Hollywood writers, actors, municipal employees, public school teachers, hotel employees, and health-care workers have called work stoppages across the city. Experts attribute that at least in part to the growing inequality of the city, where 600,000 people live in poverty next to some of the most opulent neighborhoods in the world. “Folks are just fed up, because they can’t catch up,” said María Elena Durazo, a state senator. Washington Post
11.
A California appeals court on Friday revived the lawsuits of two men who accused Michael Jackson of sexually abusing them as children for years. A lower court had dismissed the lawsuits by Wade Robson, 40, and James Safechuck, 45 — who were featured in the 2019 HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland” — ruling that Jackson’s corporations could not have been expected to control the singer. That was an error, the appeals court wrote: “Plaintiffs had every right to expect defendants to protect them from the entirely foreseeable danger of being left alone with Jackson.” A.P. | N.Y. Times
12.
In 2002, Elon Musk founded SpaceX using $100 million of his own fortune amassed with PayPal. Skeptics abounded. As of this summer, 21 years later, the Hawthorne company has an estimated valuation of $150 billion, making it the most valuable aerospace and defense company in the West, surpassing even Boeing and Raytheon Technologies. In another milestone, SpaceX turned its first profit this year, according to a rare look at its finances. Wall Street Journal | Barron’s
- The success of SpaceX is attributed in part to its near total control of satellite internet. There are now more than 4,500 of Musk’s Starlink satellites orbiting Earth. N.Y. Times
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