Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Aug. 19.
- California sets novel car tire efficiency rules.
- Los Angeles mayoral race is jolted by fake poll.
- And a escaped pig in West Hollywood delights internet.
Statewide
1.
California just became the first state in the U.S. to set efficiency rules for replacement car tires. At issue is rolling resistance, or how much tires flex as they roll along the road. Regulators said the new resistance standards, approved on Monday, would lead to higher costs up front but ultimately save drivers $1 billion a year on refueling as cars do less work to keep wheels turning. Opponents portrayed the move as government overreach and said it would flood the market with used tires. N.Y. Times | L.A. Times
2.
The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed rescinding a rule that for decades has barred logging and road-building across nearly 45 million acres of pristine national forest, including vasts areas of California. The targeted wilderness includes swaths of the Angeles, Tahoe, Inyo, Shasta-Trinity, and Los Padres forests. Environmentalists said the move threatens to bring pollution and fragment habitats. “Americans want and deserve forests managed for clean water, wildlife, recreation, and climate resilience — not another giveaway to extractive industries,” said the Sierra Club’s Alex Craven. L.A. Times | CalMatters
3.
Roughly 700,000 years ago, volcanic eruptions in the Eastern Sierra gave rise to a natural tool shed. The lava cooled to form obsidian, a volcanic glass that has been called “the sharpest natural substance on Earth.” For thousands of years, Indigenous people fashioned the obsidian of Lookout Mountain into knives, spear points, and arrowheads that were traded through networks stretching as far as the Channel Islands. The science journalist Erik Olsen went to investigate. “Everywhere I looked were little black knives, sitting in the dirt,” he wrote. Curated California
Northern California
4.
“It was like taking drugs away from an addict.”
“She couldn’t escape.”
“My son did not take his life. My son was killed.”
Opening arguments began Tuesday in a landmark child safety lawsuit filed by California and other states against Meta. As prosecutors accused the tech giant of hooking children with technology designed to be addictive, parents gathered outside the Oakland courthouse and shared how their children had been driven to self-harm, drug overdoses, and suicide. Mercury News | KQED | SFGATE
5.
Meta denies allegations that its products are harmful to children. Yet the Silicon Valley executives who build social media platforms commonly shield their own children from them. The New York Times reports: “For their children, tech does not play the same role it does for the rest of society: teacher, babysitter, all-purpose distraction and, increasingly, constant companion. It seems barely there at all.”
6.
California’s prison towns built their economies around an industry that relies on an ever-growing prison population. But when legislators eased sentencing laws about 15 years ago, the pipeline of prisoners dried up. Susanville, a small city in remote northeast California, is now on the brink of collapse. People left town; the elementary school lost 10% of its students; leaders resorted to deficit spending. Dan Newton, Susanville’s former city manager, said the city is on its own: “No one is coming to save us.” CalMatters
7.
The runoff to replace Eric Swalwell, who resigned from Congress in April, became the latest proxy battle over the future of the Democratic Party as the powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC flooded the East Bay race with millions of dollars in advertising. Early returns from Tuesday’s special election, however, showed AIPAC’s preferred candidate, the moderate Democrat Melissa Hernandez, narrowly trailing state Sen. Aisha Wahab, a progressive endorsed by the California Democratic Party. S.F. Chronicle | Mercury News
8.
As sea level rise threatens to cause tens of billions of dollars of damage to the Bay Area in coming decades, a new sort of levee is taking root. Along the shore in Palo Alto, workers this year completed what’s known as a horizontal levee. In contrast to steep traditional levees, horizontal levees are carpeted with plants and slope gently, absorbing waves rather than trying to hold them back. In January, when storm waves spilled over seawalls and caused minor flooding across the Bay Area, the Palo Alto levee passed its first test, soaking up the tide then releasing it. The Grist
- Climate scientists are warning that this year’s El Niño could deliver the highest sea levels ever recorded on the California coast. SFGATE
Southern California
9.
For nine years, the San Fernando Valley has celebrated 818 Day, an unofficial celebration of L.A.’s “ugly stepchild” that is named for its 818 area code and held on Aug. 18, or 8/18. Separated by the Santa Monica Mountains from downtown, residents often speak of the Valley being a world apart, the New York Times reported: “While 818 Day brings bands, discounted miniature golf, arcade specials and D.J.s, the celebration is also an expression of civic pride for a region that has often felt left out of the excitement of Los Angeles, and neglected by City Hall.”
10.
When a group calling itself Median Strategies released a poll showing Mayor Karen Bass leading challenger Nithya Raman by a wide margin in the L.A. mayoral race, Bass touted it on social media. “Gaining momentum,” she wrote. A few days later, the truth emerged: The poll was bogus. Median Strategies said the ruse was a “short-term social experiment” meant to expose how quickly false information could spread. Polling professionals didn’t buy that explanation. “This is just wreaking havoc in an election with real stakes,” said Mia Costa, a government professor at Dartmouth College. N.Y. Times | A.P.
11.
San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to stop letting federal immigration agents train at county-owned firearms ranges only to have the local sheriff, Kelly Martinez, vow to defy the board — in part. In a statement that offered a lengthy defense of combating border crime, Martinez said she would bar ICE but continue to allow Customs and Border Protection agents to use a county gun range. “As Sheriff, I have a duty to protect and serve everyone who lives in or enters San Diego County,” she said. S.D. Union-Tribune
12.
“Hey, come here, pig! Wait! Don’t hit the pig! Don’t hit the pig!”
Jamaal Harrison was riding his e-bike in West Hollywood on Saturday when he came upon a little pig running down the street. He chased the tireless swine but found that catching a pig is harder than he realized. “I’m like, ‘That pig’s fast, man,’” he recalled later. Harrison never caught the pig, but someone else did, delivering it to a shelter. Harrison’s videos, posted later to TikTok, delighted the internet to no end. L.A. Times
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