Good morning. It’s Monday, Aug. 31.
- Salinas Valley feels repercussions of lettuce fears.
- MapQuest stands up for Lake Ontario — and goes viral.
- And Natalie Harp’s conservative San Diego upbringing.
Statewide
1.
Nowhere has the economic impact of the cyclosporiasis outbreak been felt more acutely than in the agricultural heartland of the Salinas Valley. The region’s leafy greens have not been implicated in the sickening of more than 17,000 people. Yet growers are laying off workers and watching millions of heads of lettuce wilt as demand plummets. “It’s a really tough moment,” said Dave Puglia, the head of an industry trade group. “There’s a lot of very good, fresh produce that’s being plowed back into the ground.” N.Y. Times
2.
The Plaskett fire, one of two major blazes burning in Big Sur, exploded in size, quintupling since Friday to more than 24 square miles, with only 1% contained. As of late Sunday, the wildfires had together spread to about 63 square miles and prompted evacuation orders across much of the Monterey Coast, the latest gut punch for a region hit by repeated closures. In the early days of the Timber fire, it looked like the blaze might be measured in weeks, Supervisor Kate Daniels said on Saturday: “And now it’s looking like potentially could even be months.” L.A. Times | KSBW
3.
The Trump administration has been quietly working to give a quarter-mile strip of Yosemite National Park to a real-estate private equity firm, reports said. The proposed deal would allow Kingsbarn Realty Capital, based in Nevada, to build a private road connecting an adjacent property it already owns with a service road inside the park. Democrats and former Park Service officials are incensed. “This is so ridiculous, it makes you sick,” said Don Neubacher, a former supervisor at Yosemite. NOTUS | N.Y. Times
4.
An analysis of career earnings by major at California universities found what many might expect: Clustered at the top of the ranking are computer science and engineering fields — each translating into salaries of between $105,000 and 139,000 four years after graduation. No. 3, however, stands out: According to the study by the HEA Group, a nursing degree leads to average income of about $124,000 a year. That’s roughly triple what a botany, drama, or religious studies major can expect to earn. L.A. Times
- Look up salaries for individual majors.
Northern California
5.
Google Maps changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America to reflect President Trump’s renaming order amid a trade dispute days earlier, the company said on Saturday, triggering a wave of ridicule from users. MapQuest, which still exists, chimed in with a social media post: “We’re not changing it,” the company wrote alongside a screenshot of a map that identified the body of water as Lake Ontario. As MapQuest surged up the app rankings, more than a few people couldn’t resist a joke. MapQuest, they said, put itself back on the map. L.A. Times | Daily Beast
6.
In Del Norte County, one of the most isolated places in California, the school students are among the least likely in the state to earn a bachelor’s degree. Julie Aicher, a former Cal Poly Humboldt adviser, spent years helping the region’s disadvantaged middle and high school students find a path to higher education. Then last September, she got an update: her program was being defunded. According to the Trump administration’s anti-DEI rubric, her work with rural kids was deemed unacceptable. It was “heartbreaking,” she said. “I definitely cried when we told our students.” CalMatters
7.
The battle for Nancy Pelosi’s House seat is being fought between two Democrats, but the race has increasingly revolved around Pelosi herself. Connie Chan, a little-known supervisor, once trailed state Sen. Scott Wiener by a big margin. But Pelosi has gone to extraordinary lengths to try to lift Chan, transforming the race into an unexpected nail-biter. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: “Pelosi’s growing role in Chan’s campaign has become so prominent that some observers — and many Wiener supporters — wonder whether she’s effectively running it.”
8.
Bernard Dethiers, 74, has lived in San Francisco for more than 40 years. He pays around $1,100 a month for his rent-controlled apartment in North Beach. When the owners offered offered him $40,000 to leave, he countered with $600,000, which was declined. The matter is now headed to court. It’s a gamble. As the AI boom sends rents and home prices soaring, renters who reject buyout offers risk no-fault eviction. Dethiers said he feels he has no choice: “I cannot think of anything worse, really, than losing your place and knowing that you’re not going to be able to get another one.” N.Y. Times
9.
“It’s a giant party for rich white people.”
“They’re selling the idea of freedom, and it’s not free.”
“Leave no trace is not true, it’s bullsit.”
“The whole philosophy, it’s a bunch of crap,”
John Law, a co-founder of Burning Man — which kicked off on Sunday — told a reporter that he didn’t want to talk about the art party that he helped found in San Francisco in the late 1980s. But he couldn’t help himself. “It’s something that’s been annoying me for 30 years,” he said. SFGATE
Southern California
10.
Natalie Harp, the 35-year-old West Wing aide whose relationship with President Trump has become a subject of media fascination, grew up in San Diego, where she was home-schooled and attended a mega-church. According to a profile in the L.A. Times, she became estranged from her brother over politics. “I wasn’t really allowed to be in her life,” said Preston Harp, who embraced progressive ideas. When their father died by suicide, Preston said he refused to go along with a story that he died in his sleep: “That was the last time I ever talked to my sister.”
11.
A lost art is being revived in the burn scar of Altadena: moving entire houses to vacant lots. House moving was once common in America. In the 1950s and 60s, however, the practice dwindled in Los Angeles as land became increasingly scarce. Even if you wanted to move a home, there was no place to bring it. The New Yorker reports: “The Eaton and Palisades fires changed that equation. For the first time in more than half a century, Los Angeles had a glut of vacant lots … House moving once again made sense.”
12.
Thieves made off with more than 40,000 pounds of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer from an Inland Empire distribution center on Aug. 17, police said. In an Instagram post, Pabst seemed to take the matter into its own hands: “We don’t fault you for wanting to brag to your friends how much PBR you have, we just wish you obtained it the honorable way,” the company wrote. It gave the culprits 18 days to return the stolen goods, “no questions asked,” adding: “This is real and we are deadly serious.” Inland Valley Daily Bulletin | KTLA
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