A rare winter wildfire roared to life along the Big Sur coast Friday night, forcing hundreds of people to flee and spreading to within feet of the iconic Bixby Bridge. Locals were taken by surprise given the wet season. But fire officials said the combination of powerful winds and drought were enough to stoke the blaze, dubbed the Colorado fire, which remained less than a square mile as of late Sunday. S.F. Chronicle | A.P.

The blogger Big Sur Kate posted a bunch of photos.

Coronavirus roundup:

See coronavirus trackers. 👉 L.A. Times | Covid19.ca.gov

Federal authorities are investigating an aviation YouTuber who leapt, selfie stick in hand, from a small aircraft after it appeared to stall over the Los Padres National Forest. Trevor Jacob, a former Olympic snowboarder from Mammoth Lakes, posted video of the Nov. 24 crash that drew immediate skepticism from other pilots. Among the questions they posed: Why was he wearing a parachute? Why didn’t he call air-traffic control? And why didn’t he try to land the plane? N.Y. Times | Jalopnik

The S.F. Chronicle editorial board endorsed a recall campaign against three school board members. Cutting an elected official’s term short should be avoided except in the event of abject failure or unfitness, the board wrote. But the bungling of school reopening and other priorities by Alison Collins, Gabriela López, and Faauuga Moliga meets that criterion. “Competence matters,” it added. “That’s as true for those pursuing a progressive agenda as it as for anyone else.”

Late last week, the U.S. Senate advanced an antitrust bill that would prohibit the largest tech platforms from favoring their own services over those of competitors. The legislation has won rare bipartisan support in Washington, while underscoring a divide in Silicon Valley. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta have lobbied hard against the bill. Publicly backing it are dozens of smaller start-ups, including Yelp, Patreon, Basecamp, and Quora. Luther Lowe, of Yelp, told the Wall Street Journal the companies risked retaliation to deliver a message: “Enough is enough.” Bloomberg | TechCrunch

A mother sued a school district in Monterey County, accusing teachers of manipulating her 11-year-old daughter into changing her gender identity. Jessica Konen said she was blindsided when a teacher informed her that her daughter was now identifying as a boy. She tried to be supportive. But she began to question what happened after the teacher and a colleague were heard on a leaked recording discussing how they “stalked” students online for recruits to the school’s Equality Club. A.P.

S.F. Chronicle: “Two California teachers were secretly recorded speaking about LGBTQ student outreach. Now they’re fighting for their jobs.”

One evening in September, Margarita Bekker’s credit card was charged $9,875 for a 1-mile cab ride in San Francisco. She called Bank of America to straighten out the obvious mistake, but they declined to help, telling her she was billed correctly. She spent hours on the phone, appealing to city officials and the cab company to no avail. Only when a reporter got involved did Bank of America have a change of heart. S.F. Chronicle

Multiple shooters fired more than 40 rounds in a “targeted ambush” on a house party in Inglewood early Sunday, killing four people, the authorities said. Two sisters in their 20s were among those killed in the attack, which was believed to be gang-related. Inglewood Mayor James Butts addressed the killers at a news conference Sunday: “These are sociopathic killers that have to be sequestered from society. Turn yourselves in. We will find you, and we will prosecute you.” KABC | L.A. Times

“Looking out that morning, I saw seemingly endless fields of the trees’ scorched and tortured carcasses. This was a terrible harbinger of things to come.”

A reporting team visited the Mojave National Preserve where a wildfire burned roughly 1.3 million Joshua trees in August 2020. The award-winning photographer Kovi Konowiecki captured a set of pictures that’s both haunting and hopeful. The Guardian

Wildlife advocates have warned for years about the danger that the U.S.-Mexico border wall poses to large animals whose habitat is bisected. Now biologists have shared some of the first data illustrating that fear: an endangered Mexican gray wolf that set off from eastern Arizona in search of a mate in late 2021 found himself blocked by a new 30-foot-high wall. Tracked by a GPS collar, he spent five days migrating along the wall, presumably trying to find a way around the obstacle. Eventually, he gave up. National Geographic

A tinkerer in the San Diego area strapped a motor and wheels to a piece of plywood and took it for a 17-mile ride on abandoned railroad tracks in the desert near Ocotillo — with a cooler of beers by his side. Video of his adventure went viral on social media. Asked if he was risking a DUI, he answered, “That would be my luck that the police happen to have a railcart too.” Reddit | YouTube

Here he is explaining the construction.

… Gregg Segal, a photographer based in Altadena. His project “7 Days of Garbage” explores the way that we produce waste and the systems that perpetuate that cycle.

Q. What is one place everyone should visit in California?

A. One place at the top of my list is Point Arena-Stornetta, a remote coastal wilderness about a two-hour drive from Santa Rosa in Mendocino County. The views of the coast and ocean are awe-inspiring.

What’s the best book you’ve read or podcast you’ve listened to recently?

Book: “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art,” by James Nestor. It illuminates the link between breath (through the nose, not the mouth!) and health, which numerous cultures throughout history have grasped.

Podcast: “Radiolab” is immensely informative and entertaining all at once.

What’s a hidden food gem in your area?

Azay in Little Tokyo serves a mean sukiyaki. Chef (and owner) Akira Hirose, from Kyoto, is known for his French restaurant Maison Akira in Pasadena. Akira closed Maison Akira after a 20-year run and recently opened Azay with his wife, Jo Ann. They serve a traditional Japanese breakfast of rice, miso soup, preserved vegetables and broiled fish — way healthier than pancakes and waffles!

You’re organizing a dinner party. Which three California figures, dead or alive, do you invite, and why? How would you get the conversation started?

John Steinbeck, George Lucas and Octavia Butler. I’d invite discussion about the intersection of life and art. Why does art matter to civilization and how does it contribute to our social fabric? In what ways does it illuminate us?

What did you learn about waste and society from the “7 Days of Garbage” project that surprised you the most?

The vast quantity of packaging in our garbage was alarming. In a word, I learned that we produce far too much waste — and that there’s no “away” in throw away. These pictures have helped people see what’s there but most don’t see.

I’ve come to see, too, that in a sense we’re both perpetrators and victims in the garbage crisis. We need to take greater responsibility as individuals and start acting on our environmental values to reduce our carbon footprint.

“5 questions with …” is a weekly feature by Finn Cohen, who edits the California Sun. Conversations are sometimes edited for brevity.