Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Sept. 30.
- In private, Anthropic suggests that AI could be conscious.
- Six Flags Magic Mountain closes troubled roller coaster.
- And ADUs become a major source of housing in L.A.
AI safety crisis
1.
Employees at OpenAI had warned top executives about vulnerabilities in the company’s newest artificial intelligence models, internal sources told the New York Times. But they were ignored. The models later went rogue, hacking into various organizations and setting off a global debate on AI safety. Joshua Saxe, an AI security expert, diagnosed the situation: “OpenAI’s security seems to be about what you’d expect from a research lab that scaled at a blistering pace over four years and focused more on beating its competitors than securing its infrastructure.”
2.
President Trump gathered the tech industry’s top leaders at the White House on Tuesday and announced an accord intended to allay public fears over an AI doomsday. In short, he said, everyone should trust the industry to police itself. “I’m seeing tremendous self-policing,” Trump said, surrounded by the leaders of Nvidia, Anthropic, and Meta. He also signed an executive order: artificial intelligence will henceforth be known as “super intelligence,” it declared. Washington Post | Politico
3.
Beginning last fall, Anthropic began hosting a series of confidential meetings with religious scholars in San Francisco. The objectives were twofold: to investigate how to apply moral wisdom to its models, and to broach the possibility of AI consciousness. Scholars were stunned to discover that company leaders appeared to believe Anthropic’s Claude had a “moral status” with similar inherent rights of person. “They’re relating to it like a conscious being,” said Rabbi Mois Navon, who visited in April. N.Y. Times
Northern California
4.
“A new beginning.”
A federal judge on Tuesday released the Oakland Police Department from federal oversight after 23 years, ending the longest court-ordered monitoring of a police agency in U.S. history. The oversight began in 2003 after a group of officers known as the “Riders” faced an array of police-brutality and corruption charges in a predominantly Black part of the city. In May, the federal monitor said the department had for the first time complied with all 51 mandated reforms stemming from the scandal. East Bay Times | KQED
5.
California’s Coastal Commission recently approved a permit for Humboldt County to repair a road adjacent to Centerville Beach — on one condition. People must no longer drive on the sand. Locals have reacted with anger to what they see as the latest overreach by a state government dismissive of rural ways of life. Humboldt County isn’t Southern California, resident Joey Sancho said at a recent meeting: “The beaches aren’t overly populated. They’re not being torn up by ATVs and so forth. But yet, it’s just one more thing just to take away from us up here in the North Coast.” L.A. Times
6.
Court records revealed years of family turmoil leading up to last weekend’s fatal shooting of New York Times engineer Jonathan McKinsey, a killing that police said was carried out by his in-laws. Last December, McKinsey, 40, sought a restraining order against his wife, Candice Jang, that accused her and her parents of physically and emotionally harming him for being transgender. McKinsey said his mother in-law called him “a pervert” and accused him of influencing his son to wear dresses. S.F. Chronicle | KGO
7.
Pinnacles National Park is renown for its otherworldly rock formations. But many people come to see the birds. A couple hours south of San Jose, the wildland is home to nearly 100 California condors, spectacular creatures that swoop overhead with apricot-colored heads and nearly 10-foot wingspans. The above image of a Pinnacles California condor by photographer Rebecca Whittaker was just honored in the 2026 Audubon Photography Awards. In sharing it, she hoped “more people can see how lucky we are to live among them,” Whittaker said. See more pictures from the contest.
8.
“Someone just took it up there and dumped it.”
The Bay Area’s hiking trails are almost too much to wish for, with a blend of redwood forests, ocean views, and coastal mountains. Yet hikers are often baffled to find them littered with abandoned cars. On Mount Tamalpais, the twisted carcass of a vintage vehicle straddles a footpath. Along the Rambler Trail in Marin County, a miniature boardwalk leads to the roof of a buried car. Some trace to a time when ranchers used part of their land as garbage dumps. Many others are a mystery. SFGATE investigated.
Southern California
9.
Six Flags Magic Mountain said on Tuesday that it is permanently shuttering its X2 roller coaster as mounting lawsuits allege that the ride caused traumatic brain injuries. In a statement, company president Brian Oerding said it was “the right thing to do.” Riders on the X2 experience speeds of up to 76 miles an hour and up to four times the force of gravity. Anne Hawley, whose son died after a ride in 2022, became emotional hearing news of the closure. “We have tried for four years to do the best we can to spread awareness,” she said. “They finally listened.” CNN | L.A. Times
10.
In 2017, California moved to streamline the thicket of regulations surrounding the backyard units known as ADUs. That year, Los Angeles permitted 1,659 of the units. In 2025, the figure was 7,321, just shy of the total number of permits for new apartments. The boom has surprised even ADU enthusiasts, who have long promoted them as sources of passive income. “Six years ago, the thought was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, you’re doing ADU?’” said contractor Billy Snow. “Now everyone’s doing ADU. It’s almost like chewing gum.” Crosstown
- Dwell surveyed the finest ADUs in Los Angeles.
11.
On Monday, the Santa Ana police department issued an unusual warning: A Gaboon viper, a highly venomous African snake, was on the loose in a residential neighborhood. News publications near and far published the story. A day later, however, the authorities withdrew the alert after the homeowner who claimed to have photographed the snake, Joel Ciprian, admitted to creating it with artificial intelligence. Despite the nuisance caused, police said the hoax did not rise to the level of a crime. CBS News
12.
During the height of the pandemic, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s rodeo team couldn’t use the campus stadium. So they went to the beach instead, creating a makeshift three-sided arena open to the ocean. It was a hit, and the Beach BreakaWave Rodeo became an annual tradition. The 2026 competition, held last weekend, featured a mash-up of livestock and surfboards as horses towed surfers along the water’s edge. See a short video recap on Instagram.
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