Good morning. It’s Friday, April 24.
- Battery storage plants face rising tide of opposition.
- Celebrated conductor of San Francisco Symphony dies.
- And one of the greatest coastal strolls in California.
Statewide
1.
“It’s pure insanity to put anything in this area that brings added fire risk.”
Developers looking to build hundreds of battery storage plants are running into an implacable foe: communities afraid that the installations will burst into flames. In Acton, a rural town in Los Angeles County, a proposed 12-acre battery plant was blocked in the face of local opposition last October. Other proposals have been scuttled in Morro Bay, San Juan Capistrano, and Escondido. The rising tide of resistance is putting California in a bind as it strives to meet its renewable energy goals, Bloomberg reported.
2.
Montaña de Oro means “mountain of gold,” and the reason for the name is plain to see. A gorgeous landscape of coastal dunes, bluffs, and hills in San Luis Obispo County, the park seems to glow with golden mustard and poppies. Montaña de Oro attracts far fewer visitors than the state’s most popular parks. Yet the outdoors journalist John McKinney said its signature trail is “one of the great coastal strolls” in all of California: “It’s nearly flat, accessible, and delivers nonstop drama: crashing surf, sculpted sea caves, blowholes, and pocket beaches tucked against the base of golden cliffs.” The Trailmaster
Northern California
3.
Michael Tilson Thomas, the celebrated music director of the San Francisco Symphony for 25 years, died on Wednesday. Tilson Thomas was born in Los Angeles, played piano from a young age, and studied composition at USC. In a magazine profile a few years after graduation, Leonard Bernstein said of the 26-year-old conductor: “I don’t fling the word genius around lightly, but I fling it around about Michael.” Tilson Thomas conducted many of the world’s major ensembles before arriving in San Francisco in 1995 and ushering in what the Chronicle called “a golden age of musical achievement.” He was 81. N.Y. Times | S.F. Chronicle
4.
Elon Musk and Sam Altman are poised to face off in an Oakland courtroom next week over claims brought by Musk that Altman enriched himself by betraying OpenAI’s founding mission. Already, legal filings have revealed cringey communications that include Mark Zuckerberg privately offering to use his social platforms to help Musk’s interests, and Musk calling Jeff Bezos “a bit of a tool.” Andrew Stoltmann, a corporate litigator, predicted fireworks in court. “We know it’s going to be crazy and nasty,” he said. Washington Post
5.
As Tim Cook is hailed by Apple investors, the tech journalist Patrick McGee recalled how the departing CEO consolidated virtually all of the company’s manufacturing in China — while turning a blind eye to the country’s authoritarian impulses.
“He has been conspicuously silent on China’s subjugation of Hong Kong protesters, the persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang or the 20-year sentence of the pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Most revealing of all, since taking over as Apple’s CEO, he has not set foot in Taiwan — a thriving democracy, but a rogue province from Beijing’s perspective.” N.Y. Times
6.
Stewart Brand, the counterculture hero behind the “Whole Earth Catalog,” has a book out called “Maintenance: Of Everything” that includes a glowing digression on Elon Musk. The founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Brand says, is a man of “unique mastery,” who “may have done more practical world saving than any other business leader of his time.” The passage has raised eyebrows, wrote Alec Nevala-Lee in the Atlantic: “Brand’s love letter to Musk casts a pall on the rest of the book, under which the author’s indifference to politics becomes more difficult to ignore.”
7.
The Oakland Zoo has taken in two tiny orphaned mountain lion cubs, who immediately amassed an army of fans on social media. One cub, a male dubbed Crimson, was found alone in the Santa Monica Mountains, likely abandoned by his mother. He was missing several toes and unable to stand. Clover, a female, was found along a roadside in El Dorado County, emaciated and infested with ticks. They are both now on the mend after intensive care. SFist | Popular Science
Southern California
8.
When allegations of sexual abuse by Cesar Chavez surfaced in March, the artist Judith Baca had already completed a painting of him as part of an expansion of her “Great Wall of Los Angeles,” a half-mile-long mural portraying California’s history along a flood control channel in North Hollywood. Yet while many cities and institutions have moved to remove Chavez’s name and likeness from public display, Baca rejected the idea of erasing him from the mural. Such decisions, she said, should not be “knee-jerk reactions to the rage that we feel.” N.Y. Times
9.
For years, work on an ambitious wildlife corridor over U.S. 101 northwest of Los Angeles proceeded with little controversy, hailed by many as a hopeful story about restoring mountain lion habitat fractured by freeways. Then a conservative think tank published a piece attacking the Agoura Hills crossing over its costs and timeline. A wave of right-wing figures piled on, declaring the project a boondoggle. Now the bridge has a completion date. Officials said on Wednesday that it would open Dec. 2, helping to fend off extinction of species that require room to roam. L.A. Times | LAist
10.
On a recent visit to the beach in Orange County, reporter Erin Stone had the “excruciating” misfortune of being stung in the foot by a stingray. As she hobbled into the lifeguard tower, she found roughly 10 other unlucky souls nursing stingray stings. Researchers say Southern California waters host one of the densest concentrations of stingrays anywhere. “We’ve done snorkel surveys where you cannot see sand,” said Dr. Chris Lowe, a marine biologist. He credited warm temperatures and soft sandy seafloors, ideal for hiding from predators. California Curated | Long Beach Post
11.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talks with Julia Turner and Julia Wick, founders of the new journalism outlet L.A. Material. Asked about misconceptions of Los Angeles, Turner talked about an alleged lack of common feeling across the sprawling metropolis. She cited the response to the fires and ICE raids of 2025: “The community felt the wound and came together in both of those tough moments. … There was just this sense of, ‘This is our place. We are aligned in living here. And we have that in common.'”
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- Jordan Lucas, a Cal State Northridge volleyball player, has become an internet sensation thanks to viral video of his eccentric celebrations. After winning plays, Lucas, who is gay, sways his hips, whips his head, and wags his finger in the air. Reaction has been largely positive, though some have raised questions about sportsmanship. N.Y. Times
- A baby giraffe at a wildlife preserve near Santa Rosa was rejected by his mother. So keepers have been hand-feeding him from a Coke bottle filled with goat milk. They’ve even stayed overnight in his stall to be sure he feels cared for. The photojournalist John Burgess got some heart-warming pictures. 👉 Press Democrat
- After a car crash in Marin County left four teenage friends dead and two others injured, the girls’ families have been torn apart. The mother of the driver, who is facing a manslaughter charge, made her first public comment to the San Francisco Chronicle: “We think constantly about the lives lost. … At the same time, our family has also been subjected to ongoing harassment that has gone far beyond grief or accountability.”
- A massive marine heat wave in the Pacific is expected to be a key driver of California’s weather this spring and summer. Likely outcomes include elevated overnight temperatures, uncomfortable humidity, and heightened thunderstorm activity. The meteorologist Ben Noll wrote an explainer with some helpful visuals. Washington Post
- After 20 years of planning, $724 million, and seemingly endless controversy, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new building, the David Geffen Galleries, has opened. Designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, the structure has been compared to an amoeba curling across Wilshire Boulevard. Take a video walkthrough. 👉 Archinect
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