Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Oct. 13.
- Universal income eases burdens in Santa Cruz.
- A vivid tribal celebration on Alcatraz Island.
- And L.A. mayoral hopeful takes sharp turns on issues.
Statewide
1.
Scattered across California from the forested North Coast to the desert wilderness outside San Diego are nearly 1,300 cameras recording 24/7 for signs of wildfires. The ALERTCalifornia fire cameras have become an essential tool in wildfire response, often spotting blazes before a 911 call has been made. But someone had to put all those cameras in place. The New York Times profiled the crew that drives thousands of miles each year to install and keep running the cameras that make the ALERTCalifornia system possible.
2.
The young Silicon Valley workers enlisted by the U.S. DOGE Service to slash government spending have leveraged their government stints into lucrative new endeavors. An analysis found that start-ups founded by, or with key investment from, DOGE alumni have raised at least half a billion dollars in funding. Among the largest is Cathedral, a cybersecurity firm co-founded by Gavin Kliger, a 26-year-old who grew up in Orange County. Investors have valued the company, which plans to sell its services to the Pentagon, at $1.4 billion. Washington Post
3.
A California family vacationing in Yellowstone National Park left their Jack Russell terrier, Luna, in their cabin one day to visit an area of the park that forbids digs. But a housekeeper opened the cabin, accidentally letting the dog escape. That was Sept. 10, and Luna has been running loose in the park ever since. While she’s been spotted frequently, no one’s been able to catch her. Now snow is starting to fall. If Luna isn’t captured soon, seasonal closures mean she’ll be on her own for the winter. Cowboy State Daily | SFGATE
4.
In California, even the in-between places are gorgeous. Panoche is a one-bar town surrounded by bleached hills along the eastern flanks of the Diablo Range — a place motorists pass on the way somewhere else. Only the tough survive there, including juniper, San Joaquin kit foxes, and a few hundred humans. A former owner of the bar, the Panoche Inn, used to call the place “the center of the universe.” Visitors call it “extraordinarily beautiful” and “pleasantly confound[ing].”
- The photographer Sara Ferguson published a nice series on the Panoche area.
Northern California
5.
“Less helpless is how I feel now.”
A New York Times reporter shadowed three participants in a universal income program funded by Google for 12 months. All three were previously homeless. Their stories were moving. Mikole Weeks, a 27-year-old in Santa Cruz, used the money to pay for swimming lessons and music classes for her toddler. She also enrolled in community college. “What she felt most was relief, she said, no longer having to wait until her food stamps reloaded every month to go to the grocery store.”
6.
In early 2025, San Francisco banned cars from a stretch of highway along its western edge to make way for a park over the strong objections of nearby residents who feared worsened traffic. Sunset Dunes has become one of the city’s most popular parks. But opponents haven’t dropped the fight: A measure on the November ballot calls for reopening the road to vehicles. Judi Gorski, whose home overlooks the park, refuses to step foot on it. “I’m so angry about it,” she said. Wall Street Journal
7.
Friends and family struggled to makes sense of the murder-suicide in a Marin County home Sunday evening, in which a retired San Francisco police sergeant, Kevin Mannix, killed his wife, Ann, and their 24-year-old daughter, Katie. Ann, who also served in the police force and was celebrated as a pioneer, was said to be looking forward to a divorce from her “possessive” husband. Katie was an aspiring nurse with a “big heart,” said a cousin. Kevin, according to 911 audio, had been drinking red wine. S.F. Chronicle
8.
According to a recent city report, San Francisco’s jails have reached a “breaking point” because of insufficient staffing levels. Yet the sheriff’s office has been charging taxpayers millions of dollars for overtime spending on specialty work, such as attending pageants, festivals, and parades, records showed. During a women’s conference, deputies were paid overtime for roles such as “swag bag prep” and “name tags and floral vase ribbons.” A recently retired deputy described the system as a “cash cow.” S.F. Chronicle
9.
In 2018, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted 10-to-1 to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day, following a trend pioneered in Berkeley. Native American tribes marked the holiday by gathering before dawn Monday on Alcatraz Island, which was occupied by tribal activists between 1969 and 1971 in a historic act of Indigenous political resistance. Guests formed a circle around a bonfire, danced, and played drums. The San Francisco Examiner published some gorgeous photos.
Southern California
10.
“One day she’s yes, the other day she’s no.”
As a City Council member, Nithya Raman has routinely opposed efforts to ban homeless encampments near sensitive areas such as schools and libraries. But in May, she reversed her position, saying she would not object to anti-camping zones. It was the latest in a series of turnabouts for the front-runner in the Los Angeles mayoral race, the Los Angeles Times reported. Raman has flipped her positions on defunding police, the so-called “mansion tax,” a minimum wage hike, and more.
11.
Griffith Park’s merry-go-round has been motionless for years. Built in 1926, the handmade relic might have been handed off to a private collector. Instead, a group of passionate supporters and volunteers are working to bring it back to life, a project expected to take years and cost millions. “Honestly, I don’t think carousels were ever intended to last 100 years,” said Kurt Sawitskas, a volunteer. “And now here we are with a carousel that’s 100 years old. We want to honor it and make it run again.” L.A. Times
12.
Researchers on Monday confirmed that Pacific storms this season have generated a higher level of accumulated cyclone energy than ever recorded. The consequences were on display over the past several days as powerful waves battered the Southern California coast. Reuters published a vivid gallery of 24 photos showing crumpled homes, splintered boardwalks, and children playing in the spray from waves.
- Climatologist Daniel Swain: “As of mid-October, the 2026 El Niño event has already become the strongest on record by almost any metric.” Weather West
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