Good morning. It’s Tuesday, Aug. 11.
- Wildfire threatens tourist destinations in Big Sur.
- Teen will face prosecution in deadly Marin crash.
- And Big Bear eagle that enthralled millions dies.
Statewide
1.
A fire that ignited over the weekend exploded across nearly 3 square miles of rugged terrain in Big Sur by Monday evening, threatening some of the region’s best known destinations, including Nepenthe restaurant and Post Ranch Inn. Officials said firefighters were grappling with erratic winds, dry conditions, and steep terrain. Holly Fassett, a co-owner of Nepenthe, said crews came knocking on doors close to midnight Sunday, ordering people to flee. “It’s very close. … You just don’t know,” she said. “It’s like a wild animal.” Monterey Herald | KSBW
2.
Normally, craft distillers in California are required to sell their spirits exclusively to distributors. The rule was paused during the pandemic, allowing direct shipments to consumers. Both distillers, who operate on thin margins, and consumers want to keep it that way. Yet lawmakers are poised to let the policy expire on Dec. 31. CalMatters reports: “The fight is about more than whether Californians can have a bottle of whiskey or gin delivered. It illustrates how decisions are made in Sacramento, where wealthy and powerful interests can shape or kill policy in secret negotiations with lawmakers.”
3.
An elite climber who held a speed record on Yosemite’s El Capitan died in a fall while climbing in Sequoia National Park on Aug. 2, authorities said on Monday. The coroner listed Jacob Whisenant’s cause of death as blunt force trauma. Bailee Moore, a close friend, said family members were still trying to piece together whether Whisenant’s equipment malfunctioned. She described him as a “gentle spirit” who was “completely devoted” to the sport. Whisenant was living in Mammoth Lakes with his fiancée, Emma London. He was 30. SFGATE | N.Y. Times
Northern California
4.
The Sacramento Valley sank by roughly a foot a year during the drought between 2020 and 2022, new research showed. Caused by intense groundwater pumping, the phenomenon known as subsidence has plagued the Central Valley for more than a century, buckling pipelines, roads, and bridges. The most recent drought is considered the worst in the northern half of the valley’s history. Researchers said the abrupt sinking that resulted left the ground so compacted that it would never bounce back, even in wetter times. Sacramento Bee | S.F. Chronicle
5.
The teenage driver in a 2025 vehicle crash in Marin County that killed four of her friends will face criminal prosecution after a judge rejected a request to dismiss her case on Monday. The 17-year-old spoke to victims’ families for the first time in court, expressing “profound regret and sorrow” for her actions. Some of the parents have denounced the prosecution, saying the girl has suffered enough. The judge, James Chou, cited the need to “address any wrong,” calling the case among the most difficult of his career. S.F. Chronicle | Marin Independent Journal
6.
In 2024, a pair of San Francisco police officers plugged a vehicle’s license plate into their computer and found that it was stolen. They then smashed a window, pulled the motorist to the ground, and pepper-sprayed him in the face. But the car wasn’t stolen. The officers had mistyped the license plate number. They booked Matthew Ludwig anyway, impounding his car and charging him with resisting arrest. The charges were pending when Ludwig apparently took his own life a year later. On Monday, a watchdog agency concluded that the episode amounted to excessive violence and wrongful arrest. L.A. Times | Mission Local
7.
A “Cancel Piedmont” movement is growing in one of the Bay Area’s wealthiest cities. Piedmont, home to roughly 11,000 mostly white residents, is completely surrounded by Oakland, yet its median house price of nearly $2.6 million is more than three times that of Oakland’s. Resentments have simmered over what Piedmont’s detractors see as glaring economic and racial inequalities. “It really is ridiculous that a place like Piedmont even exists,” said Jesse Rosemoore, the creator of the movement. S.F. Chronicle
8.
“I tend to overcommit to bits.”
Artificial intelligence billboards have spread like a blight across San Francisco, but locals actually like one of them. Tucker Bryant, a former Google product manager, began his site ChatTJB as an art project to poke fun at AI chatbots. On ChatTJB, answers to prompts come from Bryant himself, typed out by hand, instead of artificial intelligence. He bought the billboard in July, declaring ChatTJB “the leading chat interface powered by AI.” A footnote explains that AI stands for “average individual.” SF Gazetteer | Futurism
9.
On the most recent episode of the California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with Lainey Feingold, a San Francisco disability rights attorney. Her new book, “Digital Accessibility Ethics,” creates a framework on how to make technology work for people who are blind, or deaf, or can’t hold a mouse. We know how to do this, she said: “It’s just when no one is in the room talking about its importance, then it tends to get left out.”
Southern California
10.
Jackie, a bald eagle whose life played out for a worldwide audience via a 24/7 livestream of her nest atop a Jeffrey pine overlooking Big Bear Lake, died on Monday. Fans grew attached to the raptor and her mate, Shadow, through a “Truman Show”-like window into their lives, as they incubated eggs through winter snows and doted on fuzzy chicks. In July, Jackie was found on the lake’s shore, stricken by a mysterious illness. Veterinarians treated her for weeks before she succumbed. She was 14. Desert Sun | L.A. Times
11.
An Instagram account called VHS Dates has amassed nearly 900,000 followers with clips from what are said to be lost dating-service videotapes from the 1980s. Compelled, the reporter Sopan Deb scheduled an interview with the people behind the account. He writes: “But when I showed up to meet them at a cavernous studio near downtown Los Angeles, they said, ‘This is where we shoot the videos.’ The clips, they revealed, are not found footage from a lost era. The videos are staged.” N.Y. Times
12.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, set to open in September, has been touted as a gift to Los Angeles from billionaire George Lucas. But in a metropolis where free admission has become the norm, the museum is planning to charge $25 for entry. Jori Finkel, a critic and journalist, denounced the “hypocrisy” of charging high admission fees to enter what Lucas has called “a temple to the people’s art” in low-income South Los Angeles. “It is not a good look to say the least,” she wrote. Art Newspaper | Artforum
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