The Brief

California is close to having two new state symbols — a famous slug and an expensive crab.

UC Santa Cruz students and alums have something to celebrate. Their mascot, the banana slug, is about to become the official state slug.

“Fun fact, banana slugs have more teeth than a shark. Can you imagine?” said Assembly member Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz), who authored the bill. The shell-less terrestrial gastropod molluscs can have up to 27,000 teeth.

You can find the slugs in coastal lowlands, where they have a symbiotic relationship with redwood trees. Banana slugs cut down their competition by eating young shoots of other trees. Redwoods reciprocate by creating a cooler climate on the forest floor.

But the slug isn’t the only new official state symbol. California will also have a state crustacean — the Dungeness crab.

A California Dept. of Fish and Game officials holds up a crab during the start of the Dungeness crab season off the coastline near Muir Beach, California.

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Eric Risberg

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In California, the side walking decapods can be found along the northern and central coasts, both on the shore and on many restaurant menus. Ukiah Assembly member Jim Wood made the case for the move.

“So I ask, members, that you don't let this bill get clawed back. It's time to shell-elebrate the importance of the Dungeness crab,” he said to a roomful of groans.

The crabs bring in an average of $57 million annually to the state. Yearly crab landings can vary a lot, though, and climate change is impacting both crabs and the industry built around them.

The bills are now crawling their way to the governor’s desk.

About 250 miles above the Earth, NASA astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) will enjoy an off-duty day for Thanksgiving, along with a group meal that features some celebratory foods.

"This is my second Thanksgiving in space, so I highly recommend it," said Mike Fincke, in a video message beamed down from the outpost.

This fall, NASA included a "Holiday Bulk Overwrapped Bag," or BOB, on a resupply mission that went up to the station. The bag contained festive items like clams, oysters, crab meat, quail, and smoked salmon.

"Our ground teams and the food lab at NASA have taken such great care of us," said Zena Cardman, who noted that they'll also have traditional fare like turkey and mashed potatoes, all packaged up in ways that won't cause a mess in microgravity. "We've even got some lobster, which is amazing. So I think it's going to be a really, really delicious meal."

Fincke displayed a can of cranberry sauce, which happened to come from the Russian space agency.

"It's kind of neat to have that up here because that's one of my favorite parts," he said. "I'm going to miss my family, of course. But I'm up here with my space family and it's really awesome."

Cardman and Fincke, along with fellow NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, will share their holiday meal with three Russian cosmonauts and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui.

"We don't have Thanksgiving in Japan, but here, on ISS, everybody respects each other's culture," said Yui, who added that he was looking forward to the dinner.

And if all goes as planned, more guests will arrive in time for the meal, because a Soyuz rocket with three new crew members for the station, including NASA astronaut Chris Williams, is scheduled to blast off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:27 am Eastern time on Thursday.
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When he was looking for ‘80s tech inspiration and equipment for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, special effects designer Shane Dzicek knew exactly where to go: Apex Surplus, a scrap metal recycling and industrial surplus business in Sun Valley.

“They're well known in the industry for being a place to rent a lot of hard-to-find electronics,” Dzicek said. “Imagine walking into a shop that would be in the world of Harry Potter, and there's just racks that go to the ceiling with everything that you can think of … military and airplane supplies to electronics … vintage microphones and knife switches.”

In addition to various knobs that he repurposed for the show, Dzicek also found an FM signal generator from the ‘80s, which served as a model for a decibel-reading device used by the character Steve Harrington, as seen in the teaser trailer:

Dzicek isn’t the only special effects designer who’s walked the halls of Apex Surplus. The shop’s co-owner, Adam Isaacs, estimates their credits span 5,000 different productions, including sci-fi classics like Back to the Future, Mad Max, Star Wars, Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

A hallway at Apex Surplus.

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So how did a nearly 70-year-old recycling business become a go-to destination for Hollywood designers?

The origins: A Holocaust survivor meets the SoCal aerospace industry 

Apex Surplus is a third-generation family-owned business, first opened in 1958 by husband and wife Bill and Charlotte Slater.

Bill Slater was a Holocaust survivor who fled Austria in the 1940s and served in the U.S. army during World War II. After the war, he moved to Southern California, which was at the height of the aerospace industry boom.

With the space race raging, aerospace companies like Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Bendix Company were building at a rapid rate, with lots of materials left over. Slater decided to leverage his military connections and open an aerospace liquidation business and surplus front.

Bill Slater standing in Apex Surplus in the 1960s.

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“ My grandpa would drive around with a semi-truck in the ‘60s and ‘70s and essentially recycle all of their old scrap metal,” according to Isaacs, who said subsidiaries of the aerospace hub in San Fernando Valley would then come to Apex to shop for secondary parts.

As Apex’s inventory grew in the 1960s, Isaacs said the business expanded and started catching the eye of set decorators and production designers in the TV and film industry.

Apex today: From oddball artist haven to film prop shop

After Bill and Charlotte Slater’s death, Apex was passed down to their children, Melissa and Don Slater.

Melissa now co-owns Apex Surplus with her son, Adam Isaacs, who said customers today range from folks outside the film industry, like electricians, plumbers, sculptors and artists, to set and production designers who work on films — anyone with a practical, aesthetic or historical interest in vintage or obsolete electronics.

Outdoor yard of Apex Surplus.

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Isaacs said, at heart, Apex still is a scrap metal, electronics and aerospace recycling and surplus business, though its also has embraced its role as a film prop and rental house.

More recently, its products have been featured in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 13 Reasons Why, A.P. Bio and Avatar. 

“Our close proximity to Hollywood has allowed us to open up this prop division and work with a lot of talented people,” Isaacs said. “There's so much creativity and artistry being produced in L.A. … We're very fortunate that we were able to reinvent ourselves as a production hub.”

Check out LAist host Julia Paskin's interview with Stranger Things special effects designer Shane Dzicek here:

Fall in Southern California can bring on warm feelings about holidays, pumpkin spice or — for fans of Big Bear’s famous bald eagles — nesting season.

Jackie and Shadow, the feathered couple that star in a popular YouTube livestream focused on their nest overlooking Big Bear Lake, are preparing to potentially welcome new eggs — and chicks — in the coming months.

Jackie usually lays eggs in January. She laid three eggs in each of the past two seasons. But the eggs could come as late as March, as seen in 2019, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that manages the livestream.

Sandy Steers, executive director of the organization, encouraged eager viewers not to have expectations from nature — Jackie and Shadow know when the time is right, she said.

“Every year is different,” Steers told LAist. “You just have to watch and see what they choose.”

Preparing for new life in the nest

The nest is a bit of a mess lately, Steers said, but the bald eagle duo has been fixing it up to mark the beginning of nesting season.

Jackie and Shadow have been bringing in fresh sticks to furnish the nest, which is about 5.5 feet wide and 6 feet deep toward the top of a Jeffrey pine tree. Friends of Big Bear Valley called it the couples' "nestorations."

The eagles even broke their daily stick record last Saturday, stopping by with at least 28 sticks (Jackie with 15, Shadow with 13), according to Friends of Big Bear Valley records.

The previous single-day record was 25. There may have been more last Saturday, but eagle watchers aren't sure because the livestream cameras, which are usually on around the clock, were on for only about four hours.

Recent livestream interruptions

The pair of wildlife cameras run off a 24-volt solar system that recharges during the day, but recent stretches of heavy cloud cover and snowy solar panels have caused issues and intermittent outages.

“The batteries got completely run down,” Steers said. “So as soon as they would click back on, it wouldn't take very long before they ran down again.”

Friends of Big Bear Valley has been taking both cameras offline overnight to conserve power, but the organization is hopeful a few sunny days in the forecast will get the batteries, and livestreams, back up and running again normally.

What to expect in the coming months

Jackie and Shadow are expected to continue to bring sticks throughout nesting season before they start "flirting" with each other, as Steers calls it.

“They start … getting more interested in each other and bumping into each other in the nest,” she said. “Jackie is usually the one to flirt the most, and Shadow says, ‘I don't know if I'm ready for that yet.’”

The duo typically starts mating toward the end of the year on perch trees near the nest and away from the cameras (maybe the eagles want some privacy too?).

Then, the wait is on.

Jackie will start to show certain behaviors when an egg is incoming, including lingering on the nest longer, Steers said. She will have contractions before laying the first egg and potentially one or two more in the days after.

During the most recent season, Jackie laid the first egg Jan. 22, the second Jan. 25 and the third Jan. 28 as thousands of fans watched online. In 2024, she laid the first egg Jan. 25, the second Jan. 28 and the third Jan. 31.

Jackie and Shadow's three chicks during the hatching process in March 2025.

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Jackie and Shadow's three chicks on March 7, 2025. One of the chicks later died, while Sunny and Gizmo successfully fledged a few months later.

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Each season is a bit different for Big Bear’s bald eagles, and Steers said there aren’t standard markers people can depend on for hints at the egg-laying timeline.

But Steers said she wouldn’t be surprised if eggs arrive a bit later than usual this upcoming season, partly because of the weather.

It was unseasonably hot in Big Bear Valley this fall compared to previous years, and Jackie and Shadow usually respond to cooler winter weather before they get serious about nesting season, according to the organization.

The past season also was the first time the couple successfully raised two bald eagle chicks instead of one. Sunny and Gizmo fledged — meaning flew away from the nest for the first time — earlier this year.

“I'm sure it was a lot more work than with just one,” Steers said. “So I think that had something to do with them needing a longer break.”

Expect a quintessential fall forecast for Thanksgiving. It's going to be mostly cloudy with similar temperatures to yesterday, just a few degrees cooler here and there. The breezy Santa Ana winds should die down by the afternoon.

Coastal communities will see temperatures in the mid-70s, up to 80 degrees for the inland coast and downtown L.A.

Daytime highs in the valleys will range from the mid-70s to the low 80s, with the warmest areas in the western San Fernando Valley reaching up to 82 degrees.

The Inland Empire and Coachella Valley will see similar temps between 75 to 80 degrees. Meanwhile in the Antelope Valley, cooler weather will continue with highs from 58 to 65 degrees.