The Brief

If the history of the American West is one of reinvention, then one of its prime canvasses is the California desert.

People have been drawn since time immemorial to that vast emptiness of harsh elements and healing quietude to make something out of nothing, by hook or by crook, where the line between delusion and oasis is always thin.

In a nutshell, that is the story of Scotty's Castle, a Spanish revival villa that started construction in Death Valley in the 1920s and was built on a bold-faced scam. The mansion has been largely closed to the public since 2015 after damage from a historic storm. This weekend, the National Park Service is holding limited tours of the site through March.

The conman: Death Valley Scotty

The Scotty's Castle compound — with a main house, an annex, a hacienda, an unfinished pool and more — is called Death Valley Ranch, but as it's often the case, it's the nickname that tells the fuller story.

"It was kind of always called 'Scotty's Castle,'" said David Blacker, executive director of the Death Valley Natural History Association.

Walter Scott, also known as "Death Valley Scotty".

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Courtesy National Park Service

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The "Scotty" in question is Walter Scott, a performer in Old West shows who had worked with none other than Buffalo Bill Cody himself, according to Abby Wines, a spokesperson for Death Valley National Park.

"He was an amazing storyteller, a great entertainer," Wines said of Scott.

Scott eventually landed in the desert after he stopped performing. One day, Blacker said Scott rode into L.A. with a bag of gold.

"He said that he had found a mine out in Death Valley and that he was, you know, going to be rich," Blacker said.

Blacker said Death Valley Scotty, a nickname he'd come to be known by, proceeded to spend that money freely and loudly.

He followed that up with a bigger publicity stunt — by chartering a train from L.A. to Chicago around 1905 and breaking the train speed record. The feat, as intended, launched him into the national spotlight.

The cover of a booklet released by Santa Fe Railway to commemorate the record-breaking train ride commissioned by Walter Scott in 1905.

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Courtesy National Park Service

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"So when he finally arrived in Chicago.... Everybody knew that Walter Scott had this rich mine in Death Valley, and he was coming to Chicago to look for investors," he said.

One of them he hooked was an insurance magnate by the name of Albert Mussey Johnson.

Albert Johnson the millionaire

Johnson was a religious man who made his millions in insurance, but always had an interest in prospecting.

Johnson decided to grubstake the desert mining operation from Chicago.

Albert Mussey Johnson, the Chicago insurance millionaire behind Scotty's Castle in Death Valley.

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Courtesy National Parks Service

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But, "he didn't hear anything from [Scott]," Blacker said. "And he started writing him letters saying, 'Hey, Walter, how come I'm not hearing anything? What's going on?'"

When Scott finally wrote back, it was always to solicit more funds.

"He'd send a telegram and say, 'A heat wave killed my mules, send more coin. Or a flash flood washed away the mine headframe, send more money,'" said Wines from NPS.

Finally, Johnson got fed up and made the trek to Death Valley, solo. "There's nowhere for Scotty to hide," Blacker said.

Essentially, that's when the jig was up, but not before Scott staged a failed attempt to cover up his lies.

"So Scotty roped in a couple of his brothers and a couple friends and had them agree to pretend to rob them or to pretend to attack them," Wines said.

Shots were fired at the group, and unintentionally hit Scott's brother.

"Scotty sees this, and he jumps up, and he starts waving his arms, and he says, 'Stop shooting you fools, you've hit Warner,'" Blacker said.

At that point, it was clear to Johnson that he'd been had.

"He also knows that he's probably not had more fun, you know, than any time he could think of, and he's out here in the West," Blacker said.

Scotty's Castle in Death Valley.

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Bob Greenburg

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Courtesy National Park Service

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Scotty's Castle in 1931.

Construction of Scotty's Castle

Johnson fell in love with Death Valley — especially the dry heat. In his 20s, Johnson was involved in a severe train accident that left him with a badly injured back. The desert weather felt just right.

Bessie Johnson, wife of Albert Johnson.

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Courtesy National Park Service.

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Soon, he brought his wife to the California desert. Raised in Walnut Creek, Bessie Johnson was one of 150 students who started at Stanford in 1892. Two years later, she transferred to Cornell, where she met and fell in love with Albert.

Bessie took one look at the barren landscape and told her husband, "Albert, if I'm going to come out here, you're going to have to build me a proper house," Blacker said.

Thus began the construction of Scotty's Castle over some 300 acres of land in the 1920s. The main house was complete, but many outside features were not.

That's partly because Albert, an engineer by training, kept having innovative ideas for the compound, like a solar water heater and walking-size tunnels that connected the different buildings.

"The castle was like a big box of Legos for him," Wines said.

Tunnels being put in to connect various buildings at the Scotty's Castle compound.

Construction of the swimming pool next to Scott's Castle. That project was never finished.

Another reason for the delay was the land where the castle sat actually belonged to the federal government, instead of the original plot of about 1,500 acres Johnson bought. Construction was paused until an act of Congress granted a land swap. That took well into the Great Depression in the 1930s. By then, Johnson's fortunes had dwindled.

Albert Johnson and Walter Scott

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Courtesy National Park Service

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But Wines said even into the 30s, the Johnsons would invite guests to the castle. Sometimes, they'd send workers down in the tunnels to make a ruckus.

"They'd be walking around the grounds in between buildings and hear this noise under their feet and think that it was people mining gold," Wines said. "So they would literally pull the wool over the public's eyes."

That chapter in the long history of the castle came to a sort of an end when Bessie Johnson died in 1943. With her death, Blacker said, the impetus to finish the castle was also gone. Albert died in 1948. Seven years later, so did Scott.

Bessie Johnson, Walter Scott, and Albert Johnson in the main house of Scotty's Castle.

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Courtesy National Park Service

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"When you look at the three of them, you're really seeing three people that were born one way, and they decided to come West and be what they wanted to be instead," Blacker said.

With Albert, he left his life as an insurance man to be an engineer and live a Western adventure. For Bessie, she came out West to do things that women back East weren't normally allowed to do.

With Scott, Black continued, "he got to come West and live the cowboy life and it made him famous."

Flood damage in 2015

The National Park Service acquired the property in 1970, turning it into popular tourist attraction that drew tens of thousands of visitors each year.

But in October 2015, a storm brought close to 3 inches of rain — around a year's worth of precipitation — to Scotty's Castle in mere hours.

At the time, Wines had been managing the tours for nearly a decade. She said the rain triggered a flash flood of mud into some of the buildings. But the main house was largely unharmed.

A flash flood in 2015 washed feet of mud into the Scotty's Castle compound.

Articulated concrete blocks have been installed at the formal entry of Scotty's Castle to prevent undercutting by future floods.

Wines was able to survey the damage a few days after the storm. She went into her office, wearing wader boots and trudging through mud.

"I got to my desk and the mud was to within a few inches of the bottom of my chair seat. And everything from that level was untouched and everything below was devastated. And I remember just sitting on my chair and crying," Wines said.

Recovery efforts have been ongoing ever since, at a cost of roughly $66 million.

How to join this year's tours

The National Park Service is now conducting limited guided tours at the site to continue to raise funds for recovery through March.

Here are the details:

Scotty’s Castle Flood Recovery Walking Tours
Tours Dates: Select Sundays, Jan. 4 through March 29
Price: $35 per person, plus a processing fee. Tickets must be purchased at least 48 hours in advance.
Info: For tour dates, details and ticket sales, go here

William Contreras hit a tying homer in the fifth and singled home the go-ahead run an inning later as the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-4 on Monday in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series.

Four relievers combined to retire the last 15 Dodgers batters in order as the Brewers took a 2-0 lead over the two-time defending World Series champions in this best-of-seven series, which heads to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Wednesday.

The Brewers are chasing their second pennant and first in the NL. They made their lone World Series appearance in 1982, when they were in the American League.

Los Angeles is trying to become the first NL team to win three straight World Series. The Dodgers last rallied from a 2-0 deficit to win a series in 2020, when they beat the Atlanta Braves in a seven-game NLCS before going on to win the World Series.

The Dodgers will need more punch from their lineup to have a chance at getting back to the Fall Classic. They mustered just three hits Monday and went 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position to drop to 2 for 26 in those situations this postseason.

Los Angeles couldn’t even get a boost from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who entered 8-1 with a 2.14 ERA in 11 career playoff appearances. Yamamoto lasted just 2 2/3 innings for his shortest postseason start.

The Dodgers took the lead on three occasions in the first five innings. Milwaukee responded each time, the last coming when Contreras tied the game with a 436-foot homer to center off Kris Bubic in the fifth.

That turned the game into a battle of the bullpens, where the Brewers again had the edge.

Dustin May, JoJo Romero, Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby combined to shut down the Dodgers after Logan Henderson’s early exit.

The score was tied 4-all when Milwaukee’s David Hamilton was hit by a pitch from Brock Stewart to lead off the sixth. Stewart attempted a pickoff throw that went off the glove of first baseman Freddie Freeman and into foul territory for an error, advancing Hamilton to second.

After Jackson Chourio grounded out, the right-handed Stewart walked the left-handed-hitting Brice Turang to face the right-handed Contreras, who had homered in his previous plate appearance.

Contreras singled to left this time to bring home Hamilton with the go-ahead run.

Turang and Jake Bauers added RBI singles in the eighth to extend Milwaukee’s lead.

Neither starter lasts long

The anticipated pitchers’ duel between Yamamoto and Henderson didn’t work out according to plan.

In three previous playoff starts following Dodgers losses, Yamamoto had gone 3-0 with a 1.23 ERA. When he faced the Brewers in last year’s NLCS, he threw the first playoff complete game since Justin Verlander did it in 2017.

This time, Yamamoto couldn’t even make it out of the third inning before leaving with the Dodgers behind 3-2.

Henderson entered Monday having not allowed more than three runs in any of his 24 career starts (including the postseason). That streak ended when he allowed four runs over four innings.

Because Henderson committed two errors — matching his previous career total — only two of the runs were earned.

Milwaukee trailed 2-1 in the third when Bauers capped a 12-pitch plate appearance by taking a 3-2 offering in the dirt to load the bases with a walk. Christian Yelich followed by lining a single up the middle that brought home two runs and knocked Yamamoto out of the game.

Los Angeles bailed out Yamamoto by scoring twice in the fifth.

After Kyle Tucker hit a leadoff double, Tommy Edman sacrificed him to third. Henderson fielded the bunt and made a wild throw to first, enabling Tucker to score and moving Edman to second.

Edman advanced to third when Mookie Betts grounded out, and scored on Freeman’s sacrifice fly.

Henderson also had made a wild throw to first on a pickoff attempt in the third inning that allowed Edman to score from third.

Up next

Robert Gasser (5-5, 3.87 ERA) is expected to start for Milwaukee in Game 3. Gasser allowed one run over five innings when the Brewers won 3-1 at San Diego to clinch their NL Division Series.

The Dodgers hadn’t announced their Game 3 starting pitcher.

Actor and disability rights advocate RJ Mitte, who brought a lifetime of experience with cerebral palsy to fictional family struggles in an essential role on “Breaking Bad,” died Monday at age 34, authorities and his representatives said.

Cameron County Justice of the Peace Cyndi Hinojosa told The Associated Press she declared Mitte dead at about 1:30 p.m. at what she believed was his home in Brownsville, Texas. She said she was unable to provide a cause, but an autopsy will be performed.

Mitte played Walter White Jr., the son of Bryan Cranston’s chemistry teacher-turned-meth dealer Walter White on nearly every episode of the five seasons of the AMC show, which recently ranked as the best of the 21st century in a New York Times poll.

Diagnosed at age 3, Mitte told the AP in 2014 that his disability and the surrounding struggles with physical therapy, family problems and exorbitant medical bills — all key subjects on the show — made him better at his job.“You develop a different mentality and you develop a different look at how the world sees you and how you see the world,” he said. “You’re able to use that. And I think it’s an asset instead of something that would hinder.”

Mitte was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi.

He landed small guest roles on sitcoms after moving to Los Angeles to act in 2006. Like his character, he was in his mid-teens when he began his work on “Breaking Bad,” starting in 2007. The show ran from 2008 to 2013.

“Mitte brought authenticity to the role and built a platform on disability awareness and inclusion,” the actor’s representatives said in a statement announcing his death. The statement said he used “his platform to challenge stereotypes and promote greater representation.”

His later credits included the ABC Family series “Switched at Birth” and the superhero satire series “Guardians of Justice.”

He was also a producer of several independent films.

As an advocate, he served as an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and Shriners Children’s. He was also president of his own Mitte Foundation supporting philanthropic and community initiatives around disabilities.

The drumbeat of monster hurricanes in the Pacific has broken a record for nasty long-lasting storms east of the international date line, turbocharged by nature’s supersized El Niño, scientists said.

“Since September 20th, when Odalys formed, it’s been berserk,” said Colorado State University researcher Phil Klotzbach, who forecasts and studies storm activity. “This year just everything that forms is just lasting a long time and getting really powerful.”

One of the key measurements meteorologists use to judge hurricane seasons is called accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, which includes a storm’s wind speed and longevity. On Sunday, a section of the Pacific east of the date line, which brews storms headed for Hawaii, Mexico and the U.S. West Coast, passed the old mark set in 2018. The area is still going strong with Hurricane Simon and appears on the verge of spawning another one that will really ramp up in strength, Klotzbach said.

On Tuesday, the Pacific will tie a record for most days with a hurricane spinning and is likely to break it soon after that, Klotzbach said.

“It feels like almost everything that can spin up does spin up,” said University of Arizona atmospheric scientist Kim Wood.

El Niño and warm water are boosting Pacific hurricanes

Several meteorological factors have come together to supercharge the Pacific, chief among them the El Niño, Klotzbach and other hurricane researchers said. An El Niño weakens and shifts the high altitude vertical winds that otherwise can dampen or even decapitate storms. In the Pacific, that wind shear runs east to west, generally with the direction storms travel, so it’s like riding a bicycle with a tail wind, Klotzbach said.

Meanwhile, the weather pattern has dampened hurricanes in the Atlantic, where the ACE is less than 18% of what’s normal for this time of year. El Niño makes the wind shear in the Atlantic like riding into a headwind, he said.

Another factor is warm water, which serves as hurricane fuel. By definition El Niño is a warming of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather worldwide. In the Pacific storm basin, it’s several degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, said Kristen Corbosiero, a professor of storm atmospheric sciences at the University at Albany in New York.

Usually in the Pacific, the extra warm storm-friendly water doesn’t run as deep as it does in the Atlantic. So when one storm goes over a patch of water, it brings up cold water and makes it hard for a subsequent storm in the same area to stay alive, Wood said. But not this year.

Hurricane Rachel, whose remnants swamped Las Vegas over the weekend, didn’t suffer as it went over, churned up by Category 5 Hurricane Polo, Wood said. She said the waters are warm from both El Niño and climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

Another factor in recent storms was a counterclockwise atmosphere spin over Central America — called a gyre — that spits out seeds of stormy weather that can form into hurricanes. It spit out both the Atlantic’s Isaias and the Pacific’s Simon at about the same time, Corbosiero and Klotzbach said.

Five major hurricanes in a row

The last five Pacific hurricanes — long-lasting Nolo, Odalys, Polo, Rachel and Simon — have all reached major status with winds of at least 111 mph (178.6 kph). Nolo, Odalys and Simon hit Category 4, while Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 at two-and-a-half days.

When Klotzbach made those calculations on the record-breaking activity of the eastern and central Pacific, he looked at all storms east of the date line.

That’s a slightly different approach from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which breaks that broad area into two regions. Neither NOAA-defined region is quite at record levels for ACE yet; put together they are.

Part of that is because often when one of those subregions is more active, the other isn’t quite as crazy, but in 2026 they both are hyperactive, Wood said.≠

“This is the first year that both sides have been this active together,” Wood said. “Usually it’s kind of focused more on one or the other, so that speaks to just the wide extent across this region of where there’s been that lower shear, those warmer waters, and that higher moisture.”

Off the Mexican coast is a disturbance that the National Hurricane Center gives a 90% chance of becoming Tropical Storm Trudy, which then could power up to something big, Klotzbach and Corbosiero said.

“It seems like that area is just one after another. So I would not be surprised to have another storm,” Corbosiero said. “This year, because of the El Niño, we do have very favorable conditions. So as long as there’s some sort of the seeds either from the gyre or from remnant ends of cold fronts, it seems like this is going to continue for a bit.”

California students enrolled in public colleges and universities are now eligible to apply for CalFresh, the state’s food benefits program, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday.

Students enrolled in a degree program at a California Community College, California State University or the University of California may be eligible for up to $300 a month to spend on food at grocery stores and farmers markets.

“We can’t expect students to learn if they’re hungry, and in California, there is no reason for them to be, whether they’re in kindergarten, high school, or college,” Newsom said in a Friday statement. “You shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get the food benefits you’re entitled to, and now you don’t have to.”

Those who are enrolled in an associate or bachelor’s degree program, at least half time, can apply here. Newsom said that the state expects more than 200,000 additional students to enroll in CalFresh after program expansion.

“This is what government is supposed to do: help the people we serve. It is my hope that these changes will continue to make it easier for students to access CalFresh, the largest anti-hunger program in the country,” California Department of Social Services Director Jennifer Troia said in a Friday statement.