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Morning Briefing: Dear God, Not An Earthquake
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I don’t know about you, but given everything that has already happened in #2020, the thought of a major earthquake striking Los Angeles sends absolute chills down my spine. And yet… and yet…
Dozens of small quakes rocked the Salton Sea Monday morning, which is located just south of the San Andreas fault. Yes, that San Andreas fault, the one that, if it were to be triggered – by, say, dozens of small quakes – could result in The Big One.
The good news is that this has happened before in the same area, and it didn’t lead to catastrophe.
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"There's quite a long history of these fairly short-lived swarm episodes that are reasonably close to the San Andreas, and none of those have led to anything," Zachary Ross, a seismologist at Caltech, told KPCC’s Jacob Margolis.
And, as we all know, 2020 is the year in which we can safely rely on events to play out just as they always do.
Keep reading for more on what’s happening in L.A. today, and be careful out there.
Coming Up Today, August 11
When L.A. County issued guidelines for restaurants to reopen, they specifically forbade certain activities — including board games. If you run a board game cafe, asks LAist contributor Ben Mesirow, how do you survive?
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Claudia Cataldo is a 12th grade teacher at Santee Education Complex in South L.A. Since school shut down in mid-March, her students have been clamoring for books. So she began delivering directly to their homes, and that effort has grown into a free book distribution targeting readers of all ages. Mariana Dale will have the story.
L.A. County Sheriff's deputies were called on Aug. 7 by witnesses saying a homeless man was attacking people outside a Santa Clarita restaurant. The deputies showed up and trained their guns on three teens who had actually been the attack victims, then handcuffed and detained them. According to reports, two of the teens are Black. Robert Garrova is tracking the story.
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The Past 24 Hours In LA
Money Matters: The L.A. City Council budget committee approved a plan to forgive six months of rent for Olvera Street businesses. A California judge has ordered Uber and Lyft to treat their drivers as employees, arguing that the companies use "circular reasoning" by only treating their tech workers as such. President Trump's unemployment benefits plan would leave out some Californians, and the state doesn't have the money to kick in the 25% Trump is asking for.
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Pandemic Times: Long before coronavirus, many restaurants had complained that the "Big Four" food delivery apps — UberEats, Postmates, GrubHub and DoorDash (which owns Caviar) — charged too much in commissions and fees, and those complaints have grown louder and more intense in recent months. Gov. Newsom responded to questions about state Public Health Director Dr. Sonia Angell's sudden resignation, which came after problems with the state's COVID-19 reporting system resulted in a backlog of almost 300,000 data records.
It’s Hot And It’s Quake-y: You are not imagining the heat – temperatures in July were two degrees hotter than average statewide compared to the historical record. Another cluster of dozens of small earthquakes struck near the San Andreas fault, so we talked with seismologists about the likelihood of a Big One being triggered.
California Kids: The most significant changes to California’s charter school law since its passage in 1992 took effect before this school year, and already charter advocates are unhappy about how LAUSD is handling the changes.
Here’s What To Do: Watch wacky videos compiled from found footage, listen to risky storytelling, get crafty and drink crafty, and more in this week’s best events. Listen to this week’s episode of California City, in which host Emily Guerin confronts the owner of Silver Saddle and walks away doubting herself.
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Photo Of The Day
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Film programmer and Voyager Institute founder Bret Berg has launched a new online film showcase for found footage, including this image of Isabella Rossellini.
(Courtesy of the Museum of Home Video)
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