California Today: New Data Shows Major Electrical Disruption Ahead of Eaton Fire

Today's top stories from California.

January 30, 2025, 9:31 a.m. Eastern time By Soumya Karlamangla It would be lovely, we thought, to get married in the suburb of Los Angeles where I grew up. My childhood home in Thousand Oaks could help host guests. We could collect the fragrant jasmine that blooms in the backyard each summer. My fiancé's family, who aren't from California, could experience the things he and I treasure about living here: the ever-pleasant weather, the stunning ocean vistas, the proximity to nature. But in all our planning, we seem to have forgotten a quintessential California reality: Beauty comes with risk. In November, about seven months before our wedding date, a fast-moving fire threatened to burn down our venue, until the winds blessedly began to blow in the opposite direction. This month, the devastating Palisades fire leveled cliffside homes in Malibu, including a tile-roofed cottage with turquoise trim and a balcony with the best view of the Pacific Ocean I have ever seen. That home, owned by a close family friend, was where my fiancé and I had planned to spend our wedding night. I feel silly talking about my upcoming wedding when thousands of people have lost their houses, and nearly all the things inside that made them homes. But I am struck by my own blindness, despite years of living in — and reporting on — life and tragedy in California. I had believed I could plan my way out of any heat waves, fires, mudslides or atmospheric rivers. In other words, I knew natural disaster could strike California, but I did not believe that it could strike me. The shocking scale and reach of this month's fires has forced me to accept the latter fact. I'm still grappling with how this new understanding will change my life here, as I'm sure I will be for a long time. I feel like a child who's just realized that her parents are people, too, as imperfect as anyone else. My home, California, is a place like any other, perhaps more imperfect than anywhere else. Today's Top Story The New York Times New Data Shows Major Electrical Disruption Ahead of Eaton Fire A private lab found evidence of two massive electrical faults in the Eaton Canyon area just before a fire erupted there and spread through much of Altadena, Calif. Read more More California News With Tampons and Code, Silicon Valley Workers Quietly Protest Tech's Rightward Shift As Mark Zuckerberg and other tech titans have embraced President Trump and muffled internal dissent at their companies, their mostly left-leaning employees have objected with subtle acts of defiance. They Invested Billions. Then the A.I. Script Got Flipped. Venture capitalists plowed money into A.I. start-ups like OpenAI and Anthropic. But the rise of the Chinese A.I. start-up DeepSeek has called that funding frenzy into question. OpenAI Says DeepSeek May Have Improperly Harvested Its Data The San Francisco start-up claims that its Chinese rival may have used data generated by OpenAI technologies to build new systems. Audio | The Legal Battle Riveting Hollywood Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are locked in a dispute over what happened as they made and promoted "It Ends with Us." 32 MIN LISTEN Looking Fire, and Fear, Square in the Eye Alyce McFadden, a reporting fellow on The Times's Metro desk, writes about what covering a disaster for the first time brought home to her. Iris Cummings Critchell, 104, Dies; Olympic Swimmer Turned Aviator The last survivor of the American team that competed in Hitler's 1936 Games in Berlin, she went on to become a wartime pilot and an aeronautics instructor. Local Conditions Look up the heat index in your area using The Times's heat tracker. See active fires using The Times's wildfire tracker. Today's Recipe Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. Pasta With Spicy Sausage, Broccoli Rabe and Chickpeas By Lidey Heuck 30 minutes Makes 4 to 6 servings Play a Game The Mini Crossword Solve this bite-sized puzzle in just a few minutes. Spelling Bee How many words can you make with 7 letters? Wordle Guess the 5-letter word with 6 chances. See all our games Sign up for Your Places: Extreme Weather. Get notified about extreme weather before it happens with custom alerts for places in the U.S. you choose. Get it in your inbox Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for California Today from The New York Times. To stop receiving California Today, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. To opt out of updates and offers sent from The Athletic, submit a request. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018