In CA: California has the third-highest COVID deaths of any state, and what about chicken CPR?

Plus: Black Lives Matter becomes landscape art, a tribe helps fight the Apple Fire, runners break things and cities sue over cannabis deliveries.

Greetings from Palm Springs, where the only thing more intense than the endless sunshine is the almighty heat! I'm Winston Gieseke, and generally, it's my job to write about the nice and charitable things happening here in the Coachella Valley. But once a week, I like to leave my unremitting bubble of goodness, so let's take a look at some of the news across our beautiful Golden State on this August Friday.

  In California brings you the state's best stories and commentary, across the Paste BN Network and beyond. Sign up now for straight-to-your-inbox delivery. 

California has third-highest number of COVID deaths of any state

A depressing milestone.  California surpassed 10,000 deaths from the coronavirus, making it the U.S. state with the third-highest number of deaths. Both the state and Johns Hopkins University — a leading source tracking global coronavirus cases — said Friday that California had surpassed 10,000 cases. The university put the tally at 10,024 while the state said the toll was 10,011, and its confirmed case total was 538,416.

New York and New Jersey have the highest and second-highest number of deaths in the U.S. at more than 32,000 and nearly 16,000, respectively; both states have far fewer people than California. California, the country's most populous state, has 40 million people. 

Nearly half of California's deaths are in hard-hit Los Angeles County, where more than 4,800 of its 10 million residents have died. On Thursday, Los Angeles County passed 200,000 confirmed coronavirus cases. On Friday, Riverside County surpassed 40,000 cases. Neighboring San Bernardino County was closing in on 35,000 cases Friday.

Isn't chicken CPR a thing?

Not so fast with the smoked chicken jokes. A fire broke out Thursday in a Camarillo garage. After containing the fire, Ventura County firefighters had to use oxygen revive multiple chickens who had suffered injuries from smoke inhalation and heat.

Thankfully, the birds are expected to make a full recovery.

Now, let's mellow things out a bit …

Will cannabis deliveries go up in smoke?

Should dispensaries be able to deliver product to jurisdictions that have banned cannabis businesses? That's a question that hit the courts this week, Cannabis Wire reported. The county of Santa Cruz and California cities such as Agoura Hills, Beverly Hills, Palmdale, Tehachapi, Temecula and others are fighting for their right not to party.

This next story takes place across the border in Nevada, but it relates to an issue important to Americans in every state.

Turning BLM into an art piece

People have been showing their support for the Black Lives Matter movement by painting signs and streets and crosswalks. But this is something on an entirely different scale.  

Last month on the surface of Nevada's Black Rock Desert, someone used a vehicle to imprint the three words into the crust of the desert playa. It clearly took the use of a GPS and several back-and-forth trips to create the massive 4-mile-wide message, which is best seen from the air. (Some folks observing it from the ground level likened it to a mess of tire tracks.)

The other BLM — the Bureau of Land Management — was not exactly thrilled with the endeavor.  "It’s unfortunate it happened on the playa," said a spokeswoman for Nevada's Bureau of Land Management, "but mother nature will heal itself."

Feds investigate alleged Ponzi scheme in Marin County 

Dead men tell no tales, right? Unfortunately, they also don't tell you where they hid the money.

 More than 1,000 investors are scrambling to recover hundreds of millions of dollars from an alleged Ponzi scheme involving a man named Ken Casey, who died in May from a heart attack, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Casey's admirers celebrated him as a Republican donor, philanthropist and adventurer who amassed an enormous portfolio of office parks and apartment buildings in Marin and Sonoma counties.

But investors like Albany resident Robin Schild say they were stiffed. Schild says he invested $650K, even mortgaging his home to come up with more cash, to invest. Now, he says, all the businessman's investments have been frozen pending an investigation.

Morongo tribe fights Apple Fire

The Morongo Band of Mission Indians found the upper portion of its land singed by flames after more than 43 miles of remote land were charred by the Apple Fire.

At least 4,100 acres of remote, northern land on the tribe's reservation, which spans over 35,000 acres in total near Palm Springs, have burned so far, the Morongo Fire Department's chief said. 

As of Friday morning, more than 29,267 acres had been burned. But the tribe's 24-person fire department has risen to the occasion, and the reservation is being used as a staging area for equipment and crews from across the western United States. More than 2,600 firefighters are battling the blaze.

Let's wrap this up with a little good news, shall we?

Bay Area woman scales Mt. Shasta, sets a record ... sort of

I've always thought statistics are funny things. A few simple words can offer whole new vistas into facts.

Sarah Burke, a woman from Mill Valley, recently set the official time record — 2 hours and 55 minutes — for a woman scaling Mt. Shasta, a potentially active volcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, according to fastestknowntime.com (FKT).

The key word here is "official." What the statistic doesn't tell you is that before FKT began keeping online records of such feats, former Mt. Shasta climbing guide Laurie Bagley scaled that bad boy in 2 hours, 13 minutes.

However, both statistics are impressive, so can't we all just get along?

Let's break another record

In other fun running news, Tahoe City resident Adam Kimble beat a record for the fastest run along the Tahoe Rim Trail, a roughly 170-mile (that's 273 kilometers for all you non-Americans who smartly use the metric system) path that circumnavigates Lake Tahoe. He did it in 37 hours, 12 minutes and 15 seconds, almost an hour and a half faster than the previous record.

“Everything I do revolves around running,” Kimble told the Las Vegas Sun. “Training is a big part of my life. When COVID started, I told my wife, ‘we might come out of this more fit.’”

Or you might set a record. Both are impressive.

In California is a roundup of news from across Paste BN Network newsrooms. Also contributing: Cannabis Wire, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Las Vegas Sun.