Dan Brekke
@danbrekke.bsky.social
Transportation, history, transportation history, water, weather, water and weather, salmon and other interests of all sorts. Photography is pretty cool. Signal: danbrekke.95
🚨Exclusive Audio: A @bart.gov Train Operator Warned "Someone going to get Hurt if they don't get this Fixed" 🚆Trains are Surging and Slamming on the Brakes This is happening Repeatedly at SFO Airport Station Unedited Bart Central & TANGO audio September 22, 2026, 8:11 AM @danbrekke.bsky.social
Wrongfully detained, wrongfully arrested, wrongfully charged. And it’s not at all clear the #SFPD officers involved will face any consequences.
A Driver’s Fatal Spiral After a Police Officer’s Typo
Police thought they had caught a car thief in San Francisco. Instead, they had mistyped his license plate number, a watchdog agency said, then arrested him with excessive force.
nytimes.com
The potential combination of high waves, high sea levels, high tides, and high rainfall this winter could lead to "considerable coastal flooding, intrusion of salt water into the groundwater, and coastal erosion."
El Niño could bring highest sea levels ever recorded to the California coast
A strengthening El Niño could bring the highest sea levels ever recorded to the California coast this year, raising the risk of widespread and damaging flooding.
latimes.com
The Lives and Lies of 'Elias Vance,' an AI Hero for Our Times
The Lives and Lies of ‘Elias Vance,’ an AI Hero for Our Times
“Elias Vance,” a fictional Georgia high school history teacher created by artificial intelligence. (Why is he walking toward the wall instead of the door?) A while ago, a friend reposte…
infospigot.com
Republicans can’t stop talking about a California dog who voted. Here’s what really happened
Republicans can’t stop talking about a California dog who voted. Here’s what really happened
Republicans’ fixation on the dog voter — and the voter ID measure they say it justifies — echoes President Donald Trump’s claims about the need for stricter voting requirements.
sfchronicle.com
The hydration stations have been a World Cup highlight for me because they symbolize an in-reach public amenity win. And there’s an effort to install 2028 permanent hydration stations in LA city by 2028
Hydration break
This is my ode to public H₂O
torched.la
UC Berkeley Law School Professor John Yoo assisting Trump administration investigation into whether federal officials conspired against Trump after 2016 election. #ucberkeleylaw #ucberkeley
Professor known for 'torture memos' will advise conspiracy probe focused on perceived Trump foes
John Yoo, a conservative law professor known for his views on presidential power, confirms he will advise a team investigating whether officials conspired against Donald Trump
latimes.com
In addition to being an amazing human being, former President Jimmy Carter was able in 1976 to see & speak to the future. Read this & know he’s talking about us right now. And we don’t have to be this way. This fake tough garbage. It’s weakness bragging how strong it is.
Excellent piece marking the 150th anniversary of the Little Bighorn fight.
For Heirs of Custer and Sitting Bull, a 150-Year-Old Battle Is Personal
nytimes.com
BART 🚆Train Dispatch Audio: A Blown insulator near 24th St. BART Station Caused a Major Delay in Service @bart.gov workers replaced 9 insulators near 24th St. June 13, 2026, 7:07 PM @danbrekke.bsky.social youtu.be/Wn0RViB_Xwo
Audio Blown Insulator near 24th St Station Caused Major Delay in Service BART Replaced 9 insulators
YouTube video by Bart Fare Evaders
youtu.be
'The project is a “wipeout of nature,” said Joni Vorpsi, a protester and member of the Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania. Taulant Bino of the Albanian Ornithological Society said the area is “extremely important” for migratory species.'
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s Albanian resort plan sets off days of protests
The protests, raising concerns about conservation, transparency and the project’s ties to the Trump family, began Sunday in the Albanian capital, Tirana.
wapo.st
BART chief demands to know: 'Why is our new regional fare payment system so janky?' via @kqednews.kqed.org
‘Zero Credibility’: Major Clipper Outage Caused by Cubic’s Failure to Pay AT&T Bill | KQED
A 27-hour Clipper outage last month brought down BART ticket vending machines and caused delays at fare gates.
kqed.org
"It's clear there is an ongoing fight to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, because these people know if they can successfully get people to forget about Jan. 6 — or worse yet, condone it — then they will be able to convince people to accept any attack on democracy."
Trump DOJ mass-deletes info on Jan. 6 riot cases, including violent assaults on cops
The Trump Department of Justice purged government news releases with information about prosecutions of rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol and assaulted law enforcement on Jan. 6, 2021.
npr.org
"They give birth astride of a grave. ..." #samuelbeckett #waitingforgodot
Guest Observation: Samuel Beckett
The Netflix business model is brilliant if all customers are like us. We got a DVD of several Samuel Beckett plays (part of an Irish-British TV project, “Beckett on Film”) about a month…
infospigot.com
"Enduring such a torturous, anesthesia-free root canal required staggering willpower. Yet the tooth shows continued wear after the drilling took place, meaning the patient survived and kept using the molar."
Neanderthal Dentistry, and the Scientist Glad Not to Have Experienced It
nytimes.com
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who exposed the reach of migrant child labor during the Biden administration weighs in on gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra’s role and responsibility in the crisis.
The Journalist Who Investigated the Migrant Child Crisis Weighs in on Becerra’s Record | KQED
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who exposed the reach of migrant child labor during the Biden administration weighs in on gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra’s role and responsibility in the ...
kqed.org
Oil industry contributions to Becerra played a big part in @thirdactorg.bsky.social's endorsement of Tom Steyer. In a recent LAT op-ed, @billmckibben.bsky.social also noted Becerra's failure as state attorney general to join attempts to hold the industry accountable for lying about climate change.
Sammy Roth@sammyroth.bsky.social · 4mo agoGuess which California governor candidate is now being backed by half a million dollars from the state's biggest oil driller? Hint: It's not Tom Steyer. Lots of news in today's CLIMATE-COLORED GOGGLES: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/oil-money-...
The Trump administration has granted more than 180 polluting facilities 2-year pause on compliance with Clean Air Act rules. The administration set up an email address through the EPA where companies simply had to send an email to make their request. Few requests appear to have been denied.
Trump Exempted Some of the Nation’s Biggest Polluters From Air Quality Rules. All It Took Was an Email.
In an unprecedented move, the administration has granted industrial facilities in 38 states and Puerto Rico a two-year reprieve from federal rules under the Clean Air Act. The president is considering...
propublica.org
"California, Arizona and Nevada have offered to use about 1.6 million acre-feet less annually over the next two years. But the Trump administration’s plan would allow for mandatory cuts of up to 3 million acre-feet per year in the three states — as much as 40% of their combined allotments." #cawater
Trump administration readying a plan to impose Colorado River water cuts on Western states
The White House has told Western states it's working on a 10-year plan for the overtapped Colorado River that will allow for reassessing cutbacks every two years.
latimes.com
Alone on the Mother Road in the dead of winter ...
The Hitchhiker: Late Night, Amarillo, 1974
Foggy Interstate 40 on the western outskirts of Amarillo, November 2025. Kate and I stopped overnight in Amarillo, on the plains of the Texas Panhandle, a few nights before Thanksgiving last fall. …
infospigot.com
Crossroads, Texas, north of Dallas, the Sunday after Thanksgiving 2025. I only took the picture to send to friends in California, where we pay a lot more than Lone Star drivers do. Gas Buddy shows the price at the same station today is $3.99/gal. It's fascinating what a little war will do.
Valley Link was supposed to ease brutal commutes across Altamont Pass. Eight years after it was announced, plan has been cut in half and projected costs have doubled. And it's still years away from breaking ground. #sfbayarea #transit
Valley Link was supposed to ease brutal commutes. Now it’s smaller, pricier and still years away
Officials have secured about $800 million but still need billions more to build the first phase, leaving commuters with no clear timeline for relief.
mercurynews.com
I can hardly wait to take our new bullet train down to Los Angeles!
Passenger railroads see a sharp jump in ridership as gas prices climb
More Americans are turning to the train as gas prices reach their highest point since the war in Iran began. Brightline, the privately-run railroad in Florida, had its best month ever in March.
npr.org
'They call it stormy Monday, But Tuesday's just as bad. Lord and Wednesday's worse, and Thursday's oh so sad.' Friday, Saturday and Sunday are gnarly on the freeways, too. #transportation #transit
These are the Bay Area’s worst traffic spots. No. 1 is a brutal stretch of highway along I-880
A look at the Bay Area’s top 10 traffic choke points shows a recurring theme: traffic patterns from workers commuting south for jobs in tech or aerospace.
sfchronicle.com
And here's the full story (nearly undiscoverable on KQED's site) of the 1903 journey that may count as the United States' first cross-country road trip: www.kqed.org/liveblog/bay...
KQEDNews on Instagram: "George A. Wyman was a Hayward native, born in 1877, who at the age of 26 made what is said to have been the first trip across the United States via motorized vehicle — in his c...
2,476 likes, 20 comments - kqednews on March 26, 2026: "George A. Wyman was a Hayward native, born in 1877, who at the age of 26 made what is said to have been the first trip across the United States ...
instagram.com
After audio of two pilots communicating in cat speak was shared widely online, the FAA said that it was investigating the interaction, and that pilots were banned from “nonessential communication” below a certain altitude.
Pilots Went Viral for Meowing on the Radio. The F.A.A. Was Not Amused.
nytimes.com
"There is no widely available public tool comparable to the Wayback Machine, and if it continues to lose access to major news sources, its preservation efforts could erode to the point where early digital records of history become much harder to access, or are even lost altogether. "
The Internet's Most Powerful Archiving Tool Is in Peril
As major news outlets cut off the Wayback Machine, journalists and advocacy groups are rallying to protect the Internet Archive’s vast collection of web pages.
wired.com
Join me for a live virtual office hour on Tue Mar 10 at 3pm PT to discuss potential for a genuinely extreme, and potentially even historic, March heatwave in American Southwest (including CA) later this month. I'll talk dynamics, impacts & implications.
Early signs of historic March heatwave for the Southwestern U.S.? (Not what we need...) - YouTube
The latest in a recurring series of live, virtual, & interactive #weather and #climate-focused "office hours" hosted by Dr. Daniel Swain. 3/9/2026 topic: I'l...
youtube.com
Alexander Butterfield, who disclosed the existence of Nixon’s secret White House taping system, blowing the cover on the Watergate conspiracy and sealing the fate of the only American president to resign from office, dies at 99. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...
Alexander Butterfield, Who Revealed Nixon Tapes in Watergate Scandal, Dies at 99
nytimes.com
