- "Million-Gallon Mike" Soubirous, the Riverside city councilman highlighted in a Center for Investigative Reporting story on conservation-promoting local officials who are also egregious water hogs, is pledging to change his ways. (NBC Los Angeles)
- California residents appear to be taking the drought to heart, cutting water consumption by 11.5 percent in August compared to August 2013. Cities with tough conservation rules are seeing the greatest savings, including Pleasanton (33.4 percent reduction) and Livermore (33.2). (San Jose Mercury News)
- The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approves an ordinance setting conditions for Airbnb hosts in the city. (San Francisco Chronicle).
- Bloomberg/BusinessWeek's take on the new ordinance: Airbnb got off easy in San Francisco. Hosts? Not so much.
- W.E. Moerner of Stanford shares the Nobel Prize in chemistry with two others for advances in microscopy that allow the study of individual molecules in living cells. (San Jose Mercury News)
- Thomas Eric Duncan has died, the first Ebola fatality recorded in the United States (New York Times).
- The circumstances surrounding Duncan's case -- he was a visitor from Liberia whose infection went undetected until eight days after he arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport -- have prompted federal officials to order Ebola screening for passengers arriving from West Africa at five airports.
- Google's Street View has unveiled virtual visits to 14 California state parks (KQED Science). If you think that's impressive, listen up: Google also strapped a Street View camera to a camel's hump for a tour of the Liwa Desert in the United Arab Emirates (Slate).
- Large wild things: always awesome. Example: a first-in-the-area sighting of pods of sperm whales, which were goofing off with dolphins and such like, near the Orange County town of Newport Beach. (Orange County Register)
- More wild things: San Jose man checks alarm from his home surveillance camera, discovers mountain lion standing on his car. (ABC7-KGO)
- Washington state's second-largest school district is phasing out swings from its playgrounds. They're too dangerous, district officials say. (Spokane Spokesman-Review)
- Obituary: Michael A. Harris, 92, the driving force behind California's Ralph M. Brown Act, the state's anti-secrecy law. (Marin Independent Journal)
The Reading List: Airbnb, Sperm Whale and Mountain Lion Edition
Frame of home-security video showing mountain lion on San Jose resident's car. (ABC7-KGO)
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