Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, September 17, 2025…
- In his first Senate oversight hearing since taking office, FBI Director Kash Patel called California Senator Adam Schiff, quote “a political buffoon.” Patel appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee days after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
- Santa Barbara Senator Monique Limón is set to become the leader of the California Senate this November, and a recent housing bill she authored is raising some eyebrows.
- California has been experiencing a record number of cases of Valley Fever, a fungal infection that’s caused by breathing in spores that live in the soil.
Adam Schiff and Kash Patel Get Into Heated Confrontation
During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff questioned FBI Director Kash Patel on the details related to the transfer of Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security prison. Patel began shouting during the exchange, saying that was not his job.
“What I am doing is protecting this country, providing historic leadership, and combating the weaponization of intelligence by the likes of you,” Patel said, adding that Schiff was “the biggest fraud to ever sit in the U.S. Senate” and an “utter coward.”
Schiff later described Patel as “an Internet troll.”
Carveout for Building Rules Appears to Target Single Project
The California Environmental Quality Act, also known as CEQA, which requires government agencies to review the environmental impact of any development, including new housing.
Many developers argue that the CEQA review process has turned into a tactic to block or delay new housing. That’s why it was a big deal this summer when state lawmakers approved a bill that would roll back CEQA requirements for a lot of urban housing developments.
A proposal that went to Governor Newsom over the weekend would keep these CEQA requirements in place on one tiny plot of land in Senator Monique Limón’s Santa Barbara district.
Senator Limón wrote the carve out. In a statement through her office, she denied that it’s targeting any one project, although she wasn’t able to point to any other projects that it would apply to.
Limón becomes the state Senate leader in November, and housing activists say the 11th-hour carve-out could be a bad sign for pro-development legislation.
Valley Fever Hits Salinas Valley Hard
As California experiences a record number of cases of Valley Fever cases, the Salinas Valley is seeing one of the largest spikes.
Clouds of dust rise up behind trucks and tractors in the fields and sweep across Highway 101 in the wind, creating the perfect conditions to spread spores of the fungus that causes Valley Fever. People who work outside, like farm and construction workers, are especially at risk.
Jessica Bader, though, doesn’t work outside. She and her husband Brian Bader live with their two children in Paso Robles, on the southern end of the Salinas Valley. Late last year, Jessica started feeling sick with symptoms similar to the flu or COVID-19, but she tested negative. Her doctor gave her antibiotics for pneumonia, but she kept getting worse.
Seven months pregnant on New Year’s Eve, she rushed to the emergency room. By the time she was diagnosed with Valley Fever, the infection had spread to her spinal cord and brain, a form of the illness called cocci meningitis. Bader survived, and she now takes a powerful anti-fungal every day to keep the disease at bay.
Most cases are so mild they don’t require any treatment at all. But anyone who inhales the spores can get a severe infection.
