As Fires Rage On, California Residents and Students Wonder If This Is the New Normal

For the past two years, fire season in California has brought some of the deadliest and most destructive blazes to the state. Now, multiple wildfires rage on, like the Kincade fire in Northern California and the Getty fire in the Los Angeles area, among others. These blazes have burned through over 94,000 acres of land so far, and residents are concerned that the worst is yet to come.

There are a few factors that contribute to the increasingly regular wildfires in California:

1) Climate Enables - Around this time, the state experiences very dry weather, and with little rainfall or humidity, the dry brush is primed to burn.

2) People Ignite - A lot of blazes have been ignited by faulty electrical equipment from Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s largest utility service.

3) Winds Spread - Researchers found that fires that occur from October through April are usually spread by seasonal Santa Ana winds.

Some experts indicate that climate change and industrialization are impacting the size and frequency of fires not only in California, but around the world. The California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection agrees, citing climate change as a factor for fire season starting earlier and ending later each year.

About 180,000 people have evacuated impacted areas so far, including local college students. Students in the state are still recovering from the devastation of past fires, which left some homeless, dislocated, and traumatized.

Take Action: Share this young survivor’s story and encourage friends to donate to the California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Relief Fund.

After Months of Criticism, TikTok’s Alleged Censorship of Hong Kong Protests Is Put to the Test

TikTok has been under a lot of scrutiny lately. Two lawmakers wrote a joint letter to the Director of National Intelligence calling for a security assessment of TikTok, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently slammed the app for allegedly censoring posts about the Hong Kong pro-Democracy protests. The source of this distrust seems to be TikTok’s ownership, a tech company based in Beijing called Bytedance.

Buzzfeed News tested this by posting about the Hong Kong protests on the app and reaching out to other users who did the same. After 11 weeks, the posts remained, though their engagement was relatively low. Their verdict? Maybe people on TikTok just aren’t that interested ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

So TikTok may not be censoring these posts, but the Chinese government has been cracking down on mentions of the protests on other platforms -- from banning certain YouTubers to pressuring major companies like the NBA, Apple, and Blizzard to self-censor.

The Hong Kong protests started in opposition to a controversial extradition bill, but it’s since evolved into a months-long movement for civil liberties in Hong Kong.

#TeamTrees: MrBeast Teams Up with Over 600 YouTubers to Plant 20 Million Trees by 2020

Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson is best known for his YouTube videos giving away huge sums of money (like the iconic, “Last YouTuber to Leave Wins $100,000”). As Donaldson approached 20 million subscribers, his fans rallied around an idea for his next big stunt: get MrBeast to plant 20 million trees. And...he’s doing it!

And he has some help! Hundreds of YouTubers, including the Try Guys, Mark Rober, Smarter Every Day, and more, are joining in an initiative to plant 20 million trees by 2020. They’re doing this primarily through donations to the Arbor Day Foundation -- $1 donated equals one tree planted. In just a few days, they’ve raised over $5.6 million through both small and large donations (some from prominent content creators like Ninja, Jeffree Star, and Lachlan).

Donaldson has acknowledged that #TeamTrees won’t singlehandedly end climate change, but his hope is that it’ll send a message that the platform (and the young people who support it) are serious about saving the earth and doing something about it.

Take Action: Help plant some trees! Donate to #TeamTrees if you can, and encourage others to. And check out these seven ways you can help the environment right now.

• An update on a past One Big Thing… 15-year-old Aela Mansmann won’t be suspended for posting a note warning others about a “rapist” in her school.

• Why aren’t more people talking about… how a 16-year-old cross country runner was disqualified from a race for wearing a hijab?

• Meanwhile, in Afghanistan… young designers are taking modern Afghan fashion global.

• My hero today is… Sarahi Espinoza Salamnca, who created an app to help undocumented students find college scholarships.

• Today in viral cuteness… these pets in Halloween costumes -- so cute, it’s scary!

• I’m obsessed with… the San Francisco 49ers new emotional support puppy, Zoë the French bulldog!! I just have one request: GIVE ZOE HER OWN JERSEY.

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