Today: Head vs. Heart in Nevada. North Korea Has the Bomb but Needs Our Biscuits.

Sept. 16, 2016 5 AM PT

I’m Davan Maharaj, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times. Here are some story lines I don’t want you to miss today.

TOP STORIES

Head vs. Heart in Nevada

The national polls put Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton close together. But if you win the battleground states, you’ll probably win the war for the White House. How to do it? Look no further than Nevada, where Clinton’s door-to-door, data-driven campaign is going up against Trump’s rogue appeal to angry and disaffected voters. Will the famed “silent majority” turn the Silver State from blue to red for the first time since 2004?

More Politics

-- Trump scaled back his plan for tax cuts while proposing more benefits for lower-income households, but experts say the numbers still don’t add up.

-- Back on the campaign trail, Clinton said she didn’t think her pneumonia diagnosis was worth “a big fuss.”

-- Trump refused, again, to answer the “birther” question.

North Korea Has the Bomb but Needs Our Biscuits

Just after launching three ballistic missiles and testing a nuclear weapon that created an international outcry last week, North Korea has had to turn to world humanitarian agencies for help. Deadly floods have devastated the country’s northeastern region, leaving people homeless, hungry and vulnerable to the approaching winter. More relief will be needed to avoid a repeat of the famine that struck after floods in 1995.

Raves, Corruption and a 15-Year-Old’s Death

Prosecutors called him an “inside man” for rave companies. For the right price, he allegedly argued to give the promoters rent discounts at the Coliseum and supplied them with inside information to help them stay at the L.A. venue after the overdose death of a 15-year-old girl. Now Todd DeStefano is heading to jail for six months after pleading no contest to one felony conflict-of-interest count. The deal comes after a judge rebuked the district attorney’s office for repeatedly mishandling evidence.

Angst in the Raisin Capital of the World

Earlier this week, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that will increase overtime pay for hundreds of thousands of California farmworkers. How is it playing in the fields outside Fresno? Laborers like Lourdes Cardenas, who lives paycheck to paycheck on roughly $25,000 a year, say it brings hope for a brighter future. But farmers like Matthew Efird, who employs 12 to 15 farmworkers full-time, say it’s just the latest hit to their bottom line as they deal with rules from more than a dozen state agencies.

The Countdown Clock Is On for SpaceX

SpaceX hopes to resume launches in November after the Sept. 1 explosion of its Falcon 9 rocket and a communications satellite on a launch pad in Florida. The Hawthorne-based company has a reason to hurry up: At least 10 rocket companies are fighting for satellite customers, and more are getting ready to blast off soon in a rapidly growing market.

CALIFORNIA

-- L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson has chosen himself to temporarily manage the San Fernando Valley district that had been represented by Felipe Fuentes.

-- UC officials are welcoming the university system’s most diverse class of new students ever.

-- The father and stepmother of former NASCAR driver Robby Gordon were found dead after a possible murder-suicide in Orange.

-- Frank Wyle, an aerospace innovator who co-founded the Craft and Folk Art Museum and established a 4,000-acre cattle ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, has died at 97.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

-- After a six-year absence, Renée Zellweger is back in the movies to take on “Bridget Jones’s Baby” and ready to deal with a world obsessed with how she looks.

-- Look for “Game of Thrones” and “Veep” to repeat as winners at the Emmy Awards on Sunday night.

-- How does the new film “Blair Witch” stack up against the original “The Blair Witch Project”?

-- Beyoncé brought the heat again with her Formation tour at Dodger Stadium.

NATION-WORLD

-- With the film “Snowden” opening in theaters, a House panel called the former NSA contractor a “serial exaggerator and fabricator.”

-- Arizona has announced an end to its practice of requiring police officers to demand the papers of people suspected of being in the country illegally.

-- Dallas has a stray dog problem: about 9,000 of them. At least four of them fatally attacked a woman.

-- A former Philippine militiaman testified that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was still a city mayor, ordered him and others to kill criminals and opponents in gangland-style assaults that left about 1,000 dead.

-- Better late than never: Scientists have discovered the amazing tool-wielding ability of nearly extinct Hawaiian crows.

BUSINESS

-- NBCUniversal is eliminating about 200 jobs at DreamWorks Animation; meanwhile, Disney has laid off about 250 people in its consumer products and interactive media unit.

-- David Lazarus: Thanks, Wells Fargo, for being such a bunch of weasels.

SPORTS

-- UCLA’s Gyo Shojima is believed to be the first Japanese-born player to appear in a major college football game.

-- Suspended USC linebacker Osa Masina was charged with rape and two counts of forcible sodomy in Utah, according to documents obtained by The Times.

OPINION

-- What crimes warrant the death penalty? It depends on the prosecutor.

-- Why does Snowden get more high-profile support than Chelsea Manning?

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

-- Don’t believe the media? Only 32% of Americans say they have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in mass media. (Gallup)

-- One hundred years ago, tanks appeared on the battlefield for the first time. (The Guardian)

-- Will virtual reality revive the music industry? (Wired)

ONLY IN L.A.

The first sign your city council meeting is getting rowdy? When a clown wearing a pink, curly wig, jumbo neon green glasses and a red nose shows up and insults your mother. That was the scene in Maywood earlier this week when town elders faced residents who were passionately divided over a proposal to let marijuana dispensaries set up shop. It was a night the mayor’s gavel almost gave out.

Please send comments and ideas to Davan Maharaj.