Central Valley communities are experiencing the brunt of California’s historic drought. For many households in Porterville, the water has stopped.
Jennifer Medina reports for The New York Times: “I can just picture it, that feeling of finally being clean — really refreshed and clean,” Ms. Gallegos, 37, said one recent evening.”
“But she has not had running water for more than five months — nor is there any tap water in her near future — because of a punishing and relentless drought in California. In the Gallegos household and more than 500 others in Tulare County, residents cannot flush a toilet, fill a drinking glass, wash dishes or clothes, or even rinse their hands without reaching for a bottle or bucket.“
Satellite imagery of California shows the severity of the state’s groundwater crisis.
Karen Kaplan reports for The LA Times: “The space agency’s two Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites have been in orbit since 2002, making highly sensitive measurements of Earth’s gravity field. Variations in the gravity field can be caused by a number of factors, including the amount of water stored underground in soil and rocks.”
“This week, scientists working on the GRACE mission released a series of images that reflect the drastic loss of groundwater over the last dozen years.”
An immigration case in the Bay Area is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve whether a visa may be denied for no reason.
Bob Egelko reports for The SF Chronicle: “The case involves Fauzia Din of Fremont, a native of Afghanistan who returned to that country in 2006 to marry Kanishka Berashk, whom she had known since childhood. Berashk has been a low-level clerk for the Afghan government since 1992, including the period from 1996 to 2001 when the Taliban controlled the government.”
“After returning to the United States, Din, a U.S. citizen, applied for a visa for her husband. She said a U.S. consular official interviewed him in Pakistan in 2008 and told him the visa would arrive shortly. Instead, he was notified by mail in June 2009 that the visa had been denied under a law that bars entry because of “terrorist activities.””
Los Angeles County was unable to avert federal oversight of its jail facilities.
Cindy Chang reports for The LA Times: “The county jails have been monitored by federal officials for the last 12 years under an agreement requiring improvements in treatment of the mentally ill. On June 4, the Department of Justice announced it would seek court oversight of the jails, citing a dramatic increase in inmate suicides.”
“In the Sept. 25 letter, federal officials said they hoped to have a draft of a consent decree ready this week. The county's written response to the Justice Department's June 4 letter was not enough to avert federal oversight, given "the severity of the issues" and the failure of the 2002 agreement to sufficiently improve jail conditions, they wrote.”
“A consent decree would be overseen by a federal judge and probably cost the county millions of dollars to implement.”
The first patients in Northern California to be diagnosed with enterovirus were confirmed yesterday.
Henry K. Lee and Vivian Ho report for The SF Chronicle: “Two Alameda County youths and one Solano County child tested positive for a virus that can cause severe respiratory illness, authorities said Thursday.”
“Both of the Alameda County patients diagnosed with enterovirus D-68 are under the age of 18 and are recovering, said Dr. Erica Pan, a deputy county health officer in charge of communicable disease control and prevention.”
California’s egg laws will stay the standard after a federal judge tosses out a six-state suit.
Jim Miller reports for The Sacramento Bee: “The plaintiffs, led by Missouri’s attorney general, Chris Koster, had challenged the constitutionality of Prop. 2, the 2008 ballot measure that set standards for egg-laying hens, and AB 1437, a 2010 law that extended the initiative’s provisions’ to out-of-state eggs sold in California. Five more states – Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky and Iowa – quickly signed on to the suit.”
““Egg producers in Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky, and Iowa face a difficult choice,” the plaintiffs argued in the suit. “Either they can incur massive capital improvement costs to build larger habitats for some or all of their egg-laying hens, or they can walk away from the largest egg market in the country.””
Because it’s finally October, and it’s Friday, we’ll end here with a list of all the pumpkin flavored things you can purchase at Trader Joe’s this weekend.
From SFist: “Perfectly bearded men are wearing flannels and/or cable knit cardigans, ladies are donning autumn hues, you've planned an apple picking adventure with your boyfriend... it's officially Pumpkin Spice Season, pumpkinf*ckers. And no store does it better than Trader Joe's.”
“We dispatched intern Sandra Song out to the Trader Joe's on Court Street in Brooklyn this morning to document every single pumpkin item they're offering right now. Her efforts were quickly thwarted, however, as an overachieving employee spotted her SLR camera and asked her to stop taking photos. What are you hiding Trader Joe's? 34 pumpkin-flavored items, that's what.”