Climate change's direct effect

"It was 113 degrees, and months of above-average temperatures had left the land bone-dry and ready to explode. Within a few hours, hundreds of structures were lost and six people killed."

READ MORE related to Energy & Environment/Fire Season: How many fires are burning and where are they? -- Sacramento Bee's DON SWEENEY & Tribune News's GABY FERREIRA; Wildfires still 'growing faster than you can imagine'ss -- The Chronicle's KURTIS ALEXANDER/MICHAEL CABANATUAN/KEVIN FAGAN; Eight people have died this year in California wildfires. Here are some of their stories -- LA Times's STAFF; Smoke from wildfires is blanketing the Sacramento region. What's the forecast? -- Sacramento Bee's CASSIE DICKMAN; 'Hallelujah!' Some Redding residents allowed to return home as fire evacuations lifted -- Sacramento Bee's MOLLY SULLIVAN/TONY BIZJAK/SAM STANTON; California says this chemical causes cancer. So why is it being sprayed into drinking water? -- Sacramento Bee's RYAN SABALOW; Does the Bay Area have enough water for economic growth and salmon? -- Water Deeply's ALASTAIR BLAND

Despite qualms, Supreme Court refuses to block youths' climate suit

The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "The U.S. Supreme Court expressed qualms Monday about the scope of a climate-change lawsuit by 21 young people against the government, but rejected the Trump administration’s request to block a trial of the unprecedented suit that accuses federal officials of endangering their futures by failing to act against global warming."

"The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had turned down the administration’s attempt to halt the case in a July 20 ruling. With the case now pending before a federal judge in Oregon, the justices said Monday that the government was being “premature” by seeking intervention from the nation’s highest court."

"The court’s unsigned order added, however, that “the breadth of (the youths’) claims is striking,” and there were “substantial grounds for difference of opinion” about whether those claims belong in court."

Money crunch at stem cell agency

Capitol Weekly's DAVID JENSEN: "California’s stem cell agency gave away $14 million this month, which could be described as less than a drop in its $3 billion bucket."

"But the talk at the agency’s awards meeting July 19 was not about largess. Instead it was about the lack of cash, lack of time and the need to split “babies” and “buckets."

"We are going to have to make some hard choices today,” said one member of the agency’s governing  board, Jeff Sheehy, a patient advocate member of the board for HIV."

Ron Dellums, former congressman and Oakland mayor, dies at age 82

The Chronicle's RACHEL SWAN: "Ron Dellums, a Marine turned antiwar activist and feisty Democratic politician, was never one to walk away from a fight, no matter who started it."

"Dellums, who died Monday at age 82, made that clear during his first run for Congress in 1970, when Republican Vice President Spiro Agnew, speaking for President Richard Nixon’s White House, pointedly branded the young Berkeley councilman as “an out and out radical” who needed to be “purged from the body politic” for his stance against the war in Vietnam and up-front fight against social ills."

California high school grad rate drops with new methodology

EdSource's JOHN FENSTERWALD: "California’s 2017 high school graduation rate dropped slightly from the previous year due to a change in methodology prompted by a federal audit, according to much-delayed data released Thursday by the California Department of Education."

"Last year’s gradation rate was 82.7 percent, down 1.1 percentage points from the 2016 rate. That year’s rate — the proportion of 9th-graders who graduated within four years — reached an all-time high of 83.8 percent. However, state officials warn against comparing this year’s rate with previous years, statewide and among districts, and comparing schools and student groups, because the rules for calculating graduation rates have changed to conform with federal requirements."

"The new graduation methodology results from a federal audit of California’s 2013 graduation data that criticized poor oversight by the California Department of Education of districts’ data collection and found that the criteria that the state used to determine graduation rates deviated from federal requirements, raising the state’s graduation past rates by an estimated 2 percentage points."

Kamala Harris's challenge in a 2020 presidential bid? Defining herself before her opponents do

LA Times's SARAH D WIRE: "Shortly after she won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2016, Kamala Harris said she expected to follow the traditional freshman lawmaker playbook: “Listen and watch, and kind of get a lay of the land."

"But those pages no longer see much activity."

READ MORE related to POTUS45: Bob Woodward is writing an inside account of the Trump White House  -- AP

Paul Manafort's trial begins: The charges don't involve politics; the trial can't avoid it

LA Times's ELIZA FAWCETT: "Bank fraud. Tax evasion. Conspiracy. The charges Paul Manafort faces in a federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., are largely unremarkable for a white-collar criminal case."