Santa Rosa homes burning as evacuation orders grow in Wine Country with Paradise under warning
The Chronicle's STAFF: "The North Bay’s Wine Country once again became a scene of chaos on Sunday and early Monday as wildfires burned on the east and west side of the Napa Valley and blazed toward Santa Rosa, where residential neighborhoods were being engulfed in flames by 1:30 a.m.
Homes were burning in the large Skyhawk neighborhood in eastern Santa Rosa and the fire had jumped Highway 12 in Oakmont, where a large senior community was evacuated by bus as flames shot up over nearby hills.
Fires fueled by fast winds and extremely dry conditions were simultaneously threatening parts of Sonoma and Napa counties, plus the Butte County town of Paradise, the places most badly burned by extreme wildfires in 2017 and 2018."
READ MORE related to Wildfire Season: West Zone wildfire evacuation ordered for Concow and other areas of Butte, Plumas counties -- Sac Bee's STAFF; Zogg Fire in Shasty County explodes to 7,000 acres amid 'extreme' wind gusts -- Sac Bee's MOLLY BURKE/MICHAEL MCGOUGH
Bay Area choked by wildfire smoke and unhealthy air -- again
The Chronicle's TRISHA THADANI: "Many Bay Area residents will wake up to a double whammy Monday morning: scorching temperatures and smoky air. Again.
Air quality in the Bay Area began to deteriorate early Monday morning, as smoke from several Northern California wildfires — including the new, out-of-control Glass Fire in St. Helena — pushed into the region.
The combination of wildfire smoke and balmy temperatures will likely choke a region already wearied by weeks of poor air quality this month."
READ MORE related to Air/Climate/Environment: Why we need redwoods to fight climate change -- The Chronicle's GREGORY THOMAS
NYTimes: Trump paid $750 in US income taxes in 2016, 2017
AP's JOSH BOAK: "President Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he ran for president and in his first year in the White House, according to a report Sunday in The New York Times.
Trump, who has fiercely guarded his tax filings and is the only president in modern times not to make them public, paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years.
The details of the tax filings complicate Trump’s description of himself as a shrewd and patriotic businessman, revealing instead a series of financial losses and income from abroad that could come into conflict with his responsibilities as president. The president’s financial disclosures indicated he earned at least $434.9 million in 2018, but the tax filings reported a $47.4 million loss."
READ MORE related to POTUS45: Harsh new light on Trump taxes as Biden decries GOP 'abuse of power' on court pick -- LA Times's LAURA KING; 5 takeaways from the NYT report on Trump's tax returns -- AP
PG&E scales back shutoff estimate. Here's how many customers will be affected
Sac Bee's VINCENT MOLESKI/MOLLY BURKE: "After shutting off power to 11,000 homes and businesses in Northern California early Sunday morning, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will be scaling back the outages planned later in the day due to a change in weather.
PG&E had initially planned on turning off the lights to 89,000 customers in Northern California in response to easterly Diablo winds that put much of the region in critical fire danger. By Sunday afternoon, however, the number of affected customers was expected to reach 65,000 by 8 p.m.
Shortly after midnight, people in parts of Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties started to lose power. Though 15,000 were expected to be included in the blackout, PG&E cut off power to 11,000."
California requires COVID tracking in LGBTQ community under bill signed by Newsom
The Chronicle's DUSTIN GARDINER: "Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a measure requiring health providers to track COVID-19 and all other communicable diseases in the LGBTQ community, a step that advocates called crucial for catching outbreaks early and combating stigma in the public-health system.
SB932 by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, will mandate that health workers ask patients infected with the coronavirus and about 90 other diseases about their sexual orientation and gender identity. Patients could decline to answer.
In a statement, Newsom said Saturday that the data collection is “essential to addressing health inequities and designing public health interventions that help California’s diverse communities."
NorCal county strikes back after conservative pundit implies ballot dumping
Sac Bee's VINCENT MOLESKI: "Sonoma County election officials say they are setting the record straight after a popular conservative pundit suggested that they had dumped mail-in ballots ahead of the 2020 election.
The county’s official social media accounts published a statement Friday saying that pictures circulating on the internet of election envelopes in dumpsters were actually from 2018 — not, as many Twitter users had claimed, 2020. Officials said the ballots pictured were empty and had been disposed of legally.
Photos of hundreds of blue election envelopes lying in a heap in a recycling bin went viral Friday when Elijah Schaffer, a BlazeTV host, tweeted them out, saying he was sent them anonymously from a Republic Services landfill in Sonoma County. The ZIP code seen on the envelopes read “94928,” which corresponds with Rohnert Park, south of Santa Rosa."
Federal judge rejects plan to end Census early, giving California more time for count
Sac Bee's KIM BOJORQUEZ: "A federal court in California ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to extend the 2020 Census count deadline by one more month, allowing community-based organizations to continue their outreach efforts through October.
Judge Lucy H. Koh, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, filed a preliminary injunction setting the new census count deadline from Sept. 30 to Oct. 31.
The ruling comes more than a month after, Steve Dillingham, director of the U.S. Census Bureau, announced a proposal to halt field data collection one month earlier than planned so the agency could meet its deadline to provide data used to determine how many congressional seats each state receives. That timeline would have ended the count on Sept. 30."
California officials see an uptick in cases
Sac Bee's SOPHIA BOLLAG: "Two and a half weeks after Labor Day weekend, California officials are seeing a “concerning” uptick in coronavirus cases and predicting a rise in hospitalizations through October, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Friday.
It’s not possible to say for sure how much of the increase is due to Labor Day. Other factors that also could have contributed to the rise include wildfires that have forced mass evacuations and changes in behavior under a new statewide reopening system implemented late last month, Ghaly said.
But the timing of this increase comes when scientists would expect to see the effects of disease spread from the holiday weekend and from the new reopening framework."
READ MORE related to Pandemic: Folsom State Prison reports first inmate death from COVID-19, California officials say -- Sac Bee's VINCENT MOLESKI; LA County coronavirus numbers show continued decline in hospitalizations -- LA Times's KEVIN RECTOR
Gas-fueled car ban: Can we really all drive electric cars?
The Chronicle's DUSTIN GARDINER: "With the flick of a pen on the hood of a metallic-red electric Ford Mustang, Gov. Gavin Newsom set in motion the elimination of the internal combustion engine in California.
But turning Newsom’s vision of a cleaner-air future into reality will require 15 years of tough policy decisions to make electric cars affordable and charging stations ubiquitous.
The executive order that Newsom signed last week banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars starting in 2035 would transform the state’s transportation system to an extent not seen in modern history, putting most drivers in cars powered by electricity. What was missing were the details of how California will require automakers to make such a rapid transition to electric cars, which make up just 6% of the state’s car market today."
SCOTUS 'belongs to all of us': Amy Coney Barrett accepts Trump's nomination
Sac Bee's MICHAEL WILNER/FRANCEDSCA CHAMBERS: "President Donald Trump on Saturday said his nominee for the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, would “decide cases based on the text of the Constitution as written” in legal battles to come on social issues that have long divided the nation.
“Rulings that the Supreme Court will issue in the coming years will decide the survival of our Second Amendment, our religious liberty, our public safety and so much more,” Trump said in announcing Barrett’s nomination at the White House. “To maintain security, liberty and prosperity, we must preserve our priceless heritage of a nation of laws, and there is no one better to do that than Amy Coney Barrett.”
Pointing out that Barrett would be the first mother of school-aged children to serve on the Supreme Court, Trump called her a woman of “unparalleled achievement.” But he acknowledged that the fight ahead for her confirmation would be heated, saying in jest, “It’s going to be very quick. I’m sure it will be extremely non-controversial."
READ MORE related to SCOTUS Nomination: Feinstein focus on Barrett's Catholic faith backfired once, now Biden backers are nervous -- The Chronicle's JOE GAROFOLI
SF's campaign against Tenderloin drug sales -- dealers have seen it before
The Chronicle's PHIL MATIER: "San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera says his expanded stay-away orders for suspected drug dealers are no “silver bullet” for ending the open dealing in the Tenderloin.
And in fact, a review of records shows that 26 of the 28 people in Herrera’s sights had already been issued a stay-away order. But that didn’t stop them from returning, over and over, to set up shop at their favorite corners. And chances are a $6,000 fine for violating the order won’t stop them either.
However, the new orders — which take the form of lawsuits and prohibit the 28 from even entering the Tenderloin — could make it easier for police to make more serious arrests."
Judge pauses Trump's plan to remove TikTok from app stores
LA Times's WENDY LEE: "TikTok on Sunday won a significant victory against the Trump administration, when a federal judge ruled in favor of the tech company’s request to delay a ban on the app.
Under the ruling, TikTok will remain available in U.S. mobile app stores and can continue to provide software updates. The company filed a lawsuit this month in Washington, D.C., saying that the administration’s effort to stop new downloads of the app starting Sept. 27 was unconstitutional and could harm its business.
“TikTok is a modern-day version of a town square,” the company’s attorney, John Hall, said at a hearing Sunday. Pulling TikTok from the app stores “would be no different than the government locking the doors to a public forum,” Hall added."
READ MORE related to Economy: Big companies are swallowing up smaller ones. Why that's not good for the economy -- LA Times's DON LEE
Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale detained after threatening to harm himself
Bloomberg's JENNIFER JACOBS/JUSTIN SINK: "President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale was detained by police in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Sunday after barricading himself in his home and threatening to harm himself, according to a police statement.
Fort Lauderdale police said they went to Parscale’s home about 4 p.m. local time after receiving a 911 call about an armed man who was threatening suicide. Parscale’s wife told the officers who responded that her husband had access to multiple firearms.
Police established contact with Parscale and negotiated for him to leave the home. He was taken into custody under the Baker Act, a Florida law that allows police to detain people who are potentially a threat to themselves or others."