McKinney Fire update: Death toll rises to 4; blaze remains at zero containment
LAT, JORDAN PARKER: “A total of four people have been found dead within the perimeter of the McKinney Fire burning in the Klamath National Forest, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday.
Two of the dead were found in separate residences along State Route 96, officials said Tuesday.
On Monday, two people died in a car parked in a driveway that lay in the fire’s path along Doggett Creek Road, off Highway 96, according to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office. None of the four people who died have been publicly identified.”
McKinney fire has hit the stratosphere, spewing the ‘fire-breathing dragon of clouds’
LAT, CORINNE PURTILL: “A fire big enough to make its own lightning used to be as rare as it sounds.
But the McKinney fire, which erupted Friday, generated four separate thunder and lightning storms within its first 24 hours alone. A deadly combination of intense heat, parched vegetation and dry conditions has turned the 55,000-acre blaze in the Klamath National Forest into its own force of nature.
Four separate times, columns of smoke rose from the flames beyond the altitude at which a typical jet flies, penetrating the stratosphere and injecting a plume of soot and ash miles above the Earth’s surface. It’s a phenomenon known as a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, a byproduct of fire that NASA once memorably described as “the fire-breathing dragon of clouds.””
Californians are more likely now to leave the state for college. Here’s where they’re going
PHILLIP REESE, SacBee: "A higher proportion of students from California started attending colleges based in other states in 2020 than ever before, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education.
College enrollment dropped across the country during the first year of the pandemic, as many students chose to take a gap year rather than attend classes via Zoom.
Still, almost 40,000 freshmen from California started attending a four-year college in another state in 2020, up by 27% compared to 2010. Those 40,000 freshmen represent nearly 22% of all freshmen from California who began at a four-year college in fall 2020."
Teachers’ retirement investments record negative return for first time since Great Recession
EdSource, JOHN FENSTERWALD: “For the first time since the Great Recession in 2008, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System had a negative return on investments for the year ending June 30.
CalSTRS, which provides retirement benefits for nearly a million current teachers and retirees, saw a minus 1.3% return on its portfolio. The year-end value of the portfolio dropped $8.6 billion to $301.6 billion as a result. The loss followed a record yearly investment gain in 2020-21 of 27.2%, CalSTRS reported.
In a statement, the CalSTRS attributed the decline to market volatility complicated by inflation, rising interest rates, the impact of Covid-19 and the ongoing war in Ukraine. Earlier last month, CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund, which funds retirement benefits of state and local workers, including public school administrators and classified workers, reported an end-of-year loss of 6.2% in value.”
Vin Scully, voice of the Dodgers for 67 years, dies at 94
The Chronicle, BETH HARRIS: “Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, whose dulcet tones provided the soundtrack of summer while entertaining and informing Dodgers fans in Brooklyn and Los Angeles for 67 years, died Tuesday night, the team said. He was 94.
Scully died at his home in the Hidden Hills section of Los Angeles, according to the team, which spoke to family members.
As the longest tenured broadcaster with a single team in pro sports history, Scully saw it all and called it all. He began in the 1950s era of Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson, on to the 1960s with Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, into the 1970s with Steve Garvey and Don Sutton, and through the 1980s with Orel Hershiser and Fernando Valenzuela. In the 1990s, it was Mike Piazza and Hideo Nomo, followed by Clayton Kershaw, Manny Ramirez and Yasiel Puig in the 21st century.”
California’s local governments could soon be more able to remove disruptive meeting attendees
OWEN TUCKER-SMITH, SacBee: "When Californians attend local government meetings for the sake of disruption, lawmakers often don’t know what to do. That could change soon, under a bill passed by the Legislature Monday.
SB 1100 makes changes to the 1950s Brown Act, which requires elected officials to be transparent with the public and keep meetings open. But the Brown Act is unclear about when it’s permissible to remove disruptive meeting attendees.
It allows for ejection in the case of “willful disruption,” but localities are often confused about what that phrase means."
State ponders prison closures, as inmate population drops.
Capitol Weekly, BRIEANNA ANDERSON: “With California’s prison inmate population on a decline, authorities are pondering the closure of three institutions. But many questions remain.
The 2022-2023 state budget notes that there is a possibility of three prison closures during 2024 and 2o25, based at least in part in the reduction of California’s prison population to about 94,000 in prisons and camps.
California’s inmate population more than tripled between 1985 and 2007, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, from about 50,000 inmates to about 173,000 inmates in 2006.”
CALMatters, MARIA LOPEZ: “When Tulare resident Quentin Nelms heard California was offering a hefty state subsidy to help lower-income residents buy electric cars, he applied right away.
But it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be.
Nelms spent four months on a waitlist before he was accepted into one of the state’s clean-car incentive programs in January. He qualified for $9,500 that he planned to use to buy a 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E. But after discovering that several dealerships had raised the car’s price by more than $10,000 during the time it took to get the grant, he could no longer afford the roughly $53,000 cost.”
GEICO closes California offices, ends telephone sales here
The Chronicle, CAROLYN SA(D: “GEICO, the nation’s second-largest auto insurer, is limiting its physical presence in California and eliminating telephone sales of new policies here.
The company is closing 38 local offices in the state and laying off hundreds of employees, according to the Sacramento Bee and industry trade journals, and is pausing telephone sales of new policies here, although consumers can still sign up online. Existing policies will remain in force.
“We continue to write policies in California, and we remain available through our direct channels for the more than 2.18 million California customers presently insured with us,” the company said in a statement to The Sacramento Bee.”
Kaiser mental health workers signal open-ended strike in Northern California
CALMatters, JOCELYN WIENER: “A union representing 2,000 Kaiser Northern California mental health workers this morning announced plans for an open-ended strike beginning Aug. 15.
Among the reasons union representatives outlined: high clinician workloads and patients waiting weeks or even months for mental health care. Even as demand for care has surged, frustrated therapists are abandoning the health giant, said union spokesperson Matt Artz.
“We don’t take striking lightly,” Sal Rosselli, president of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents the clinicians, said in a prepared statement, “but it’s time to take a stand and make Kaiser spend some of its billions on mental health care.””
A Russian thug and a fake Yelp account: An ex-doctor’s wild campaign against reporters
LAT, JACK DOLAN/BRITTNY MEJIA: “The text message appeared at 10:32 one night in April from an unknown number: “RESTRAINING ORDER FOR JACK DOLAN, AKA BRITTNY MEJIA”.
“Please stop cyberstalking,” it read.
Attached was a court order forbidding contact with Michael Mario Santillanes, a Newport Beach cosmetic surgeon and the subject of a Times investigation by the authors of this story into whether he continued practicing medicine after his license was revoked in 2020.”
News Analysis: As Pelosi leaves Taiwan, stability in Asia grows more precarious
LAT, DAVID PIERSON/STEPHANIE YANG: “The expressions of mutual support and admiration were broadcast on live TV and went off without a hitch.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi re-affirmed her support for Taiwan, declaring Wednesday that American resolve to preserve democracy on the self-governed island remained “iron-clad.” A grateful Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen then bestowed on the San Francisco Democrat the turquoise sash and medal of the Order of Propitious Clouds in honor of Pelosi’s contribution to U.S.-Taiwan relations.
But while those ties might have been strengthened during a visit lasting less than 24 hours, the biggest consequences of Pelosi’s trip are expected to unfold in the coming days, weeks and even months, analysts say, as China reacts furiously to what it deems an affront to its sovereignty over Taiwan. The result is likely to be increased instability in Asia — home to more than one-third of the world’s population — and greater challenges for the U.S.”
Breed wants S.F. board president to apologize to cadet he is accused of berating. He’s firing back
The Chronicle, JD MORRIS/MALLORY MOENCH: “A sheriff’s memo that accused Board of Supervisors President Shamann Walton of using a racial slur while berating a Black cadet at a City Hall security checkpoint continued to reverberate this week, with Mayor London Breed saying Walton should apologize and the supervisor threatening to “take legal action” over the incident.
Walton, who is also Black, has disputed the memo’s characterization of events and insisted that he is being maligned because of his efforts to scrutinize law enforcement.
Breed and one of Walton’s fellow supervisors have said he should apologize for what Breed described as “a very unfortunate and sad situation” in an interview with The Chronicle. Breed said that even if Walton had not used a racial slur, the incident “would be of concern.””
S.F. school board unanimously admonishes commissioner Ann Hsu over racist remarks
The Chronicle, JILL TUCKER: “After emotional and at times rowdy public comment, the San Francisco school board voted unanimously Tuesday to admonish board member Ann Hsu, publicly condemning her racist statements in a candidate questionnaire about educating marginalized students.
Hsu wrote that “unstable family environments” and “lack of parental encouragement to focus on learning” were among the biggest challenges in educating Black and brown students.
She later amended the remarks and has apologized several times, including a statement Tuesday night. Hsu also voted for her own admonishment.”
Renting vs. owning in the Bay Area: Is this housing data point flashing a warning signal?
The Chronicle, KELLIE HWANG: “With Bay Area rent prices still below pre-pandemic levels and home prices hovering around all-time highs — despite a recent softening as mortgage interest rates rise — the gap between the cost of renting and the cost of owning a home in the region is the highest it’s been for at least the past two decades, data shows.
What’s more, that gap, called the price-to-rent ratio, is higher in the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas than anywhere else in the nation, according to Moody’s Analytics. The last time the ratio reached nearly this high was right before the housing bubble of the early 2000s burst, presaging the Great Recession.
Does this mean it is better to rent than buy now in the Bay Area? And, given that high price-to-rent ratios are seen as possible indicators of real estate bubbles, what does that mean for where home prices may be headed?”
How Bill Russell’s USF legacy was poisoned by school’s mistake
The Chronicle, CONNOR LETOURNEAUP: "Shortly after becoming president of the University of San Francisco, the Rev. Paul J. Fitzgerald flew to Seattle for an important meeting.
There, he told Bill Russell’s lawyer how he would repair USF’s relationship with its most famous former student: free tuition so Russell could finally finish his bachelor’s degree; an honorary doctorate; an invitation to speak at commencement. The problem? Russell had recently collapsed at his home and wasn’t interested in meeting new people.
“I’m sorry, Paul,” Fitzgerald recalled Russell’s lawyer telling him that afternoon in 2014. “You’re too late.””