Newsom declares state of emergency in 13 counties as winter storm hammers California
LA Times, NATHAN SOLIS: "California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Wednesday evening for 13 counties, including Los Angeles, affected by winter storms that have ushered in unusual snowfall and strong winds and have damaged state highways and roads.
The other 12 counties under the order are: Amador, Kern, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Nevada, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Sierra, Sonoma and Tulare.
The order makes it easier to bring in resources from out of state and to hire snow-removal teams and equipment that isn’t always easy to access. It will also provide financial resources and reduce bureaucratic red tape that often stall disaster response at the local level, as well as activate the state National Guard and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to support counties."
California may bar commercial salmon fishing for the first time since 2009
The Chronicle, TARA DUGGAN: "California commercial and sports fishers are bracing for the possibility of no salmon season this year after the fish population along the Pacific Coast dropped to its lowest point in 15 years.
On Wednesday, wildlife officials announced a low forecast for the number of the wild adult Chinook (or “king”) salmon that will be in the ocean during the fishing season that typically starts in May. The final plan for the commercial and recreational salmon season will be announced in April, but the poor outlook has already angered the fishing fleet over how the state has managed both the fishery and its water resources.
If the fishery is closed this year, it will be the first time since 2009."
Yosemite breaks decades-old snowfall record, closing national park indefinitely
LA Times, GRACE TOOHEY: "Cabin roofs at Yosemite National Park are almost completely covered with snow. At the park’s Badger Pass ski area, snow is up to the second floor of the lodge. In the Yosemite Valley, snow accumulation broke a 54-year-old daily record — by multiple inches.
The historic snowfall in the Sierra Nevada from back-to-back winter storms has closed the world-famous park indefinitely while rangers and park staffers work to respond to the epic snowpack.
“In all of my years here, this is the most snow that I’ve ever seen at one time,” said Scott Gediman, a spokesperson for Yosemite and ranger for 27 years. “This is the most any of us have ever seen.”"
From Tahoe to Yosemite to Arrowhead, heavy snow buries California mountain communities
LA Times, NATHAN SOLIS/GRACE TOOHEY/SUMMER LIN: "Another week of pounding snow has deluged many of California’s most popular mountain resorts and communities, from Lake Tahoe to Lake Arrowhead, where residents struggled with shuttered highways and dwindling food supplies.
Crews across the state worked desperately to clear roadways as more snow fell overnight amid a blizzard warning that had been in place since Monday. Record-breaking snowfall forced Yosemite National Park to close, and emergency officials pleaded with people to stay home and avoid the roads. The deteriorating situation spurred Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a state of emergency in 13 counties.
The Sierra was particularly hard hit, with all the major roads to Lake Tahoe closed and reports of at least one 200-yard-wide avalanche."
DNA evidence leads to arrest of murder suspect in 1979 El Dorado County cold case
ROSALIO AHUMADA, Sac Bee: "Investigators this week arrested a man in Washington state on suspicion of murder in the death of a woman more than 43 years ago in El Dorado County — after a DNA test on a decades-old rape kit linked him to the crime, prosecutors said.
Harold Warren Carpenter, 63, remained in custody Wednesday afternoon at the Spokane County Jail. Carpenter is accused of beating and strangling Patricia Carnahan, according to the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office.
A nationwide effort to eliminate the backlog of untested sexual assault kits led to an unrelated 1994 rape investigation in Spokane. Evidence collected in that investigation led to the unsolved California cold case.
New bill aims to convert offices to housing. Here’s where that could happen in the Bay Area
ETHAN VARIAN, Mercury News: "As the Bay Area’s downtowns emptied of workers during the pandemic, leaders across the region posed the idea of turning empty office space into desperately needed housing.
Now, a state lawmaker in San Francisco is introducing a bill that would make it faster and easier to convert office buildings into new apartments and condos — and provide money to jumpstart the process in California’s slowly recovering urban cores.
“It makes no sense for people to be paying exorbitant amounts in rent and struggling to find adequate housing to live in when we have all of these buildings sitting empty,” said Democratic Assemblymember Matt Haney, until recently a San Francisco supervisor."
Rain-on-snow could present fresh risks to California’s snowpack. Here’s why
The Chronicle, JACK LEE: "The gargantuan California snowpack, over twice the normal size for this time of year in some parts of the Sierra, just keeps growing. On Tuesday, yet another storm unloaded several feet of snow in the Lake Tahoe area, completely burying the Sugar Bowl Resort office.
Ideally, the snowpack gradually melts during the spring and summer, releasing water when reservoirs aren’t capped by flood control limitations and can maximize storage. All the snow right now is fantastic news for the state’s enduring drought."
Yet more rain expected to hit California in March. Warmer storms could cause problems
LA Times, HAYLEY SMITH: "Soggy, snow-capped California faces the likelihood of yet another month of wet weather, but what remains uncertain is whether this late winter precipitation will augment weeks of record-setting snowpack, or cause it to vanish should warmer rains arrive.
Last week, a frigid storm transformed portions of the state into a white landscape while toppling trees, prompting power outages, spurring water rescues and leaving some residents trapped by heavy snow.
Now, with forecasts calling for more rain and snow in March — including the potential for at least one more atmospheric river system — California is girding for what comes next."
Bay Area family of 4 shivers waiting for PG&E to restore power days after snowstorm
The Chronicle, SAM WHITING: "When the overnight snowstorm brought down an 80-foot oak tree that narrowly missed Mateo Uriarte’s home in the hills above Los Gatos, he heard a crash and reached for the light.
It would not turn on. That was Feb. 24. The lights were still off Wednesday, as Uriarte, his wife, Christina, and their two kids, ages 11 and 14, have been without power for five days now and have been told by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. it will be back on Friday night."
ELISSA MIOLENE, Mercury News: "For years, school districts in California have masked their official suspension and expulsion rates by quietly pushing so-called problem students from the classroom. Sometimes, it’s as simple as sending them home early. Other times, it’s as extreme as forcing kids to transfer to another school.
Now, state education officials have a new plan to expose a practice that they say disproportionately impacts marginalized students and allows districts to fly under the education codes meant to protect children from excessive discipline. It’s a new hotline that lets parents and students report over-the-top punishments in California schools.
“Taking students out of learning time through suspensions and expulsions is proven to push them toward the criminal justice system,” State Superintendent Tony Thurmond said in a news release. “School districts trying to hide actual discipline rates through practices such as masking expulsions as transfers will not be tolerated.”
Rising Stars: Rainer Apostol, office of Sen. Caroline Menjivar
Capitol Weekly, LISA RENNER: "As a committed activist for social justice reforms, Rainer Apostol has been an invaluable help as a legislative aide for Sen. Caroline Menjivar.
The legislator, who represents Burbank and the San Fernando Valley, said Apostol’s experience in working for equity and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals and environmental quality “perfectly aligns with the work” she is championing in Sacramento.
Apostol, 24, who identifies as queer and non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, is helping to break new ground at the Capitol. “In any kind of institution, I’m often one of if not the first non-binary person that they have met,” Apostol said."
VP Kamala Harris heading to San Francisco to highlight AAPI businesses
The Chronicle, SHIRA STEIN: "Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to San Francisco on Friday for a roundtable with Asian American and Pacific Islander small businesses, a White House official told The Chronicle.
The roundtable will focus on small-business entrepreneurship and highlight the administration’s efforts to help small businesses, including increasing their access to capital."
COVID in California: Global cases down by 76%
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: "Amid a backdrop of plunging cases and deaths globally, Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously to end the local COVID-19 emergency declarations at the end of the month on Tuesday.
That was the same day Gov. Gavin Newsom officially ended California’s COVID-19 state of emergency, declaring “the conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property ... no longer exist.” Pfizer is asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to clear the way for its bivalent booster for children under 5 years old. Britain’s former health minister said the government considered culling all pet cats in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic."
Hidden, illegal casinos are booming in L.A., with organized crime reaping big profits
LA Times, MATTHEW ORMSETH: "One thing was clear from the body lying in the Boyle Heights street: The woman was no victim of robbery.
Whoever pumped four bullets behind her left ear didn’t touch the $1,000 in her purse, the bills clutched in her left hand or the diamond ring on her right index finger.
Detectives eventually would learn the woman was part of an underground gambling circuit booming in Los Angeles. She had worked at an illegal casino known as a casita. Like modern-day speakeasies, they are hidden in homes, in warehouses, in the backrooms of smoke shops and behind storefronts that pretend to be legitimate businesses."
How Teslas and other major EVs perform on a California road trip
The Chronicle, ANDREW WILLIAMS/DUSTIN GARDINER: "For the typical driver, switching to an electric vehicle requires little adjustment to their daily commute, especially as vehicle ranges increase and charging networks expand. But what about weekend retreats to Tahoe or Yosemite? And road trips to faraway destinations like Los Angeles, Las Vegas and beyond?
When it comes to longer trips, not all electric cars are created equal. Whether a jaunt takes longer or costs less on electric wheels versus a gas-guzzler often depends on the car in question.
The Chronicle created an EV road trip planner to help drivers figure out which electric models meet their road trip wish list, as well as their budget. Our tool compares trips for four models that represent the diversity of the market: the luxury Tesla Model Y, near-luxury Polestar 2, the Ford F-150 Lightning truck and the moderately priced Chevy Bolt."
Here’s how far S.F.’s economy fell during the pandemic, compared to other U.S. metro areas
The Chronicle, ROLAND LI: "The San Francisco metro area saw an economic decline during the early pandemic that was one of the most dramatic in the country, according to a new analysis by the Brookings Institution.
The think tank ranked 192 U.S. metro areas on “inclusive growth,” using a dozen indicators including gross domestic product output, job growth, average wages and the poverty gap."
Judge delays dismissal of historic S.F. police prosecution
The Chronicle, JOSHUA SHARPE: "District Attorney Brooke Jenkins on Wednesday moved to dismiss the historic manslaughter prosecution of a San Francisco police officer.
Fired officer Christopher Samayoa, believed to have been the first city officer charged with an on-duty killing, now must wait to see if the state Attorney General’s Office decides to take up the prosecution. Samayoa was just days out of the police academy when he shot a fleeing, unarmed Keita O’Neil on Dec. 1, 2017."
The Chronicle, ERIN ALLDAY: "The Rev. Megan Rohrer of San Francisco, believed to be the first openly transgender person made bishop in a major Christian denomination and who resigned from the post a year after being elected, filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging he was forced out after facing months of discrimination and harassment.
Rohrer resigned last June as bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America amid accusations of racism, after he removed the pastor of a predominantly Latino congregation in the Central Valley on a culturally significant religious holiday."
Who’s benefiting from Russia’s war on Ukraine? Arms dealers and manufacturers
LA Times, NABIH BULOS: "There’s always an element of the surreal at arms fairs. You catch it in the chipper tone of salespeople hawking new instruments of destruction; in the euphemisms — “defense” instead of “warfare,” “weapons platforms” rather than “guns” — sprinkled throughout glossy brochures; in the mini-lesson given by a jovial ex-soldier on best practices for operating an antitank missile system.
Now, there’s the added frisson of Europe’s biggest terrestrial armed conflict in decades — namely, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has made one thing clear: Nothing invigorates the business of war like a war.
The combat in Ukraine, now in its second year, has jacked the global arms trade, fueling a new appetite for materiel not just in Moscow and Kyiv but also around the world as nations gird themselves for possible confrontations. The war has rocked long-standing relationships within the weapons industry, rejiggered the calculations of who sells what to whom and changed customers’ tastes in what they want in their arsenal."
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