California poised to ban new diesel trucks
CALMatters, NADIA LOPEZ: "California’s trucking industry is bracing for state regulators this week to enact unprecedented rules that would ban sales of new diesel big rigs by 2036 and convert large companies’ existing trucks to zero emissions by 2042.
“The amount of chaos and dysfunction that is going to be created by this rule will be like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” said Chris Shimoda, senior vice president of the California Trucking Association, an industry trade group. “The likelihood that it is going to fail pretty spectacularly is very high. It’s very unfortunate.”
The state Air Resources Board will hold a public hearing on its proposed regulation on Thursday, then is expected to vote on Friday."
California’s EV mandate will affect commercial real estate owners too
Capitol Weekly, BRIAN JOSEPH: "When the California Air Resources Board approved last year groundbreaking regulations to eliminate the sale of traditional gas-powered cars in the Golden State by 2035, much of the reaction focused on the impact it would have on car manufacturers.
As the Los Angeles Times reported on the day of the August 25, 2022 announcement, “The mandate forces automakers to phase out gasoline and diesel cars, sport utility vehicles, minivans and pickup trucks in favor of cleaner versions powered by batteries or fuel cells.” And, as Times reporter Russ Mitchell added ominously, “If automakers fall short, they could be charged $20,000 per noncomplying vehicle, the air resources board said.”
But CARB’s aggressive regulations – officially known as the Advanced Clean Cars II rules and colloquially referred to as California’s 2035 EV, or electric vehicle, mandate – are going to affect a whole lot more than “just” the global automotive industry."
A lost California lake has roared back to life. Now some want to make it permanent
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "Tulare Lake, the long dormant lake that made a surprise comeback in California’s San Joaquin Valley this year, has gotten so big with the wet weather that water experts say it won’t drain until at least next year, and maybe well after that.
More than 100 square miles of roads, farms and homes in the formerly dry lake bed between Fresno and Bakersfield remain submerged in the entrenched floodwaters. Additional land is expected to go under through summer as record Sierra Nevada snow melts into rivers that fill the lake. Already, damages are in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
While landowners as well as local, state and federal officials are focused on keeping major towns and infrastructure dry, the broader issue of whether there’s a better way to manage water in the basin looms. Some say the recent flooding is making the case to more naturally accommodate incoming water, perhaps broadening river plains, restoring old wetlands and, more dramatically, ensuring a permanent revival of Tulare Lake."
BANG*Mercury News, GRACE HASE: "In the wake of Lehigh Hanson’s announcement last year that it was ending cement production at its quarry west of Cupertino, Santa Clara County is looking to make the decision to permanently end the nearly-century-old cement kiln’s operations legally binding.
Lehigh, which has played a large role in construction projects across the Bay Area since 1939, has been a point of contention in recent years as residents and environmentalists have spoken out with concerns about the noise and pollution emitted from the plant.
The Irving, Texas-based company announced last year that it wouldn’t be restarting cement production after not having operated the kiln since April 2020. However, the site would still be used as a distribution center."
Why were foghorns blaring in S.F. today? Blame the Golden Gate Bridge
The Chronicle, MICHAEL CABANATUAN: "Most of San Francisco was delightfully fog-free Wednesday morning with blue skies, some light clouds and plenty of sunshine.
Yet, the loud, low bellow of foghorns echoed across some fog-free neighborhoods, prompting questions and complaints on social media.
“Fog horns at/near the Golden Gate Bridge have been going off since the overnight hours,” tweeted Elaine Leung on Wednesday morning. “Still hearing them now.”"
Warming Bay Area temperatures bring with them Spare the Air alert
BANG*Mercury News, RICK HURD: "The Bay Area’s first warm-up of 2023 began to build Wednesday, and like most warming trends, it’s creating dirty air.
Unlike most of them, this heat wave — if it can be considered that — will be as quick as a toe dipped in cool water.
“We’re warming up a bit (Wednesday). Then our warmest day will be Thursday,” National Weather Service meteorologist Sean Miller said. “It’ll be warm Friday, and then that’s it. By Saturday, we’ll be dropping off.”"
Cooling off bill heats up Capitol controversy
Capitol Weekly, LISA RENNER: "A bill to slow the revolving door of legislative staffers to lobbyist firms has been amended after sexual harassment victims’ advocates expressed opposition.
Sen. Aisha Wahab’s Senate Bill 573 would have originally prohibited legislative staff from working for lobbying firms for two years after leaving the capitol. The current bill, which is currently under consideration in the Appropriations Committee, cuts the “cooling-off period” to one year and would be applied to staff on a more issue-specific basis.
Members of We Said Enough, a harassment victims’ group, said the cooling off period could prevent victims from pursuing “natural career pathways” if they have to leave their Capitol jobs to flee sexual abuse or bullying."
Attacked ex-S.F. commissioner accused of ‘terrorizing’ homeless with bear mace
The Chronicle, NORA MISHANEC, RACHEL SWAN: "An attorney representing the man accused of beating former San Francisco fire commissioner Don Carmignani with a metal pipe asked a judge to release her client after accusing Carmignani of “terrorizing” homeless people near his Marina district residence with bear mace.
The public defender representing Garret Doty, the man accused of beating Carmignani, dropped the bombshell allegation during Doty’s scheduled preliminary hearing Wednesday. Doty faces a raft of charges, including assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated battery with serious bodily injury, for a violent altercation on April 5 that left Carmignani, 53, with a broken skull and jaw, requiring emergency surgery and 51 stitches."
California’s downtowns were emptied by COVID: S.F. still reeling but San Diego rebounds
LA Times, ALEXANDRA E. PETRI: "One of the biggest questions facing California‘s largest cities in the last few years has been how their downtowns will rebound from the pandemic.
Early indications show that some regions are recovering much more quickly than others. And the stakes couldn’t be higher, as leaders and officials race to lure workers and tourists back to cities’ economic centers.
San Diego has bounced back to 99% of previous foot traffic levels while Los Angeles is at 65%, according to a study by the School of Cities at the University of Toronto that recorded foot traffic based on cellphone data in 62 North American cities from 2019 to November 2022. San Francisco remained at only 31% of pre-pandemic levels."
Newsom asks state Supreme Court to let UC Berkeley build housing in People’s Park
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: "Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to let UC Berkeley take over the historic People’s Park and build housing there for more than 1,000 students and 100 homeless people, challenging a lower-court decision that the university had failed to consider alternative housing sites or the impact on local residents of noise from students’ parties.
“Solving the housing crisis is one of the Governor’s top priorities, and the State is making substantial progress,” but the lower court’s ruling “threatens to disrupt that progress, opening a door for opponents of housing development to delay or block essential new projects,” attorneys for Newsom said in a filing with the court. He is represented by Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office and private counsel."
How schools can keep new teachers from burning out and quitting
EdSource, CAROLYN JONES: "New teachers are frustrated and overwhelmed, but there are relatively simple things schools can do to keep them on the job: Pay them more money, reduce the bureaucratic paperwork and provide more support from mentors, a panel of experts told an EdSource roundtable on Wednesday.
“We all know teachers are tired, they’re burnt out. They’re being asked to do more things than they’ve ever done, and in challenging conditions,” said Tommy Chang, chief executive officer of the New Teacher Center, a nonprofit that focuses on helping new teachers succeed. “This crisis is not new. It was always at our doorstep. Factors have become worse in the last two years, but we’ve known about these problems.”
The roundtable entitled: “The critical first years: How to effectively support and retain new teachers” covered ways that schools can do a better job supporting and retaining new teachers, half of whom quit within the first five years. Panelists described the specific obstacles new teachers face, especially teachers of color, and what would help them succeed."
GOP sets up showdown with head of teachers union
The Hill, LEXI LONAS: "A fight between Republicans and teachers unions three years in the making will come to a head Wednesday as GOP members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic laser in on American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten.
Weingarten will be the sole witness to appear at the 2 p.m. hearing, which Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) has said will "delve into the role Ms. Weingarten and the AFT played in editing the CDC's school reopening guidance and keeping schools closed longer than necessary."
Wenstrup was referring to the "Operational Strategy for K-12 Through Phased Mitigation" guidance the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released during the height of the pandemic that made suggestions on how and when schools should reopen for in-person learning."
Ex-UCLA campus gynecologist James Heaps sentenced to 11 years for sexually abusing patients
LA Times, NATHAN SOLIS: "Disgraced ex-UCLA gynecologist James Heaps was sentenced to 11 years in prison Wednesday, nearly two years after he was indicted for sexually abusing his patients while working at the university.
Heaps, 66, has been in custody since October, when a jury found him guilty of three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration of two patients.
Heaps, a retired cancer specialist, appeared in a Burbank courtroom Wednesday wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, neat goatee and glasses. He did not testify or make any statements after he was sentenced by Judge Michael D. Carter."
Tucker Carlson breaks silence but fails to address firing from Fox News
LA Times, EMILY ST. MARTIN: "Tucker Carlson, the polarizing conservative prime-time host ousted by Fox News on Monday, has broken his silence.
Carlson posted a two-minute video to Twitter on Wednesday evening, speaking out for the first time since being let go.
In his remarks, Carlson lashed out at the media and both major U.S. political parties for silencing debate, casting an unspecified “people in charge” as a “hysterical and aggressive” cabal determined to protect their power. As such, he tacitly suggested that he had lost his place at the helm of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” for challenging “the current orthodoxies.”"
Disney sues Ron DeSantis over Florida district: ‘A targeted campaign of government retaliation’
LA Times, MEG JAMES, BRIAN CONTRERAS: "Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the latest salvo in a long-running fight over the company’s self-governing powers in the area of the state that encompasses Walt Disney World Resort.
“A targeted campaign of government retaliation — orchestrated at every step by Gov. DeSantis as punishment for Disney’s protected speech — now threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights,” Disney said in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
The Republican governor — who is widely expected to run for president in 2024 — has made his battle against Disney a cornerstone of his culture wars campaign, at times referring to the legendary California company as a “woke Burbank corporation.”"
Elizabeth Holmes’ last-ditch bid will keep her from going to prison Thursday
BANG*Mercury News, ETHAN BARON: "A Hail Mary bid by Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has delayed her imprisonment for felony fraud.
Holmes late Tuesday asked an appeals court to overturn an order by a trial judge to surrender herself for incarceration on Thursday. Under the court’s rules, she will remain free until a decision is made.
It was not immediately clear for how long her motion to the the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit would keep her from having to report to prison. Holmes’ co-accused, Sunny Balwani, who was tried and convicted separately, went through the same process in appealing his prison-date order. The Ninth Circuit took three weeks to rule against him, while he remained free pending their decision."
This data shows one huge reason California’s housing shortage is at crisis levels
The Chronicle, CHRISTIAN LEONARD: "California’s housing shortage is forcing some residents to look elsewhere for homes, contributing to its declining population. And when it comes to a critical aspect of the housing market — the number of permits issued for new construction — the state trails behind much of the rest of the country.
Most states are permitting more housing units relative to their populations than California, according to a Chronicle analysis of U.S. Census data from the past decade. From 2013 through 2022, California counties and cities approved just over a million housing units for a rate of roughly 2,600 per 100,000 residents. That’s notably lower than the nationwide rate of 3,900. A little over 13 million units were permitted in the U.S. overall during this period."
Their home was razed due to earthquake risk. But that left them nowhere to go
LA Times, HANNAH LUCINDA SMITH: "From his second-story apartment on the western edge of Istanbul, Ismail Ciftsuren watched workers file past his window toward the building next door.
Demolition was about to start at the Cinar Residence, a complex of 13 apartment buildings, each six stories tall.
His building — his family’s home for three decades — was set to be knocked down in late March, leaving just over a month to find somewhere else to live."
Law firm seeks to disqualify D.A. Pamela Price from prosecuting former San Leandro officer
The Chronicle, JORDAN PARKER: "A Bay Area law firm filed a motion Wednesday to disqualify Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price from prosecuting former San Leandro police officer Jason Fletcher for shooting and killing 33-year-old Steven Taylor at a San Leandro Walmart in 2020.
The motion argued for Price to be disqualified, saying she has been emotionally involved in the case and has made unfavorable statements on social media about police officers."
A Santa Monica police employee molested more than 200 kids. Warnings of abuse were ignored
LA Times, RICHARD WINTON: "In nearly three decades as a civilian employee with the Santa Monica Police Department and the city, Eric Uller was considered a standout public servant who won awards for his technological innovations.
But his biggest claim to fame was his work as a volunteer in the Police Activities League, where, beginning in the late 1980s, he worked with boys and girls in the nonprofit’s after-school program.
Uller was a familiar face at the PAL center that served Santa Monica’s Latino neighborhoods, often traveling in a police vehicle and befriending generations of youths."
Pence says Trump’s stance on Social Security, Medicare ‘identical to Joe Biden’s’
The Hill, JARED GANS: "Former Vice President Mike Pence criticized former President Trump's stance on Social Security and Medicare, saying it is "identical" to President Biden's position.
Pence told The Dispatch in an interview that Biden's policy on Social Security and Medicare is "insolvency," not taking action to address an impending shortfall that is expected for both programs in the next decade.
"In fairness, my old running mate's policy is identical to Joe Biden's - that we're never even going to talk about Social Security and Medicare. I think we owe my three granddaughters better than that," he said."