Hurricane Hilary is heading toward California. Here’s a timeline of impacts
The Chronicle, ANTHONY EDWARDS, JACK LEE, GERRY DIAZ: "California is in the crosswinds of Hurricane Hilary, a tropical system hovering off the coast of Mexico, which is expected to bring heavy rain to large swaths of the state.
While hurricane-force winds are not expected in California, rainfall associated with Hilary will raise the risk for flash flooding this weekend in the Desert Southwest and through the Sierra Nevada. Los Angeles is in line to receive 10 to 20 times normal August rainfall from the system, while Palm Springs, Death Valley and other desert areas could receive a year’s worth of precipitation in just a few days. While Bay Area impacts are still uncertain, there is growing consensus among weather models for above-average rainfall beginning Sunday or Monday and continuing through midweek."
Hurricane Hilary expected to bring downpours, flood danger to Southern California
LA Times, JEREMY CHILDS: "Hurricane Hilary, gaining ferocity on its march toward Southern California, is expected to bring pounding rain and a “distinct risk” of flash floods, the weather service says.
The storm, gaining strength off the southern tip of Baja California, was rated a Category 3 hurricane Thursday evening. It is expected to strengthen to Category 4 before reaching landfall in Mexico on Friday night. However, the cooler water will weaken the storm significantly by the time it reaches San Diego County, according to meteorologist Brandt Maxwell of the National Weather Service."
LA Times, GRACE TOOHEY: "A storm brewing off Mexico’s Pacific coast and threatening Southern California and the southwestern U.S. was upgraded Thursday morning to hurricane strength.
Forecasters warn that it’s still too soon to confirm when — or if — Hurricane Hilary might make landfall, and how strong the system could become. But current projections show it could reach the Baja California peninsula by late Sunday, potentially bringing significant rain, rough surf and dangerous winds."
Hurricane Hilary forecast recalls infamous 1939 storm that killed scores of Californians
LA Times, STAFF: "Southern California could see a true weather rarity — a tropical storm hitting the coast.
Hurricane Hilary is churning off the coast of Mexico, and current projections show it could reach the Baja California peninsula by late Sunday."
Photo page: Capitol Weekly’s Top 100 Party, Aug. 15
Capitol Weekly, STAFF: "Capitol Weekly released the 2023 Top 100 at our annual Top 100 Party at the Sutter Club. Special guests Asm. Buffy Wicks and former Speaker Robert Hertzberg handled the Countdown from 100 to Number 1 on the Top 100’s first-ever majority-woman list! Entertainment was provided by The Sutter Club Boys. Photos by Scott Duncan, Capitol Weekly."
The Micheli Files: Rules of decorum in the California Legislature
Capitol Weekly, CHRIS MICHELI: "Both the Assembly and Senate of the California Legislature, like other legislative bodies, utilize several rules, as well as customs and practices, for the purpose of ensuring that legislative deliberations and debate operate in a civil and orderly way. The individual house rules, as well as Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure, provide guidance in this regard."
Kevin McCarthy has a bill to save the sequoias, but some environmental groups aren’t into it
LA Times, ERIN B. LOGAN: "In November 2021, during a plane ride from Qatar to Washington, D.C., Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) approached Rep. Scott Peters (D-San Diego) to talk about sequoias.
The humongous trees don’t grow in either of their districts but are considered a national treasure."
‘Heaven on Earth’ turned deadly: Fire exposes Maui’s shocking lack of preparation
LA Times, SUMMER LIN, RONG-GONG LIN II, RICHARD WINTON, ALEXANDRA E. PETRI: "The fire that raged through West Maui last week — leveling a historic community and killing more than 100 people — has exposed major weaknesses in the island’s preparations for such a disaster.
Even though officials have long known about the risk of a major blaze, a review of records and interviews shows there was no fire evacuation plan for Lahaina that was widely available to the public."
Wildfires once fueled extinctions in Southern California. Will it happen again?
LA Times, CORINNE PURTILL: "Tens of thousands of years ago, before the last ice age ended, vast herds of saber-toothed cats, giant sloths, American camels and other fantastic beasts roamed Southern California.
Then they were gone. The culprit behind their disappearance has never been identified."
Fish-killing toxic algae bloom has left San Francisco Bay for now
The Chronicle, TARA DUGGAN: "A toxic algae bloom that killed fish in San Francisco Bay for the second year in a row has dissipated, scientists say. The overall impact was much smaller than last year’s red tide, but experts caution that it’s too soon to say whether another one might flare up this summer.
A bloom of Heterosigma akashiwo, the same organism that killed countless fish in San Francisco Bay and Lake Merritt last summer, was detected in the bay July 27. A week later, dead fish started washing up on the shoreline, including 10 sturgeon, along with bat rays, striped bass and other fish. Though it is unclear whether all were related to the bloom, a total of 85 dead fish were observed by citizen scientists before the red tide dissipated late last week."
California backs down on punishing education researchers who testify against it
EdSource, JOHN FENSTERWALD: "Stanford Graduate School of Education Professor Thomas Dee can breathe a lot easier; so, too, can other researchers who could imagine themselves in the same conflict with the California Department of Education.
Lawyers for CDE notified Dee on Wednesday that it won’t carry out a threat to retaliate against him for providing testimony in litigation against the department. Responding to widespread condemnation that CDE was violating Dee’s First Amendment rights, the state said it had dropped a controversial clause that banned him from participating in any lawsuit “adverse” to the department, as a condition for access to non-public education data. The ban would have continued as long as the contract was in effect."
SFUSD faces tough decisions on staffing, school closures as district nears fiscal cliff
The Chronicle, JILL TUCKER: "San Francisco’s public schools are about to get a serious reality check.
The district has been spending more than it gets for years, putting it on a path toward bankruptcy. Officials have continued to overstaff schools and overspend instead of responding to declining enrollment by shrinking head count and ineffective programs. That has meant less funding to boost student performance."
California gas station owners worry about increased theft if workplace violence bill passes
Sac Bee, RANDY DIAMOND: "Shoplifters are a constant nuisance at Jas Hundal’s liquor store in South Natomas.
“After COVID everything changed,” Hundal said."
As one more housing project stalls on noise concerns, another head sprouts from ‘CEQA Hydra’
CALMatters, MIKHAIL ZINSHTEYN, BEN CHRISTOPHER: "In case you forgot, your new noisy neighbors are still considered a source of harmful pollution in California.
Earlier this year, a state appellate court blocked a proposed housing development for some 1,100 UC Berkeley students, partly on the grounds that the state’s marquee environmental protection law requires the university to study and mitigate the potential “noise impacts from loud student parties.”"
Federal judge blocks San Rafael’s proposed ban on homeless encampments
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: "San Rafael’s plan to prohibit homeless encampments on city streets and most other public property in the Marin County community has been blocked by a federal judge, who says it’s not clear where camp residents could safely go.
The ordinance was approved by the City Council in July and was scheduled to take effect Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Tricia Thompson intervened with a temporary restraining order. It would not outlaw all encampments in San Rafael but would prohibit them on sidewalks and within 100 feet of playgrounds, restrict their size and require all remaining camps to be at least 200 feet apart. Violations would be punishable by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine."
Feds charge 10 East Bay officers after 2-year investigation
The Chronicle, RACHEL SWAN, LAYA NEELAKANDAN: "Federal prosecutors charged 10 former Antioch and Pittsburg police officers Thursday with crimes ranging from fraud, to excessive force, to a conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids — the culmination of a sprawling, two-year investigation that required more than 100 FBI personnel to execute search warrants in multiple states.
Officials at the U.S. Attorney’s Office unsealed four indictments Thursday afternoon, hours after a series of early morning raids conducted in the Bay Area, Hawaii and Texas."
Antioch, Pittsburg cops charged in vast conspiracy to violate civil rights
BANG*Mercury News, STAFF: "Federal authorities Thursday charged 10 current and former Antioch and Pittsburg police officers in a set of sweeping indictments alleging offenses ranging from cheating on training classes to savage violations of civil rights in one of California’s biggest criminal cases of police corruption.
The most serious and disturbing charges — civil rights violations to “injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate citizens of Antioch” — were filed against two current and one former officer from that city’s police department, where residents have long complained of excessive force and where dozens of officers have been placed on leave amid a scandal over their racist text messages."
BANG*Mercury News, JAKOB RODGERS, NATE GARTRELL: "The FBI’s sprawling investigation into widespread corruption across the Antioch and Pittsburg police departments led to the indictment of 10 people on Thursday, marking one of the Bay Area’s largest and most searing policing scandals in recent memory.
Nine police officers — five Antioch cops and four from Pittsburg — and one Antioch community service officer were named in four indictments alleging years of suspected misdeeds across East Contra Costa County. The allegations were remarkably varied, including everything from alleged college credit scams to steroid distribution to racially motivated police brutality laid out in unabashedly bigoted text messages."
Interactive map: Where 12,800 California gun homicides happened
BANG*Mercury News, HARRIET BLAIR ROWAN: "Gun homicides killed nearly 13,000 people in California from 2014 through 2022. This new map is a grim memorial of sorts for those lives taken by gun violence, each life lost a dot on the map."
Cause of 2021 plane crash that killed 6 near Tahoe determined by NTSB. Here’s what happened
Sac Bee, ALEX MUEGGE: "The cause of a 2021 plane crash in California’s Tahoe area that killed all six people on board has been revealed as pilot error, federal transportation authorities said, though whether the captain or copilot ultimately had control of the aircraft remains unknown.
A Bombardier jet that carried six passengers from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to Truckee on July 26, 2021, crashed due to errors by its two pilots, according to a final investigation report released last week by the National Transportation Safety Board."
Sacramento Black Lives Matter founder settles libel lawsuit with video apology
Sac Bee, SAM STANTON: "More than two years after a Sacramento-area businesswoman was falsely accused of posting racist and hateful comments on the Facebook page for Sacramento’s Black Lives Matter chapter, her lawsuit against BLM Sacramento has been settled with the group’s founder issuing a public apology. “
She has posted an apology on the Black Lives Matter Facebook page and that’s what I had asked for,” said real estate investor Karra Crowley, who sued BLM and founder Tanya Faison for libel in May 2021. “It’s something you can’t undo, you can’t go out and destroy somebody’s reputation and just think that that’s OK."
Authorities investigate threats against grand jurors who indicted Trump in Georgia
AP, RUSS BYNUM: "Authorities in Georgia said Thursday that they are investigating threats against members of the grand jury that indicted former President Trump and 18 of his allies earlier this week.
Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat’s office said investigators are working to trace the origin of the threats after the names of grand jury members and other personal information were posted online. The sheriff’s office said other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies were assisting."
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