Should Lyft and Uber charge more if your battery is low? California may soon ban that
CALMatters, MAYA C. MILLER: "It’s late at night, and you badly need a ride. Your cellphone’s battery is dangerously low.
Should a ridehailing company such as Uber or Lyft be able to charge you more because its artificial intelligence programming thinks you’re desperate since it knows your phone is about to die?"
California police misconduct records now available in public database
CALMatters, STAFF "The public can now search internal affairs documents and other police-misconduct records from nearly 700 California law enforcement agencies through a database created by UC Berkeley and Stanford University.
The Police Records Access Project database, which contains roughly 1.5 million pages of records from 12,000 officer-misconduct and use-of-force cases, is being jointly published today by CalMatters, The Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and KQED."
READ MORE -- Thousands of once-secret California police files made public in searchable database -- The Chronicle, MEGAN CASSIDY
Proposed ballot measure could force a citywide vote on L.A. 2028 Olympic venues
LA Times, DAVID ZAHNISER: "L.A.’s plan to host the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games was already facing a thorny set of challenges, including the scramble to secure lucrative sponsorships and the search for buses to shuttle athletes and spectators across the region.
Now, organizers could soon be faced with yet another threat: a proposed ballot measure that, according to city officials, could force at least five Olympic venues to go before voters for approval."
‘It needs more water’: Calls grow for boosting Mono Lake by easing L.A.’s water reliance
LA Times, IAN JAMES: "The picturesque tufa towers on the shores of Mono Lake, formed over centuries by underwater springs and left high and dry as Los Angeles diverted water from nearby creeks, have long been a symbol of the saline lake. Visitors who stroll beside the lapping water take photos of the craggy calcium carbonate formations as flocks of migratory birds soar overhead.
But residents, local officials and environmentalists say the lake’s level should be much higher than it is today, and that the fully exposed tufa spires show L.A. remains far from meeting its obligation to restore the lake’s health."
The Micheli Minute for August 4th, 2025
Capitol Weekly, CHRIS MICHELI: "Lobbyist, professor, and author Chris Micheli offers a quick look at what’s coming up this week in Sacramento."
In-N-Out’s owner is leaving California. Is the state a bad place to do business?
LA Times, PIPER HEATH and CAROLINE PETROW-COHEN: "Last month, billionaire In-N-Out owner Lynsi Snyder announced her move from California to Tennessee, where she plans to open new restaurants and continue raising her family.
It’s a dramatic shift for the leader of the beloved West Coast brand, which has become the latest company to signal its dissatisfaction with California in recent years. And she didn’t mince words in explaining her decision."
Gifford fire consumes nearly 50,000 acres in Los Padres National Forest
LA Times, TONY BRISCOE and TERRY CASTLEMAN: "Wildland firefighters were continuing to work to stop the blaze Sunday along Highway 166 in rural Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties about 15 miles east of Santa Maria, according to the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. But crews were faced with challenging conditions including high temperatures, dry vegetation and rugged terrain.
As the fire expanded Sunday, crews constructed fire lines and protected structures in Schoolhouse and Cottonwood canyons, the interagency team managing the fire response said in a statement. More than 1,000 personnel have been assigned to the fire."
Bay Area weather: Heat finally returns, but how long will it last?
The Chronicle, ANTHONY EDWARDS: "After weeks of mild, stable weather, the Bay Area is in for shifting conditions this week. It’ll begin with a breezy Monday before a midweek warmup and an uncertain finish.
A tight pressure gradient along the coast will continue to bring moderate gusts to beaches, gaps and passes Monday. West-northwest gusts up to 30 mph are possible. The onshore wind will keep temperatures near to slightly below normal for early August, in the 60s at the coast, 70s along the bay shoreline and 80s inland."
‘No obvious front-runner.’ Why Harris’ exit has scrambled the race for California governor
LA Times, KEVIN RECTIR, SEEMA MEHTA and LAURA J NELSON: "For months, candidates in the race to become California’s next governor had waited for a pivotal question to be settled: Will former Vice President Kamala Harris run or not? With Harris’ announcement this week that she’s out, a new question arose: Who’s the front-runner now?
Because of Harris’ star power, the answer is far from simple. For months, other candidates saw their campaign planning and fundraising undercut by the possibility she would run, meaning the race got a big reset seconds after Harris made her announcement Wednesday."
The billionaire mall magnate who could jolt the California governor's race
Politico, JEREMY B. WHITE and MELANIE MASON: "."Kamala Harris just answered the biggest question in California politics. Now everyone is asking about Rick Caruso.
For months, the prospect of Harris’ entry into the governor’s race froze the 2026 contest as candidates and donors waited to see if she would seize the frontrunner’s mantle. But if Harris was the largest domino still teetering, the Los Angeles billionaire and former mayoral candidate was widely seen as a close second — and Harris’ pass has given him options."
California conservatives rally to recall Newsom again despite prior failures
SacBee, ARIANE LANG: "Conservative activists staged a rally on the west steps of the California Capitol Sunday demanding a recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom, four years after a recall election failed and 11 months after the most recent attempt to recall him went kaput.
With one month until the deadline and 1 million signatures to go, activists tried to build momentum for Newsom’s ouster. About 80 people turned up for the Sacramento rally."
S.F. speed cameras are about to start issuing actual fines. Here’s their track record so far
The Chronicle, DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA: "After sending out $0 warnings for months, San Francisco’s speed cameras will officially begin issuing citations with fines on Tuesday. That’s after what SFMTA officials said was a successful pilot that reduced speeding considerably.
That claim was hard to verify completely using available data. Warning data for June and July, the only months in which every camera was operational, was not available as of Friday. But an analysis of April and May data shows that speeding declined in most, but not all, areas the cameras monitored."
Lawsuit: City seeks to close Port of West Sacramento by dismantling facilities
SacBee, ISHANI DESAI: "Wood chips were once piled dozens of feet high at the Port of West Sacramento. Fertilizer imports filled multiple warehouses, ready for distribution across Yolo County’s ripe farmlands.
That infrastructure and product is now gone. The city of West Sacramento said in a February news release that a “modernization plan” required demolishing an “obsolete” warehouse and a conveyor system used to transport goods into ships in the harbor. Wood chips and fertilizer stopped coming through the port in 2005 and 2008, respectively, according to the West Sacramento News Ledger."
Searchable database on cases of police use of force and misconduct in California opens to the public
LA Times, Staff: "A searchable database of public records concerning use of force and misconduct by California law enforcement officers — some 1.5 million pages from nearly 700 law enforcement agencies — is now available to the public.
The Police Records Access Project, a database built by UC Berkeley and Stanford University, is being published by the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, KQED and CalMatters.
Sacramento County administrator overseeing COVID food program profited from it
SacBee JOE RUBIN: "The Sacramento County official who oversaw the troubled COVID-19 food aid program not only profited from it through public money distributed to her private business, but also participated in the audit that concluded the initiative improperly allocated federal funds that the county should demand be returned.
A Sacramento Bee review of the audit and records of the Dine-In 2 program shows that Stephanie Hopkins, a program planner with the county’s Department of Human Assistance, was paid by one of the leaders of the project accused of wrongdoing while approving the very dispersal and the invoices for it."
‘Watermelon head’ or Senate ‘workhorse’? Adam Schiff’s latest fight with Trump
SacBee, DAVID LIGHTMAN: "Watermelon head. Sleazebag. Scam artist. Belongs in prison. Enemy from within. Donald Trump has used all those insults and more to describe the man he calls Adam “Shifty” Schiff over the past year.
Schiff is now a U.S. senator, and his term will outlast Trump’s since it ends in January 2031, two years after the president leaves office."
Dead & Company closes Grateful Dead’s 60th in San Francisco with a soaring finale
The Chronicle, SAM WHITING/AIDIN VAZIRI: "For the first time all weekend, the fog lifted.
Beneath bright blue skies, Dead & Company took the stage for the final night of their sold-out, three-day run at Golden Gate Park, closing out San Francisco’s centerpiece celebration of the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary."