Dry spell

Just how dry is it? Records are being broken.

From the Bee's Matt Weiser: "On Thursday, downtown Sacramento recorded its 47th continuous winter day without measurable rainfall, breaking a record that has stood since 1884, according to the National Weather Service. It appears likely the city will go on to shatter the record, as there is no sign of rain for at least another week."

"The record applies only to downtown Sacramento, but exemplifies the extraordinarily dry conditions across California that last week prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a statewide drought emergency."

"Redmond said that, for California as a whole, the dry trend is actually much longer. Based on records dating to 1895, the 30 months ending in December 2013 were drier than any similar period ever recorded in the state."

Not only is it dry, it's smoggy in most major urban areas of California.

From the LAT's Tony Barboza: "The evaluation of smog and soot levels was presented at a meeting in Sacramento of the California Air Resources Board, which oversees the state's progress in cleaning air that remains among the dirtiest in the nation."

"Despite falling 15% to 20% in urban areas since 2003, smog remains above federal health standards in parts of Greater Los Angeles, the San Joaquin Valley, Sacramento and San Diego, the board's report said."

"Of the state's five biggest urban areas, only the San Francisco Bay Area meets all federal standards for ozone — the worst component of smog — and fine particulate matter, or soot, according to the board, which took no action after hearing the staff report."

Gov. Brown has asked the federal courts to cut him slack in meeting deadlines to reduce the state's inmate count.

From the Mercury-News' Howard Mintz: "California's deadline to cap its prison population should be extended by two years, Gov. Jerry Brown told a federal court panel Thursday in his latest attempt to buy more time to deal with a lingering prison overcrowding problem."

"In court papers filed with a three-judge panel, the Brown administration outlined a series of reforms it would undertake to meet the court's demand to shed about 7,000 more inmates to relieve prison overcrowding, already found to have violated the constitutional rights of California prisoners."

Critical rights of teachers, including tenure, are being challenged in a long-awaited trial that begins next week.

From EdSource's John Fensterwald: "The trinity of teachers’ rights in California – tenure, seniority and due process in dismissals – will be under attack next week in a trial in Los Angeles with statewide impact and national interest."

"In Vergara v. California, a nonprofit organization, Students Matter, is suing the state to overturn five statutes in the Education Code on behalf of Beatriz Vergara, a Los Angeles Unified student who was 13 when the lawsuit was filed in 2012, and eight more students in five districts. The laws grant teachers the right to obtain tenure, or permanent status, after 18 months on the job, establish layoffs based primarily on seniority and lay out a dismissal process with complex due process procedures that the Legislature has tried, but failed, to amend  for two years."