The sprawling Los Angeles basin and, indeed, most of Southern California, was defined in the 20th century by the automobile. What's in store as we enter the 21st century?
Neil Nisperos in the LA Daily News: "For more than a century, the urban landscape of Southern California has been shaped by the century-old technology: the car. But now developers and urban planning experts are envisioning how the next disruptive technologies of the 21st century — driverless cars, drones and virtual reality — may lead to smaller parking lots, fewer shopping centers and new kinds of housing designed to accommodate the evolving economy."
"What does this future look like?"
"Driverless cars: That big yellow taxi Joni Mitchell sang about? It just might be the self-driving kind in the future."
Yesterday's heat wave in Sacramento was one for the record books.
Sacramento Bee's ALEXANDRA YOON-HENDRICKS: " Temperatures rose to 106 degrees in Sacramento Sunday afternoon, breaking an almost 75-year-old record."
"The last record-high for June 18 was 105 degrees, set in 1945."
"The record-high temperature was recorded by the National Weather Service around 3:45 p.m. By about 4:30 p.m., it dipped slightly to 105 degrees but climbed back to 106 by the evening. While plenty hot, the weather service had projected the day’s high temperature could have reached 108 degrees."
A recent Assembly floor debate in California lead to a discussion of whether or not the provisions of Proposition 54 were correctly followed.
Capitol Weekly's CHRIS MICHELI: "Friday, June 2 represented the Legislature’s house-of-origin deadline. To stay alive, Assembly bills were required to have passed out of the Assembly and Senate bills had to have been passed out of the Senate."
"During Assembly floor debate, the issue was repeatedly raised whether the Assembly had properly complied with the provisions of Proposition 54, which California voters approved in November as a transparency measure. See here for our latest story on this issue."
"One of the sponsors of Proposition 54 publicly claimed that the Assembly had violated the law when it voted upon 95 bills that were passed after they had been amended but had been in print fewer than 72 hours."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi just recently hit her 30th anniversary in congress, and she had some insights to share.
The Chronicle's CAROLYN LOCHHEAD: "Marking her 30th anniversary in Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sees a peculiar alignment of history and politics taking shape. In the 2006 midterm election, that alignment made the San Francisco Democrat speaker of the House. In the 2010 midterms, it toppled her into the minority."
"These forces are again aligning — one party in control of Washington, led by a president with sagging popularity, in this case one with record unpopularity, facing FBI and multiple other investigations and an inability to enact the legislation he promised despite this party’s control of the House and Senate."
"History is on our side,” Pelosi told The Chronicle last week in an interview in her offices just outside the House chamber."
Conservative firebrand Tomi Lahren is making her way to Sacramento early 2018 for the Black & Blue police survivor's ball.
Sacramento Bee's THOMAS OIDE: "Fiery conservative commentator Tomi Lahren will be speaking in Sacramento next year."
"Lahren will be the the keynote speaker at the Black & Blue ball, an event hosted by the Northern California chapter of the Concerns of Police Survivors. The event will take place on Jan. 13, 2018, at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento."
"The Northern California Concerns of Police Survivors chapter is a non-profit organization that helps rebuild the lives of those affected by the deaths of officers killed in the line of duty. "
A slain UPS driver is remembered after his death in last week's mass shooting rampage in San Francisco.
The Chronicle's TRISHA THADANI: "Several days after Mike Lefiti was gunned down in a UPS distribution center, those who lived on his delivery route are still coming to terms with the fact that the UPS delivery man — their UPS delivery man — is no longer around."
"On Sunday, Diamond Heights resident Neha Sampat invited people to the sprawling memorial made for Lefiti outside a Safeway where he always parked his truck to record a few words about the man they lost in Wednesday’s shooting. Sampat plans to give a video of the event to Lefiti’s family to show them how the residents on his route lost much more than their UPS delivery man."
"They lost Big Mike, the guy who would wrap packages in plastic when it was raining; the one who they trusted with the keys to their house, and the codes to their garages. They lost Mikey, the big, burly man who always seemed to be at every turn in Diamond Heights, and the one who remembered everyone’s first name, or the nicknames he assigned them."
How does the Mexican Repatriation Program from 1921 - 1944 parallel to President Trump's hardline immigration policies?
Sacramento Bee's STEPHEN MAGAGNINI: "To fix America’s “immigrant problem,” a million Mexican immigrants and their children, 600,000 of them U.S. citizens, were removed. Orphans, the sick, the unemployed and others were rounded up, given train tickets and sent to the Mexican border, where Mexico transported them to the interior."
"The mass deportations broke up families, causing heartbreak and depression. Many were promised land in Mexico but never got it. Instead they struggled in poverty and isolation, feeling they were neither Mexican nor American, said Marla A. Ramirez, San Francisco State assistant professor of sociology."
"Ramirez is referring to what she calls “The Great Banishment,” the title of the book she’s finishing about the Mexican Repatriation Program that from 1921 to 1944 sent 1 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans from California and 20 other states back to Mexico."
Meanwhile, rent in California continues to skyrocket.
Sacramento Bee's ANGELA HART: "If you’re a renter in California concerned about the high cost of living here, or looking to purchase your first home, your prospects aren’t looking up."
"Projections show rents will continue to surge, especially for low- and middle-income people in places like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento, and home prices will become increasingly expensive, according to an economic analysis in the Anderson Forecast from the University of California, Los Angeles, released this month."
"It was already bad before, but it’s getting worse,” said David Shulman, a senior economist for the Anderson Forecast. “California is still attracting high-income people, who are creating an enormous amount of wealth, but low and middle-income people like teachers are leaving because housing has extraordinarily expensive."
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California may soon ban foam products the same way it banned plastic grocery bags.
The Chronicle's LAUREL ROSENHALL: "Foam burger boxes and ice cream cups could eventually go the way of the flimsy plastic shopping bag — banned throughout California."
"It’s not likely to happen this year. Environmentalists who push for the bans lost a big fight last month when the Legislature voted down a bill that would have banned foam takeout containers statewide. But growing pressure from communities that are passing the bans could eventually lead to changes on the state level."
"Those who want to get rid of foam plastic known as polystyrene say it is associated with myriad ecological hazards. It doesn’t biodegrade. It breaks down into small plastic bits that flow into waterways and harm wildlife."
