California lawmakers OK a bill allowing them to live outside their districts
Sacramento Bee's CAITLIN CHEN: "Before they left town last week at the end of the 2018 legislative session, California lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown a bill that makes it easier for them to live outside the districts they represent."
"Senate Bill 1250 by Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, addresses decades of dispute about where California’s 120 state legislators are allowed to live when holding office. The measure says the address listed on a lawmaker’s voter registration will be accepted as the primary residence — as long as he or she actually lived at the address for an unspecified period of time."
"This bill is about allowing all legislators, who must travel and live in our state capital, to be effective leaders for our representative districts without the fear of being targeted by overzealous prosecutors or political adversaries,” Bradford wrote in a letter supporting the measure."
Pilot shortage has Cal Fire tankers sitting on runways during wildfires
McClatchy DC's KATE IRBY/ADAM ASHTON: "California’s long and deadly wildfire season is wearing down its firefighting pilots and causing Cal Fire to ground as many as six aircraft at a time because of staffing shortages."
"Schedules obtained by The Sacramento Bee show a rising number of grounded aircraft as the summer fire season progressed because pilots were unavailable to fly the planes."
"The shortage is particularly acute among low-flying S-2T tanker pilots. An average of four of the state’s 23 tankers have been grounded on certain days in August because they lacked pilots."
READ MORE related to Fire Season: How 20 major wildfires have ignited since 1991 -- The Chronicle's KURTIS ALEXANDER
Stunned by a surge in mass shootings, California lawmakers send nine-gun control bills to the governor
LA Times's PATRICK MCGREEVY: "Nearly 30 years after California became the first state to ban the sale of assault weapons and embarked on a path toward the strictest firearm laws in the nation, legislators have sent Gov. Jerry Brown nine new gun-control bills in response to a surge in mass shootings."
"The action by the Legislature was applauded more than 3,000 miles away in Parkland, Fla., where a 19-year-old gunman killed 17 students and employees at a high school in February. Among the legislation waiting approval by Brown are proposals to lift the age for buying rifles and shotguns from 18 to 21, and to prohibit the purchase of more than one long gun a month."
“If we had these bills in place in Florida, then I would not have had to go through this tragedy and lose some of my friends,” said Sari Kaufman, 16, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who is now an activist with Students Demand Action, a part of the national group Everytown for Gun Safety."
California wants 100% clean power by 2045. Wishful thinking?
The Chronicle's DAVID R. BAKER: "In the past decade, California has tripled its use of renewable power, raising wind turbines above hills and plugging vast fields of solar panels into the grid."
"That may have been the easy part."
"California legislators now want the state to get 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045, sending Gov. Jerry Brown a bill to sign that would lock in that goal. The threat posed by global warming, they say, demands no less."
How California learned to keep pregnant women, new moms from dying
The Chronicle's KIMBERLY VEKLEROV: "As deaths of new and expectant moms multiplied in the United States, the picture in California and the rest of the developed world has veered in the opposite direction."
"Beginning in 2006, health leaders in the state managed to reduce pregnancy-related deaths by more than half. Six years after their efforts began, a woman was 3 times more likely to die from having a baby in the U.S. as a whole compared with her chances in California."
"A study out Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs, by the Stanford University medical team that started the initiative, seeks to explain why."
READ MORE related to Health & Healthcare: Hospital consolidation in California linked to higher health prices -- The Chronicle's CATHERINE HO
UC system to get 100% renewable power in less than 10 years
The Chronicle's DAVID R BAKER: "The University of California system on Tuesday set a goal of powering all its campuses and medical centers with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025, as part of its efforts to fight global warming."
"The system has already committed to making its daily operations carbon-neutral by the same year, meaning they won’t add greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Two years ago, it opened a solar power plant in Fresno County to help boost the school system’s supply of renewable electricity."
"The university system also will try to make its existing buildings more energy efficient. And after June 2019, no new UC buildings will use fossil fuels on-site for space or water heating."
READ MORE related to Education: A UCLA student's lawsuit aims to push frats to do more to prevent sexual assault -- The Chronicle's TERESA WATANABE
Obama coming to SoCal to campaign for Dems in key House races
LA Times's CHRISTINE MAI-DUC: "In his first major foray on the campaign trail ahead of November’s midterm election, former President Obama will drop into Southern California on Saturday, holding a rally to boost seven Democratic candidates running in competitive House districts across the state."
"His appearance, one of just a few overtly political events he’s held since leaving the White House, is a sign of the high stakes in this year’s election as Democrats try to wrest back control of the House."
"It’s also an indication of California’s considerable role in Democrats’ hoped-for path to victory, with all seven Democrats competing in Republican-held districts that supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. Democrats need to capture 23 seats to take back the House. Details of the time and location of the rally have not yet been released."
Rancorous, partisan start for Kavanaugh high court hearing
AP's MARK SHERMAN/LISA MASCARO: "Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh declared fervently at his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday the court "must never, never be viewed as a partisan institution." But that was at the end of a marathon day marked by rancorous exchanges between Democrats and Republicans, including dire Democratic fears that he would be President Donald Trump's advocate on the high court."
"The week of hearings on Kavanaugh's nomination began with a sense of inevitability that the 53-year-old appellate judge eventually will be confirmed, perhaps in time for the first day of the new term, Oct. 1, and little more than a month before congressional elections."
"However, the first of at least four days of hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee began with partisan quarreling over the nomination and persistent protests from members of the audience, followed by their arrests."
READ MORE related to SCOTUS: Kamala Harris fears Brett Kavanuagh will put Trump befoire country -- The Chronicle's JOHN WILDERMUTH
