'This is a climate damn emergency,' California's Gavin Newsom says
The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOSEFF: "A visibly angry Gov. Gavin Newsom warned the rest of the country Friday that California’s record wildfire season is a glimpse into its future if political leaders do not start taking the climate crisis more seriously.
“I’m a little bit exhausted that we have to continue to debate this issue. This a climate damn emergency. This is real and it’s happening. This is the perfect storm,” Newsom said during a visit to the Lake Oroville State Recreation Area in Butte County, where he surveyed damage from the North Complex Fire.
Newsom decried the “ideological BS” that he said is preventing swift action to combat climate change, which scientists generally agree has intensified the severity of natural disasters. California is the midst of the worst wildfire season in its modern history, with more than 3 million acres already burned this year, and the August Complex Fire in Northern California this week became the largest the state has ever recorded."
Because of fire, West Coast has four of the world's 10 most polluted cities
LA Times's RUBEN VIVES/MARISA GERBER/MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE: "Smoke has suffused the sky for days, replacing a bright yellow sun with a hazy red orb and raining down flakes of ash on much of the West Coast, where four cities on Sunday were among the 10 most polluted places in the world.
Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle ranked eighth, sixth and third, respectively, but the dubious honor of worst air of any big city on the globe went to Portland, Ore., where smoke was blowing in from more than 30 blazes burning across the state.
Before President Trump’s scheduled arrival in Northern California on Monday, the immediate weather forecast — dry air and whipping winds — seems to suggest that even more devastating days lie ahead in what has already become a record-breaking fire season in the American West, where wildfires have killed at least 35 people and charred nearly 4.9 million acres."
READ MORE related to Air/Climate/Environment: How climate change is fueling record-breaking wildfires, heat and smog -- LA Times's SUSANNE RUST/TONY BARBOZA
How politics and police unions stopped bills to hold bad cops accountable
LA Times's GEORGE SKELTON: "It wasn’t good government. But it was probably good politics.
A major police reform bill was quietly killed by the Assembly speaker without a house vote on the last night of the legislative session. He used an ages-old tactic aimed at sparing politically vulnerable lawmakers from casting a perilous vote.
Call it incumbent protection."
READ MORE related to Police, Prisons, Protests, Public Safety: Two LA County sheriff's deputies expected to survive attack amid intense manhunt for shooter -- LA Times's STAFF; LA County deputies arrest radio reporter covering protests outside hospital -- LA Times's ALEX WIGGLESWORTH; Hours after shooting of deputies, law enforcement clears LA protest encampment -- LA Times's JAMES QUEALLY/LEILA MILLER
Newsom signs law to help inmate firefighters land jobs in California fire departments
Sac Bee's HANNAH WILEY: "Against a backdrop of a scorched California town, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a law to let prison inmates who volunteer as firefighters more easily gain employment as first responders after completing their sentences.
The new law, Assembly Bill 2147, will let certain former inmates who’ve worked on hand crews fighting wildfires through the state’s Conservation Camp program apply to have their criminal records cleared. That would give them an easier path to getting hired as firefighters at government agencies.
“This bill would give those prisoners hope of actually getting a job in the profession that they’ve been trained,” Newsom said during a press conference while touring damage caused by the North Complex Fire. “It will give these future firefighters and emergency personnel a chance by giving them an opportunity to expunge their records, giving them an chance to get their certificate, giving them a chance to potentially get a career ladder coming out of prison."
READ MORE related to Wildfire Season: 150M dead trees could fuel unprecedented firestorms in the Sierra Nevada -- LA Times's BETTINA BOXALL; New map from Cal Fire shows where buildings have been burned by North Complex wildfire -- Sac Bee's VINCENT MOLESKI; Smoke from West Coast wildfires pulled into cyclone 1,000 miles offshore, video shows -- Sac Bee's DON SWEENEY; 'Fire tornado' hit Huntington Lake, with some roots still burning at more than 1,500 degrees -- Sac Bee's BRYANT-JON ANTEOLA; Death toll rises to 14 as crews prepare for more winds at West Zone wildfire in North Complex -- Sac Bee's VINCENT MOLESKI; California wildfires cooperate overnight, but winds could stir things up -- The Chronicle's DUSTIN GARDINER/RUSTY SIMMONS/SAM WHITING; NorCal blazes grow to historic proportions just as fire season starts -- The Chronicle's MALLORY MOENCH/MICHAEL WILLIAMS/ALEXEI KOSEFF/MEGAN CASSIDY
Progressives fret Feinstein won't be tough enough in handling Biden judicial nominees
LA Times's JENNIFER HABERKORN: "Progressives hoping for a Democratic White House and Senate next year are already voicing worries that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who would be next in line to lead the Judiciary Committee, will not commit to pushing a future Biden administration’s judicial nominees with the same aggressive tactics used by Republicans under President Trump.
As Judiciary Committee chairman, Feinstein, 87, would wield significant political power if Democrats take control of the Senate. She would be responsible for reviewing and confirming the president’s Supreme Court nominees and other judicial appointments.
Fueling progressives’ concern is Feinstein’s refusal to say whether she would give Republicans power to block appellate appointees through a Senate practice known as withholding blue slips."
Fact check: Did Newsom sign a bill legalizing pedophilia?
Sac Bee's ANDREW SHEELER: "California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday evening signed a bill into law that is aimed at creating parity in criminal sentencing for young LGBTQ people who have sex with other young people.
Senate Bill 145, introduced by San Francisco Democratic State Sen. Scott Wiener, has generated an internet firestorm, replete with rapidly spreading falsehoods and virulent death threats.
After the bill passed out of the Legislature, it didn’t take long for the news to hit conservative circles. Conservative news website Breitbart blasted the headline, “California Legislature Passes Bill Reducing Penalties for Oral, Anal Sex With Willing Children."
Even as gyms partially reopen, fitness companies face an uphill climb
The Chronicle's RUSTY SIMMONS: "Face down in a prison yard, with bullets zipping over his head and a riot broiling all around him, Don Dickerson committed to start living a clean life that would make a positive impact on the community.
He’s made good on that promise, helping Fitness SF expand to eight gyms that promote physical and mental health in the Bay Area and serving on a series of nonprofit boards that provide amity in a variety of sectors.
But after 16-plus years as the director of operations and then vice president of Fitness SF, Dickerson can’t help but feel as though he’s been forced back to lying in the dirt as chaos surrounds him."
READ MORE related to Pandemic: LA County coronavirus numbers fall back to pre-surge levels -- LA Times's SONJA SHARP
Vaccine makers got $1B from taxpayers. Now it's boosting drug prices
LA Times's NOAM N LEVEY: "One of the world’s largest drug companies has been aggressively raising prices even as it received hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. government aid to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
AstraZeneca, which the Trump administration has celebrated for its vaccine work, boosted prices despite renewed promises by President Trump this summer to keep drug costs in check.
The multinational pharmaceutical firm raised prices in a way that stood out even among other big drug companies. It announced not just one set of price hikes in 2020 but two, often on the same drugs, according to an analysis of drug pricing data by The Times and 46brooklyn Research, a nonprofit that studies the pharmaceutical industry."
SF had a $6B vision for Central SoMa. Then the pandemic hit, and tech pulled back
The Chronicle's ROLAND LI/JK DINEEN: "After nearly a decade of planning, the transformation of 230 acres in San Francisco’s Central South of Market neighborhood into a booming tech and housing hub is suddenly in doubt as the economy sputters from the coronavirus pandemic.
Pinterest’s cancellation last month of a 490,000-square-foot office lease at 88 Bluxome St., one of the large office projects planned in the area, is a sign that once-insatiable tech demand has shrunk. The company cited plans to move more employees outside of San Francisco, and paid a hefty cancellation fee.
The lease was the only office commitment among $6 billion in planned commercial and housing projects, which include the demolition and redevelopment of the San Francisco Tennis Club, historic Flower Mart and now-closed Creamery cafe."
Oracle will partner with TikTok, but will this satisfy Trump?
LA Times's WENDY LEE: "Oracle Corp. has succeeded in its bid to partner with the social media platform TikTok after its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, rejected an offer from Microsoft.
The news, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, caught some analysts by surprise because they had widely expected Microsoft, in a partnership with Walmart, to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations. The Times has not independently confirmed the Journal’s report.
“ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s U.S. operations to Microsoft,” the Redmond, Wash., tech company said in a statement Sunday. “We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests."
In Vallejo, police encounters often turn violent
The Chronicle's OTIS R TAYLOR JR: "Delon Thurston sometimes drives home from work wearing disposable plastic gloves.
The gloves press an oily therapeutic treatment — turmeric, black pepper, lavender, coconut oil — into her pores, soothing her achy hands and wrists after her shifts as a massage therapist.
“It helps increase the circulation,” Thurston told me. “My carpals are really important if I want to sustain my career.”"
Chinese researcher released on bail as prosecutor seeks to return her to custody
Sac Bee's SAM STANTON: "The Chinese researcher accused of lying about her ties to China’s military to gain access to a lab at UC Davis has been released on bail from the Sacramento County Main Jail, but federal officials have renewed their efforts to return her to custody as a flight risk.
Dr. Juan Tang, a cancer researcher who was arrested by the FBI in July after spending nearly a month in the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, was released from jail late Thursday after a Bay Area attorney agreed to put up $750,000 in his home equity as bail.
The lawyer, whose identity had remained a mystery until this week, was identified as Foster City resident Steven Cui, a civil attorney and emigre from China who had never before met or spoken to Tang but said he wanted to offer help to show that the U.S. justice system works fairly."
7 hospitalized after suspected fentanyl exposure on Golden Gate Bridge
The Chronicle's SHWANIKA NARAYAN: "Seven people were hospitalized Sunday after possible fentanyl exposure on the Golden Gate Bridge, authorities said.
At about 11:45 a.m., California Highway Patrol officials received reports of a drunken driver “swerving erratically” before coming to a stop on the south end of the bridge, according to CHP Officer Andrew Barclay.
Responding officers located the vehicle, whose driver was unconscious. A CHP officer who entered the vehicle to help the driver was overcome by a chemical substance, believed to be fentanyl, that was found in the car, Barclay said."
President Trump to visit Sacramento on Monday for briefing on California wildfires
Sac Bee's VINCENT MOLESKI/MICHAEL WILNER: "President Donald Trump will visit Sacramento County on Monday to be briefed on the deadly wildfires that have charred more than 3 million acres across the state, the White House said on Saturday.
The visit will include local and federal fire officials responsible for battling the wildfires, said Judd Deere, a White House deputy press secretary.
“The President continues to support those who are battling raging wildfires in a locally-executed, state-managed, and federally-supported emergency response,” Deere said in a statement."
