Gov. Newsom signs $15 billion climate, wildfire package at Sequoia National Park
PAUL ROGERS and SUMMER LIN, Mercury News: "Speaking at Sequoia National Park, where firefighters have toiled for the past two weeks to keep wildfires from killing some of the largest trees in the world, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed a package of bills providing $15 billion for a wide range of climate, wildfire and water projects — from thinning forests to building electric car charging stations and encouraging the development of offshore wind farms.
Newsom noted that six of the seven largest fires in California’s recorded history have happened in the past two years. Entire communities, such as Paradise, Greenville and Grizzly Flats, near South Lake Tahoe, which burned in the Caldor Fire this summer, have been destroyed in recent years.
“Grizzly Flats, it’s a beautiful community,” Newsom said. “The P.O. box goes back to the Gold Rush. Wiped off the map. Greenville. Wiped off the map. Paradise. Traditions, lifestyles, people, places, wiped off the map. That’s what climate change is about.”
Fawn fire forces emergency declaratiion in Shasta County as Windy fire spurs more evacuations
LA Times, HAYLEY SMITH: "The Windy fire swirling around California’s giant sequoia trees spurred additional evacuation orders, while a new blaze in Shasta County sent residents fleeing from thick smoke and encroaching flames on Thursday.
The Fawn fire emerged in the Mountain Gate area near Redding on Wednesday afternoon. By midday Thursday, it had exploded to 1,200 acres, with Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson declaring a local emergency. By nightfall, it had grown to at least 5,500 acres.
The sheriff’s office has issued evacuation orders for several areas near the fire, including portions of Holiday Road, Old Oregon Trail and Bear Mountain, as well as evacuation warnings for some areas near the 5 Freeway. A map of evacuated areas can be found here."
As fires threaten the Ancient Ones, sequoia lovers wonder what else will no longer endure
LA Times, DIANA MARCUM: "In Oklahoma, Sequoyah Quinton, a storm chaser and member of the Cherokee Nation, went outside, dropped to his knees and prayed for something to stop the destruction of the sequoia trees.
In New York, Gabrielle Foreman, a professor, called her mother in Chicago. They spoke of a man being evicted who wailed in grief as he gave up his dog and about a young Black woman shot by police, and then discussed fire threatening the Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park.
Foreman told her mother, “I have to get off the phone. I’m registering this in my body.” Then she prayed: “Send energy to the trees. They’re the witnesses to everything and they literally allow us to breathe.”"
How much offshore wind energy is coming to California? Newsom signs law to find out
Sac BNee, MACKENZIE SHUMAN: "Offshore wind is no longer a distant possibility in California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law on Thursday mandating that the California Energy Commission create a plan for offshore wind development in federal waters.
“Offshore wind power is one step closer to finding a home on the Central Coast and making us the nation’s clean energy capital,” said Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham, R-San Luis Obispo, an author of AB 525. “Offshore wind is a win-win-win. It means more renewable power generated locally, more local jobs and more local tax revenue.”"
Swimming against the tide: GOP fights to make inroads among millennial and Gen Z voters
LA Times, JANET HOOK: "Republicans are on the losing end of one of the biggest demographic shifts of the last 20 years: A growing generation of young people — millennial and Gen Z voters — have turned to the left and thrown in their lot with the Democratic Party.
Swimming against the tide, Republicans are courting conservative youth in hopes of narrowing the yawning gap between the parties, even if they have little hope of eliminating it.
“No doubt about it, it is going to be an uphill battle with young people,” said Andrew Kolvet, spokesman for Turning Point USA, a student-oriented conservative group that has just launched its own livestreaming platform. “But there is budding optimism on the conservative side. We are finally starting to fight back.”"
CDC endorses Pfizer booster shots for seniors and for healthcare workers
AP, LAURAN NEERGAARD/MIKE STOBBE: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday endorsed booster shots for millions of older or otherwise vulnerable Americans, opening a major new phase in the U.S vaccination drive against COVID-19.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on a series of recommendations from a panel of advisors late Thursday. The advisors said boosters should be offered to people 65 and older, nursing home residents and those ages 50 to 64 who have risky underlying health problems. The extra dose would be given once recipients are at least six months past their last Pfizer shot.
However, Walensky decided to make one recommendation that the panel had rejected."
Conception boat fire prompts bill to change 170-year-old maritime rules
The Chronicle, LAUREN HERNANDEZ: "Federal lawmakers from California this week introduced a bill that seeks to modernize an 1851 maritime law so that the victims and families of victims who die in maritime accidents are compensated.
The bill, called the Small Passenger Vessel Liability Fairness Act, was drafted in response to the Conception dive boat fire off the coast of Southern California that killed 34 people in 2019. It is sponsored by Rep. Salud Carbajal and Sen. Dianne Feinstein and was introduced on Wednesday.
Reforms to the 170-year-old Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 would require owners of small passenger vessels to be held legally responsible for maritime accidents, “including by requiring compensation, notwithstanding the value of the boat,” Carbajal and Feinstein officials said in statements on Wednesday."
House Democrats, galvanized by Texas ban, to vote to legalize abortion nationwide
LA Times, JENNIFER HABERKORN: "The House on Friday is expected to vote to legalize abortion nationwide until fetal viability, and even though the legislation is almost certain to fail in the Senate, it would mark a historic victory for abortion rights supporters following a decades-long fight.
The vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act would be the first the House has ever held to set a federal legal standard on abortion, and it would mark the first time in nearly 30 years that the House has approved what advocates consider a major proactive abortion rights bill.
Texas’s recent ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy has galvanized Democrats to be more forceful in their support for abortion rights and confident in the political upside of the issue."
These Texas women got abortions from a California doctor after the state's ban. Here are their stories
The Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI/GABRIELLE LURIE: "Ianthe Davis ended her bartending shift at 4 a.m. one recent morning in Dallas. An hour later, a friend picked her up and drove her three hours up Interstate 35 to this capital city so she could get an abortion — a procedure that became almost impossible to obtain in her home state of Texas after a new law went into effect this month.
At a clinic in Oklahoma City, Davis was treated by another woman who was far from home, Dr. Rebecca Taub. The obstetrician and gynecologist travels once a month from her home in the East Bay to the small clinic, where she performs dozens of abortions over the course of two days.
After the procedure, Davis and her friend turned around and drove home. As a bartender, Davis said, “If I don’t work, I don’t make money.”"
Here's when the third batch of stimulus checks will go ouit
The Chr onicled, JESSICA FLORES: "A third batch of Golden State stimulus checks will be disbursed to Californians in early October, according to the Franchise Tax Board.
State officials will send out a combination of mailed paper checks and direct deposits of one-time checks on Oct. 5 and will continue to send out payments every two to three weeks, Franchise Tax Board spokesperson Andrew LePage said in an email.
Two batches of direct deposit payments were issued in the last month: 600,000 on Aug. 27 and 2 million on Sept. 17."
Who has the finest flower? California State Fair to hold first cannabis competition
Sac Bee, ANDREW SHEELER: "Cannabis is coming to the California State Fair.
For the first time, the fair in 2022 will host a competition — open to all licensed cannabis cultivators in the state — to judge the finest flower in California.
Entrants will be divided into three divisions: indoor, mixed light and outdoor. Judges will evaluate the cannabis flower, with seven individual cannabis plant compounds being tested and identified for awards. That includes two cannabinoids — CBD and THC— and five terpenes, which are naturally occurring aromatic compounds that give the plant its characteristic smell and which are a source of plant essential oils and resins."
California has a long history of school vaccine mandates. But here's why one for COVID would be unprecedented
The Chronicle, ERIN ALLDAY: "Mandates that children be vaccinated before attending school date back more than a century in California, but issuing such orders for COVID-19 in many ways is unprecedented, and the prospect is putting health and school officials across the state in a tricky spot.
Since Los Angeles Unified earlier this month became the first large school district in the United States to order all eligible students be vaccinated against COVID, a small but growing number of districts have followed, including Oakland Unified this week.
On Thursday, the secretary of California’s Health and Human Services Agency suggested a statewide mandate was under consideration, though no action was imminent. School vaccines mandates are “not unusual,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, the health secretary, during a news briefing Thursday. “We actually have a long tradition ... of vaccine requirements in schools.”"
Why phonics instruction is not enough for English learners
EdSource, ZAIDEE STAVELY: "As California launches a new literacy campaign, some advocates worry that for English learners, a focus on sounding out words will come at the expense of learning the meaning of words.
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State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced a new statewide literacy campaign on Tuesday to help all third grade students in the state learn to read by the year 2026. For those learning English, that roadmap may look very different.
In recent years, there have been calls across the country to focus more on phonics — learning how to sound out syllables in words — during reading instruction. Many researchers and advocates for students who are learning English as a second language, however, say that while phonics is important, English learners also need to learn the meaning of the words they are sounding out. They recommend that teachers give students experience reading aloud, vocabulary lessons and lots of practice speaking, in addition to phonics."
Bayview residents, now homeless and living in RVs, welcome safe parking site, but neighbors push back
The Chronicle, MALLORY MOENCH: "Brothers James and Andre Keys live just two miles from where they grew up in Bayview-Hunters Point six decades ago. But instead of a house, they now call a 40-foot RV parked beside Candlestick Point State Recreation Area home.
It’s a step up from the Cadillac parked behind it: That’s where they slept, along with James’ girlfriend, for at least half of last year.
The brothers said that ever since the bank foreclosed on their mother’s home after she died a decade ago, they’ve struggled to afford housing in their hometown. Andre, who was asked to retire from his job around the same time, bounced between shelters across the city, while James and his girlfriend, who depend on disability benefits, stayed with a friend until more than a year ago."
Watchdog panel wants review of LA Sheriff's unit for possible crimes and intimidation
LA Times, ALENE TCHEKMEDYIAN: "A watchdog panel that oversees the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Thursday asked county attorneys to look into whether a special investigative unit that has targeted critics of Sheriff Alex Villanueva broke the law.
With the unanimous vote, the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission sought legal guidance on crimes Villanueva or the department as a whole may have committed by operating the Civil Rights and Public Integrity Detail, a team of nine investigators that reports to one of Villanueva’s top aides.
The panel also sought to push back against Villanueva’s refusal to answer questions about the unit. The commission had subpoenaed Villanueva to appear before them Thursday, but the sheriff said he was too busy to attend."
State's largest ongoing prison outbreak linked to staff member; early quarantine release questioned
The Chronicle, MATTHIAS GAFNI: "State officials have linked a quickly spreading coronavirus outbreak at a Central Valley prison to an infected staff member, but would not say whether the employee was vaccinated or not.
The spike at North Kern State Prison, which jumped to 103 active cases as of Thursday from 15 two weeks ago, coincided with the premature release of 51 prisoners from mandatory 14-day quarantine into the facility’s general population earlier this month. A California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson said the mistaken release of those inmates on Sept. 7, two days before their quarantine ended, had nothing to do with the outbreak, saying they all tested negative the day they were sent into general population.
“Within an hour of being made aware of the premature movement, the incarcerated persons were moved back to their quarantine housing without incident,” spokesperson Dana Simas told The Chronicle. “All 51 persons had received their mandatory 12th day COVID test prior to the movement and were awaiting results to come back. All tests returned negative and there is no link between this premature move and the current COVID-19 outbreak.”"
Sacramento's new Michelin stars come out Tuesday. Do the stars even matter?
Sac Bee, BENJY EGEL: "Auburn’s Restaurant Josphine’s homey dining room is lit by charming bulbs that hang over customers’ heads as they eat moules frites and cheese vareniki over French wine. Mismatched china dishes with flower designs come from owners Eric Alexander and Courtney McDonald’s personal collection amassed through years of thrifting. The effect is it feels like fine dining took over grandma’s countryside cottage.
A longtime power couple leading Carpe Vino in Auburn, Alexander and McDonald opened their dinner-only French/Eastern European bistro in a converted Odd Fellows lodge in November 2020. They use ingredients from their nearby farm and others around the area for dishes such as duck liver mousse in pine cone caramel or beet salad in a Georgian plum sauce called tkemali.
A half-hour drive from the state Capitol, Restaurant Josephine is one of the best additions to greater Sacramento’s dining scene in the last two years. Yet, if Michelin inspectors stick to the same guidelines as their last visit to the region, Josephine has no chance of being featured in the 2021 California Guide that comes out Tuesday."
No driving, working or dating: This program controls people leaving psych hospitals
LA Times, CHRISTIE THOMPSON: "Venus Moore had been released from the California psychiatric hospital where she was confined for years. But she was far from free.
The pandemic was raging, and her sister could provide a safe place for her to live. But Moore, 48, was required instead to live locked inside a care home for seniors. She was not allowed to drive, work, open a bank account, travel or date.
The restrictions stemmed from something that had happened two decades earlier. In 2001, diagnosed with a mental illness and experiencing hallucinations, she stabbed a relative. She was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and inflicting great bodily injury. If she had been found guilty of these crimes, she could have served up to seven years in prison. Instead, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a state hospital indefinitely."
