JULIA WICK LA Times:“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed her “colleague and friend” Rep. Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayor’s race on Monday, characterizing Bass as a coalition builder who fights for social and economic justice.
Bass (D-Los Angeles) is one of the most prominent candidates running to succeed Mayor Eric Garcetti in a field that also includes City Council members Joe Buscaino and Kevin de León, City Atty. Mike Feuer and real estate developer Rick Caruso, among many others.
“Karen fights to meet the kitchen table needs of Los Angeles families and of families across America,” Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, said in a video recorded against a backdrop of the city’s “painted ladies” Victorian homes. “What keeps you up at night is what keeps her up at night.”
And are Sacramento Democrats now willing to retool California’s controversial sanctuary law after it probably protected the father living here illegally from federal immigration agents days before he killed his kids?
Putting a price tag on the lives of young girls is an impossible task. But the priority should be a lot higher than where we’re placing it now, despite all the rhetoric about the need for tight gun control.
The Chronicle, Roland Li: "California’s gas prices have soared to a record high of $5.17 per gallon, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent oil costs shooting up, according to the American Automobile Association.
The state’s prices are the highest in the nation and more than a dollar above the national average of $3.92 per gallon on Saturday. The national average has jumped 32 cents in a week to its highest price in around a decade. California’s prices are up more than 50% compared to January 2021, when the average was $3.24 per gallon.
Rising demand and falling supply sent the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil price up to $115 per barrel, the highest level since 2008."
LAT, NABIH BULOS/HENRY CHU: " Russia announced a new cease-fire Monday to allow civilians to escape four Ukrainian beleaguered cities amid deep distrust that its forces will honor the pledge as they hammer strategic centers across the country.
Two previous cease-fires hardly got off the ground before Ukrainian officials said continued Russian shelling rendered them meaningless. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians remain trapped; some have died while trying to flee, including an entire family killed on a road in a Kyiv suburb, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, describing it Sunday as “a shooting gallery†for invading troops.
The new cease-fire announcement Monday applies to the capital, Kyiv; Ukraine’s second-most populous city, Kharkiv, which has come under sustained assault since the war began 12 days ago; Sumy in the northeast, near the Russian border; and the southern port city of Mariupol, which is essentially blockaded."
The Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI: "California voters are sending a strong message when it comes to crime and homelessness: They’re ticked off, and they want more help. Now.
But is the California Democratic Party listening? Or are its members too busy arguing among themselves?
Few top California Democrats at the state party’s virtual convention that ended Sunday mentioned crime or homelessness or acknowledged their impact. Fewer still mentioned rising inflation. Instead, many focused on the ongoing international crisis in democracy — from voting rights in the U.S. to the war in Ukraine."
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "Amid fears of another grueling fire season ahead, two congressmen representing rural California districts introduced a bill last week that would require the U.S. Forest Service to quickly put out all wildfires everywhere in the country.
The proposal, by Reps. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale (Butte County), and Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove (Sacramento County), is a seemingly commonsense measure to ensure public safety. But it comes as forestry experts are increasingly questioning the value of trying to remove fire from forests — a policy responsible for the long-term buildup of vegetation driving today’s record infernos.
While few doubt that fires often need swift suppression, many experts say some should be allowed to burn to reduce the dangerous overgrowth and make wildlands more resilient."
The Chronicle, JULIE JOHNSON: "Most other houses on Mike Hoaglund’s road in Paradise are under construction or rebuilt three years after the Butte County town suffered near-total destruction in the 2018 Camp Fire. Hoaglund, who had no insurance on the home he lost, is still living in a trailer.
He is among tens of thousands of fire survivors whose futures are being held up by a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. bankruptcy settlement fund that is falling far short of its $13.5 billion promise and taking years to compensate people yearning to move on.
These fire victims are scheduled to receive less than half of what they were promised, according to the latest estimate by the trust responsible for paying victims. Any future increase to payouts depends on the value of the embattled company’s stock, a faltering figure tied to factors as immediate as this year’s wildfire season or as remote as international instability like the Russian invasion of Ukraine."
AP, DAVID RISING: " The official global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 6 million Monday, underscoring that the pandemic, now entering its third year, is far from over.
The milestone, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is the latest tragic reminder of the unrelenting nature of the pandemic even as people are shedding masks, travel is resuming and businesses are reopening around the globe.
Remote Pacific islands, whose isolation had protected them for more than two years, are just now grappling with their first outbreaks and deaths, fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant."
The Chronicle, ERIN ALLDAY: "COVID cases and hospitalizations have plummeted in the Bay Area since the peak of the omicron surge six weeks ago, but it will probably be another four to six weeks before they bottom out, hopefully at a level that reflects minimal spread of the coronavirus in the community, health experts say.
Daily cases are less than a 10th of what was being reported in early January, and hospitalizations are down about 70% from the peak. COVID deaths — a lagging and somewhat more erratic metric because of reporting issues — appear to have peaked recently at about 30 to 35 a day for the region, though it’s too soon to say for sure they’ve stopped rising.
With the surge clearly in a rapid descent, the Bay Area along with the rest of California has lifted most public health measures to control spread of the virus. Masks are no longer required for anyone in most indoor settings, and many school districts plan to drop mandates for students and staff this month."
LAT, KIM CHANDLER: "Vice President Kamala Harris visited Selma, Ala., on Sunday as the nation commemorated a defining moment in the fight for the right to vote, making her trip as congressional efforts to restore the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act have faltered.
President Biden on Sunday renewed his call for the passage of voting legislation.
“The battle for the soul of America has many fronts. The right to vote is the most fundamental,†Biden said in a White House statement."
The Chronicle, ANDRES PICON: "On a recent Monday morning, Nitsa Green stopped by her mother’s house in Vallejo to pick up some labels for the dessert catering business she was getting ready to launch. She made an appointment with a bank to open a business account, and later in the day, she texted her mother to let her know she was making dinner, said Green’s mother, Ariadne Green.
A lifelong Vallejo resident, Nitsa Green, 41, lived with her fiance in a “beautiful little home†and was planning to begin fertility treatments with the hope of starting a family, her mother said. Relatives said she seemed happy, and excited about her future. It’s why they and others who knew her were shocked the night of Jan. 31 when she was found dead on her porch.
The coroner’s office determined that cuts on Nitsa Green’s body were “consistent with self-inflicted injuries,†said Deputy Rex Hawkins, a spokesperson for the Solano County Sheriff’s Office, which includes the coroner’s office. The office ruled her death a suicide."
The Chronicle, ESTHER MOBLEY: "A wind-battered hillside in Bodega offers a glimpse into California wine’s future.
Here, less than 5 miles from the ocean, a winery is in the process of planting Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines on what would have been considered an unsuitable site for a vineyard only a few years ago.
The vertiginous, 100-acre property is directly exposed to the Pacific’s harsh, chilly gusts, and a thick fog engulfs it every day. Within view of the hill stands the Potter Schoolhouse, which Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds†immortalized as a token of this coastline’s forbidding nature."
LAT, ALIZA ABARBANEL: "Draped atop pillows of sushi rice or displayed in its forebodingly spiny seven-inch shell, the ubiquity of red sea urchin at high-end sushi restaurants and raw bars is a symbol of California’s coastal bounty.
But while seafood lovers might debate the merits of Kumamoto and Kusshi oysters over happy hour, considerably less attention is paid to uni varieties — unless you make a living from the ocean. Anyone who falls into that category likely knows the purple urchin too: as a ravenous source of dramatic kelp-forest devastation.
Kelp forests collect in dense patches on rocky reefs that resemble towering underwater sequoias. They can stretch for miles, providing essential food and shelter for marine life around the world. But only 5% of Northern California’s kelp forests remain today, replaced by vast “urchin barrens†where spiny purple urchins alone cover the sea floor off the coast of places like Mendocino and Sonoma counties."
LAT, BRITTNY MEJIA/KEVIN RECTOR: "In a city obsessed with lighting fuses for big events, the anonymous tip to police was not particularly explosive: A man was selling illegal fireworks out of an alley in South L.A.
Los Angeles police officers pulled up to the pink house on East 27th Street on June 30 and found dozens and dozens of boxes — some stacked nine high — marked with an explosives symbol and eye-catching labels: King of Pyro. Supernova Rockets. All American Block Buster.
As more police arrived, Jose Becerra and his wife, Claudia Silva, watched it all unfold in front of their home, which sits next door to the pink house. Later, after the bomb squad came and their family was warned to stay inside, Silva asked an officer if they’d be safe."
