California deepens water cuts to cope with drought, hitting thousands of farms
LAT, IAN JAMES/SEAN GREENE: “California regulators have begun curtailing the water rights of many farms and irrigation districts along the Sacramento River, forcing growers to stop diverting water from the river and its tributaries.
The order, which took effect Thursday, puts a hold on about 5,800 water rights across the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers’ watersheds, reflecting the severity of California’s extreme drought.
Together with a similar order in June, the State Water Resources Control Board has now curtailed 9,842 water rights this year in the Sacramento and San Joaquin watersheds, more than half of the nearly 16,700 existing rights.”
Why Lake Tahoe’s famously clear water is getting cloudy
The Chronicle, GREGORY THOMAS: “Lake Tahoe’s famously clear water is continuing to get murkier.
An annual report from UC Davis on the lake’s health released this week shows water clarity at an average depth of 61 feet last year — 2 feet shallower than in 2020 and nearly as cloudy as it’s been since measurements began.
Researchers have been surveying Tahoe’s clarity the same way since 1968: by sinking a 10-inch white disc into the lake at various points year-round and observing the depth at which it disappears from view.”
What’s the risk of getting COVID outside? Here’s why new variants may have changed the answer
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: “Summer in the Bay Area means outdoor parties, weddings and music festivals, where people can worry a little bit less about catching COVID-19. But will fast-spreading offshoots of the omicron coronavirus variant change the equation this year?
The highly infectious and immune-evasive BA.4 and BA.5 sub-lineages of omicron are now the dominant strains in Northern California, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. COVID infections are up across the state as the test-positivity rate nears record levels, meaning the risk is higher in nearly all settings.
“We know they’re more transmissible, so the risk is greater inside or outside,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert with UC Berkeley.”
Here is the exact type of person who was most likely to leave San Francisco in the pandemic
The Chronicle, SUSIE NEILSON: “The coronavirus pandemic stripped San Francisco of a decade’s worth of population gain in a single year — mostly by hollowing out its population-rich downtown and neighborhoods close by.
Now, thanks to detailed data from the U.S. Census Bureau, it’s possible to identify the greatest losses by demographics, too. Last week, the census released data population trends by age, sex, and race and ethnicity. And it turns out that young adults, particularly white people in their late twenties, drove S.F.’s historic decline.
From April 2020 to July 2021, the city lost nearly 7% of its population, going from 873,965 to 815,201 residents — the lowest number since 2010. Among those 25 to 29 who identified as female, white and non-Hispanic, the population dropped by 26%. White men of the age group saw nearly the exact same decline.”
S.F.’s new D.A. is Brooke Jenkins, the prosecutor who left Chesa Boudin’s office and joined the recall
The Chronicle, MALLORY MOENCH/MEGAN CASSIDY: “Mayor London Breed picked former prosecutor Brooke Jenkins to be San Francisco’s next district attorney after a historic recall that ousted Chesa Boudin from office two years into his term.
Jenkins quit her job in the District Attorney’s Office to campaign against her former boss, becoming one of the most prominent faces of the recall campaign.
By picking Jenkins, Breed tapped into an appointee with the most recent experience in the office and a powerful campaign network that could provide a groundswell of support when Jenkins runs in the November election, although she was the only one of the top three finalists for the role who hasn’t previously run for office.”
As blackouts loom, PG&E changes tune about shutting California’s last nuclear plant
DALE KASLER, SacBee: "PG&E Corp. has been planning for years to shut down California’s last nuclear plant, at Diablo Canyon, saying the aging facility no longer made economic sense in an energy climate increasingly dominated by solar and other renewable sources.
Now the utility appears ready to try to prolong Diablo Canyon’s life beyond its planned 2025 closure date. A spokeswoman for PG&E said Wednesday the utility probably will apply for a share of a $6 billion federal program designed to keep nuclear power plants from shutting down.
The Civil Nuclear Credit Program was created as part of the infrastructure bill signed by President Joe Biden."
Muni to receive state grants to help replace its aging train control system
The Chronicle, RICARDO CANO: “San Francisco voters’ narrow rejection of last month’s Muni bond dimmed the prospects of updating Muni’s aging transit control system that still runs on floppy disks, but new state grant funding will help make up some of that lost capital.
Muni and BART emerged as some of the biggest beneficiaries from the $800 million awarded by the California State Transportation Agency on Thursday for projects meant to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The competitive state grants awarded funds for local projects that, collectively, are expected to remove 4.3 million metric tons of emissions.
The $116 million in grant funds awarded to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will address some of the infrastructure woes that would have been addressed under the $400 million Muni bond that narrowly failed in June.”
L.A. County supervisors poised to ask voters for power to remove sheriff from office
LAT, ALENE TCHEKMEDYIAN: “The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is poised to ask voters for the power to remove an elected sheriff from office.
Under a proposed change to the county’s charter, which would need approval of voters in November’s general election, the board would assume the authority to force out a sitting sheriff if four of the five supervisors agree the sheriff is unfit for office.
The extraordinary move would fundamentally reshuffle the balance of power in the county and highlights how bitter and dysfunctional the relationship between Sheriff Alex Villanueva and county leaders has become.”
CSU Long Beach makes mental health priority
EdSource, ASHLEY A. SMITH: “On the phone, listening to her friend’s cries of despair, Presley Dalman had to make a difficult decision – call campus police or hope everything would be fine.
As a California State University, Long Beach student studying health science and community health education, Dalman knew what she had to do.
“My best friend was in this crisis situation, and they were going to hurt themselves,” said Dalman, who graduated from the university this spring. “The only thing I could do was call the police, which is the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to, you know, I wanted to be there. I wanted them to be met by someone who really cares about them and who could really talk to them, but there was no option for that. I had to call the police.””
‘It isn’t Disneyland’: Mariposa County sheriff angry after tourist gets lost while researching trail where Gerrish family died
The Chronicle, LAUREN HERNANDEZ: “A Michigan man who ventured into a Mariposa County trail in an effort to do “some personal research on his own” into the tragic 2021 hiking deaths of a local couple, their 1-year-old daughter and dog, was rescued after he got lost in the wilderness, authorities said.
Mariposa County sheriff’s officials detailed the rescue and the area’s danger last week in a lengthy post on Facebook, where Sheriff Jeremy Briese warned the public that, “The forest is the forest. It can be beautiful, dangerous, awe inspiring and treacherous all at the same time. The wonders of Mother Nature must be respected, it isn’t Disneyland.”
Briese went on to condemn the man’s decision to venture into the Hites Cove/Savage Lundy Trail, where Ellen Chung, 31, her husband Jonathan Gerrish, 45, the couple’s 1-year-old daughter, Miju, and dog, Oski, were found dead in August 2021 from hyperthermia and probable dehydration due to environmental exposure. The temperature that day last year exceeded 100 degrees.”
Ex-leader Shinzo Abe fatally shot in shock Japan attack
AP, MARI YAMAGUCHI/CHISATO TANAKA/ FOSTER KLUG: “Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a divisive arch-conservative and one of his nation's most powerful and influential figures, has died after being shot during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan, according to NHK public television.
Abe, 67, was shot from behind minutes after he started his speech in Nara. He was airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment but was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was pronounced dead later at the hospital, NHK said.
Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of an attack that shocked many in Japan, which is one of the world’s safest nations and has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.”
A timeline of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s career
AP: “Born into a prominent political family, Shinzo Abe, who was shot at a campaign event Friday in western Japan, holds the record as the country’s longest-serving prime minister.
While credited with bringing a degree of stability to Japan following a period of economic malaise, Abe angered neighbors South Korea and China — along with many Japanese — with his nationalistic rhetoric and calls to revise the country’s pacifist constitution.
Here’s a look at some key dates in Abe’s life and career.”
Torture. Death. ‘Nothing left but hatred.’ She collects haunting voices in the Ukraine war
LAT, MARKUS ZIENER: “Natalija Yefimkina gathers the voices of war.
Like that of the young Russian soldier telling his mother about the torture he witnessed when his comrades cut the fingers off Ukrainian fighters: “Mom, I think I’m going crazy, we’re killing people.” He added, “I wanted to be a good person.”
“That’s OK, that’s OK,” his mother replied. “Those Ukrainians are not human.””
‘You’re looking for a lack of fluff’: Why Wimbledon uses 55,000 tennis balls a year
LAT, SAM FARMER: “So many elements of these glorious championships are ageless.
The tennis balls, however, age like a pitcher of cream in the sun.
Players here punish these optic yellow Slazengers with such ferocity that the balls have to be replaced several times per match.”
