California’s Newsom goes to Washington; 2024 chatter follows
MICHAEL R. BLOOD, AP: "As California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom heads to Washington this week, speculation about his national political ambitions won’t be far behind.
The four-day swing, anchored to an award Newsom will receive on behalf of his home state Wednesday from an education group, will provide the Democratic governor with a national stage to continue his outspoken defense of abortion rights and gun restrictions.
It comes at a time when he has been picking fights with Republican governors in Texas and Florida and holding up California as a sanctuary for what he calls fundamental rights, including same-sex marriage, freedom of speech and abortion."
California must grant all pending applications for rent relief while its denials are under review, judge rules
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: “Since last spring, California has passed along federal aid to hundreds of thousands of low-income renters who faced debt and possible eviction because of the pandemic. But the state has also denied funds to nearly one-third of the applicants, sometimes with little explanation, and a judge has now ordered housing officials to grant all rental-assistance applications while the legality of their actions is under review.
Although it’s not clear yet whether the Department of Housing and Community Development has improperly rejected applications to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or failed to adequately explain its rejections, the hardships of any wrongdoing fall entirely on the renters rather than the state, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch said at a hearing Thursday.
Roesch said he would issue a preliminary injunction this week requiring the department to approve all pending requests for rental assistance, and all those that were denied less than 30 days ago, until he holds a hearing on whether the state’s procedures for reviewing the claims violate renters’ rights to fair treatment and a clear explanation of its decisions.”
Desalination: Should California use the ocean to quench its thirst?
Capitol Weekly, AARON GILBREATH: "Here we are again: California is enduring another punishing drought, this one only a few years after the last one ended, which was the most severe drought in the state’s nearly 500 years of recorded history.
Low winter snowpack combined with scorching summer temperatures and the driest winter months in 100 years have severely impacted the state’s water supply. Lake Oroville, an important reservoir in Butte County, had sunk to 49% of capacity by July 1. Lake Shasta was at 39% capacity.
Those are only two of many depleted reservoirs in the state’s water storage system. Every one of California’s 58 counties is under a drought emergency proclamation. As analysts know, drought drives California policy. So what has changed since the last drought?”
Former Rep. Katie Hill, who lost revenge porn lawsuit, files for bankruptcy
SEEMA MEHTA, LA Times: "Democrat Katie Hill, a former California congresswoman who owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to media parties she unsuccessfully sued over the publication of salacious pictures while she was in office, has filed for bankruptcy.
If successful, the move could allow Hill to avoid paying attorneys’ fees to the defendants, including a conservative website, a British tabloid and two journalists. The financial judgments were rendered in 2021 after a judge dismissed her lawsuit accusing multiple parties of distributing and publishing intimate pictures of Hill without her consent.
The suit received national scrutiny because it pitted California’s “revenge porn” law against the 1st Amendment."
California teachers share their challenges and worries: Teaching during Covid
EdSource, JOHN FENSTERWALD: “Today, EdSource publishes findings of a survey by the Inverness Institute of about 100 veteran teachers from across the state, who share their experiences and insights from the classroom during the turbulent 2022-23 school year. The results were intriguing, and their concerns are unnerving. Inverness is an education research nonprofit.
For a preview, EdSource’s John Fensterwald spoke with two of the principal researchers involved in the survey, Daniel Humphrey and Allison Murray.
For in-depth analysis of the survey findings as well as more teacher voices, see the main survey page below.”
The Washburn Fire in Yosemite is sending smoke all the way to Tahoe, and tourists are scrambling to change plans
The Chronicle, GREGORY THOMAS/DUSTIN GARDINER: “A wildfire burning across the southwest corner of Yosemite National Park has cast the vacation plans of thousands of park visitors into uncertainty during the peak of summer tourism.
By Tuesday night, the Washburn Fire, which ignited last week near Yosemite’s famous Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, had consumed more than 3,500 acres of forestland in the Sierra Nevada and containment had dropped from 22% to 17%.
The blaze closed one park entrance and sent very unhealthy smoke drifts north into Yosemite Valley, blotting out its famous granite features like Half Dome and El Capitan. Smoke from the fire drifted northward all the way to the Lake Tahoe basin, where people were beginning to worry about outdoor plans for the weekend.”
Shasta County OKs election results that turned back a far-right revolt
JESSICA GARRISON, LA Times: "After an expensive and often combative campaign, voters in a bellwether Northern California county have mostly turned away a slate of far-right candidates who had sought to take control of local government.
On Tuesday, after hours of debate that featured references to questions about the validity of Dominion voting machines, allegations of miscounted ballots and members of the public saying they feared for their safety at public meetings, the county Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to accept the results of a June election that was bitterly contested.
The two dissenting board members, Patrick Jones and Tim Garman, had proposed instead a forensic audit of the county’s entire elections process, including, as Jones put it, “not just recounting ballots, but taking a look at the paper, the folds, the software.”
Chesa Boudin created a commission to investigate wrongful convictions. Will his replacement keep it going?
The Chronicle, JOSHUA SHARPE: “A San Francisco supervisor plans Wednesday to announce legislation urging new District Attorney Brooke Jenkins to keep her agency’s Innocence Commission intact.
Jenkins, a former assistant district attorney, praised the commission when it was created by her boss-turned-rival Chesa Boudin in 2020. Jenkins, who quit the District Attorney’s Office to become a lead spokesperson for the campaign to recall Boudin, told The Chronicle on Tuesday that she supports continuing the commission.
Supervisor Dean Preston, who didn’t support the recall that propelled Jenkins to office, is looking for a strong commitment from Jenkins to ensure that the panel remains independent from the District Attorney’s Office and continues its work as presently constituted.”
Coronavirus deaths in L.A. County rising as ultra-contagious subvariants spread infections
LAT, LUKE MONEY/RONG-GONG LIN II: “The number of weekly COVID-19 deaths reported in Los Angeles County has doubled over the last month — the first significant increase in fatalities since the winter surge.
Over the last week, the nation’s most populous county tallied roughly 100 COVID-19 deaths, the highest total in three months. A month ago, the county was reporting about 50 deaths a week.
Although the numbers are still a fraction of the peak in the winter, when there were more than 500 COVID-19 deaths a week, they underscore the growing concerns over new super-contagious subvariants that have fueled a new wave of infections.”
UC Santa Barbara chancellor investigated in hit-and-run allegation, but denies involvement
LAT, RICHARD WINTON/TERESA WATANABE: “The California Highway Patrol investigated allegations that UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry T. Yang drove a car that hit a student skateboarding through a campus crosswalk but ultimately said it could not determine what happened and recommended no charges, according to documents and interviews.
The student, who suffered minor injuries, identified the chancellor as the driver. But UC Santa Barbara denied Tuesday that Yang’s car hit the student. In a statement, the university cited the CHP report saying the investigating officer found no physical evidence on the chancellor’s car of damage or contact that would indicate a collision had occurred. The CHP could not substantiate the hit-and-run allegations or the cause of the collision, citing the lack of independent witnesses, physical evidence on the car, video surveillance and some inconsistencies in statements by the student, the report said.
“This was not a hit-and-run,” the university said in a statement. “The Chancellor and his wife were surprised to learn of the allegations and they have always maintained that their vehicle did not collide with anyone. ... The University and the Chancellor took the allegations of this skateboarder seriously.””
COVID in California: Hospitalizations projected to peak in late July
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI/ANNA BUCHMANN: “Coronavirus hospitalizations in California and the Bay Area have reached their highest point since February, a time when the region was emerging from the omicron surge. The newest omicron strain, known as BA.2.75, has already shown up in the Bay Area. In the weeks since coronavirus vaccines became available to babies and toddlers, more than 12% of children under 5 in San Francisco have gotten their first shot.
Latest updates:
California COVID hospitalizations projected to peak in late July”
Abortion pills will soon be available on California campuses
CALMatters, MALLIKA SESHADRI: “As California’s efforts to enshrine abortion access continue, the University of California and California State University are working to provide medication abortions on all campuses by Jan. 1.
So far, none of the Cal State campuses offer medication abortions, and access within the UC system varies from campus to campus. Both university systems, however, say they are on track to implement a law passed in 2019 requiring their student health centers to provide access to the pills.
As many as 6,228 students could seek medication abortions on UC and Cal State campuses each year, once they are available, according to Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, a research program at the University of California San Francisco.”
What are the chances of catching COVID by touch? The latest on surface transmission
The Chronicle, ADVICE TEAM: “Dear Advice Team: How many minutes can a surface such as plastic or glass be infectious in a real-life indoor situation?
If we touch someone who has COVID and immediately touch our eye or mouth, can we also get infected? Or is there never enough viral load to cause an infection through surfaces or skin?
Dear Reader: With COVID case rates still at a high level in the Bay Area, we know some people are worried about how infectious the latest SARS-CoV-2 variants are.”
L.A. tries to live with brown lawns as water restrictions yield results: ‘It’s so sad’
LAT, HAYLEY SMITH/CAROLYN COLE: “Damon Ayala peered at a wet patch of sidewalk on South Tremaine Avenue on a recent Wednesday and clicked his pen.
“No one should be watering today,” he said. “That’s evidence of a watering today. They’re going to get an information letter from me.”
Ayala is a member of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s water conservation response unit, and he spends his days patrolling the streets of L.A. looking for homes and businesses in violation of the new drought rules. The restrictions went into effect June 1 and include the city’s strictest-ever outdoor watering limitations.”
U.S. inflation reached a new 40-year high of 9.1% in June
AP, CHRISTOPHER RUGABER: “Surging prices for gas, food and rent catapulted U.S. inflation to a new four-decade peak in June, further pressuring households and likely sealing the case for another large interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve, with higher borrowing costs to follow.
Consumer prices soared 9.1% compared with a year earlier, the government said Wednesday, the biggest yearly increase since 1981, and up from an 8.6% jump in May. On a monthly basis, prices rose 1.3% from May to June, another substantial increase, after prices had jumped 1% from April to May.
The ongoing price increases underscore the brutal impact that inflation has inflicted on many families, with the costs of necessities, in particular, rising much faster than average incomes. Lower-income and Black and Latino Americans have been hit especially hard, because a disproportionate share of their income goes toward such essentials as housing, transportation and food.”
Cal State’s Black students are falling behind other groups — and poor graduation data obscures the crisis
CALMatters, MIKHAIL ZINSHTEYN: “At the close of the first-ever California State University Juneteenth Symposium last month, the system’s top executive laid out an agenda for improving the Black student experience at the nation’s largest public university system.
The first item on Interim Chancellor Jolene Koester’s list? “We need to disaggregate the data,” she said.
Huh?”
Berkeley law professor Khiara Bridges calls Josh Hawley's remarks ‘transphobic’ in Senate hearing
The Chronicle, SAM WHITING: “A UC Berkeley School of Law professor took on U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley on Tuesday, accusing him of being transphobic and possibly encouraging violence against transgender people in a testy exchange during a Senate Judiciary hearing in response to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
The exchange, broadcast on C-SPAN, began innocently enough with Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, working the edges of the abortion issue, seemingly trying to draw Professor Khiara Bridges into a debate over the language used to describe who can give birth.
The hearing was scheduled as a public discussion over the legal concerns facing the country following the Supreme Court’s ruling, which ended the constitutional right to an abortion.”
Gen Z students want better mental health care access on campus
LAT, MADALYN AMATO: “When Meera Varma was in high school, she felt like a black cloud followed her everywhere she went.
Her struggles with mental health were difficult to explain to family members in their mother tongue, Hindi. Although they were supportive, she needed professional help. She found it in her school counselors, whom she saw almost daily as a senior.
After suffering frequent panic attacks in class, she started advocating at school district meetings for mental health services to be made a priority.”
How the Jan. 6 hearings set the stage for a stunning prime-time finale
LAT, LORRAINE ALI: “On Tuesday, after weeks of presenting fragments of evidence and detailed testimony to show how the Trump administration disseminated the Big Lie and contributed to a violent insurrection, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol presented a persuasive timeline with a clear intent: building up to a ground-shaking finale.
Like the penultimate episode of an intense TV drama, Tuesday’s hearing opened with a “previously on ...” montage of flashbacks, advanced the narrative, then closed with a staggering cliffhanger. In the final minutes of the three-hour hearing, Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) dropped the hearings’ most tantalizing bombshell yet, saying former President Trump attempted to call a committee witness, and that the committee submitted that information to the Department of Justice. Stay tuned.
This disciplined approach has allowed the hearings to shift with breaking news and new testimony as needed without losing momentum (see last month’s questioning of Cassidy Hutchinson), while also organizing the chaos around the 2020 election and its aftermath into a gripping chronology of events. The structure is familiar to fans of serial television — and with each public revelation, the committee has only bolstered the expectation, like an expert writers room, that there are more surprises to come.”
