How unexpected California weather ‘decapitated’ fire season
The Chronicle, HANNAH HAGEMANN/JACK LEE: "Remnants of an atmospheric river brought Northern California its first solid storm of the year - rain splattered across the Bay Area and Central Coast, while some parts of Tahoe saw snowfall boosted to above average levels for this time of year.
Despite a historic heat wave in September, weather unexpectedly turned colder and wetter. A rare September storm came after the record temperatures and stopped the fire season in its tracks. October was marked by a deep marine layer that sent fog to all corners of the Bay Area.
“That really made a decisive difference in that it decapitated, if you will, the peak of fire season,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the Nature Conservancy."
He was accused of stealing huge amounts of water over 23 years. Here’s why no one noticed
Sac Bee, DALE KASLER/RYAN SABALOW: "California’s water police struggle to track where water is flowing and whether someone is taking more than they’re supposed to.
A criminal case unfolding in the San Joaquin Valley underscores how the federal government seems to have similar problems.
Prosecutors say they uncovered a massive water theft that went on for 23 years without anyone noticing."
How much rain fell in Sacramento and is there more coming? Here’s the latest forecast
Sac Bee, BRIANNA TAYLOR: "November kicked off on a slippery note, as rain scattered throughout the Sacramento area Tuesday afternoon for the first time since September.
Less than half an inch or .18 inches of precipitation fell in downtown Sacramento, according to the National Weather Service’s 24 hour precipitation report. Placerville received the most droplets in Sacramento County at .71 inches.
Folsom, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, Fair Oaks and Orangevale all received around .32 to .42 inches of rainfall.
Heat is expected to get far more brutal in certain parts of California. People are still moving there in droves
The Chronicle, YOOHYUN JUNG: "In the 1990s, Justin Johnson was one of two Black kids at his school in Roseville, a suburban community in Placer County northeast of Sacramento. The other one, he says, was his brother, Joel.
Fast forward decades, and that’s changed dramatically, Johnson said. Now, when he drops off his high school senior daughter at school, he sees dozens more Black kids. “Is it what you would consider diverse? Probably not in comparison to the Bay Area. But compared to what it was, it’s a night-and-day difference.”
Placer County is among the places in California where Black, Latino and Asian populations have grown significantly from 2010 to 2020 — and it’s also one of the places in the state that’s expected to get the hottest with global warming."
California elections: Haven’t voted yet? Here’s how to cast your ballot in the Bay Area
The Chronicle, JESSICA FLORES: "The 2022 midterm Election Day is Tuesday, and while balloting has been under way for several weeks, a large majority of Californians have yet to cast their votes: Only 12.6% of the 22.2 million vote-by-mail ballots sent to registered voters had been returned for counting as of Oct. 31, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office.
But with many key statewide and local races and measures in the balance, including district attorney contests in San Francisco and Alameda County and mayoral races in Oakland and San Jose, you still have time to weigh in.
Here’s what you need to know about how and where to vote before or on Election Day (Tuesday, Nov. 8):"
‘Where’s Nancy?’: Here’s what happened, minute by minute, inside the Pelosi home
The Chronicle, MEGAN CASSIDY: "The story was shocking from the beginning. Someone had broken into the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and swung a hammer at her 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, fracturing his skull.
But in the past week, city and federal investigators have released an array of details that paint an ever-darkening picture of the middle-of-the-night attack, in which a man obsessed with far-right conspiracy theories allegedly tried to kidnap the Democrat who increasingly stars as the villain in those fantasies.
The accused intruder, 42-year-old David Wayne DePape, now faces charges in both state and federal courts. He has pleaded not guilty to the local charges, and his public defender has suggested he may have been vulnerable to disinformation. Paul Pelosi needed surgery but is expected to recover."
Security cameras for the Pelosi home weren’t ‘actively monitored,’ Capitol Police admit
LAT, RICHARD WINTON/ALEXANDRA E PETRI: "Security cameras for the San Francisco residence of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were not actively being monitored by U.S. Capitol Police the night of a violent home-invasion attack against her husband, the government agency said Wednesday.
After reports to The Times and other outlets that a security feed existed, Capitol Police said in a statement that the cameras “are used to actively monitor the speaker’s San Francisco residence around the clock when she is there” but acknowledged that when she is in Washington, D.C., with her security detail — as she was during Friday’s break-in — the “cameras were not actively monitored.”
Officials in Washington noticed a problem at the Pelosi home only when they saw police car lights in the video feed, a law enforcement source told The Times. Details about the Capitol Police recording were first reported by the Washington Post."
A Republican firebrand is taking his third shot at higher office in four years. This time, he might win
The Chronicle, SOPHIA BOLLAG: "In the California Legislature, Republican Assembly Member Kevin Kiley is one of the most vocal critics of the way Democrats run California.
He sued Gov. Gavin Newsom over his pandemic emergency powers and won an initial victory in court, only to have it overturned. He gained a devoted following among California conservatives when he ran to replace Newsom in the 2021 recall, but placed sixth overall. He often gives passionate speeches on the floor of the Assembly excoriating liberal policies, only to watch them pass easily in the Democrat-controlled statehouse.
Kiley has made a name for himself as a conservative firebrand, but one who has had little success derailing the Democratic policies he criticizes or transforming the traction he gains with conservatives into election wins.
Next week, he might see his luck change."
Brooke Jenkins sent case docs before leading Boudin recall. Did she break the law?
The Chronicle, JOSHUA SHARPE: "Days before leaving the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office last year, now-interim District Attorney Brooke Jenkins shared confidential information about a case that helped ignite the campaign to recall her predecessor, Chesa Boudin.
Jenkins used her work email to forward unredacted police reports and a rap sheet related to a vehicular manslaughter suspect named Troy McAlister. The email — first obtained and reported by Mission Local — was sent on Oct. 9, 2021, to the personal email address of then-fellow prosecutor Don du Bain, who had also resigned to join the recall effort. Jenkins’ last day was Oct. 15.
McAlister’s case — and his criminal history before a wreck that killed two pedestrians — was used in the campaign to recall Boudin."
Slammed as ‘dishonest,’ Sacramento PAC pulls attack ad targeting county supervisor candidate
Sac Bee, DARRELL SMITH: "A Sacramento political action committee was forced to retract an accusatory attack ad that targeted county supervisorial candidate Jaclyn Moreno.
Moreno last week called out the advertisement by Sacramento political action committee Californians for a Growing Economy and Safe Streets, which claimed a lien had been placed on the candidate’s Elk Grove property for unpaid taxes.
Moreno of Elk Grove, president of Cosumnes Community Services District, is battling Elk Grove City Councilman Pat Hume in a heated race to represent south Sacramento County’s fifth supervisorial district in Tuesday’s election."
Your guide to Measure A, which would allow L.A. County supervisors to oust sheriff
LAT, STAFF: "The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has been battling with Sheriff Alex Villanueva since he took office almost four years ago over issues ranging from hiring and management to what critics say is his resistance to reforms.
The sheriff is independently elected, so there has long been debate about what powers the board actually has over Sheriff’s Department operations.
But voters could change that."
All Los Angeles County beaches placed under high bacteria warning due to rain
LAT, JONAH VALDEZ: "Public health officials warned of high bacteria levels at all beaches in Los Angeles County on Wednesday after a rainstorm swept through Southern California.
As officials tested coastal waters, concerned that bacteria levels had exceeded state standards, the county Department of Public Health advised people to avoid swimming or any contact with the water, due to the risk of illness.
The county said the risk of illness is greater for the elderly and children."
Schools scramble to find teachers as California expands transitional kindergarten
CALMatters, ELIZABETH AGUILERA: "Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $2.7 billion initiative to expand transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds. The state gave school districts only 13 months to prepare for the first wave of the expansion, which began this school year.
That’s not much time, especially during a pandemic and in the midst of a dire teacher shortage. School districts had to make plans for implementing the new grade, hire teachers and aides and find classrooms for the new students.
By far, staffing has been the largest challenge for districts. Statewide, districts need thousands of teachers and aides to staff transitional kindergarten classes throughout the four-year rollout of the expansion."
Thousands vote to strike across UC system. The action could hobble research and grading ahead of finals
The Chronicle, NANETTE ASIMOV: "Nearly 50,000 University of California student workers — researchers, postdocs, teaching assistants and graders — voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to go on strike, an action that threatens to hobble UC campuses and laboratories up and down the state ahead of next month’s final exams.
The frustrated employees voted by a 98% margin — 35,654 to 904 — to strike over pay and what they called UC’s unfair labor tactics, and could walk off their jobs as early as Nov. 14. The labor action is expected to be open-ended.
“Our teaching assistants do the vast majority of the teaching work for UC, and we do basically all of the research. If these two things stop, the university can’t really function,” said Tanzil Chowdhury, a graduate student researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who serves on one of four union committees bargaining with the public university."
UC Davis received a $50 million donation. Here’s why environmentalists are suspicious
Sac Bee, RANDY DIAMOND: ""Stewart and Lynda Resnick donated $50 million to fund a new center for sustainable agriculture practices at UC Davis, but environmentalists reacted with suspicion to the school’s mid-October announcement of their gift. “It’s self-serving,” said Char Miller, a professor who is the director of environmental analysis at Pomona College in Claremont.
Miller’s comment was related to the fact that $10 million of the Resnicks’ gift is earmarked for research grants that are focused on identifying value-added properties in pistachio, almond and pomegranate byproducts.
These crops are all part of the billionaire couple’s portfolio,"
Universities can’t yank financial aid from students who get private scholarships, new law says
CALMatters, ALYSSA STORY: "As Dixie Samaniego prepared for her first semester at California State University Fullerton, she had one focus: finding a way to pay.
“I knew that my family wasn’t going to be able to pay, or help in any way financially,” said Samaniego, now a senior, “so I started applying to scholarships everywhere.”
As a low-income student, she qualified for a federal Pell Grant and a state Cal Grant, but still had a substantial balance to cover.
After hours of applying, writing essays, and interviewing, she received a $5,000 award for her first year from a private foundation that aimed to help students who faced barriers to college.
Your guide to L.A. Community College District Board of Trustees candidates
LAT, DEBBIE TRUONG: "Eleven candidates are running for four seats on the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees, the state’s largest community college district.
The Times asked all candidates to respond in writing to queries about their experience and what their three top priorities would be if elected to the seven-member board. We also asked how they would deal with major issues confronting the district: responding to plunging enrollment and meeting the basic needs of many students who are still reeling from the effects of the pandemic. We asked whether they support the district’s $5.3-billion bond measure on the ballot and whether the college district should look to expand or reduce the number of online classes. Some responses were paraphrased and edited for brevity.
One candidate for Seat 2, Glenn Trujillo Bailey, did not respond to requests to participate."
LAUSD superintendent joins experts in supporting pursuit of science of reading
EdSource, KAREN D'SOUZA: "Alberto M. Carvalho emigrated to the United States from Portugal as a penniless 17-year-old with little knowledge of English. Now the superintendent of Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school district, he is championing California’s pursuit of the science of reading amid the literacy crisis.
“I’m a science devotee,” said Carvalho, who boosted reading scores in Miami through research-based practices before decamping to California, during his opening remarks Wednesday at the annual California Reading Summit, a statewide forum on literacy. “I believe that if we are going to follow the science, then we should really embrace all science, including the science of reading. We cannot afford to be selective in which science we focus on. That includes training kindergarten to third grade teachers in effective reading practices.”
The stakes are high in a state where less than half of California third-graders were reading at grade level before the pandemic. In the wake of school closures and remote learning, scores have now fallen even further, from 48.5% in 2019 to a staggering 42.2%. One way to fight plunging scores, experts suggest, is to dig deep into the exhaustive body of research on how the brain learns to read."
Sacramento State’s president, Robert Nelsen, retiring after 8 years. ‘Time to move on’
Sac Bee, MICHAEL MCGOUGH: "Robert S. Nelsen, president of Sacramento State since 2015, has announced that he will retire next summer.
“It’s been a great ride,” the university president, accompanied by his wife, Jody Nelsen, said in a video message posted by Sacramento State on Wednesday morning. “It’s been a great ride because of you. But now — really, July 1 — it’s time to hang ‘em up. It’s time to move on.”
That July 1 retirement date will mark exactly eight years since Nelsen, 70, took over as the eighth president of Sacramento State. He succeeded Alexander Gonzalez, the university’s president from 2003 to 2015."
Catalytic converter theft ring that made hundreds of millions is busted, feds say
LAT, GREGORY YEE: "A national catalytic converter theft ring that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue was taken down in an unprecedented federal investigation, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.
The operation included arrests, searches and seizures in California, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia.
Twenty-one defendants were charged in two indictments that were unsealed Wednesday in U.S. district courts for the Eastern District of California and the Northern District of Oklahoma, federal officials said. Investigators also served 32 search warrants and seized millions of dollars in assets including homes, bank accounts, cash and vehicles."
CBS, LAPD captain led cover-up of sexual assault report against Moonves, AG says
LAT, MEG JAMES/RICHARD WINTON: "The New York attorney general’s office released a sweeping report Wednesday that detailed an elaborate cover-up at the highest levels of CBS in late 2017 and 2018 to try to contain allegations of sexual harassment by former chief Leslie Moonves.
The report comes five years after a Los Angeles Police Department captain tipped off CBS executives, telling them a woman had come to the department’s Hollywood station to report that Moonves had allegedly assaulted her in the 1980s.
“Somebody walked in the station about a couple hours ago and made allegations against your boss regarding a sexual assault,” the police captain said in a Nov. 10, 2017, voicemail message left for a CBS executive, according to the report. “It’s confidential, as you know, but call me.”"
Review panel: 2 LAPD officers violated policy in shooting suicidal man armed with knife
LAT, LIBOR JANY: "Two Los Angeles police officers broke department policy by fatally shooting a possibly suicidal man who was armed with a knife, according to the Police Commission, which agreed with Chief Michel Moore’s assessment that the man didn’t pose an immediate threat to either officer.
A review of the shooting in December of 22-year-old Margarito Lopez Jr. in the Historic South-Central neighborhood found that Lopez did not pose enough of a threat at the time he was shot to justify the use of deadly force. The commission considered the case in a closed-door session at its weekly meeting Tuesday; it voted unanimously to approve the findings reached in the chief’s report.
The shooting occurred Dec. 18, when police responded to an apartment building in Historic South-Central. Lopez’s sister had called 911 because she was afraid her brother might hurt himself."
News Analysis: A Netanyahu government would probably clash with the Biden administration
LAT, LEILA MILLER/NABIH BULOS/TRACY WILKINSON: "In the waning days of his most recent stint as Israel’s prime minister — just over a year ago — Benjamin Netanyahu made no secret of his disdain for President Biden.
Struggling to save his own political neck, Netanyahu suggested Biden was weak on some of Israel’s most formidable enemies, Iran and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and pledged to defy a Democrat-led Washington if necessary.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu emerged as the likely choice for the top government position in Israel once again, after the country’s fifth election in four years. His right-wing bloc, which includes ultra-Orthodox and far-right nationalists, appeared to take a solid majority in the Knesset, or parliament."
