California to cover canals with solar panels to combat drought, climate change
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "Two things on California’s wish list — more water and more power — may come soon with a first-in-the-nation plan to cover irrigation canals with solar panels.
The project, which aims to save water by reducing evaporation from canals while generating renewable energy, is small, encompassing nearly two miles of waterways in the Central Valley. The hope, though, is to showcase the simple but largely untested concept so that it catches on with agricultural and urban water suppliers across the state, and beyond.
The California Department of Water Resources is funding the $20 million pilot program with the intention of learning where solar panels might be viable along the state’s 4,000 miles of canals and aqueducts. California’s water conveyance network is one of the largest in the world, meaning huge potential for the idea. The need for more water and carbon-free energy is heightened by drought and the warming climate."
Capitol rebuild in flux; foes battle Legislature over preservation
Capitol Weekly, WILL SHUCK: "Preservationists understand that their appeal court victory this month will only delay a billion-dollar expansion of the state Capitol building, but they hope legislators will use the time-out to consider alternatives that would kill fewer trees, cost less money and keep Capitol Park more or less as generations of Californians have known and enjoyed it.
Earlier this month, a panel of California’s 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled against legislators and the Newsom administration, declaring they had failed to meet the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state’s premier environmental protection law.
The justices concluded that the Legislature and administration did not properly show how a visitor center protruding from the west lawn would affect the unobstructed view of the historic building from Capitol Mall."
Heavy snow expected in Sierra as extended storm arrives in Northern California
The Chronicle, JORDAN PARKER: "A winter storm is set to pile snow onto the Sierra and make travel difficult in the mountains this week, according to the National Weather Service.
Forecasts show heavy winds approaching, with the first impacts hitting Monday night, said Heather Richards, a weather service meteorologist in Reno. Snowfall across the Sierra will probably begin Tuesday, continuing into Wednesday, she added.
At first it is expected to be “wet-cement-like snow,” Richards said, because of high water content. Areas above 7,500 feet could see a rain-snow mix as moderate to heavy rain moves across the mountains. Higher and chillier areas could see from 12 to 18 inches of snow."
After a mild Christmas weekend, heavy rain ahead for the Sacramento region
Sac Bee, ARI PLACHTA: "Northern California and the Sacramento area are enjoying some of the best Christmas weather in the country. It won’t last beyond Sunday.
Heavy rains are expected starting Monday and will continue into Wednesday and beyond, possibly making travel difficult as people head home after the holiday.
Forecasters predict heavy precipitation throughout the region, with high winds, potential for flooding in urban areas, and snow at the upper elevations of the Sierra. It’s all part of an atmospheric river system, with moisture fueling rainfall across the Western U.S."
Southern California’s warm temperatures and sunny skies to give way to rain this week, forecasters say
The Chronicle, RUBEN VIVES: "An approaching storm system is expected to bring cold and wet conditions to Southern California this week after an unseasonably warm Christmas weekend.
The winter storm system is expected to arrived Tuesday afternoon in Santa Barbara and move into Los Angeles County during the evening.
Forecasters expect moderate to heavy rainfall, producing about half an inch to an inch of rain in the Los Angeles area with snow in the higher elevations above 6,000 feet."
Rainstorms to bring ‘drastic change’ to Southern California
The Chronicle, MACKENZIE MAYS/LIBOR JANY: "After celebrating a warm and sunny holiday weekend — a jarring juxtaposition with the dangerous snowstorms on the East Coast — Southern California is bracing for heavy rain and a steep drop in temperatures.
The National Weather Service predicts rain paired with gusty winds starting Tuesday and lasting through Wednesday, with as much as 1.5 inches across the Los Angeles area.
Parts of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties are expected to get the brunt of the storm and could see as much as 3 inches of rain."
Christmas on the beach in Southern California, as rest of country copes with monster winter storm
LA Times, SONJA SHARP: "Sun, surf and a touch of schadenfreude drew throngs of holiday merrymakers to Los Angeles-area beaches for Christmas, with temperatures touching 80 across Southern California as bitter cold and brutal storms battered most of the country.
“This is the most perfect weather,” said Jayanthi Krishna, 47, of Boston, who spent Sunday morning strolling the Santa Monica Pier with her husband and their two teenagers. “At home it’s 17 degrees, there’s a blizzard. We took pictures [intending to share them] and we thought, ‘Is it kind of rubbing it in?’
Indeed, the weather is superlatively bad almost everywhere outside of California. Ice storms gripped Seattle. Parts of Michigan were buried under more than 3 feet of snow. The “bomb cyclone” menacing much of the continental U.S. this weekend has already stranded thousands of travelers and left tens of thousands more without power. As of Sunday, at least a dozen people have died in Buffalo, N.Y.”
In Arizona, Colorado River crisis stokes worry over growth and groundwater depletion
LA Times, IAN JAMES/LUIS SINCO/ALBERT BRAVE TIGER LEE: "Kathleen Ferris stared across a desert valley dotted with creosote bushes, wondering where the water will come from to supply tens of thousands of new homes. In the distance, a construction truck rumbled along a dirt road, spewing dust.
This tract of open desert west of Phoenix is slated to be transformed into a sprawling development with up to 100,000 homes — a 37,000-acre property that the developers say will become Arizona’s largest master-planned community.
“It’s mind-boggling,” Ferris said. “I don’t think there is enough water here for all the growth that is planned.”"
Snowflakes on Mars are cube shaped and geysers erupt as ice thaws in spring, NASA says
Sac Bee, MARK PRICE: "Winter on Earth can be brutal, but NASA has discovered the season is two years long on Mars, with minus 190-degree Fahrenheit lows and cube-shaped snowflakes.
Crazier still: When spring finally comes, thawing ice explodes in geysers, according to a report released Dec. 22.
“When winter comes to Mars, the surface is transformed into a truly otherworldly holiday scene,” NASA scientists say.""
Experts say it’s time to wear masks again. The reason is the new ‘tripledemic’
NYT, News Service Syndicate: "Masks are back, and, this time, they’re not just for COVID-19. A “tripledemic” of the coronavirus, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, known as RSV, sweeping through the United States has prompted several cities and counties, including New York City and Los Angeles County, to encourage people to wear a mask in indoor public spaces once again.
Nationwide, COVID-19 case rates have spiked by 58% since the end of November. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there have already been 15 million illnesses and 9,300 deaths from flu this season, and those numbers are expected to rise in the coming months. (Over the past decade, annual flu deaths have ranged from 12,000 to 52,000 people, with the peak in January and February.) And while RSV finally appears to be on the decline, infection rates are still high across much of the country.
The CDC officially advises wearing a mask on a county-by-county basis depending on community COVID-19 levels, which take into account virus-related hospital admissions, bed capacity and case rates. However, in an interview with NPR this month, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, said, “You don’t need to wait for CDC’s recommendation, certainly, to wear a mask.”"
Omicron boosters for the youngest children are here. Will they make a difference?
LA Times, LUKE MONEY: "Updated COVID-19 booster shots are now available for the youngest children in California, a welcome development for officials hoping to augment vaccine coverage and head off a viral resurgence this winter.
Availability and uptake, however, are two different things. And given the meager vaccination rate among youngsters under 5, as well as modest overall demand for the new bivalent doses, it remains to be seen whether this latest expansion of eligibility will significantly increase the number of shots given.
A constraint at the outset is that most children in this age range have yet to be vaccinated for COVID-19 at all."
DeSantis’s request for COVID vaccine probe denounced by health experts
The Hill, JOSEPH CHOI: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) petition for a grand jury investigation into COVID-19 vaccines, in which he decries the ongoing vaccine campaign as "propaganda" by the Biden administration, is drawing fierce criticism from health experts.
Physicians and public health experts say his request betrays decades of established procedure designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, and only serves to stoke further immunization fears.
DeSantis's petition for a grand jury investigation was approved by the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday, clearing the way for what his office described as a probe into "wrongdoing committed against Floridians related to the COVID-19 vaccine.""
Who’s the new No. 4 Democrat? There may be a dispute
The Hill, MIKE LILLIS: "As Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) scrambles to shore up enough GOP support to become the next Speaker, House Democrats are grappling with a question swirling around their own leadership hierarchy next year: Who, in fact, is the No. 4 Democrat?
Most in the caucus presume that ranking falls to Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who will assume the assistant leader spot in the next Congress. Clyburn is a powerful a 30-year veteran lawmaker - and a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus - who played an instrumental role in President Biden's successful White House run.
Yet Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), the incoming vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, is subtly questioning that hierarchy."
San Jose man, a longtime public HR director, sentenced to prison for possessing child porn
BANG*Mercury News, NATE GARRTRELL: "A San Jose man who worked for several California cities throughout a lengthy career in the public sector has been sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for possessing child porn, court records show.
Gregory Borboa, 62, pleaded guilty last April to a count of possessing child pornography and was sentenced Dec. 15 by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila, court records show. Prosecutors say that in August 2019 authorities recovered more than 1,600 images and 39 videos containing child pornography and sexual abuse material from Borboa’s home.
The investigation began with a tip about suspicious activity on Borboa’s Kik messenger account, leading to a search warrant that allowed federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations to seize his phone and computer. The files seized including depictions of “horrific exploitation of minors – some as young as infants and toddlers,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo."
California State University enrollment rebounds after COVID, but some have a long way to go
Sac Bee, SAWSAN MORRAR: "Applications and enrollment in the California State University system have leveled after sharp declines during the coronavirus pandemic.
Applications held steady this year as about 828,000 undergraduate students applied for the fall 2023 term. That total is comprised of about 630,000 first-time students and about 200,000 transfer students.
California State University officials said overall, freshman enrollment this year is at pre-pandemic levels, and undergraduate transfer student enrollment only slightly declined. Last fall, 831,000 undergraduates applied for admissions, an increase from 794,000 in 2021."
Alfred Hitchcock was a master of suspense — and using S.F. to set an architectural mood
The Chronicle, JOHN KING: "Growing up in and around Los Angeles, Christine Madrid French couldn’t help but fall in love with movies. That passion continued as she began her career in architectural history, drawn to the stories that buildings help tell.
Those two passions inevitably converged — which explains why she stood last month on a dicey block of Sutter Street on lower Nob Hill, gazing at a nondescript, six-story hotel defined today by its brief but vivid appearance in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1958 film, “Vertigo.”
“How many times has this been transformed?” wondered French, wide-eyed, staring at a building she’s never seen except when actress Kim Novak leaned out a window next to the neon blade sign for what then was the Hotel Empire. “It’s in a sad in-between stage right now, but it’s so fun to be here.”"
Emails reveal Sam Bankman-Fried’s courtship of federal regulators
LA Times, FREDDY BREWSTER: "Before his mid-December arrest, cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried repeatedly claimed that he was a responsible business leader who sought more regulation of cryptocurrency and wanted his industry to be part of the mainstream financial system.
But now that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Justice Department are prosecuting the 30-year-old for fraud, the extensive professional relationships he cultivated with current and former federal regulators risk embarrassment for all involved.
As chief executive of FTX, a crypto exchange, Bankman-Fried hired multiple former federal regulators who helped connect him with top officials at the CFTC, the agency that he hoped would be charged with regulating his industry, emails show."
Will tech layoffs end the era of remote work? Here’s what experts predict for 2023
The Chronicle, CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO: "This time last year in the Bay Area, it seemed plausible that office buildings could become a relic of the past for thousands of workers, with many in tech and other remote-friendly industries comfortably ensconced in home offices after close to two years of pandemic living.
But while the region’s office market is in a slump, some local companies and national surveys show it is increasingly common for workers to show up a few days a week, a trend that is likely to continue into 2023.
For the past six months or more, many companies that embraced remote work out of necessity have settled into a two-or-three-day-per-week, in-office rhythm that could play out in the long term. And while a scorching-hot labor market may have given some managers pause in the past about urging skilled tech workers back to their cubicles, lest they flee for more flexible work environments, recent layoffs in the industry have tamped down some of those concerns."
Billions of people still lack high-speed internet. This S.F. company is building satellites to change that
The Chronicle, CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO: "As it turns out, beaming high-speed internet to the remote corners of Alaska from thousands of miles away in space starts with a brick of titanium in a San Francisco warehouse.
In a vast complex where the U.S. once churned out World War II-era Liberty Ships, Astranis is building satellites that it plans to send to orbit more than 22,000 miles above the Earth’s surface, with the first one slated to be borne skyward aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral next year.
Each of these robot sentinels cost in the tens of millions of dollars to make, but, according to Astranis CEO and aerospace engineer John Gedmark, the price tag is worth it to solve one of humanity’s enduring challenges: high-speed internet connection."
The French Laundry remains so hot there’s a black market for reservations. Is it still worth the splurge?
The Chronicle, SOLEIL HO: "The legions of hopefuls squatting online to score seats at the French Laundry are a formidable group. You might not be near them, but you can feel them palpably in the tense seconds between the opening of reservations and the quick slamming of the gates as you realize every table for a month has just been snapped up.
The nearly 30-year-old, three-Michelin-starred restaurant — for years, the only starred restaurant in the United States — continues to be one of the hottest in the American restaurant scene, releasing tables at 10 a.m. sharp on the first of every month. You can’t simply go to the restaurant; you have to work hard for the privilege of spending $350 on dinner.
I secured my first visit pre-pandemic somewhat normally by putting my (fake) name on the waiting list for just about every date I could access on Tock, the reservations website favored by high-end restaurants. Later, in the comments section of a now-defunct blog post, I scored my second visit in early 2020 from a person who couldn’t make their date. (On Tock, these reservations are like concert tickets: transferable but not refundable.)"
‘We’re stranded’: Mega winter storm brings travel meltdown to Bay Area
BANG*Mercury News, ELIYAHU KAMISHER: "When Magali Hernandez boarded a flight in Portland on Sunday, she was supposed to end up in Disney World soaking up the rays in sunny Orlando on her family’s long-awaited vacation. Instead, Hernandez, along with her two young children and husband, spent Christmas stuck in San Francisco at an airport hotel without a change of clothes.
“We arrived in San Francisco and they told us our flight to Orlando was canceled,” she said while holding back tears.
On Monday morning, it was still unclear if her family would be reimbursed for its multi-thousand dollar vacation package and Hernandez was already exhausted from spending about 12 hours on hold through a flurry of cancellations and delays with Alaska Air."
Mass Southwest Airlines cancellations strand travelers, cause chaos at airports
LA Times, MACKENZIE MAYS/LIBOR JANY: "Southwest Airlines canceled more than 2,900 flights Monday, disrupting holiday plans across the country, stranding passengers and causing chaos at some airports as much of the nation continued to suffer through the after-effects of a historic winter storm.
The airline blamed the extreme weather for the cancellations, adding in a statement “our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning. ... We recognize falling short and sincerely apologize.”
Frustrated fliers, including those at Los Angeles International Airport, reported hours-long lines, lost luggage and unstaffed flights after Southwest routes were canceled or delayed — with some told not to expect a flight home for days."
BART extends service hours on New Year’s Eve. Here’s what to expect
The Chronicle, RICARDO CANO: "BART will run extend its hours of operation past 1 a.m. on New Year’s Eve.
The last eastbound train will run through downtown San Francisco stations at about 1:30 a.m. under the New Year’s Eve schedule the regional rail agency announced Monday. The last Millbrae-bound train will pass through downtown San Francisco at around 2:10 a.m.
BART’s late-night, three-line service will stop at all stations except those at SFO and Oakland International Airport. Only the yellow and orange lines will run their full routes during late-night service, with a transfer at Bay Fair Station for Dublin/Pleasanton-bound riders."
Stone dart tips found at Idaho site are oldest known weapons in Americas, experts say
Sac Bee, MARK PRICE: "Thirteen “razor sharp” stone dart tips uncovered in western Idaho are “roughly” 15,700 years old, making them the oldest weapons ever found in the Americas, according to archaeologists at the Oregon State University.
The “full and fragmentary projectile points” — which look like arrowheads — are about 2,300 years older than any previously excavated, the university reported in a Dec. 23 news release.
“It’s one thing to say, ‘We think that people were here in the Americas 16,000 years ago’; it’s another thing to measure it by finding well-made artifacts they left behind,” anthropology professor Loren Davis said in the release."
