Earth is warming up. So why is California having a record-breaking winter?
THE CHRONICLE, JACK LEE: "In the Bay Area, the past three months have included historic rains, record-breaking low temperatures, and even snow in places like the Berkeley hills and North Bay highlands.
In the Sierra Nevada, storms and frigid temperatures have produced so much snow that this year’s snowpack could become the largest ever recorded for the state, following upcoming storms.
A Pineapple Express — an atmospheric river ferrying moisture from waters off the coast of Hawaii — brought even more wet weather to California on Thursday, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom to proclaim a state of emergency that includes San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Napa counties. Areas at high risk for excessive rains and flash floods are under yet another round of evacuation orders."
‘We got each other’s backs’: Residents in San Bernardino Mountains rally together after winter storms
LA TIMES, SUMMER LIN/NATHAN SOLIS: "During the nearly two weeks he was stranded in his home, Mark Steven Young called about 20 people or agencies to try to get his street plowed and a 6-foot mound of snow cleared from his door.
The 70-year-old Cedar Glen resident had been trapped after back-to-back storms dumped more than 100 inches of snow on the San Bernardino Mountains — surviving off the food and powdered milk in his house. But he was running low on medicine.
“I could try to walk to the village, but I got a bad leg, so that’s not too good,” he said."
Deaths climb to 13 after San Bernardino snowstorms
LA TIMES, GRACE TOOHEY/SUMMER LIN: "More than a dozen people have died in San Bernardino County’s mountain communities in the wake of back-to-back snowstorms that dumped historic amounts of snow — more than 100 inches in places — stranding many in their homes for two weeks, county officials said.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said Thursday it has responded to 13 deaths since Feb. 23, though investigators have determined that only one had a “direct correlation to the weather,” according to a news release. That person died at a hospital after a car crash during the storm.
Four were people who either died at a hospital or were in hospice, officials said, and therefore will not be investigated. The rest are under investigation by the coroner’s division of the Sheriff’s Department."
These parts of the Bay Area are most at risk of river flooding from heavy rains
THE CHRONICLE, GERRY DIAZ: "After a day of intense rainfall and gusty winds, residents in the North Bay and Santa Cruz Mountains will be dealing with the tail-end of the storm’s Pineapple Express-enhanced rains Friday — and their lingering impacts this weekend. Heavy downpours, thunderstorms and gusty winds are slated to last through noon, adding to the high rainfall totals that have already fallen in the mountains.
The National Weather Service's hydrologic models are forecasting some of the longest rivers in the Bay Area reaching flood stage this weekend, including the Russian and San Lorenzo rivers. These high water levels will coincide with the last round of this storm’s rain bands, with a couple rivers forecast to reach major flood stage on Friday."
Daylight-saving time is back. Here’s how to avoid a terrible Monday morning
THE CHRONICLE, CATHERINE HO: "Sunday marks the start of daylight-saving time, when we “spring forward” by setting our clocks one hour ahead — and many of us lose an hour of sleep.
Observed in all states except Arizona and Hawaii, the practice began in the U.S. during World War I and again during World War II and the oil crisis of the 1970s to conserve fuel and energy costs. But many health experts have advocated for years to eliminate the twice-yearly time changes, arguing that the health impacts caused or exacerbated by sleep disruption aren’t worth the benefits."
Steps toward healing: Asian elders find their power on the ballroom dance floor
The Chronicle, CECILIA LEI: "The party was just getting started on a Thursday night in Oakland, but the dance floor was already warmed up.
Women in kitten heels and fishnet stockings sashayed across, fingertips light in their partners’ palms.
Illuminated in red and purple, the couples twirled and glided for three minutes until the music faded. “Next dance: Quick Step,” the automated playlist declared over the speakers. The dancers shuffled to find partners and started again."
The coronavirus has infected New York City’s rats. Why that’s bad news for people
LA TIMES, MELISSA HEALY: "Rats, whose populations in cities exploded during the pandemic, have now joined the list of wildlife believed to be capable of catching and transmitting the virus that causes COVID-19, new research finds.
In a study published Thursday in the journal mBio, researchers showed that rats — like dogs, cats, hamsters, ferrets and humans’ other close cohabitants — can pick up the pandemic virus from their environment.
They don’t appear to get very sick; none of the wild rats deliberately infected in a lab lost weight or died as a result. But when the rats were exposed to the Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, researchers found evidence of robust viral replication in the animals’ noses, mouths, throats and lungs."
Can common ground be found on teaching reading in California?
EDSOURCE, ZAIDEE STAVELY: "People that have been perceived as being in opposite corners over how to teach reading in California released a joint paper Thursday agreeing that foundational reading skills like phonics, vocabulary and comprehension should be taught explicitly and systematically to all students.
And children who are learning English as a second language, who make up 1 in 4 first graders in California, also need lessons to practice speaking and listening in English, and to make connections with other languages they know.
In addition, they agreed that all children should be screened early to identify both needs and strengths in reading, taking into account students’ level of English language proficiency and the language in which they have been taught. They agreed that such screeners, while identifying children who may face difficulty learning how to read, should not be used to diagnose dyslexia or other reading disabilities or to segregate students into separate classrooms as special education students."
Public schools can count on the California Lottery(OPINION)
CAPITOL WEEKLY, ALVA V. JOHNSON: "A lucky man by the name of Edwin Castro may have claimed the record $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot recently, but he’s not the only one celebrating in California.
The cumulative ticket sales alone for that widely popular multi-state drawing also generated a record $156.3 million for California public schools – supplemental funding that local officials have discretion to use to uplift education, from retaining quality teachers and buying instructional materials, to sustaining important learning programs.
Big jackpot payouts always capture attention for their life-changing impacts. But just as significant is the more than $41 billion the California Lottery has delivered to the state’s K-12 public schools, colleges and universities since the first lottery ticket was sold here in 1985. In fact, the Lottery, a self-supporting state agency, has delivered at least $1 billion to public schools annually over the last 22 consecutive years through drawings and Scratchers® ticket sales. These contributions have risen to record levels – an estimated $2 billion in the most recent year – and represent promises kept by the Lottery through its mission."
U.S. adds a robust 311,000 jobs despite Fed’s rate hikes
AP, CHRISTOPHER RUGABER: "America’s employers added a substantial 311,000 jobs in February, fewer than January’s huge gain but enough to keep pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates aggressively to fight inflation.
The unemployment rate rose to 3.6% from a 53-year low of 3.4%, as more Americans began searching for work and not all of them found jobs.
Friday’s report from the government made clear that the nation’s job market remains fundamentally healthy, with many employers still eager to hire. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Congress this week that the Fed would likely ratchet up its rate hikes if signs continued to point to a robust economy and persistently high inflation. A strong job market typically leads businesses to raise pay and then pass their higher labor costs on to customers through higher prices."
They work at a luxury Wine Country hotel. Could unionizing help them live closer to it?
THE CHRONICLE, CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO: "Tony Arguello stood at the end of a winding Wine Country lane nestled in the Boyes Hot Springs neighborhood not far outside the city of Sonoma, gazing at a tall iron gate that barred the way to the property where he once lived.
It is an idyllic spot, where an adjacent hillside is festooned with a small vineyard, and the sound of gurgling water from a creek breaks up the chirping of birds in the leaf-dappled sunlight."
Inside the financial ties between a controversial housing nonprofit and Kevin de León
LA TIMES, LIAM DILLON/BENJAMIN ORESKES/DOUG SMITH: "In summer 2020, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation was ramping up its fight with the city of Los Angeles over housing homeless people.
Under Michael Weinstein’s leadership, the powerful nonprofit was pursuing a lawsuit alleging the city illegally denied funding for an affordable housing project that the foundation was proposing. Its staff sent email after email to code enforcement and housing officials pressing them to sign off on repairs at the organization’s residential hotels on skid row. The organization even purchased a full-page advertisement in The Times castigating Mayor Eric Garcetti for not helping.
Into the fray stepped Kevin de León, the area’s incoming council member who had been elected but not yet taken office. He telephoned Matt Szabo, Garcetti’s then-deputy chief of staff, “about the Weinstein situation,” Szabo wrote in an Aug. 4, 2020, email to his colleagues. The councilman-elect, Szabo said in the email, “wants to engage and come up with a solution.”"
New Northern California housing often sits empty, waiting for PG&E to turn on the lights
THE CHRONICLE, DUSTIN GARDINER/JULIE JOHNSON: "Hundreds of newly constructed apartment buildings and businesses in Northern California are sitting empty at any given time because the projects must wait on one entity, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., to turn on the lights.
PG&E, the state’s largest utility, has long had a bad reputation among builders for the pace at which it connects buildings to the electrical grid, a process known as interconnection that occurs before a finished building can be occupied. But housing advocates and developers say those delays have grown increasingly worse in recent years, forcing many to leave buildings vacant for months amid the state’s worsening housing shortage."
These California cities are booming even as L.A., San Francisco lose population
LA TIMES, TERRY CASTLEMAN: "Brian Harrington was looking for a bigger house in 2021. He and his wife were expecting a baby and were able to work from home.
They settled on the Riverside County community of Menifee, about 54 miles from their Anaheim home.
Harrington, who works as a public relations consultant for Bitcoin startups, searched online for “homes in low 600s Southern California” and was directed to the fast-growing corridor of communities along Interstates 15 and 215."
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