Record snowpack, nearly full reservoirs: Here’s the state of California’s drought after an epic winter
CNN, RACHEL RAMIREZ, BRANDON MILLER: "California has faced an onslaught of powerful, atmospheric river storms this winter, which has led to record-breaking snowpack, nearly full reservoirs and overflowing watersheds.
At this time last year, all of California was caught in a drought. But according to the latest US Drought Monitor released Thursday morning, just over a third of California remains in some level of drought — the lowest amount since the drought began — with severe drought only covering 8% of the state.
For the last three years, the state has been in desperate need of some rain and snow. Just a month ago, more than 33 million people in California, including in the major metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, were facing an unrelenting drought. Years of unfavorable precipitation trends and more intense heat waves have fed directly to the state’s prolonged, historic megadrought that has triggered dire water shortages."
Worry and suspicion reign as once-dry Tulare Lake drowns California farmland
LA TIMES, IAN JAMES, SUSANNE RUST: "Sixth Avenue used to cut through miles of farmland. Now, the road has disappeared under muddy water, its path marked by sodden telephone poles that protrude from the swelling lake. Water laps just below the windows of a lone farmhouse that sits alongside the submerged route.
Thousands of acres of cropland have been inundated in this heavily farmed swath of the San Joaquin Valley. And the water just keeps rising.
For the first time in decades, Tulare Lake is reappearing in the valley, reclaiming the lowlands at its historic heart. Once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, Tulare Lake was largely drained in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the rivers that fed it were dammed and diverted for agriculture."
In Pajaro, children and teens grapple with displacement after flooding
LA TIMES, MELISSA GOMEZ: "The school buses arrived in quick succession, looping past the entrance of the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds and a parking lot packed with cars before stopping near Harvest Building, a low-slung yellow structure usually used for fundraisers.
Araceli Telles stood waiting near the gate for her daughters to arrive at the sprawling complex. The family had recently landed in an emergency shelter here, less than a week after fleeing their home in Pajaro in the morning darkness when a levee broke and unleashed a flood.
Her daughters had been scared the first few days after the March 10 deluge, she said, unsure and unsettled by the abrupt displacement and constant moves. They spent one night in a hotel, another sleeping in a friend’s kitchen. But with buses at the shelter serving their schools, her children were, at last, back to a semi-normal routine."
A cold snap is heading to the Bay Area. Here’s where could hit freezing
THE CHRONICLE, GERRY DIAZ: "The atmosphere over the Bay Area continues to slowly recover following the onslaught of active weather earlier this week. Winds today are forecast to continue to blow from the northwest, ushering trickles of atmospheric moisture onto California’s shoreline. Residents along the coast and some of the nearby hillsides just off Highway 1 will get to enjoy brief passages of mist and drizzles throughout the rest of Friday and into the weekend as this flow becomes consistent.
But this flow will also reel in unusually cold nighttime temperatures. Residents in Santa Rosa, Napa, Walnut Creek and all across the inland valleys of the Bay Area will want to keep their winter coats handy, because this weekend’s northwest flow will make nighttime temperatures feel more like December than late March. Freezing temperatures will be possible across large swaths of Northern California, raising concerns that frost could damage crops — including grape vines in Wine Country."
Maps show areas of California where rainfall totals have surged above average
THE CHRONICLE, JACK LEE: "Storms and atmospheric rivers have thoroughly drenched California this winter, causing destruction to highways and disastrous floods. But some parts of the state, including the Eastern Sierra, Central Valley and the Southern California coast, have been hit much harder than others.
Those regions have received more than 1.5 times a typical year’s worth of rain, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's climate station data. Stockton and Merced, for example, have already received 160% of a normal year’s rainfall. Los Angeles has received over 180%."
Tahoe extends ski season due to massive California snowfall. Here's when it will end
THE CHRONICLE, MICHAEL CABANATUAN: "With the Sierra Nevada buried in historic snows and the flakes still falling, Tahoe area ski resorts are extending their seasons – with at least one welcoming skiers and snowboarders until July 4.
Palisades Tahoe announced on Thursday that it would keep the Alpine portion of its resort open until the July 4 weekend. According to its website, the resort will keep both the Alpine and Palisades areas open daily through April 30 with the base to base gondola operating."
Scientists uncover startling concentrations of pure DDT along seafloor off L.A. coast
LA TIMES, ROSANNA XIA: "First it was the eerie images of barrels leaking on the seafloor not far from Catalina Island. Then the shocking realization that the nation’s largest manufacturer of DDT had once used the ocean as a huge dumping ground — and that as many as half a million barrels of its acid waste had been poured straight into the water.
Now, scientists have discovered that much of the DDT — which had been dumped largely in the 1940s and ’50s — never broke down. The chemical remains in its most potent form in startlingly high concentrations, spread across a wide swath of seafloor larger than the city of San Francisco.
“We still see original DDT on the seafloor from 50, 60, 70 years ago, which tells us that it’s not breaking down the way that [we] once thought it should,” said UC Santa Barbara scientist David Valentine, who shared these preliminary findings Thursday during a research update with more than 90 people working on the issue. “And what we’re seeing now is that there is DDT that has ended up all over the place, not just within this tight little circle on a map that we referred to as Dumpsite Two.”"
End of the rainbow? California bill targets Skittles, other snacks with ‘toxic’ chemicals
LA TIMES, CHRISTIAN MARTINEZ: "Candy and snacks at your local market could be made with different ingredients if a bill proposed by California Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel is voted into law.
Last month, Gabriel (D-Woodland Hills) introduced AB 418, which would ban the sale, manufacture and distribution of foods containing chemicals that have been linked to health concerns including decreased immune response, hyperactivity in children and increased risk of cancer."
Pelosi reignites feud with S.F. archbishop over LGBTQ rights
THE CHRONICLE, SHIRA STEIN: "Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rekindled her long-running feud with the San Francisco archbishop, saying Thursday that he was an “extreme” opponent of LGBTQ rights.
Pelosi, a Catholic Democrat, has quarreled with San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for years over her support for abortion rights.
“Every parade against women honoring their own sense of responsibility or LGBTQ, he leads. And so he’s made it very clear, maybe we’re not all god’s children, maybe we don’t all have a free will,” Pelosi said Thursday."
S.F. Mayor Breed may have a challenger in next year’s election. Here’s who is looking to run
THE CHRONICLE, JD MORRIS, MALLORY MOENCH: "San Francisco Supervisor Ahsha Safaí has publicly confirmed what City Hall insiders have known for months: He is considering running against Mayor London Breed, who’s up for re-election next year.
Safaí, a two-term supervisor who represents the Excelsior, is a former ally of Breed who has grown increasingly critical of her and her administration, sparking widespread speculation that he was preparing to run for the city’s top political job in November 2024."
California is preparing more credentialed teachers, but is it enough?
EDSOURCE, DIANA LAMBERT: "California’s protracted teacher shortage isn’t over yet, but it seems to be getting better. There has been a significant increase in the number of credentialed teachers entering the workforce in recent years and a decline in the number of under-prepared teachers in classrooms.
Between the school years ending in 2017 and 2021 there was a 35% increase in the number of teachers who completed a California teacher preparation program and earned a preliminary credential, a reversal of the downward trend of the previous 10 years, according to state data.
In the 2020-21 school year, 16,554 teachers prepared in California earned preliminary credentials, according to a brief recently released by the Learning Policy Institute, a non-profit education research organization. About 3,000 others were prepared out of state."
LAUSD strike ends with classes to resume Friday but no settlement for low-wage workers
LA TIMES, STAFF: "A sweeping three-day strike that shut down Los Angeles public schools — led by support staff and backed by teachers — ended Thursday, clearing the way for students to return to class, but the unsettled labor dispute continues to threaten the stability of the nation’s second-largest school district.
Local 99 of Service Employees International Union — which represents 30,000 gardeners, custodians, teacher aides, special education assistants, bus drivers, food service workers and others — claimed success in bringing the plight of some of the school district’s lowest-paid workers to broad public attention. The strike shuttered campuses, which will reopen Friday, and roiled family schedules as parents scrambled to find day care and secure meals normally provided at school.
At the muddy grounds of Los Angeles State Historic Park near downtown, a sea of union members clad in red and purple celebrated the end of their strike as they banged drums and buckets and sounded noisemakers amid blaring music."
How the high cost of housing pushed many LAUSD workers to strike
LA TIMES, PALOMA ESQUIVEL: "Before the sun rose, Yadira Martinez, a special education assistant at Florence Avenue Elementary School in South L.A., shuttled around her tiny kitchen, sauteing eggs and potatoes to share with her fellow strikers earlier this week on the picket line.
She joked about the tight confines: “You turn around, take one step and you’re at the sink.”
Martinez, 53, has worked for L.A. Unified for 28 years, spending her days caring for young children with disabilities, changing their diapers, feeding them and teaching them. She makes about $32,000 a year and lives in low-income housing, paying $1,450 a month for a two-bedroom, one-bath, 750-square-foot apartment."
What GPA is needed to get into UCLA and UC Berkeley? Here’s the data, explained
THE CHRONICLE, DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA: "A new Chronicle data tool shows the average grade-point average that got students into each University of California campus by every high school — public and private — in California for the fall of 2022, the current freshman class.
At first glance, the numbers might look intimidating — for many high schools, admitted students on average had above a 4.0 GPA for many of the nine UC schools, with UCLA and UC Berkeley typically drawing the highest numbers."
Beethoven’s hair: How a San Jose State museum docent turned genetic researcher debunked a famous relic
BANG*MERCURY NEWS, JULIA PRODIS SULEK: "Tristan Begg was an anthropology student at UC Santa Cruz and a Beethoven fanatic when he volunteered as a docent at San Jose State University’s Beethoven center in the summer of 2009.
He would pull out the drawer holding a lock of hair and tell visitors, “This is real” and that it once was on the head of the greatest composer who ever lived, the one whose music changed Begg’s life when he heard the first notes of Moonlight Sonata on Christmas morning at age 17.
“It was instantaneous. I was astounded. I’ve never heard anything like it,” he said. “It was an instant sort of obsession.”
China’s opposition to TikTok sale complicates the picture — and relations with the U.S.
KA TIMES, STEPHANIE YANG: "The latest U.S.-China clash over the popular social media app TikTok is likely to worsen the already-deteriorating relationship between the two countries, as Beijing and Washington tussle over software bans, technology exports and concerns about espionage and national security.
Last week, the Biden administration renewed Trump-era efforts to allay security concerns about TikTok, created by Chinese tech giant Bytedance Ltd., by demanding that the wildly popular app be sold from Chinese ownership or face a possible ban in the U.S. On Thursday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew underwent a bipartisan grilling by a House committee whose members asked pointed questions about data security, alleged racial bias toward content creators and the platform’s mental health effects.
The Chinese government, which is intent on turning homegrown tech companies into world champions, has said it would oppose any sale of TikTok."
Sheriff Robert Luna: ‘I’m going to be recognized as a sheriff who follows the law’
LA TIMES, KERI BLAKINGER, CONNOR SHEETS: "When Sheriff Robert Luna was sworn into office in December, he inherited an embattled department prone to scandal and turmoil.
There were lawsuits, investigations, consent decrees and deputy “gangs” to contend with — not to mention repairing the discord sewn during the tenure of his truculent predecessor.
“There are, unfortunately, fractured relationships that need to be fixed,” Luna told The Times last year. “Sometimes,” he added, “the way you approach governing makes a huge difference.”"
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