Lake Tahoe has higher concentration of microplastics than ocean trash heap
LA Times, CARI SPENCER: "Sparkling Lake Tahoe may appear pristine, but its blue surface waters contain microplastic concentrations higher than those observed in ocean gyres — systems of ocean currents notorious for accumulating plastic waste — according to new research.
The study, published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature, revealed that of the 38 lakes and reservoirs sampled across 23 countries, Lake Tahoe contained the third-highest concentration of microplastics."
It will cost $110 billion to protect San Francisco Bay from rising sea levels, new study shows
BANG*Mercury News, PAUL ROGERS: "Protecting the homes and businesses, highways and airports, sewage treatment plants and other key parts of society that ring San Francisco Bay’s shoreline from sea level rise will be a massive challenge over the next generation. And it’s not going to come cheap, according to a new report.
The cost estimate: $110 billion by 2050."
California heat wave: How hot will it get in the Bay Area?
The Chronicle, GERRY DIAZ: "A heat wave is unloading dangerous temperatures across California, and parts of the Bay Area are slated to be in its path this weekend.
Weather models agree with a high degree of confidence that most of the Bay Area will be locked into a heat wave that’s spreading triple-digit heat this weekend, from the deserts of Northern Mexico to much of the Western U.S. The models predict that excessive heat will raise temperatures to the mid-90s and low 100s across the inland valleys of the Bay Area, but they disagree over how hot it could get on the bayside."
California Democrats resisted a child trafficking bill — until they couldn’t
CALMatters, NIGEL DUARA, ANABEL SOSA: "It was a perfunctory committee hearing on a day full of them in the Legislature. The measure in question on Tuesday wasn’t novel, just another in a long list of attempts to reclassify a misdemeanor as a felony. Like most attempts before it, it met a quiet and undignified end.
The bill was new, but what it sought to do was not. Lawmakers from both parties had made numerous previous attempts to reclassify human trafficking of a minor for purposes of a commercial sex act as a “serious felony,” which would be treated as a strike under California’s Three Strikes law."
Rare do-over in California Capitol revives bill to toughen child sex-trafficking penalties
BANG*Mercury News, JOHN WOOLFOLK: "A bill that would declare child sex-trafficking a serious felony and toughen sentences for the crime would seem like an easy sell to most politicians. But not in Sacramento this week.
California’s ruling Democrats have been working for years to reduce criminal penalties under the banner of social justice, hearkening to reformers who say the criminal justice system is stacked against the poor and racial minorities. On Wednesday, however, some Democratic lawmakers went a step too far for Gov. Gavin Newsom and newly named Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas."
California still has an anti-gay marriage law on the books. Voters could remove it in 2024
AP: "California voters will decide in 2024 whether to enshrine the right to same-sex marriage in the state constitution, a chance for them to permanently remove an inactive ban on same-sex marriage that they approved in 2008.
The California Senate overwhelmingly passed the proposed constitutional amendment on Thursday, though most of the chamber’s eight Republicans did not take a position. It would repeal a 2008 measure, known as Proposition 8, which voters approved to ban the state from recognizing same-sex marriages."
Beginning reparations by restoring black Californians’ basic civil rights (OP-ED)
Capitol Weekly, JAMES WOODSON: "While cash reparations demand most of the media attention from California’s Reparations Task Force (for good reason), payouts alone will not restore fundamental civil rights to California’s 2.25 million Black residents. As my organization engaged in hundreds of hours of research and community outreach to inform the task force’s historic work, we are magnifying easily achievable steps our legislature can take to achieve reparative justice.
First: treating people who are formerly or currently incarcerated in California, who are disproportionately Black, as citizens with basic rights. It’s been almost 160 years since the 13th amendment ended the institution of human chattel slavery in the US. And yet, the State of California maintains it under the guise of law and order; a system that has unjustly targeted, attacked, and stripped communities of color, especially Black people, of their freedom and forced them to work for little or no pay. Prisoners earn as little as 8 cents an hour for essential work including construction, hospice care, computer coding and firefighting."
Japanese, Black Californians search for ‘ethical solidarity’ in state reparations movement
Sac Bee, SHAANTH KODIALAM: "There’s a pattern Kristee Haggins has noticed in her 30 years of advocacy: When Black communities fight for progress, everyone benefits.
In the civil rights movement, everyone meant immigrants and other communities of color, including Asian Americans. When the federal government wrongfully incarcerated thousands of Japanese Americans in World War II, Black activists and lawmakers joined Japanese Americans in their fight for redress. The result? Congress passed a law to give survivors of incarceration $20,000 and a formal apology in 1988."
‘Lowest point’: First their houses slid off the hill, then suspected burglars came
LA Times, GRACE TOOHEY: "Two people were arrested Thursday in Rolling Hills Estates on suspicion of attempting to burglarize homes that were evacuated in the major landslide that struck earlier this week, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
A neighbor saw the suspected burglars early Thursday and notified authorities, who attempted to surround the pair, according to a statement from the city of Rolling Hills Estates. Deputies said the suspects then tried to escape into the active landslide area — which has remained closed to the public amid concerns about its stability, according to tweets from the sheriff’s Lomita station."
One big way S.F.’s oldest hospital could change under UCSF
The Chronicle, NORA MISHANEC: "A proposal for UCSF to absorb St. Mary’s Medical Center into its vast medical network has rattled some of its senior doctors and prompted questions about what would happen if the Catholic institution transformed into a secular hospital.
Under current ownership, St. Mary’s employees are technically required to follow the Catholic Church’s ethical and religious directives, which ban contraceptives, abortions, sterilization and gender care."
Newsom says state will provide textbooks to school district that rejected Harvey Milk curriculum
The Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI: "Gov. Gavin Newsom promised Thursday to provide textbooks to a Riverside County school district where students were slated to begin the school year without them after the conservative-led school board rejected the social studies curriculum because it included an eight-paragraph mention of LGBTQ civil rights icon Harvey Milk.
The Temecula Valley Unified School District board — a majority of whose members were endorsed by a conservative Christian organization — refused in May to approve a new elementary school social studies curriculum because it mentions Milk, a former San Francisco supervisor, in a passage that is optional for teachers to use in class."
How one rural school district is overcoming geographic barriers to higher education
EdSource, CARA NIXON: "Modoc Joint Unified School District Superintendent Tom O’Malley always tells people one thing to describe rural Alturas: It’s 100 miles from the nearest Walmart.
A big grocery store isn’t the only thing missing, though. Nestled in the northeastern corner of the state with a population of about 2,700, Alturas is also 205 miles from the nearest four-year university, California State University, Chico, and 90 miles from the nearest community college, Shasta College Intermountain Campus."
IRS told Californians they owe money for missed tax deadline. Do you have to pay?
Sac Bee, DAVID LIGHTMAN: "You think you’re filing your taxes correctly, waiting until the new October deadline to pay what you owe. Then all of a sudden you get a terse notice from the Internal Revenue Service — you owe money now.
Pay up, it says, or we’ll hit you with interest and penalties."
Actors said they were making progress in contract talks, then they weren’t. What happened?
LA Times, MEG JAMES, ANOUSHA SAKOUI: "Nearly three weeks ago, it looked as if SAG-AFTRA was headed toward a landmark deal with the major Hollywood studios.
In a video to the union’s 160,000 members, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers had been “extremely productive.”"
What led to Anchor Brewing’s downfall? Sapporo, some workers say
The Chronicle, JESS LANDER: "When San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Co. announced on Wednesday that it was ceasing operations after 127 years, the company cited economic hardships — including a decline in revenue by two-thirds since 2016, the pandemic and inflation — as the culprits. But many former Anchor employees aren’t buying the company’s story.
Instead, they’re pointing the blame at Japanese beer giant Sapporo, which purchased the brewery in 2017 for $85 million. They spoke to The Chronicle about what they believe led to Anchor’s demise, including a controversial rebrand and Sapporo’s acquisition of Stone Brewing last year."
Disneyland workers could get a pay hike to nearly $20 an hour after living-wage win
LA Times, GABRIEL SAN ROMAN, HELEN LI: "A California appellate court ruled that Disneyland has illegally evaded a living-wage law passed by Anaheim voters in 2018 that could boost pay for Disneyland Resort workers to nearly $20 an hour.
The ordinance, known as Measure L, applies a minimum wage to Anaheim resort companies that have tax rebate agreements with the city."
San Francisco has California’s cheapest hotel rooms this summer, survey says
The Chronicle, KELLIE HWANG: "With tourism still on the rebound in San Francisco after nose-diving during the pandemic, travelers may be able to find particularly good budget hotel deals here this summer: The city ranked at the very bottom of a new survey of the 30 priciest destinations for hotel stays in California.
According to data from booking website cheaphotels.org, the average summer rate for the cheapest available double hotel room in San Francisco is just $115 per night — down 30% from 2019."
Homeless World Cup offers hope and compassion for a global problem
LA Times, KEVIN BAXTER, RUBEN VIVES: "Sienna Jackson doesn’t know where she’d be if she hadn’t found Street Soccer USA. But she knows where she wouldn’t be: in a home, in dental school or starring for the U.S. in the Homeless World Cup.
“My mental state would have went to trash,” said Jackson, 25, who had less than $3 in her pocket when her mother kicked her out of her home just after her 20th birthday. “I think I probably would have turned to drugs and alcohol. I honestly think I would have given up on myself.”"
Estranged from the Catholic church, some Latinos turn to veneration of unofficial saints
LA Times, ALEJANDRA MOLINA: "Inside a small storefront on Melrose Avenue, about two dozen people gathered on a recent Friday evening for Mass, raising their arms as they prayed for peace, strength and the ability to “obtain true freedom and eternal inheritance.”
They brought flowers as offerings, recited “Padre Nuestro” and “Ave Maria” prayers, and pleaded for humans to be more conscientious “so that they don’t destroy the planet.” A sign outside the space advised the public to refrain from using inappropriate language out of respect for the temple."
Who was the Zodiac Killer? Nobody, says a new documentary
The Chronicle*Datebook, MICK LASALLE: "The case of the Zodiac Killer captured the imagination of the country in the late 1960s and early ’70s, but in no region more than in Northern California. The serial killer’s four attacks, which resulted in five deaths, took place here, and The San Francisco Chronicle covered the story extensively.
Reporter Paul Avery (played by Robert Downey Jr. in David Fincher’s 2007 film, “Zodiac”) even became part of the story, when the Zodiac started sending his letters and cryptograms directly to him."
