The state's climate is still trying to figure out what the season is. Meanwhile, enthusiasts are taking to the slopes -- in their bikinis.
LA Times' PAIGE ST. JOHN: "Skiers in bikini tops are showing up on California mountain slopes that could remain open into August. Hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail must cross miles of deep snowfields that should have melted a month ago, some of them scrambling for their lives in the icy water of raging mountain streams."
"For Stev Fagran, a 56-year-old schoolteacher from Wellington, Nev., the Sierra’s endless winter gives him a chance to build on a personal record of 164 consecutive months skiing, hunting out snow patches until the flakes fall again in September."
"Some years that means hunting narrow strips of snow in shaded fissures. This year, whole peaks in the Sierra Nevada remain covered."
Despite being known for its relentlessly smothering smog, Los Angeles happens to be leading the state in clean-energy jobs.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune's KEVIN SMITH: "An estimated 519,500 Californians are working in clean-energy industries, and Los Angeles County is leading the way, according to a report released Monday."
"The study from the nonpartisan business group E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs) revealed that more than $45 billion in public and private investments have been injected into the state’s economy by California’s stringent climate policies, including cap-and-trade legislation, which reduces pollution while increasing clean energy and energy efficiency."
"Under cap-and-trade, companies pay penalties if they exceed the current cap on allowable greenhouse gas emissions; the cap gets stricter over time. The trade part is a market for companies to buy and sell allowances that permit them to emit only a certain amount. Trading gives companies a strong incentive to save money by reducing emissions."
The SCOTUS' landmark gerrymandering case is believed to have little-to-no-impact on California's districting system.
Daily News: "The Supreme Court will take up a fight over parties manipulating electoral districts to gain partisan advantage in a case that could affect the balance between Democrats and Republicans in many states. California, however, is unlikely to see much of an effect from the high court’s consideration of that case."
"At issue is whether Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin drew legislative districts that favored their party and were so out of whack with the state’s political breakdown that they violated the constitutional rights of Democratic voters. It will be the high court’s first case in more than a decade on what’s known as partisan gerrymandering. A lower court struck down the districts as unconstitutional last year."
"However, in California, the state’s non-partisan redistricting and its “top-two” primary system have actually led to more-competitive races, some even pitting members of the same party against one another."
Calpensions' Ed Mendel in Capitol Weekly takes a look at Gov. Brown's bold pension reform 5 years later.
ED MENDEL: "If you don’t give city employees a pension, what happens?"
"San Diegans voted five years ago this month to switch all new city hires, except police, from pensions to 401(k)-style individual investment plans, becoming one of the first big cities to take the plunge."
"Jacksonville, Fla., took a bigger step last April, switching all new employees including police and firefighters to 401(k)-style plans. Last week, Pennsylvania’s governor signed legislation switching new state employees and teachers to three 401(k)-based options."
Otto Warmbrierm, the student held by North Korea for more than a year, has succumbed to his condition and passed on.
LA Times' JONATHAN KAIMAN: "Otto Warmbier, the American student imprisoned by North Korea for 17 months and freed last week in a coma, died on Monday afternoon, according to a statement by his family."
"The 22-year-old University of Virginia student died at 2:20 p.m. on Monday “surrounded by his loving family,” said the statement, which was signed by Warmbier’s parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, and released by the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where Warmbier was receiving treatment."
"North Korean authorities detained Warmbier in March 2016 as he visited the isolated, authoritarian state as a tourist. Soon afterward, the country’s high court accused him of attempting to steal a propaganda poster from his Pyongyang hotel, and sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the state."
In the Senate, Kamala Harris is quickly becoming a favorite and Dianne Feinstein continues unabated in targeting the Trump campaign-Russia probe, utilizing her unique position as the only Democrat in both the Senate Intel and Judiciary Committees. Both are relentlessly using their anti-Trump postures to curry political support, especially Harris.
McClatchy DC's STUART LEAVENWORTH: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein is the power player, but Sen. Kamala Harris is becoming the star."
"Methodical and measured, Feinstein, D-Calif., is the only Democrat serving on both the Senate Intelligence Committee and Judiciary Committee, putting her in a unique position to influence Congressional inquiries into Russia, the 2016 elections, the Trump campaign and President Donald Trump himself."
"In recent weeks, she’s been seeking to use her seniority to push the Senate investigations into new territory following the June 8 testimony of former FBI Director James Comey."
A new Los Angeles school district budget plans to cut 120 employees out of jobs.
LA Times' HOWARD BLUME: "A $7.5-billion Los Angeles schools budget set for approval Tuesday includes 121 layoffs and 180 “reassignments” that would result in pay cuts and possible additional job losses."
"Among the hardest hit in the proposal are library aides: 30 would lose their jossbs, leaving 43 elementary schools without library staffing because some of the aides work at two campuses. That’s about 9% of the library aides in the nation’s second-largest school system. "
"Others who would lose their jobs include some clerks, payroll specialists, accounting technicians, teaching aides and security aides. The number of central office administrators, coordinators and managers also would shrink by about 150. Many of them have tenure as school administrators or teachers and could return to these other positions — with reduced pay. The district believes it will have enough vacancies to accommodate them."
While some in the school district are getting the shaft, state lawmakers are getting more money.
Sacramento Bee's CHRISTOPHER CADEAGO: "Gov. Jerry Brown and state politicians will receive a 3 percent pay hike starting in December, their fifth raise in as many years as California’s budget picture continues to improve."
"The raises, approved Monday by the California Citizens Compensation Commission, come on top the 4 percent salary increases that kicked in late last year. Brown’s pay will climb from $190,102 to $195,805, while rank-and-file lawmakers will go from $104,117 to $107,240."
"Salaries for other statewide politicians like Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Treasurer John Chiang also will rise."
Carrie Fisher's toxicology report was released yesterday; The famous actress had a cocktail of drugs in her system that exacerbated her sleep apnea, ultimately killing her.
LA Times' JOE MOZINGO/SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA/RICHARD WINTON: "Carrie Fisher never said she had conquered her problems. The quintessential child of Tinseltown never expected a Hollywood ending. She talked openly and often about her 45-year-long fight with bipolar disorder, alcoholism and drug addiction, explaining how opioids in particular "dialed down" her manic episodes."
"She shared, in her distinctive brand of gallows humor, such episodes as Dan Aykroyd performing the Heimlich maneuver on her after she got so wasted she choked on a Brussels sprout. She wrote about getting her stomach pumped and receiving electroconvulsive therapy."
"While many young stars who have died from drug abuse became mythologized, stuck in an immortal fast lane, Fisher laid out the much more ragged and tedious reality of a constant struggle that millions of Americans fight."
An Amazon/Whole Foods pairing could reveolutionize home grocery delivery, but how do shoppprs feel about it?
LA Times' DAVID PIERSON: "A giant in the technology industry had a bold idea: reinvent the way people shop, rendering grocery stores a quaint reminder of the past."
"That company was Webvan, and it attracted $800 million in funding before filing for bankruptcy at the peak of the dot-com bust nearly two decades ago. The lesson in all this? Building a grocery business on wheels is terrifyingly expensive and inherently difficult because many shoppers simply aren’t ready to outsource their supermarket visits."
“Many people want to touch and feel their groceries,” said Pete Relan, the former head of technology at Webvan. “In focus groups, we found there was some deep evolutionary biology there. People said, ‘You’re not going to do what I’m going to do for my family."
Photographer Alessio Romenzi is being recognized for his courage and bravery under fire as a war journalist/correspondent equipped with nothing more than a camera.
LA Times' JEREMIAH M. BOGERT JR.: "Photographer Alessio Remenzi has been covering conflict in the Middle East since the Arab Spring and was among the first photographers smuggled into Syria to cover the civil war. Most recently he has been covering the battle for Mosul, Iraq. He was previously interviewed by The Times in 2012. He recently discussed covering the fighting in Iraq."
Police discovered an unidentified body in the truck of a car that had been sitting in Rosevlle without being moved for a week.
Sacramento Bee's CATHY LOCKE: "Roseville police are investigating the death of an individual whose body was found in the trunk of a vehicle in a residential area Monday morning."
"Dee Dee Gunther, Roseville Police Department spokesman, said officers went to the 1500 block of Gerry Way about 7:20 a.m. after neighbors reported a suspicious vehicle parked in the area. Officers found an adult dead in the trunk."
"Gunther said the case is being investigated as a homicide. Police are not releasing information on the gender or age of the individual, pending identification by the Placer County coroner."
Cal-OSHA has expanded its investigation into local Goldwill stores in an effort to identify hazards similar to the one(s) that lead to the 'gruesome' death of an employee in 2016.
Sacramento Bee's MARJIE LUNDSTROM: "The gruesome death of a Goodwill Industries worker in south Sacramento last year has prompted the state to widen its probe of the giant nonprofit to see if similar hazards exist at another Goodwill operation in the region, The Bee has learned."
"California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal-OSHA, has opened a second investigation of Goodwill, this time at its warehouse and outlet on Date Avenue. Like the outlet store on Franklin Boulevard, where Abraham Nicholas Garza was killed, the Date Avenue location houses a stationary compactor to smash tons of refuse and unsold goods."
"Garza’s head was crushed last year while he was checking the alignment of a heavy empty bin that was being maneuvered to mate with the compactor. An employee for only about a month, the 26-year-old dock worker was pinned between the two pieces of equipment after a truck driver suddenly released the cable securing the bin."
