Microplastics are found in Lake Tahoe's waters for first time ever
LA Times's LOUIS SAHAGUN: "Scientists have detected microplastic pollution in Lake Tahoe’s deep blue waters for the first time. Now they are trying to determine its source and potential harm to the lake’s flora and fauna."
"Preliminary analyses of water samples collected by researchers at the Desert Research Institute in Reno revealed the presence of particles of synthetic fiber and bits of red and blue plastic no bigger than the head of a pin."
"On one level, we’re heartbroken and disappointed by this discovery,” said Monica Arienzo, an assistant research professor at the institute and leader of the investigation. “We really hoped we wouldn’t find much of this material in Tahoe’s water, which is almost entirely snow melt."
California sues over family detention
Sacramento Bee's SOPHIA BOLLAG: "California is again taking the Trump administration to court over its immigration policies, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced Monday, this time in opposition to a rule that would prolong migrant family detention."
"It’s one of nearly 60 lawsuits the state has filed against the Trump administration and the thirteenth immigration-related suit, according to Becerra’s office. California has also sued the federal government to protect California’s sanctuary policies, block construction of a border wall and ban the inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 Census."
"The Trump administration’s new rule would circumvent a 1997 agreement called the Flores settlement that generally prohibits the government from detaining migrant children more than 20 days and requires that they receive food, water, emergency medical care and other necessities. Instead, the government would be able to detain children and families much longer and would set new regulations for detention facilities."
California Supreme Court: Police can alert prosecutors about officers with misconduct in their backgrounds
The Chronicle's MEGAN CASSIDY: "Law enforcement agencies in California are free to notify prosecutors about officers who have committed misconduct and who may be called as witnesses in a case, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday."
"The decision reverses a lower court ruling that barred the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department from sharing these names with prosecutors, who are required to disclose exculpatory information with defense attorneys. In California and around the country, this includes information that could damage the credibility of officers called to testify."
"The case centers on the confidentiality of the “Brady List,” an internal document maintained by law enforcement agencies that identifies officers who have committed misconduct. This includes but isn’t limited to incidents involving bribes, tampering with evidence, false statements, unreasonable force and domestic violence."
(OP-ED) Vaping can help smokers kick cigarettes
JULIAN CANETE in Capitol Weekly: "Studies have shown that the availability of flavors is perhaps the single most important factor for those who successfully quit cigarettes by switching to vaping. But how do we protect our children from products that are not designed for them, while making sure adults who need those products continue to have access?"
"That is the question surrounding the current debate around e-cigarettes and vapor products. And California’s legislators, in their rush to protect our kids, are missing the point of vapor products by banning flavors."
"There is no question that we should keep vapor products out of the hands of our kids. There is also no question that smoking still kills more than 500,000 Americans a year."
Where are the happy warriors? Dems aren't selling hope
The Chronicle's JOE GAROFOLI: "During a campaign stop at a San Francisco club a few days ago, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker rhapsodized about something rarely heard during this presidential campaign: love."
"It’s not sentimentality to remind people that patriotism is love of country. And you cannot love your country unless you love your fellow countrymen and women,” the presidential candidate told 650 people at the Folsom Street Foundry. “Love is not a sentiment, it is struggle. It is sacrifice. It is always remembering that you cannot lead the people if you do not love the people."
"Booker’s soaring 30-minute speech on how to respond to this “moral moment” was an outlier in a campaign where President Trump belittles the Democrats as “losers” on Twitter and they return fire by calling him a “criminal” on the stump."
E-Verify is intended to detect workers without legal status. How do immigrants get around it?
LA Times's CINDY CARCAMO/JENNY JARVIE: "For an immigrant who journeys to the Deep South to toil in the chicken factories, it does not take long to figure out how to land a job — even without legal status to work in the United States."
"Arriving in Mississippi last year, Beatriz, a 22-year-old Guatemalan, quickly learned all she had to do was purchase fraudulent documents and apply at one of the many plants where cursory reviews and few questions are the norm."
"So she paid a man $1,500 for a fake Social Security card, a matching identification card with her photo and a new name: Brandy."
Doctors and nurses protest ICE, Trump immigration policies in SF
The Chronicle's MATTHIAS GAFNI: "By the time the undocumented mother of three walked into the UCSF emergency room, Dr. Rupa Marya knew it was too late. Breast cancer had metastasized throughout her body."
"She had felt a lump in her breast eight months earlier, but because of her immigration status, the woman decided not to go to a hospital until the symptoms were unbearable. She died days later."
"To me, it’s un-American,” Marya said Sunday, standing among a throng of doctors and medical professionals protesting the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “It makes me feel so sad for the state we are in in this country, for people living in such fear."
Cities with more gun purchases all see more gun-related injuries, UC Davis study finds
Sacramento Bee's ELAINE CHEN: "A new UC Davis study has found that cities that experience increases in gun purchases also experience more gun-related injuries."
"The study, published Sunday in the journal Injury Epidemiology by researchers with the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, looks at 499 California cities following a period in 2012 that saw a spike in gun purchases."
"Aside from the city-level finding, the study also found that statewide, gun-related injuries increased by 4 percent after the spike in gun purchases, which meant approximately 290 more injuries."
Despite soaring prices, some Bay Area homes still have recession-era property tax break
The Chronicle's KATHLEEN PENDER: "This may be hard to believe considering how far home prices have risen, but there are properties in every California county — including almost 50,000 in the Bay Area — that are still benefiting from temporary property tax reductions they got during the housing bust."
"That’s because the market value of these properties, which are mostly residential, is still below their “Proposition 13 value.” This is where they would be assessed today under Prop. 13, had they not gotten the temporary reduction."
"These properties make up a small percentage of the tax base in most Bay Area counties except Contra Costa, where they number 20,920, or 18% of all parcels. San Francisco has the smallest number — 617, or 0.3% of all parcels. Of those, 369 are condo units in the Millennium Tower, where values have sunk along with the building."
Sacramento to vote on large homeless shelters as mayor makes key change to Meadowview plan
Sacramento Bee's THERESA CLIFT: "The Sacramento City Council will Tuesday vote on whether to open a large homeless shelter along the W-X corridor, and also an amended proposal to open a women and children’s’ shelter in Meadowview."
"Mayor Darrell Steinberg earlier this month proposed a 100-bed, tent-like shelter be erected on city property on Meadowview Road near the Pannell Community Center. Councilman Larry Carr, who represents the area, vehemently opposed the idea."
"The shelter would have served the same population as the Railroad Drive shelter, which closed April 30 – chronically homeless men and women who have been living on the streets of south Sacramento for years."
Tens of thousands jam downtown Oakland for Chinatown festival
The Chronicle's STEVE RUBENSTEIN: "Tens of thousands of revelers descended Saturday on Oakland’s Chinatown to watch lion dancers, sample delicacies, whack table tennis balls and celebrate the 200th day of the Year of the Pig."
"It was the 32nd annual Chinatown street festival, which continues Sunday. Downtown Oakland was jammed with scents, costumes, vendors and shoulder-to-shoulder celebrants."
"Jackie Lei, 12, had the staggering responsibility of being the head of the Chinese lion on the main stage. He said the costume was made for adults and was awfully heavy."
Costco shooting: Family of man killed describes begging officer not to shoot
LA Times's ALEX WIGGLESWORTH/PALOMA ESQUIVEL: "At an emotional news conference Monday, the parents of a man with schizophrenia who was shot and killed by an off-duty Los Angeles police officer at a Costco in Corona described begging the officer not to open fire after he pulled out his gun and identified himself as police."
"Kenneth French, 32, was killed in the shooting on June 14. His parents, Paola and Russell French, were severely injured."
"I was pleading for our son and our lives, but was still shot in the back. What threat did I pose to him?” Paola French said."
Three design teams propose La Brea Tar Pits revamp. The mammoth's future? Uncertain
LA Times's CAROLINA A MIRANDA: "How do you make a functional, contemporary park and museum in which a fiberglass Columbian mammoth family can also feel comfortably at home? That is a puzzle three international architectural firms have tried to solve with competing plans for revamping the public park, museum and paleontology research sites that make up Los Angeles’ La Brea Tar Pits."
"One plan largely preserves the existing architecture of the George C. Page Museum, opened to the public in 1977, and adds a new wing to the northwest, along with pedestrian pathways over the Lake Pit, the bubbling body of water that borders Wilshire Boulevard. Another maintains the footprint of the Page but adds a more transparent story on top, lifting the entrance of the museum to make it more visible. The third plan calls for an entirely new museum design: a series of stacked plates that reveal the strata of earth that compose the site. It also removes the beloved fiberglass mammoth that dwells in the lake, along with her baby and spouse, and places the family in an exhibition hall inside the new museum structure."
"It’s a conceptual approach,” says Lori Bettison-Varga, who oversees the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, the entity that manages the tar pits. “When people see these [plans], they shouldn’t think they are not malleable."
Sac State's $91M science complex earns high marks
Sacramento Bee's ELAINE CHEN: "With 15 minutes left of his astronomy class Monday, Sacramento State professor Kyle Watters’ walked to the back of the room."
"Back here is my command station,” he said. “Here, let’s show some Hornet pride."
"The screen that extended up over the students’ heads turned green. A collective “Oooh” filled the room."
READ MORE related to Education: Apartment construction delays put Sacramento State students in hotel rooms for weeks -- Sacramento Bee's SAWSAN MORRAR
AI's potential, limits explored at Livermore lab event
The Chronicle's ERIN ALLDAY: "Artificial intelligence, in the form of rapid collection and analysis of massive sets of biologic data, already has revolutionized medicine — by some estimates, the world’s fastest machines have processed more data in the past two years than in all of human history. But the technology needs to be much more powerful if it’s going to have real-world consequences for people with everything from traumatic brain injuries to cancer, kidney disease and Alzheimer’s."
"That was the message Monday at a meeting of the country’s top scientists in brain and computational research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, after which U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry signed an agreement with a major philanthropic foundation to promote formal partnerships between the Department of Energy and public and private institutions around the country."
"Exactly what types of ventures the memorandum of understanding between the Energy Department and the Weill Family Foundation, based in New York, will support are not yet known. But the agreement could bolster a relatively new partnership between UCSF and scientists from the national labs in Livermore and Berkeley that is focused on processing enormous amounts of data from people with traumatic brain injuries, in hopes of developing better diagnostic equipment and even treatments."
Latinos buy 20% of all movie tickets but star in just 3% of all movies
Sacramento Bee's ANDREW SHEELER: "Hispanic and Latino people make up nearly a fifth of the U.S. population yet account for a minuscule share of Hollywood movie roles, according to a newly published study."
"That study, from USC Annenberg, found that of the top 100 grossing movies released between 2007 and 2018, just 3 percent had a Latino lead or co-lead. Women made up 49 percent of those lead roles."
"However, five of those 17 roles went to one female actress,” the report found. That actress was Cameron Diaz."
Jaycee Dugard was rescued from sex slavery 10 years ago. Here's what has happened since
Sacramento Bee's STAFF: "2009: When police at UC Berkeley stopped a strange-looking man who was handing out fliers on campus in August 2009, they had no idea they were helping solve one of Northern California’s most haunting crimes."
"The questioning eventually led to the discovery of Jaycee Lee Dugard, an 11-year- old girl who had been abducted while walking to a school bus stop near South Lake Tahoe in 1991 and not seen again for 18 years."
"Dugard was held as the prisoner and sex slave during those years by Phillip Garrido, a sex offender and drug addict who kept her prisoner – and fathered two girls as the result of his rapes – at a shed outside his home near Antioch."
