California’s energy grid will be strained by brutal Labor Day weekend heat wave, operators warn
LAT, GREGORY YEE: “On the eve of what’s expected to be California’s longest and most intense heat wave of the year, state electrical grid operators are warning residents to prepare for Flex Alerts and other emergency measures.
The heat wave — a result of a large dome of hot air sitting over Central and Southern California — is expected to begin Wednesday and last through Tuesday next week.
Record-breaking heat is possible Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday and Monday, according to the National Weather Service office in Oxnard.”
Death Valley could see the hottest-ever September day recorded on Earth this week
The Chronicle, SAM WHITING: “A blast of hot weather expected to stretch through the weekend in California could tie the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth in the month of September.
A National Weather Service forecast posted Tuesday called for Saturday to be “Sunny and hot, with a high near 126.”
If that forecast comes to fruition it would tie the all-time high temperature for September, according to Colin McCarthy, who runs the popular Twitter account @US_Stormwatch.”
An extreme heat wave has arrived in California. Here’s what it means for the Bay Area.
The Chronicle, GERRY DIAZ: “Fogust is on its last legs today, and the days aren’t the only thing getting shorter. San Franciscans on the west side are already starting to notice less and less cloud cover. The from the California coast. And for some Bay Area residents, the natural AC is about to come to a screeching halt.
Cold air that normally drives the sea breeze is being tucked away by an area of low pressure off the coast.
This low normally launches daily breezes toward the coast, eventually wrapping around the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. So, what’s blocking the cold air from coming ashore?”
A vicious ‘heat dome’ is broiling California, and the extreme temperatures keep worsening
LAT, GRACE TOOHEY/ALEXANDRA E PETRI: “The extreme temperatures that will bear down on California over the next week are the result of a “heat dome,” a phenomenon that typically brings broiling conditions to the state as summer fades into fall. But climate change is worsening the dome’s effects and making it more lethal for people who cannot seek relief.
Experts are sounding alarms about what they say is likely to be the worst heat wave of the year so far.
“We’ve always had these systems, but not as frequently, not as intense and not as long-lasting,” said Bill Patzert, a retired climatologist in the Los Angeles area.”
Help paying water bills may be on way for low-income Californians
CALMatters, RACHEL BECKER: “María Dolores Díaz sighs when she opens her water bill every month because she knows what she’ll see: another bill that she’ll struggle to pay.
Diaz looks at the envelope and doesn’t want to open it because she wonders: How much, this time? “Ya nomás miro la carta y ‘aí ya no lo quiero abrir!’ Porque yo digo ‘¿ahora cuánto?’”
California’s water affordability crisis has been simmering for years as water rate increases have outpaced inflation, rising 45% between 2007 and 2015 alone. By September 2021, nearly 650,000 residential and 46,000 business accounts owed more than $315 million in unpaid water and wastewater bills.”
Keeping score: Who’s who in California’s sports-betting fight
DALE KASLER, SacBee: "Propositions 26 and 27 offer voters two distinct proposals for legalizing sports betting, creating the most expensive ballot fight in California history. A look at the different factions:
Major casino tribes: Sitting atop an industry that takes in $8 billion to $9 billion a year in revenue, tribes such as the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, owner of Cache Creek Casino, have contributed $118 million to support Proposition 26 and legalize sports betting at their casinos. They argue that the rival plan, promoted by online gambling companies, would harm their business and erode their hard-won economic games. If Proposition 26 passes, sports betting would also become legal at California’s four privately-owned horse tracks.
Online gambling companies: FanDuel, DraftKings and other giants of internet wagering have contributed $150 million to pass Proposition 27, which would open up online sports betting — and raise hundreds of millions in new taxes for homeless programs. Proposition 27 says the companies would have to partner with a tribe. Tribes could also operate online sports betting on their own.
Heat waves can be deadly. California workers, lawmakers push for federal labor protections
LAT, SUMMER LIN: “Francisco Tzul, a garment worker in Los Angeles, said he’s seen people die on the job due to heat-related stress and illness.
“Sometimes I get really sick, especially over the summer because the heat is extremely bad,” said Tzul, 58, who has been a garment worker since the 1990s. “I worked many occasions in small rooms where they keep the machines without ventilation at all. It’s horrible.”
Ahead of Southern California’s triple-digit heat wave this week, union workers were joined by Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Judy Chu in a Tuesday news conference, advocating for the passage of federal workplace heat stress protections.”
Cool San Francisco Could Get Walloped by Next Heat Wave, but City Says It’s Ready
SF Public Press, MEL BAKER: “Foghorns sounding on the Golden Gate Bridge signal that San Francisco’s “natural air conditioning” is rolling in, keeping San Francisco cool. During summer, the fog prevents triple-digit heat in the East Bay from roasting the city’s homes and businesses.
That pattern is changing. Since the 1970s, San Francisco’s average temperature has increased by 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, city leaders are developing new strategies to keep people safe, with infrastructure designed for much cooler weather. The question is whether San Francisco is ready for the next deadly heat wave.
During the summer, chilly waters off the Northern California coast create a cool marine layer that is pulled inland like a blanket by the warmer air in the East Bay. On the other side of that weather pattern, an upper ridge of high pressure usually indicates where temperatures will be hottest.”
Richard Pan, strong backer of vaccinations, to leave Legislature
Capitol Weekly, ANGELA HART: “A California lawmaker who rose to national prominence by muscling through some of the country’s strongest vaccination laws is leaving the state Legislature later this year after a momentous tenure that made him a top target of the boisterous and burgeoning anti-vaccination movement.
State Sen. Richard Pan, a bespectacled and unassuming pediatrician who continued treating low-income children during his 12 years in the state Senate and Assembly, has been physically assaulted and verbally attacked for working to tighten childhood vaccine requirements — even as Time magazine hailed him as a “hero.” Threats against him intensified in 2019, becoming so violent that he needed a restraining order and personal security detail.
“It got really vicious, and the tenor of these protests inside the Capitol building didn’t make you feel safe, yet he stood his ground,” said Karen Smith, director of the California Department of Public Health from 2015 to 2019. “Dr. Pan is unusual because he has the knowledge and belief in science, but also the conviction to act on it.””
‘Forcing the hand’: Gavin Newsom leans into legislative agenda as first terms nears end
The Chronicle, ALEXEI KOSEFF: “As California’s legislative session comes to an end tonight, the priorities and focus of the closing days have been heavily shaped by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who in the final year of his first term has taken significant steps to execute his agenda through legislation like never before.
His first three years in office saw Newsom frequently pursue policy through executive orders or in the state budget process, a negotiation with the Legislature that provided him with greater leverage.
But the governor’s biggest priority this year has arguably been the passage of a sweeping proposal, known as CARE Court, to compel people with serious mental health issues into treatment and housing. And in recent weeks, he asked lawmakers to take up ambitious new climate and energy measures, including one that would delay the closure of California’s last nuclear power plant.”
Bay Area’s summer COVID surge is nearly over. What happens next? Bay Area’s summer COVID surge is nearly over. What happens next?
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: “The Bay Area’s summer COVID-19 surge is winding down as case numbers reach levels last seen in April.
With no new coronavirus variants of concern on the horizon, the region appears headed for a welcome respite in the pandemic. And as early as next week, the federal government could start shipping out updated booster shots that target the latest omicron sublineages and could help extend vaccine protection well into the fall.
Despite the many reasons to feel optimistic, Bay Area health experts caution that we’ve been here before and that the coronavirus remains an unpredictable foe.” The Bay Area’s summer COVID-19 surge is winding down as case numbers reach levels last seen in April.
‘A perfect storm of bad’: Report finds incarceration rates highest among rural Californians
CALMatters, NIGEL DUARA: “Shasta County in rural northern California has some of the state’s highest incarceration rates. Ask Robert Bowman what’s going on, and he takes a long, deep sigh.
“It’s a perfect storm of bad,” he said.
Bowman, director of the county’s program that helps formerly incarcerated people transition back to life outside, identifies three main drivers of crime in Shasta County: high housing costs, untreated mental illness and drug trafficking.”
These are the counties California’s prison inmates come from. They’re not always the places with the most crime
The Chronicle, JOSHUA SHARPE/SUSIE NEILSON: “A groundbreaking new study shows that the Bay Area sends a smaller share of residents to prison than California as a whole, while some rural, more conservative communities far surpass the state average.
Yet even in San Francisco, which has one of the state’s lowest prison incarceration rates, the statistics can vary greatly by neighborhood, according to new data released by the nonprofit think tank Prison Policy Initiative. The numbers hint at the legacy of discriminatory housing policies and economic inequality, and their lingering consequences for people who get swept up in the criminal legal system.
San Francisco’s incarceration rate was 118 residents imprisoned per 100,000 residents during the 2020 U.S. Census, compared to 310 per 100,000 statewide, but the new analysis found that nine communities in the city have rates nearly triple that. For instance, Bayview, Hunters Point, Sunnydale and Silver Terrace — all historically lower-income and nonwhite — had incarceration rates pushing 350 per 100,000 people, researchers found.”
A judge’s affair with Tom Girardi, a beachfront condo and a $300,000 wire from his firm
LAT, HARRIET RYAN: “Tricia Bigelow, then a presiding justice of a state appeals court in downtown Los Angeles, wanted a weekend place at the beach.
She found an ocean-front condominium in a prime area of Santa Monica in 2015 and embarked on a luxurious makeover later described in a rental listing: custom kitchen cabinets, high-end appliances, a built-in wine fridge, a soaking tub and furnishings in an elegant nautical theme.
To pay the substantial price tag, she did not have to rely on her judicial salary alone. Tom Girardi, the powerful attorney with whom she was having an affair, wired her $300,000 in the week she closed on the Ocean Avenue property, according to financial records filed in a state court lawsuit.”
The latest S.F. housing failure: Thousands of units delayed for a study that never happened
The Chronicle, HEATHER KNIGHT: “The property on South Van Ness Avenue isn’t much to look at, but it’s a vivid depiction of San Francisco’s dire housing straits. Just south of Mission Street, the lot holds the cars of shoppers at a kitchen supply store, a pair of poorly kept palm trees, a boarded-up taco stand and a scattering of trash including, on Tuesday morning, a single sock and a pack of pink press-on nails.
For decades, the city has envisioned more for this sad piece of land in the center of the city — along with 14 other parcels near it that contain parking lots, auto shops, a car wash and government buildings.
Planning officials have long wanted to rezone the area, dubbed the Hub, to allow taller, denser apartment buildings in an area well-suited for them and in a city that famously needs them. The housing would be near transit, and the projects would create union jobs while not displacing any residents.”
Once welcomed, Russians in Germany now feel the backlash from Ukraine war
LAT, ERIK KIRSCHBAUM: “Ilja Kaplan left his hometown of Moscow as a young man 32 years ago for a new life in Berlin and never went back. Yet he never let go of his Russian identity and opened a Russian restaurant called Pasternak — a place where Germans, Ukrainians, Russians and many others have been merrily eating, drinking and also working for a quarter-century.
But that immigrant success story was suddenly under threat after Moscow ordered its forces to invade Ukraine in February, which triggered a wave of Russophobia here in a land with one of the world’s biggest Russian diaspora communities. Not only did many Germans, shocked by the unprovoked attack, feel a need to “do their part” by boycotting Pasternak and other Russian businesses, but also Kaplan started receiving warnings that his “Dr. Zhivago”-themed restaurant would be firebombed and that Ukrainian thugs were on their way to rough up his cooks and waiters.
The situation felt surreal given that Kaplan had publicly condemned Russia’s war on its neighbor and that most of his restaurant’s employees are Ukrainian. Only a handful are Russian.”
