California could get hit with new atmospheric river this week, and consequences could be concerning
JESSICA FLORES, Chronicle: "Northern California could be in for a new atmospheric river storm by the end of the week, potentially blasting the Bay Area with substantial rain, and the Sierra with even more heavy snow, but likely not as fierce as the wet storms that wreaked damage across the region at the start of the year, forecasters say.
Although still an early forecast, weather models show that an atmospheric river — a band of moisture that can travel thousands of miles — could flow into Northern California on Friday and Saturday, focused along the coast, including in the Bay Area, said Gerry Díaz, Chronicle meteorologist.
“This will be a challenging forecast, because the only way that plays out is if the high pressure off the coast breaks down by Thursday of this week,” Díaz explained. “Think of the high-pressure like a big rock in a flowing stream. If you remove the rock from the stream, then plenty of water will make it downstream to California. If it stays put, then less water will make it here.”
‘A foundation of racism’: California’s antiquated water rights system faces new scrutiny
LA Times, IAN JAMES: "It’s an arcane system of water law that dates back to the birth of California — an era when 49ers used sluice boxes and water cannons to scour gold from Sierra Nevada foothills and when the state government promoted the extermination of Native people to make way for white settlers.
Today, this antiquated system of water rights still governs the use of the state’s supplies, but it is now drawing scrutiny like never before.
In the face of global warming and worsening cycles of drought, a growing number of water experts, lawmakers, environmental groups and tribes say the time has finally come for change. Some are pushing for a variety of reforms, while others are calling for the outright dismantling of California’s contentious water rights system."
Could feds and farmers join forces to put groundwater back in Central Valley aquifers?
GILLIAN BRASSIL, SacBee: “Jennifer Peters signed on to have her Madera ranch become the site of an experiment in replenishing groundwater in California’s Central Valley.
Though this pilot program led by a subdivision of the United States Department of Agriculture is far from the first effort to address the depletion of groundwater stores, it offers farmers like Peters hope for the future of agriculture in the region.
“If the generation that’s running the ranch now, my son, doesn’t buy into this and start improving the water quality, we’re all going to be in a world of hurt by the time the sixth generation wants to come up,” Peters said. “There’ll be no farming.”
A chunk of Rancho Palos Verdes is sliding into the sea. Can the city stop it?
LA Times, JACK FLEMMING: "A drive along the ocean on the Palos Verdes Peninsula is Southern California at its finest. Sunlight dances on the water. Coves are pristine, unsullied by development. Catalina Island appears so near you can almost spot the bison.
Look a bit closer, though, and you’ll see signs of a disaster waiting to happen.
An above-ground sewage pipe snakes along the road. The pavement on Palos Verdes Drive South is rutted and warped, jutting up and down like an asphalt roller coaster. The hills are strewn with houses on makeshift foundations, perched on haphazard stilts and shipping containers."
COVID in California: Under new rules, isolation can end after 5 days if symptoms improving
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI/RITA BEAMISH: "The COVID treatment Paxlovid is drawing interest for its possible deterrent impact on long COVID symptoms.
A think tank looking at economic downturns in the early pandemic ranked the San Francisco area as having one of the nation's most dramatic declines.
And California is preparing to lift most of its remaining COVID mandates, including mask and vaccination requirements for health care settings and prisons."
Nearly 1.5 million California seniors could get help to buy food, but don’t. Here’s why
KORI SUZUKI, SacBee: “Every day, thousands of older Californians wake up or go to sleep hungry, unable to afford to stock their pantries. But for many of them, it might not have to be this way.
State data reveal that two thirds of eligible Californians over age 60 – roughly 1.5 million people – do not participate in CalFresh, the state’s food stamp program, even though they qualify.
This segment of the older adult population is “being denied a basic human right,” said UCSF Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology Hilary Seligman.”
San Diego police want to outfit streetlights with surveillance tools. Some ask, Why the rush?
LINDSAY WINKLEY and TERI FIGUEROA, U-T: “In a few short weeks, the San Diego City Council could be faced with a decision: whether to spend millions of dollars to outfit a network of streetlights with sophisticated surveillance tools.
They’ve said yes before.
In 2016, council members signed off on a $30 million project that pledged to use energy-saving Smart Streetlights to assess traffic and parking patterns throughout the city. What the public didn’t know — and wouldn’t know for years — is that the technology came with cameras that could be accessed by police.
Biden has quietly forgiven billions in student loans despite setbacks for his signature debt plan
LA Times, ARIT JOHN: "Sara Diaz was feeling emotional when she checked her email Tuesday. She was among the hundreds of Neiman Marcus employees laid off last month and had just finished a stressful phone call about her health insurance.
As she went through her inbox, she noticed an email from the Department of Education. Diaz had applied to have the government cancel $69,314 in federal student loan debt she took on to attend the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, a for-profit school that closed in 2019.
Two and half years, two Education secretaries and one class-action lawsuit later, her application had finally been approved."
Family reunited after four years separated by Trump-era immigration policy
ZAIDEE STAVELY, EdSource: “A father separated from his family by a Trump administration immigration policy was finally able to return to the U.S. last month, after almost four years.
When José Luis Ruiz Arévalos left the U.S. in May 2019, he thought he would be gone six days. Instead, he was forced to stay out of the country for almost four years. His absence created emotional and financial burdens for his entire family and derailed some of his children’s college plans.
His return, full of joy and tears, lifts a heavy burden on his children and allows them to continue their academic journeys toward college degrees.
A Bay Area landlord says he’s rebuilding a community. Critics say he’s exploiting it for profit
The Chronicle, SUSIE NEILSON: "The corner of 10th and Wood streets is leafy and quiet, apart from a few barking dogs and passing cars. Rows of stately, faded Victorians line pothole-dotted streets, interrupted by a handful of starkly modern homes and a sandwich shop.
This corner is in one of Oakland’s oldest, most historic neighborhoods. Now called the Prescott or Lower Bottoms, it was sometimes referred to as a “Harlem of the West” due to the jazz clubs and bars that lined its streets in the 1940s and ’50s. But jobs dried up after the World War II boom, and the government neglected what had become a largely Black community. The construction of a freeway split the neighborhood in two, while “urban renewal” programs demolished homes and displaced families.
By the mid-2000s, many Prescott homes stood vacant and crumbling. Men in pickup trucks cruised the streets looking for fixer-uppers and foreclosures to flip."
Most Oakland homicides go unsolved. Why don’t officials have a plan to fix it?
The Chronicle, JOSHUA SHARPE/SUSIE NEILSON: "On a gloomy Tuesday morning, Tina Harris was dusting at home when she noticed a face in a photograph. It was her son, her only child.
“Hi,” the mother said."
She speaks to his image daily. Her days have lately been paved with therapy appointments and attempts to keep herself busy, lest grief and pounding questions about her 33-year-old son’s unsolved homicide bury her."
The opening extends 101’s existing toll-based express lanes, which ran from Whipple Avenue to North Mathilda Avenue in Sunnyvale."
Officials said tolls, which are paid using FasTrak, will use “dynamic pricing” which will go up or down based on how busy the express lane is. Vehicles will need a FasTrak or FasTrak Flex tag in order to use the lane. Depending on the volume of traffic on the road, the cost of the tolls will range from 50 cents to $12."
Why ‘The Slap’ still matters, one year later
LA Times, ERIK HIMMELSBACH-WEINSTEIN: "The 2022 Academy Awards were meant to be a return to post-pandemic normalcy — to their traditional home at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, and a March date, after a COVID-delayed edition at Union Station in April the previous year. It was also seen as a chance for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate the reforms it had made in the wake of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, with a dramatically different membership producing one of the most varied slates of nominees in the history of Hollywood’s top prize.
Then came the Slap. Suddenly, nothing else mattered.
Millions watched in real time as Will Smith — an overwhelming favorite to win for his performance in “King Richard” later that night — charged the Oscars stage to confront Chris Rock after the comic told one too many jokes about his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith. In the process, the lead actor prize, and just about every other that followed the altercation, became an afterthought."
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