Newsom backs reform for California's Prop 13, opposes tax-the-rich plans
The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOSEFF: "Gov. Gavin Newsom has endorsed an initiative that would overhaul California’s iconic Proposition 13 by changing how commercial property taxes are calculated — a measure likely to be one of the hardest-fought issues on the November ballot.
After months of declining to weigh in on the ballot measure, Proposition 15, Newsom announced his support as he also pledged not to sign any of the proposals to increase income taxes on the wealthiest Californians that were floated at the end of the legislative session.
“California, like every state in America, is currently experiencing the severe financial aftershocks of global pandemic,” Newsom said in a statement Friday. Prop. 15, he said, is “a fair, phased-in and long-overdue reform to state tax policy."
295,000 guns may have been sold without background checks during pandemic, report says
Sac Bee's BAILEY ALDRIDGE: "Nearly 300,000 gun sales may have been allowed to proceed without complete background checks during the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic, a report found.
The report from advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety is based on Federal Bureau of Investigation data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. It shows that as more Americans bought guns during the pandemic, more background checks were delayed and more guns could have been sold without them.
Between March and July, 294,683 gun sales could have gone through without background checks, it says."
California updates COVID-19 color tiers
Sac Bee's MICHAEL MCGOUGH: "California health officials on Tuesday updated the color-coded tier list that assesses counties based on their COVID-19 risk levels.
Marin County in the Bay Area, along with more sparsely populated Inyo and Tehama counties, each had their status moved to a less restrictive tier, from purple to red. None of the state’s 58 counties moved into a more restrictive tier this week.
In the system, implemented at the end of August, counties are placed into one of four tiers based on two metrics for coronavirus activity: the rate of new lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, and the rate of diagnostic tests returning positive. Ranging from most to least restrictive, those tiers are: purple, red, orange and yellow."
READ MORE related to Pandemic: Hunger rises in Bay Area as pandemic lingers -- The Chronicle's CAROLYN SAID; Marin County gets nod from California to shift into red -- The Chronicle's RUSTY SIMMONS; COVID-19 deaths among young people: Diverse communities hit hardest -- The Chronicle's AL SARACEVIC; Bay Area coronavirus cases drop significantly from peak of summer surge -- The Chronicle's CATHERINE HO; LA officials warn against lifting COVID-19 restrictions until a review of Labor Day weekend data -- LA Times's COLLEEN SHALBY
California health clubs sue Newsom over COVID-19 restrictions: 'We believe in science'
Sac Bee's DALE KASLER: "Numerous California churches have sued Gov. Gavin Newsom, challenging his COVID-19 shutdown orders, without success.
Now the state’s health clubs are giving it a try.
The California Fitness Alliance, a group of health-club chains from across the state, announced Tuesday it is suing Newsom to win the right to reopen indoor facilities."
The worst fire season ever. Again.
LA Times's PRIYA KRISHNAKUMAR/SWETHA KANNAN: "Fire season in California looks different these days. Temperatures are hotter. Fires are bigger and more destructive. Air quality is the worst in decades.
In recent weeks, dozens of wildfires have ignited across the state, threatening to burn rural and suburban communities and blanketing cities in a smoggy haze.
Although fire season is a perennial challenge in California, the scale and destruction of fires in recent years feel worse than anything many can remember."
READ MORE related to Wildfire Season: California's prison firefighters face grueling toil like never before in historic fire season -- The Chronicle's DUSTIN GARDINER; Two killed in West Zone fire didn't evacuate Berry Creek due to 'erroneous' info -- Sac Bee's MICHAEL MCGOUGH/ROSALIO AHUMADA
Trump dismisses Newsom's climate warning, Biden goes on attack over California fires
The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOSEFF: "President Trump resisted calls to confront the reality of climate change during a brief visit to California on Monday — a position that his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, signaled he may focus on as wildfires burn across the West.
During a two-hour stop at an airfield near Sacramento, Trump met with state officials for a briefing on the fires. Gov. Gavin Newsom took the lead, urging the president to consider how “the plumbing of the world” has changed, intensifying hot and dry conditions that have pushed California into a record wildfire season.
Trump cast doubt on that analysis — and climate science as a whole — instead renewing his concerns that the state has not done enough to thin out trees and other vegetation fueling devastating fires."
READ MORE related to Air/Climate/Environment: Kamala Harris sounds climate change alarm from ruins of California fires: 'This is not a partisan issue' -- The Chronicle's DUSTIN GARDINER; See West Coast wildfire smoke get sucked into a cyclone over the Pacific Ocean -- The Chronicle's ANNA BUCHMANN; Smoke from West Coast wildfires blows into East Coast cities -- The Chronicle's LAUREN HERNANDEZ
READ MORE related to Campaign Trail: Biden holds big lead over Trump with Asian American voters, survey says -- LA Times's MATT PEARCE
When will you know if Biden or Trump wins? It could depend on absentee ballot rules in these states
LA Times's ARIT JOHN: "Election day? Try election week.
Election officials and the media are preparing for delays in 2020 returns as a record-breaking number of voters are expected to take advantage of expanded mail voting options during a pandemic that continues to kill hundreds each day in the U.S.
Making matter worse, slow U.S. Postal Service delivery has raised concerns about whether ballots will be postmarked and delivered on time, and many of the states that decided the 2016 race with the narrowest of margins have outdated laws on counting absentee ballot that don’t account for this year’s uptick."
Kamala Harris shaped by Berkeley and a 'do something' mother
The Chronicle's TAL KOPAN: "When Kamala Harris wants to make a particularly strong point, there’s one person she almost always quotes: her mother.
The California senator cited her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, in her first public appearance last week as Joe Biden’s vice presidential nominee-to-be. Gopalan shows up on more than 30 pages of Harris’ 2019 autobiography, “The Truths We Hold.” Her mother’s words of advice and wisdom were an integral part of Harris’ stump speeches when she was running her own presidential campaign last year.
It’s a reflection of what Harris and those who know her best will readily say: Much of who she is today traces back to her childhood in Berkeley in the 1960s and early ’70s, and the example Gopalan set as a trailblazing scientist and single mother."
Many of California's cannabis growers are uninsured and in the line of fire
The Chronicle's EMILY EARLENBAUGH: "The summer of 2020 has brought record-breaking heat waves and wildfires to California, with more than 3 million acres burned and smoke-filled air covering the majority of the state. As the fires burn, cannabis cultivators across the state are racing to finish and harvest their crops. But the fires can be disastrous for this process, in some cases even destroying plants that are spared by the flames.
While industry insiders report that these difficulties are unlikely to affect consumers, they could be a nightmare for the businesses that supply them.
Growers are being hurt worse than most other businesses hit by fire: Cannabis crops are more difficult to insure because growing the plant is still illegal under federal law."
Running out of California unemployment benefits? Here's what comes next
The Chronicle's KATHLEEN PENDER: "Californians who were laid off after shelter-in-place orders took effect in mid-March and haven’t worked since then have already begun to exhaust their first 26 weeks of regular state unemployment benefits. Millions more will run out in the weeks ahead.
The good news is that most of these people will be automatically transitioned to a federal program known as Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, or PEUC, which provides up to 13 additional weeks of benefits through the end of this year. When PEUC ends, they could transition to another round of benefits known as Fed-Ed, which could last up to 20 additional weeks.
This is the normal sequence of events for former employees who are receiving regular state unemployment insurance, what the Employment Development Department calls UI."
First big reform of California's education funding law awaits governor's signature
EdSource's JOHN FENSTERWALD: "The first significant change to the state’s 7-year-old K-12 funding system, the Local Control Funding Formula, is a signature away from becoming law.
But if Gov. Gavin Newsom accepts the recommendation of his advisers at the California Department of Finance and ignores the Legislature’s near-unanimous vote favoring the significant reform, he’ll veto the legislation within the next few weeks. Hundreds of nonprofits and civil rights groups signed a letter last week urging him not to do that; signing it instead would ensure that funding for “our highest-need, most vulnerable students is actually directed to support them,” the letter said.
Assembly Bill 1835 would end what advocates for years have called a glaring loophole that undermines the funding law’s cardinal purpose, which is to provide additional funding for four groups of underserved students: English learners, low-income students, homeless and foster children."
READ MORE related to Education: Tens of thousands of LA area students still need computers or Wi-Fi 6 months into pandemic -- LA Times's PALOMA ESQUIVEL/HOWARD BLUME
LAPD Chief Moore points to pandemic as driving factor in increased gun violence, killings
LA Times's KEVIN RECTOR: "Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said Tuesday that the COVID-19 pandemic has helped drive gun violence and increase killings in the city this year, including by spurring economic despair and interpersonal dramas while undercutting efforts to interrupt cycles of retaliation.
“What we’re sensing is a lot of stress, a lot of communities that are on edge, a certain amount of depression,” Moore said during a morning meeting of the civilian Police Commission.
In addition to serving as an emotional and economic wrecking ball, the pandemic, Moore said, has shifted nighttime gatherings away from traditional settings such as clubs and bars into neighborhoods and party houses, which have become a “fertile bed for some type of spontaneous violence.”
READ MORE related to Police, Prisons, Protests & Public Safety: 'Been shot in the head': Deputies' struggle to survive after Compton attack -- LA Times's RICHARD WINTON
House report blasts Boeing, FAA for 737 Max jet crashes, seeks reforms
AP: "A House committee issued a scathing report Wednesday questioning whether Boeing and government regulators have recognized the problems that caused two deadly 737 Max jet crashes and whether either will be willing to make significant changes to fix them.
Staff members from the Democrat-controlled Transportation Committee blamed the crashes that killed 346 people on the “horrific culmination” of failed government oversight, design flaws and a lack of action at Boeing despite knowing about problems.
The committee identified many deficiencies in the Federal Aviation Administration approval process for new jetliners. But both the agency and Boeing have said certification of the Max complied with FAA regulations, the 246-page report said."
FBI arrests drug ring that also sold 'ghost gun' AR-15s
LA Times's RICHARD WINTON: "An FBI-led task force arrested 18 people identified in a series of federal indictments with links to a Southern California drug ring that also sold illegal weapons.
The early morning arrests across Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire were the culmination of Operation “Black Phoenix,” which identified 25 suspects involved in illicit narcotics and gun trades. Four of those identified are already in custody, officials said, while three remain at large.
Investigators from the FBI, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department seized about 28 pounds of methamphetamine, a quarter-pound of cocaine and crack cocaine, and 16 firearms — including several so-called “ghost guns,” which lack serial numbers that could be traced by law enforcement."
At town hall, Trump denies downplaying the pandemic and casts doubt on masks
AP: "Fielding compelling questions about voters’ real-world problems, President Trump denied during a televised town hall that he had played down the threat of the coronavirus earlier this year, although there is an audio recording of him stating he did just that.
Trump, in what could well be a preview of his performance in the presidential debates less than two weeks from now, cast doubt on the widely accepted scientific conclusions of his own administration strongly urging the use of face coverings and seemed to bat away the suggestion that the nation has racial inequities.
“Well, I hope there’s not a race problem,” Trump said Tuesday when asked about his campaign rhetoric, seeming to ignore the historical injustices carried out against Black Americans."
Trump aims lower with a sordid attack on Biden
LA Times's CHRIS MEGERIAN: "President Trump opened a sordid new chapter Tuesday in America’s history of ugly political rhetoric, sharing a tweet that falsely suggests Democratic nominee Joe Biden is a pedophile.
Presidential campaigns long have trafficked in lurid accusations of extramarital affairs, drunkenness and corrupt behavior. But Trump has aimed lower, personally tapping baseless conspiracy theories to smear his opponent.
The latest outrage arrived in the retweet of an anonymous account that was suddenly granted presidential amplification seven weeks before the election."
Hurricane Sally blasts ashore in Alabama with punishing rain
AP: "Hurricane Sally made landfall Wednesday near Gulf Shores, Ala., as a Category 2 storm, pushing a surge of ocean water onto the coast and dumping torrential rain that forecasters said would cause dangerous flooding from the Florida Panhandle to Mississippi and well inland in the days ahead.
Moving at an agonizingly slow 3 mph, Sally finally came ashore at 4:45 a.m. local time with top winds of 105 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Sally’s northern eyewall had raked the Gulf Coast with hurricane-force winds and rain from Pensacola Beach, Fla., westward to Dauphin Island, Ala., for hours before its center finally hit land.
Some 150,000 homes and businesses had lost electricity by early Wednesday, according to poweroutage.us. A curfew was called in the coastal Alabama city of Gulf Shores due to life-threatening conditions. In the Panhandle’s Escambia County, Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Chip Simmons vowed to keep deputies out with residents as long as physically possible. The county includes Pensacola, one of the largest cities on the Gulf Coast."
