California News

The California Report, KQED Public Radio
  • California Emissions and an Obama EPA

    When it comes to tailpipe emissions from cars, California is the only state that can set a stricter standard than the federal government. But so far, the federal EPA has blocked those efforts. California regulators and activists hope Barack Obama's EPA will grant the state the waiver it needs to start enforcing its rules. In the first of a series of reports on what Californians are expecting from the new president, we look at what could be one of Obama's first major environmental decisions.

  • The Academic Job Market

    The recession is hitting colleges in California and across the country -- and it's striking just as graduate students are searching for faculty jobs. We visit a convention crowded with would-be English and language professors.

  • Orange County's Community Courts

    Community courts have been around for years in California. They typically focus on single issues like drugs or homelessness, with the aim of directing offenders toward help instead of jail. Orange County is the first in the state to locate these 'community courts' -- and related services -- under one roof.

San Francisco Chronicle
  • Berkeley meet to air Helios energy lab plans

    The public will have its first chance to comment on plans for a sprawling new laboratory in Berkeley's Strawberry Canyon at a meeting Wednesday night. The meeting will allow the public to learn more about the Helios Energy Research Facility, a 144,000-square-...

  • Whitman edges in on California governor race

    Former eBay Inc. chief executive Meg Whitman has edged closer to a run for California governor, with a spokesman confirming Monday that she has resigned from three corporate boards. Whitman spokesman Henry Gomez said the Atherton resident stepped down from...

  • Drunken driving arrests down over New Year's

    Drunken driving arrests plunged 17 percent during the New Year's holiday compared with last year, the California Highway Patrol said Monday. Officers arrested 1,456 motorists statewide over the five-day period ending Sunday, compared with 1,759 for the same...

Oakland Tribune
SacBee -- Bee State News
  • Members of Modesto-based battalion note big improvements in Iraq


    Staff Sgt. Daniel Clemons of Sacramento, on his third tour in Iraq, says he's seeing political and security improvements so dramatic that he can imagine the war ending and memories of past violence fading.

    NINEVAH PROVINCE, Iraq – The violence of his past deployments in Iraq still haunts Daniel Clemons, a 32-year-old National Guard staff sergeant from Sacramento who's back for his third tour.

    This time, however, Clemons, like a lot of returning U.S. troops, is encountering something new: political and security improvements so dramatic that he can imagine the war ending and his memories of past bloodshed dimming.

    "I think it's winding down. I think I'll be able to let go of this place," said Clemons, who barely survived a 12-hour firefight in Baghdad's Sadr City district nearly four years ago.

    Clemons is with the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment, based in Modesto. The battalion lost 17 of its roughly 700 Baghdad-deployed troops in 2005, its most recent Iraq tour.

    This time, it's stationed at a former Iraqi airfield in a safe corner of northern Iraq. Open desert surrounds the base for miles, protecting the battalion from surprises.

    The troops face dangers that are familiar from past deployments, mainly homemade bombs, but they encounter them far less frequently. They drive heavily armored vehicles that give them protection they didn't have from those threats in previous tours.

    Their new assignment has them traveling to volatile cities, such as Mosul and Kirkuk, to guard long supply convoys. The two companies from the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment have run across a few homemade bombs,but none that's done any damage.

    "The engagements we get out here in a month, we used to get them in two or three days," said Capt. Guillermo Adame, a company commander who was deployed in Baghdad with the same battalion in 2005.

    His company lost five soldiers in September and October 2005, when he was a lieutenant. He keeps their photographs and the dates of their killings in his office.

    "Hopefully things will continue and I'll bring all my guys home," said Adame, 37, a chemist from Ontario.

    The battalion overcame a difficult first deployment in 2005. The Army ousted its first commander in the wake of a controversy over abused detainees, and a roadside bomb killed his successor three months after he'd taken over.

    The group persevered and returned home with fanfare in January 2006. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dubbed the troops "true action heroes." Veterans from the first tour describe it as marked by constant roadside attacks and ambiguous results. Some left with mixed feelings about Iraq's future.

    "My experience last time wasn't the greatest," Adame said. "When we left, it hadn't gotten any better. "

    Other veterans who'd joined the battalion since that tour said they had similar doubts about Iraq after they finished deployments with different Army and Marine units.

    "Last time I was very unsure," said Spc. Jeremy Calgaro, 27, of Patterson, who's on his third tour in Iraq. His past deployments brought him to the country with the Army during the 2003 invasion and in 2005. He came back wanting to see how Iraq had changed.

    He sees the differences in flourishing agricultural fields that remind him of home in the San Joaquin Valley, and in positive interactions he's had with Iraqis. "Here we are, we're doing our jobs and things have gotten much better," he said.

    Spc. Ralph Salazar said he was enthusiastic about his mission in Iraq as a Marine in 2003 and 2004. His feelings about the war began to shift around 2006, when news reports showed Iraq descending into bloody sectarian violence.

    He heard about improvements before he left the United States for his current tour, but the better conditions still startled him when he arrived in November.

    "I was still expecting to spend some time running for the bunkers," said the 24-year-old from Fresno. "I do have to say I appreciate the calm. The fact that we've been here and made all this progress, it validates everything for me," Salazar said. "It did matter."

  • California panel misses deadline for Delta report

    State officials skipped a Wednesday deadline to release a plan to improve the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

    The Delta Vision Committee, chaired by Natural Resources Agency Secretary Mike Chrisman, blamed the workload required to release the governor's budget plan.

    "We felt it was important to focus on that and then move to release the Delta Vision report as soon as possible," agency spokesman Sandy Cooney said. "It's likely that will be next week. It's all but done."

    He said there are no problems with the report.

    Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, was not happy about the delay.

    "If we see some type of politically scrubbed document, I think there are going to be big, big problems," said Huffman, chair of the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee.

    A 2006 law required the report to be submitted by Dec. 31. The committee of five state Cabinet secretaries is working from proposals by the governor-appointed Delta Vision Task Force, which conducted public meetings for nearly two years. The aim is to fix environmental and water-supply problems in the Delta, the state's most important water source.

  • Giant gates mulled for Delta, to the chagrin of some


    One of the five proposed Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta gates would be on the waterway that runs across the center of this photograph. False River is between Jersey Island in the foreground and Bradford Island.

    State and federal water officials are looking to build giant concrete gates across key channels in the west Delta to control water quality.

    The project has drawn little attention compared with much bigger proposals in the news – such as construction of a 40-mile canal that would channel water around the Delta. But the Franks Tract Project, as it's called, may be more pressing: Studies are under way, with construction scheduled for summer 2010.

    The California Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation are studying five locations on the west edge of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta: four on Three-Mile Slough near Sherman Island, and one on False River near Bradford Island. A final plan is likely to propose one gate on each waterway.

    The gates would be raised and lowered at crucial times to reduce intrusion of salty ocean water within the Delta. When salty water is drawn into water export pumps owned by the two agencies, it reduces crop productivity and increases treatment costs for cities and farms that use Delta water.

    A 2007 DWR study shows that gates on the two sloughs can cut salinity at the pumping intakes from 7 percent to 21 percent, depending on conditions.

    "We see it as a tool to help us manage conditions for fish and water quality," said Kathy Kelly, chief of DWR's Bay-Delta Office.

    Another potential benefit: A gate at Three-Mile Slough could prevent Sacramento River salmon from straying into the interior Delta, where poor habitat and predators await.

    The concrete gates would span the width of each channel and probably would be hinged at the bottom, allowing the channel to be opened or closed according to tides and water quality. Each includes a lock system so boats can pass if the gate is closed.

    But when the gates would be closed, and for how long, remains uncertain.

    Bradford Island residents fear a gate across False River will boost water currents around the island, causing more levee erosion. They also worry about more vessel traffic on Fisherman's Cut if boaters detour around the island to avoid the gate.

    DWR studies confirm some of these concerns: A closed gate on False River could boost water velocities fivefold in Fisherman's Cut, from 2,000 cubic feet per second to 10,000.

    Cate Kuhne, a Bradford Island property owner, said such flows could scour away tule berms on the east and north sides of the island. The berms are important habitat and create calm water near the island for swimming and boating, she said.

    "This project is going to impact our entire way of life out there," Kuhne said.

    Three-Mile Slough is a vital boat shortcut between the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. If it's blocked by a gate, the alternatives are a rough and windy haul around Sherman Island to the west, or a long detour east via Georgiana Slough or the Mokelumne River.

    False River sees heavy traffic because it is near Bethel Island, the Delta's largest community and home to its largest concentration of marinas.

    "I don't like the idea," said Bob Olsen, a Bethel Island boater and resident. "We live here and it's a beautiful place. I picture it getting worse if we start doing all this stuff."

    A key question is how the gates fit into larger plans for the Delta. If a canal is built to divert a portion of the Sacramento River's flow around the Delta, the gates may become irrelevant.

    But Kelly said the gates could play a vital role for decades, especially if plumbing options include a through-Delta canal. This involves moving water diversions between strengthened levees on the Mokelumne River and Middle River. The gates could protect this waterway from salinity.

    Gates may also help in a disaster, she said, such as if levee failures draw salty water into the Delta from the ocean.

    Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, said the project could have unexpected effects on fish, including salmon, sturgeon, bass and Delta smelt. "It's just another frantic project to create the impression that there are solutions other than reducing (water) exports," he said. "We do not understand the intricacies of this incredibly complex estuary enough to keep proposing massive hydraulic modifications."

    DWR estimates costs at $75 million for a False River gate and $55 million for a gate on Three-Mile Slough.

    Those costs include gates tall enough to handle 18 inches of sea level rise. Gate foundations, however, would be built to support a structure 57 inches higher than today's water levels, in case the gates need to be raised later. This fits the sea-level forecast for 2100 now used in Delta planning.

San Jose Mercury News
Los Angeles Times
  • California Supreme Court says breakaway parish can't take national church's property

    The ruling comes after a Newport Beach parish split from the U.S. Episcopal church over the ordination of a gay bishop. Other denominations could be affected.

    Rebellious congregations that part ways with their denominations may lose their church buildings and property as a result, the California Supreme Court said Monday in a unanimous ruling.

  • Friendship Park's intended purpose is lost in fog of border war

    There are just two weeks left in his presidency, but down in San Diego County the heavy machinery is grinding away at one last grand project from the administration of George W. Bush.

  • SS Catalina is seaworthy no more

    The once-proud steamship, which ferried millions of passengers to the island town of Avalon, is being cut for scrap after sitting for years in Ensenada harbor.

    In the end, the Great White Steamer was a great white elephant.

San Diego Union-Tribune
  • Closure of City Store a sign of the times

    There was a time when San Diego and many other cities saw dollar signs in old street signs, parking meters, fire hydrants and jail doors – discards that were otherwise destined for the scrap yard. In the 1990s, cities from Austin to Boston opened retail outlets to sell salvage items and souvenirs such as T-shirts or mugs with city logos.

  • La Niña blamed for more drought

    San Diego had its wettest November-December combo in 23 years, yet the dreaded “D” word keeps popping up. Yes, meteorologists are still talking about continued drought in their long-range predictions. La Niña is the culprit.

  • Port's new president starts today

    At a time of economic jitters for Unified Port of San Diego tenants – from waterfront hotel operators to souvenir shop owners – port officials have hired a new president with no background in real estate.

Fresno Bee
KPCC, Southern California Public Radio
  • Closing arguments begin in OC sheriff corruption trial

    Susan Valot: The federal corruption case against former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona goes to the jury this week. The jury in Santa Ana will hear closing arguments tomorrow. KPCC's Susan Valot says it's been a slow process.

  • Astronomy enthusiasts still stargaze on Mount Wilson

    Molly Peterson: It's been a century since the Mount Wilson Observatory arose almost 6,000 feet above Pasadena. Cutting-edge astronomy happened there before technology, development, and environmental changes made its original 60-inch telescope a relic. Southern Californians can still use it to sample the stars. KPCC's Molly Peterson made a pilgrimage.

  • Antiques Roadshow premieres 3 Palm Springs episodes

    Steven Cuevas: Three upcoming episodes of public TV's "Antiques Roadshow" shot in Palm Springs will feature several expensive treasures. KPCC's Steven Cuevas says they include the most valuable item ever displayed on the PBS program.

KPBS, San Diego Public Radio
  • State Republicans Hope to Return to Negotiating Table

    Lawmakers returned to the state Capitol for their new session. Overshadowing everything is California's budget crisis.

  • SIDS: A Parent's Worst Nightmare

    It's every parent's worst nightmare. All of a sudden, their seemingly healthy baby dies.Sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, claimed 31 babies in San Diego County in 2007.It's the leading cause of death for children under one year of age. The exact cause of SIDS remains a mystery.KPBS Health Reporter Kenny Goldberg has the story.

  • San Diego Appoints Citizen Watchdogs

    The city of San Diego now has three citizen watchdogs who will sit on a new audit committee to keep an eye on the city?s finances. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

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