Good morning. It’s Thursday, April 18.
- San Francisco seeks to charge bridge protesters.
- Lake Shasta rises to within 7 feet of full capacity.
- And critics slam USC’s move to silence valedictorian.
Statewide
1.
California regulators on Wednesday set the nation’s first drinking water limit on hexavalent chromium, a cancer-causing contaminant made infamous in the movie “Erin Brockovich.” Some health advocates felt the standards didn’t go far enough. Others warned that water-system upgrades would lift costs for low-income customers who already struggle to afford the essential service. A local lawmaker said monthly water bills would jump nearly 500% in Coachella, where incomes average $24,000 a year. CalMatters | A.P.
Northern California
2.
San Francisco’s district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, urged motorists blocked by a protest on the Golden Gate Bridge to file a report with the police because they may be victims of a crime and entitled to restitution. Jenkins said she was weighing charges of false imprisonment against 26 people arrested during the pro-Palestinian action that halted traffic for more than four hours Monday. The leader of an Arab resource center accused her of criminalizing dissent. SF Standard | S.F. Chronicle
- Google said it fired 28 employees who joined protests inside company offices this week. “If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again,” a company executive said. Wall Street Journal
3.
Tia Washington, a Bay Area mother of three, was warned by her doctor to get her high blood pressure under control before she found herself in the emergency room. She reluctantly agreed to see a health coach. To her surprise, the coach wanted to talk about Washington’s life: her job, work, habits. They agreed that she would start going to movement classes and get free fruits and vegetables from a government program. The experience turned out to be life-changing. The health-care approach, known as social prescribing, is catching on. N.Y. Times
4.
In San Francisco, residents commonly park their cars in front of their garages, leaving them jutting out into the sidewalk. Some pedestrians find the practice infuriating, and the city has lately been cracking down. A reporter hit the streets to find out why so many people don’t put their cars in their garages. In some cases, the garages are too small, they explained. Another reason: “Their family had converted the garage into a relaxation zone.” SF Standard
5.
Once a poster child of the drought, Lake Shasta has now crept to less than 7 feet of full capacity — and it isn’t done filling yet. Three years ago, the level of California’s largest reservoir was nearly 185 feet below capacity, exposing a bathtub ring and stranding boats on exposed lake bed. After two robust water years, Shasta is now 96% of full capacity, a remarkable turnaround for a lake of its size. Houseboat operators say they are already sold out for summer. SFGATE | KRCR
6.
Removing dams has been compared to dislodging a blockage from a clogged artery, allowing the whole organism to recover. Earlier this year, crews finished draining the reservoirs behind the last of four dams set for removal along Northern California’s Klamath River. NASA released before-and-after satellite images that show how the waterway has already begun to radically reshape itself as it flushes decades of sediment downstream. Earth Observatory
7.
The entrepreneur Peter Thiel once famously complained: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” But while he and others in Silicon Valley have been griping about the lack of flying cars, dozens of startups have been quietly building them. By 2030, customers could have access to self-driving air taxis that travel between neighborhoods. One company is promising a seven-minute trip from Manhattan to the airport for the price of a rideshare. The New Yorker went aloft to answer the question: Are flying cars finally here?
Southern California
8.
Two days before Christmas in 2021, a Los Angeles police officer opened fire almost immediately upon encountering a suspect who had assaulted customers inside a Burlington Coat Factory. One of the three rounds pierced the wall of a fitting room where 14-year-old Valentina Orellana Peralta was hiding, killing her. The California attorney general’s office announced the outcome of its investigation on Wednesday: The officer had used reasonable force and would face no charges because he was responding to a mistaken report of a possible active shooter. L.A. Times | A.P.
9.
Homelessness has now risen every month for two straight years in San Diego, data showed. March was the 24th consecutive month in which the number of people connected with housing — 1,226 — was surpassed by the newly homeless — 1,337. Many people ending up on the streets are first-time homeless, and many of those are older adults, a researcher said. Frustrated officials in the San Diego region, the most expensive place in America by one measure, have resorted over the last year to boosting penalties for living in tents. S.D. Union-Tribune
- Mayor Todd Gloria proposed transforming an empty warehouse near the airport into a homeless shelter that sleeps 1,000 people. It’s off to a shaky start. Voice of San Diego
10.
Opinions flowed on USC’s decision to cancel a graduation speech by pro-Palestinian valedictorian Asna Tabassum:
- L.A. Times editorial board: “What if people start threatening to disrupt commencement because Tabassum isn’t speaking? … Would USC officials vacillate depending on who’s making the threats?”
- The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi: “Let’s be very clear: if Tabassum were pro-Israel and her Instagram linked to any of the very many genocidal things that the Israeli government had said about Palestinians, there is little chance her speech would have been cancelled.”
- The Forward’s Rob Eshman: USC was obligated to stand by its speech invitation. “Instead, it did something that compounded the shortsightedness and stoked even more anger: It blamed Jews.”
- David N. Myers and Salam Al-Marayati: “We will not move past the crisis of the moment by silencing those with whom we disagree. The university is exactly the sort of place where such views must be heard. Otherwise, it is not a university.”
11.
In March, a mortgage business analyst named Alfredo Alvarado sold his four-bedroom home in Orange County for $1.1 million and bought a bigger house with a pool for $459,000 in Bakersfield. He and his wife plan on using the extra money to travel. “People need to understand that living in Orange County is just a rat race,” he said. “It’s paycheck by paycheck.” SFGATE wrote about the coastal Californians choosing to start new lives in one of the state’s most disparaged cities.
12.
While O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in 1995, he was found liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman two years later in a civil suit and ordered to pay more than $30 million in damages. Almost none of it was paid. Simpson’s death has now opened a potential path for the families to collect. Malcolm LaVergne, the executor of Simpson’s estate, said this week that he planned to invite the Brown and Goldman families to go over the estate and review claims. Hollywood Reporter | L.A. Times
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