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For Latinos, El Paso is a devastating new low in a Trump era -- Working with immigrants for 30 years, Pablo Alvarado has lived through decades of antagonism toward Latinos. It came in political waves that washed over California, Arizona and other states. There was Proposition 187 in the 1990s, the Minuteman protests, “America’s toughest sheriff” Joe Arpaio and his hard-line policing tactics. Paloma Esquivel, Esmeralda Bermudez, Giulia MCDonnell Nieto Del Rio, Louis Sahagun, Cindy Carcamo in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/5/19

Number of California public retirees in $100K Club skyrockets, but they’re just part of the burden on state pension system -- Big pension payouts are a function of generous retirement formulas approved by city councils, school boards, county boards of supervisors and the state in the halcyon days after 1999, when retirement systems were “super-funded,” governments halted payments, and actuaries said sweetened benefits would cost next to nothing because earnings on investments would essentially pay for them. Teri Sforza in the Orange County Register -- 8/5/19

This activist bought 4.5 acres of the L.A. River just to have a stake in its revitalization -- An official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers once told Steven Appleton that there were no more frogs in Frogtown. It was the kind of offhanded comment that made Appleton — as close as there is to a steward of Frogtown’s amphibians — wish for a cudgel to wake up feckless bureaucrats. Now, the Elysian Valley artist has obtained that cudgel. Doug Smith in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/5/19

On the edge of SF’s Presidio, restoring a watershed will benefit nature and humans -- There was a glint in Michael Boland’s eyes as he watched cars zooming along the Presidio Parkway over an ugly panorama of broken asphalt, weeds and construction debris behind a chain-link fence next to Crissy Field. The chief of park development and visitor engagement for the Presidio Trust was excited as he envisioned what the vacant lot was about to become — a picturesque lagoon surrounded by walking trails, vivid greenery and a spectacular view. Peter Fimrite in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/5/19

California extends deadline to apply for redistricting panel -- California officials are extending the deadline to apply for a commission that will redraw boundaries for most state and federal elected officials after next year’s census. State Auditor Elaine Howle, who heads the selection process, said Monday that nearly 14,000 people have applied for the 14 positions. But that’s less than half the roughly 30,000 who applied a decade ago. Don Thompson Associated Press -- 8/5/19

O.C. fugitive Peter Chadwick arrested after years on the lam following wife’s slaying -- An Orange County multimillionaire charged in the slaying of his wife was taken into custody Sunday after a years-long manhunt, authorities confirmed Monday. Hannah Fry in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/5/19

Carl DeMaio announces challenge for Rep. Duncan Hunter’s congressional seat -- After months of speculation former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio made it official: he’s going to challenge fellow Republican Rep. Duncan D. Hunter in 2020. Charles T. Clark in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 8/5/19

SFSU shutters popular Chinese cultural program under pressure from feds -- A federal crackdown on a network of Chinese-funded programs operating on nearly 100 U.S. college campuses led San Francisco State to shutter its Confucius Institute recently, while Stanford University’s remains in business. Nanette Asimov in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/5/19

BART to ditch paper tickets at 19th Street station in Oakland -- A BART stop in Oakland will become the first of the transit agency’s locations to say goodbye to paper tickets Monday, as the 19th Street station intends to only sell Clipper cards to board trains. Michael Cabanatuan in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/5/19

Oakland use-of-force reports go unfiled; LSD-fueled rampage video released -- An internal Oakland police audit found that officers failed to report using force against a suspect in more than one-third of instances studied in 2018, and all of those unreported incidents involved a non-white suspect. Megan Cassidy, Eduardo Medina and Gwendolyn Wu in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/5/19

Why opening a chain store in San Francisco can take forever -- In San Francisco retail districts outside of downtown, any retailer with 11 or more locations worldwide typically needs a special type of approval to open — or even expand into an adjacent empty space. The permits, called conditional use authorizations, greatly extend the time it takes to open a store. Roland Li in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/5/19

Why drug companies, hospitals are spending big at state Capitol -- Hospitals successfully killed an effort to set out-of-network payment rates, an effort that sought to eliminate surprise bills. Pharmaceutical and dialysis companies are still fighting measures that aim to crack down on steering dialysis patients to private insurance and delaying low-cost generic drugs. Sophia Bollag in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 8/5/19

How Southern California jails are changing the way they treat the mentally ill -- Of all of the jail system’s programs for mentally ill inmates, nothing is more effective than animal therapy, said Terry Fillman, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s health services administrator. Animals provide unconditional love — and a rare opportunity for physical contact. Opening up to interact with them can lead to a breakthrough with human therapists. Nikie Johnson in the Orange County Register -- 8/5/19

Judge faces tribunal on sexual misconduct charges -- A Los Angeles-based court of appeal justice will face a legal tribunal Monday on charges that he sexually harassed another justice, court staff and state security officers and appeared in public intoxicated. Maura Dolan in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/5/19

Column One: Trona Catholics kept the faith as their town declined. Then, two earthquakes shook their ‘gem in the desert’ -- The parishioners at St. Madeleine Sophie Barat Catholic Church — all 18 of them — didn’t need any more setbacks as they waited for Sunday Mass to start. Gustavo Arellano in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/5/19

Fox: Steyer Strategy Has a Plus Side -- Tom Steyer missed the first two rounds of the presidential debates because he entered the race late. Many pundits decreed that Steyer, a California billionaire activist, jumped into the presidential contest too late. But that strategy could pay off if Steyer manages to make the next debates while the forest of candidates is cleared of dead wood. Joel Fox Fox & Hounds -- 8/5/19

 

California Policy & Politics This Morning  

After mass shootings, Biden says Trump rhetoric fueling acts of violence -- Former Vice President Joe Biden said at a San Diego fundraiser that President Donald Trump’s rhetoric was fueling hate-filled acts of violence like the two recent shootings that left dozens dead and many more injured. Lyndsay Winkley in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 8/5/19

3 mass shootings in less than a week, and Trump gets some blame in Gilroy -- The streets here were eerily quiet Sunday. It had been a week since a gunman had shot and killed three people at the popular Gilroy Garlic Festival. Parks were empty, church parking lots were barren, and many businesses were deserted. Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/5/19

SDSU presses active shooter training in wake of killings in El Paso, Dayton -- San Diego State University executives were meeting Sunday to figure out the best ways to gets their students, faculty and staff to watch an online training video they created to teach people how to deal with the sort of shooting incidents that occurred over the weekend in El Paso and Dayton. Gary Robbins in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 8/5/19

After 3 Mass Shootings in One Week, Bay Area Representatives Call For Action -- In a statement, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein called for tighter background checks when purchasing a gun, closing loopholes that allow the purchase of guns online or at gun shows and more "extreme-risk" or Red Flag laws — which allow the removal of guns from dangerous individuals by loved ones and law enforcement. 15 states, including California, currently have Red Flag laws on the books. Michelle Wiley KQED -- 8/5/19

Southern California officials condemn mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton -- Southern California officials expressed grief and outrage in response to mass shootings that occurred less than 13 hours apart this weekend. “Hours after the tragedy in El Paso, we’re now faced with another horrific mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio,” the Los Angeles Police Department tweeted on Sunday morning. “We cannot become numb to this senseless gun violence.” Laura Newberry in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/5/19

Calls for gun control, blame for Trump follow day of mass shootings -- Political leaders across the Bay Area and California on Sunday condemned racist language used by President Trump and demanded action to prevent gun violence after massacres in Texas and Ohio left 30 dead. The attacks came just days after a gunman killed three, including two children, at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Jason Fagone and Joaquin Palomino in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/5/19

Gun reform activists rally in Orange, demand action from Senate -- Dozens of protesters lined a street in Orange on Sunday, Aug. 4, to demand action from U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the issue of gun violence after a week marred by mass shootings in Texas, Ohio and California. At least 60 people gathered along the 1900 block of Chapman Avenue near Marks Street to attend a rally hosted by Brady Orange County, an advocacy group in favor of gun control. Eric Licas in the Orange County Register -- 8/5/19

San Diego Police Department ramps up use of streetlamp video cameras, ACLU raises surveillance concerns -- San Diego has installed thousands of microphones and cameras in so-called smart streetlamps in recent years as part of a program to assess traffic and parking patterns throughout the city. However, the technology over the last year caught the attention of law enforcement. Joshua Emerson Smith in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 8/5/19

Deportation debate takes center stage at UnidosUS conference -- Hard-line immigration policies create a climate of fear that reverberates through Hispanic communities, impacting not only undocumented families but also U.S.-born Latinos and legal immigrants, especially children. That was the message at a workshop that looked at immigration issues held Sunday at the UnidosUS conference at the San Diego Convention Center. Mike Freeman in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 8/5/19

‘Wall Street West’ no more? Banks shrink as tech grows in San Francisco -- For more than a century, San Francisco’s One Montgomery Street has been a bank, part of the city’s historic financial center known as “Wall Street West.” It was once home to Crocker National Bank, named for railroad tycoon Charles Crocker, who helped make the city an economic powerhouse. Roland Li in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/5/19

Biggest paving plans in decades underway across the Bay Area -- Drivers aching for smoother highways and city streets, the pain is going to ease at a dizzying pace not seen in more than two decades on hundreds of miles on busy eight-lane freeways to narrow two-lane neighborhood streets. Gary Richards in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 8/5/19

Feds target McKesson plant in West Sacramento over ‘suspicious’ opioid sales -- Two years after McKesson Corp. agreed to pay a record $150 million fine for allegedly failing to report suspicious drug orders, federal agents have obtained a warrant to inspect the company’s West Sacramento facility for records of how it distributed highly addictive drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone. Sam Stanton in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 8/5/19

Walters: Derailing the bullet train -- A decade ago, shortly after California voters narrowly approved a $9.95 billion bond issue to finance a statewide bullet train system, an official involved in early planning for the project confided a dirty little secret. Dan Walters Calmatters -- 8/5/19

Time to impeach? For Orange County House members, the idea isn’t radical anymore -- Four of the seven Democrats who represent the area are ready for an inquiry, but three aren't there yet. Andre Mouchard in the Orange County Register -- 8/5/19

Lopez: Had enough? Here’s how to fight the madness of mass shootings -- It’s one senseless and horrific mass shooting after another, and you’re hit with waves of sadness, anger and frustration. If 20 children were massacred at a Connecticut elementary school in 2012 and the sensible gun control proposals that followed were handily defeated, is there any way ordinary citizens can ever overcome the combined forces of the gun lobby and the large chunk of Congress it owns? Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/5/19

Economy, Employers, Jobs, Unions, Pensions  

China Asked State Buyers to Halt U.S. Agriculture Imports -- The Chinese government has asked its state-owned enterprises to suspend imports of U.S. agricultural products after President Donald Trump ratcheted up trade tensions with the Asian nation last week, people familiar with the situation said. Bloomberg -- 8/5/19

Earthquake

California hospitals question 2030 earthquake standards -- A Southern California hospital spent $72 million on a building designed to do two things after an earthquake: stay standing and stay open. But when a pair of strong earthquakes struck the region last month, the hospital couldn’t use it. Adam Beam Associated Press -- 8/5/19

Wildfire  

Berkeley Residents and Officials Practice Wildfire Evacuation for the First Time -- In 1923, a wildfire in Berkeley destroyed more than 500 buildings, but did not kill anyone. In 1991, a wildfire swept through the Berkeley and Oakland hills, burning thousands of structures and killing 25 people. The 1991 fire is the third deadliest wildfire in recorded California history. Sonja Hutson KQED -- 8/5/19

Education 

Schnur: What can we do to prepare our children for school earlier? -- If we really want to get serious about educating California’s schoolchildren, then we’re going to need to engage them long before their first day of school. Dan Schnur in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 8/5/19

Donations help teachers’ dreams come true in Oakland, across the country -- Ashley Wallace is one of nearly 145,000 teachers nationwide whose students will start the school year with new classroom and learning supplies thanks in large part to the generosity of strangers. Theresa Harrington EdSource -- 8/5/19

POTUS 45  

‘How do you stop these people?’: Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric looms over El Paso massacre -- President Trump has relentlessly used his bully pulpit to decry Latino migration as “an invasion of our country.” He has demonized undocumented immigrants as “thugs” and “animals.” He has defended the detention of migrant children, hundreds of whom have been held in squalor. And he has warned that without a wall to prevent people from crossing the border from Mexico, America would no longer be America. Philip Rucker in the Washington Post$ -- 8/5/19

Trump rhetoric freshly condemned after mass shootings -- 2020 candidates and other politicians battle over the president's words about minorities, while the Justice Department pursues the El Paso killings as domestic terrorism. Caitlin Oprysko Politico -- 8/5/19

El Paso Shooting Suspect’s Manifesto Echoes Trump’s Language -- At campaign rallies before last year’s midterm elections, President Trump repeatedly warned that America was under attack by immigrants heading for the border. “You look at what is marching up, that is an invasion!” he declared at one rally. “That is an invasion!” Nine months later, a 21-year-old white man is accused of opening fire in a Walmart in El Paso, killing 20 people and injuring dozens more after writing a manifesto railing against immigration and announcing that “this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” Peter Baker and Michael D. Shear in the New York Times$ -- 8/5/19

Mulvaney defends Trump on mass shootings -- Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick MuIvaney defended President Donald Trump on Sunday, saying mass shootings have been an issue for decades and he doesn’t “think it's fair to try and lay this at the feet of the president.” Bianca Quilantan Politico -- 8/5/19

Trump on mass shootings: 'Hate has no place in our country' -- President Trump on Sunday declared that “hate has no place in our country” after a pair of back-to-back mass shootings over the weekend rocked the nation. Jordan Fabian The Hill -- 8/5/19

O'Rourke: Trump is a 'racist,' responsible for El Paso shooting -- Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) said Saturday that President Trump bears some responsibility for a shooting in El Paso, Texas, that killed at least 20 people. John Bowden The Hill -- 8/5/19

Beltway 

String of gun deaths reshapes Democratic primary -- The mass shootings shifted the focus to lower-tier candidates and divisive issues, and could change the contours of the race for the White House. Marc Caputo and David Siders Politico -- 8/5/19

 

-- Sunday Updates 

One thing seems sure in Gilroy, the festival — and the city — will go on -- Gilroy, another city calling itself “strong,” put on its black Gilroy Strong T-shirts and made itself a promise. Nothing, say the citizens, is going to keep us from attending next year’s Garlic Festival. Steve Rubenstein and Tatiana Sanchez in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/4/19

After pair of mass shootings, Trump remains out of sight -- As the nation reeled from two mass shootings in less than a day, President Donald Trump spent the first hours after the tragedies out of sight at his New Jersey golf course, sending out tweets of support awkwardly mixed in with those promoting a celebrity fight and attacking his political foes. Jonathan Lemire Associated Press -- 8/4/19

All that noise coming from Washington turning Calif. voters numb -- The investigations and infighting in Washington this summer haven’t gone over well with voters — even in deep-blue California, where likely voters gave lawmakers an even lower approval rating than President Trump, a recent Public Policy Institute of California poll reports. Phil Matier in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/4/19

Don’t throw away that cup! S.F. pushes reusables, but it won’t be easy -- So many of us have done it: bought a drink in a plastic cup or bottle at an event, drained it and gotten another cup or bottle. San Francisco wants this habit to end. Elena Shao in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/4/19

Willie Brown: Democratic debates weren’t television — or politics — at its finest -- After sitting through both Democratic presidential debates, I have come to two conclusions: one is that the candidates are still not talking to the average voter, and two, I need my head examined for having watched it all. Willie Brown in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/4/19

‘Sue the suburbs’ group strikes again, attacking another Bay Area city over housing -- The four-person California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund, or CaRLA, has one reason for being — to sue cities that reject housing projects without a valid reason. The litigious nonprofit with YIMBY roots struck again last month, suing Los Altos after the city rejected a developer’s bid to streamline a project of 15 apartments plus ground-floor office space. Marisa Kendall in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 8/4/19

Encinitas beach cliff collapse area is ‘still active’ -- Encinitas Lifeguard Capt. Larry Giles said Saturday the lifeguard tower near the scene was moved away from the area Saturday morning, and that officials have determined that “the area is still active.” He said a geologist assessing the scene was “concerned about the areas to the side of the current failure failing.” Kristina Davis, Teri Figueroa in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/4/19

Charity becomes a lifeline even for Americans with health insurance as deductibles soar -- Taking care of Bo — who was born with a unique combination of complex illnesses that have required 53 surgeries and more than 800 days in the hospital — is a full-time job for Carolyn Macan. Macan also spends a lot of time looking for money. Noam N. Levey in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/4/19