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This is the June 3, 2021, edition of Boiling Point, a weekly newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
It feels like just yesterday that California was roiled by rolling blackouts during an epic summer heat wave.
But that was nearly a year ago, and now summer is dawning once again. Across the West, power grid managers and utilities are preparing for heat waves, and for the dry, windy conditions that have toppled electrical infrastructure and ignited wildfires.
Temperatures are already spiking, which is happening more frequently as the planet warms. It’s not too bad in Los Angeles, but the mercury was forecast to hit 107 degrees in California’s Central Valley on Wednesday, two days after a 109-degree record was set in the Northern California city of Redding, per the New York Times’ Derrick Bryson Taylor. States including Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington are also scorching, with
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a longtime Democratic state lawmaker, comes to his new role well known for pursuing an unabashedly progressive agenda on criminal justice issues.
How California got tough on guns el-observador.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from el-observador.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The California Capitol building.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) Advancing the most heralded police reform of the legislative session, the California Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would create a decertification process and reduce legal immunity for crooked law enforcement officers.
By a 26-9 party-line vote, Senate Democrats OK’d the proposal civil rights groups consider to be the most impactful criminal justice reform of the year. One year after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the bill’s author said the nation’s most populous state could no longer stall in weeding out violent and racist cops.
“Black and brown people are not afforded the same patience, the same restraint or the same respect and reverence for life,” said state Senator Steven Bradford, a Democrat from Gardena, as he rattled off the names of Californians recently killed by police from the Senate floor. “What happened to George Floyd wasn’t rare.”
Friday, May 21. I’m Laura Newberry, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.
For decades, tobacco companies have faced criticism for targeting the cool mint flavor of menthol products to Black people. Bright-colored advertisements for Newport and Kool menthol cigarettes are common at convenience stores and gas stations in predominantly Black neighborhoods.
Now, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is resuming its efforts to ban menthol cigarettes a move that the agency and public health organizations say would save Black lives.
The proposed ban exposes longtime racial inequities of one of the most stigmatizing public health issues in the U.S. Black consumers who stand to be most affected by the proposed change are often left out of the conversation. And tobacco companies and other groups have called the ban discriminatory for targeting products consumers of color often buy.