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      Spillover in Lake Berryessa Reservoir Gushes for First Time Since 2019

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      For the first time in six years, water is gushing through a unique spillway in Lake Berryessa, just north of San Francisco.Footage provided to The New York Times showed Lake Berryessa’s spillway overflowed with water.Jay Cuetara, Solano County WaterBack-to-back atmospheric rivers have dumped buckets of rain across Northern California, filling its rivers to the brim and beyond. The Russian River spilled over its banks in Sonoma County, and in the far reaches of the state, Lake Shasta, a key marker of the state’s overall water levels, has nearly filled up.And just east of Napa Valley, a rare not-fully-natural phenomenon was observed for the first time since 2019: Water began gushing, furiously, through a spillway in Lake Berryessa.The eye-catching event has happened only three other times in the past 20 years, and it has drawn curiosity seekers to the man-made reservoir, 70 miles northeast of San Francisco.“People were taking pictures and videos and just standing in awe,” said Peter Kilkus, the editor of the Lake Berryessa News, who was there Wednesday morning with about two dozen other people.The 72-foot-wide spillway, called a morning glory because its shape mimics the flower, is a unique funnel-shaped cement pipe that sits within the reservoir. (Locals call it the glory hole.)The mechanism is a type of drainage system with water pouring down the pipe and into Putah Creek on the other side of Monticello Dam. The spillway is among a few with that shape in the country; there’s also one at Pleasant Hill Lake in Perrysville, Ohio. More

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      A Constitutional Convention? Some Democrats Fear It’s Coming.

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      Some Republicans have said that a constitutional convention is overdue. Many Democratic-led states have rescinded their long-ago calls for one, and California will soon consider whether to do the same.As Republicans prepare to take control of Congress and the White House, among the many scenarios keeping Democrats up at night is an event that many Americans consider a historical relic: a constitutional convention.The 1787 gathering in Philadelphia to write the Constitution was the one and only time state representatives have convened to work on the document.But a simple line in the Constitution allows Congress to convene a rewrite session if two-thirds of state legislatures have called for one. The option has never been used, but most states have long-forgotten requests on the books that could be enough to trigger a new constitutional convention, some scholars and politicians believe.Some Democratic officials are more concerned than ever. In California, a Democratic state senator, Scott Wiener, will introduce legislation on Monday that would rescind the state’s seven active calls for a constitutional convention, the first such move since Donald J. Trump’s election to a second term.Mr. Wiener, who represents San Francisco, and other liberal Democrats believe there is a strong possibility of a “runaway convention.” They say that Republicans could call a convention on the premise, say, of producing an amendment requiring that the federal budget be balanced, then open the door for a free-for-all in which a multitude of other amendments are considered, including some that could restrict abortion access or civil rights.“I do not want California to inadvertently trigger a constitutional convention that ends up shredding the Constitution,” Mr. Wiener said in an interview.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Strong Storm in San Francisco Brings a Tornado Warning

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      Less than two weeks after a tsunami warning, residents were jolted awake before 6 a.m. to consider a new potential disaster scenario.Powerful storms swept through parts of Northern California on Saturday, knocking down trees, causing widespread power outages and prompting weather officials to issue what they said was the first-ever tornado warning for San Francisco.The warning blared from cellphones around 5:45 a.m., jolting residents across the city from their sleep and into the sudden realization that many had long prepared themselves for what to do in the case of a sudden earthquake, but not a tornado.And it came less than two weeks after a similar alert echoed across the Bay Area warning of a different kind of disaster scenario: an impending tsunami that forecasters worried could strike along a vast stretch of the Northern California coast.That warning had been spurred by an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean and briefly caused a panic as people sought to get to higher ground. The warning was canceled a little more than an hour after it was issued.The tornado warning on Saturday, which was in effect for about 30 minutes, was urgent: “Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room,” it read in part.“That is the first time that we’ve issued a tornado warning for San Francisco,” said Crystal Oudit, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Bay Area. She said the service had done so after seeing conditions that tend to favor tornadoes as the storm approached the city.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bob Fernandez, Who Survived Pearl Harbor as a Teenager, Dies at 100

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      Mr. Fernandez was a 17-year-old sailor aboard the U.S.S. Curtiss when Japanese forces attacked. He had recently canceled a trip to Hawaii for the 83rd anniversary of the bombing.Robert Louie Fernandez, one of the last known American survivors of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, died on Wednesday, just days after the 83rd anniversary of the attack, in Lodi, Calif. He was 100.Mr. Fernandez, known as Uncle Bob to friends, family and even some strangers, died at the home of his nephew Joe Guthrie, who confirmed the death. “I promised him 10 years ago that he could die in my home, and that’s what he did,” said Mr. Guthrie, who became his uncle’s caretaker in 2022, after his dementia diagnosis. “He died loved and happy.” Born in San Jose, Calif., in 1924, Mr. Fernandez enlisted in the U.S. Navy in August 1941, when he was 17 years old. He was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Curtiss at the Pearl Harbor naval base on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, where he served as a mess cook and ammunition loader, according to military records. In a video biography filmed in 2016, Mr. Fernandez said he had joined the Navy to see the world. “I just thought I was going to go dancing all the time, have a good time,” he said, adding: “What did I do? I got caught in a war.”Mr. Fernandez had planned a trip to Hawaii for an event last Saturday commemorating the 83rd anniversary of the bombing, but his health started to deteriorate a few weeks ago, according to his family.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Will Allow California to Ban New Gas-Powered Cars, Officials Say

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      California and 11 other states want to halt the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to try to stop them.The Biden administration is expected in the coming days to grant California and 11 other states permission to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, one of the most ambitious climate policies in the United States and beyond, according to three people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to revoke permission soon after taking office, part of his pledge to scrap Biden-era climate policies. “California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” Mr. Trump has said. “I will terminate that.”The state is expected to fight any revocation, setting up a consequential legal battle with the new administration.“California has long led the nation in pioneering climate policies and innovation,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, earlier this year. “Those efforts will continue for years to come.”He has described the ban as the beginning of the end for the internal combustion engine.Under the 1970 Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency has for decades allowed California, which has historically had the most polluted air in the nation, to enact tougher clean air standards than those set by the federal government. Federal law also allows other states under certain circumstances to adopt California’s standards as their own.The waiver can be used to rein in toxic, smog-causing pollutants like soot, nitrogen dioxide and ozone that lead to asthma and lung disease. But California officials have also been using the waiver to curb greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, a chief cause of global warming. Gas-powered cars and other forms of transportation are the biggest source of carbon dioxide generated by the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Panic at Pepperdine University in Malibu as Wildfires Threaten City

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      No structures were damaged and no one was injured, but students spent a frantic night sheltering in place as thousands of nearby residents evacuated.The residence halls had lost power, and cell service was not working. Embers had sparked tiny flare-ups on the school grounds, setting palm trees ablaze. Helicopters were descending to extract water from a campus pond.And so the students gathered, many in their pajamas, in the library and in the campus center where the windows framed a distressing sight: Flames ravaging the mountains in the not so far distance; smoke spiraling in the dark sky.They called their parents. They prayed.So went early Tuesday morning for nearly 3,000 students, faculty members and staff members at Pepperdine University, a Christian school in Malibu known for its bucolic setting of rolling hills and ocean views.Around them, the Franklin fire, fueled by fierce winds, ravaged the Santa Monica Mountains and forced thousands of people to evacuate from Malibu — the famed affluent coastal enclave that boasts picturesque beaches and celebrity homeowners. Schools were closed, and residents were ordered to stay away.The blaze also shut down a portion of the Pacific Coast Highway, a key artery in and out of the city, as flames leaped across it and threatened the Malibu Pier, a popular tourist attraction. By Tuesday afternoon, the wildfire had burned more than 2,800 acres, and officials said that gusts as strong as 60 miles per hour had challenged the more than 700 firefighters responding to the scene.“But rest assured, we are going to have a coordinated air and ground assault on this fire for as long as it takes,” said the Los Angeles County fire chief, Anthony C. Marrone.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ro Khanna: Brian Thompson killing was ‘horrific’ but people ‘aren’t getting care they need’

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      Progressive congressperson Ro Khanna has sympathy for murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson – yet at the same time is not surprised that the killing reignited a national dialogue about inequities in the US healthcare system, he said in an interview Sunday.“It was horrific,” the California Democrat said on ABC This Week with respect to the slaying of Thompson, whose survivors include his widow and two sons ages 16 and 19. “I mean, this is a father we’re talking about – of two children, and … there is no justification for violence.“But the outpouring afterwards has not surprised me.”Khanna told the show’s host, Martha Raddatz, that he agreed with fellow liberal and US senator Bernie Sanders when he wrote recently on social media: “We waste hundreds of billions a year on health care administrative expenses that make insurance CEOs and wealthy stockholders incredibly rich while 85 million Americans go uninsured or underinsured. Health care is a human right. We need Medicare for all.”“After years, Sanders is winning this debate,” Khanna said, referring to the Vermont senator’s support for a single-payer national health insurance system seen in other wealthy democracies.While police have stopped short of offering a possible motive behind Thompson’s 4 December shooting death, the apparent targeted nature of the attack – as well as shell casings found at the scene of the killing displaying the words “delay”, “deny” and possibly “depose” have suggested it was maybe linked to the largely privatized US healthcare industry’s routine denial of payments to many Americans.Healthcare debt has emerged as a leading cause of bankruptcy in the US while for-profit health insurers such as UnitedHealthcare are among the country’s richest companies. Thompson, 50, who lived near UnitedHealthcare’s headquarters in Minnesota, commanded a salary of $10m annually before a gunman wearing a mask shot him dead outside a hotel in Manhattan as he prepared to attend a meeting with investors of his company.Many greeted news of Thompson’s death not with sympathy but with mockery. A widely shared example of the sentiment was a social media post from Columbia School of Social Work’s Anthony Zenkus, which read: “Today, we mourn the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, gunned down…. wait, I’m sorry – today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who die needlessly each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires.”Khanna on Sunday said his status as a member of the US House has not immunized him from absurd insurance battles.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThough he acknowledged it paled in comparison to people with cancer, heart disease and diabetes being denied coverage while they battle for their lives, Khanna said: “I, as a congressperson had UnitedHealthcare deny a prescription for a nasal – a $100 pump spray, and I couldn’t get them to reverse this. So imagine what ordinary people are dealing with.”Khanna said some modest steps that the US could take to begin addressing healthcare inequities in the country is to cap out-of-pocket costs while also requiring the private insurers relied on by many Americans “to cover anything” that Medicare would.Medicare is the public US health insurance program for those older than 65 and people who are disabled.“We have to understand people with cancer, with heart disease, with diabetes, with insurance aren’t getting the care that they need. They’re getting stuck with huge medical bills.” More

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      What We Know About the 7.0-Magnitude California Earthquake

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      State and local officials were working to assess the full scope of the damage, but early reports appeared to show that the quake did not cause major destruction.An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck off the coast of Northern California on Thursday, briefly prompting a tsunami warning and leaving residents rattled from Southern Oregon to the San Joaquin Valley in California.State and local officials in California were working to assess the full scope of the damage, and early reports appeared to show that the earthquake did not cause major destruction. But it was the strongest to shake the state in more than five years.Here’s what we know so far.Where did the earthquake hit?The quake struck about 30 miles off the California coast a little before 11 a.m. local time, about 62 miles southwest of Ferndale, which has a population of about 1,300 people. It hit near a seismically active area known as the Mendocino Triple Junction, where three major tectonic plates meet.More than a dozen aftershocks were reported after the initial earthquake, including one with a magnitude of 4.3. The aftershocks could continue for weeks, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.Stephen DeLong, a geologist with the Earthquake Science Center at the U.S.G.S., said in a news briefing on Thursday that those closest to the epicenter, including residents of Ferndale, were the most likely to feel shaking or see any damage.The quake was the strongest to hit California since July 2019, when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 hit near Ridgecrest in the Mojave Desert.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More