Will Swaim: A very California coup

• July 5, 2023

For decades, California’s government unions have bankrolled the campaigns of politicians who, once in office, return the favor — rubber-stamping union demands, no matter how extraordinary. The results in education, fire safety, health care, infrastructure, housing, cost of living, taxes and crime, for instance, have been catastrophic.

Now, state lawmakers are prepared to hand even more power to government-union leaders.

State senator Tom Umberg’s Senate Constitutional Amendment 7 would create a constitutional right to “economic well-being” for government workers and would prohibit California state and local officials from taking any action “that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.”

Lawyers representing public employees could argue, for example, that a decision to close a school, end a failed program for the homeless or to build a road with nonunion labor would interfere with their union’s constitutional protections.

“Democracy is gone if this passes,” said former state senator John Moorlach, an aggressive advocate of pension reform and frequent target of multimillion-dollar government-union political campaigns.

By privileging the rights of union members over nonunion workers, “SCA 7 will have a major negative impact on the state’s housing, environmental, and economic goals,” said Jason Pengel, chairman of the board of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC).

From Sacramento to the state’s 482 city halls, SCA 7 “will give public-sector unions the most exhaustive power of any branch of government,” said Michael J. Lotito, an attorney at Littler Mendelson, an expert on California employment law, and co-chairman of his firm’s Workplace Policy Institute.

Noting that just 15 percent of California building and construction workers are unionized, Pengel warned of possible efforts to prohibit the bulk of that workforce from participating in public projects. “Not only would this have a huge impact on employment rates in California as well as our economy, but it would also make public projects virtually impossible to complete,” Pengel said.

Despite the criticism, backers of state senator Tom Umberg’s bill signaled this week they have the votes they need to take their first steps in the legislature. In a matter of hours last week, the bill acquired more than 30 co-sponsors. Because it proposes a change to the state constitution, SCA 7 will require the approval of two-thirds of the members in each chamber before it is placed on the statewide ballot, presumably in the March 2024 statewide primary election.

Should SCA 7 make it onto the ballot, the bill’s noise-to-signal ratio will make it almost incomprehensible to the average voter.

Start with the misleading title. Though it’s called “The Right to Organize and Negotiate Act,” SCA 7 has nothing to do with organizing or negotiating — rights already firmly established in state and federal law. It’s the new “constitutional right” that causes all the mischief, elevating a public worker’s “right to economic well-being at work” to the same status as free speech, freedom of religion, rights against unlawful search and seizure and the like, all of which are (quite rightly) broadly construed by the state and federal courts because they are elevated by the Bill of Rights and state constitutions.

Then there’s the suggestion among SCA 7 boosters that their bill will apply equally to private businesses. Experts disagree, noting that the National Labor Relations Act is the final word on private-sector-employment matters.

It gets worse. Labor experts predict that enforcement will fall under the California Private Attorneys General Act. PAGA, as it’s called, has led to legal harassment of business owners alleged to have violated any number of state and federal versions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Proposition 65, and workplace-harassment claims.

“All civil-rights law carries with it the bludgeon of awarding attorneys’ fees to the prevailing parties,” said labor attorney Gregory Rolen, a managing partner of Haight Brown & Bonesteel and chairman of his firm’s public-sector-practice group. “Practically speaking, such cases are driven less by the merits than by the specter of exorbitant fee awards.” He added: “As written, this would just create another such opportunity. The bill should be retitled ‘The Plaintiff’s Bar Formal Employment Act.’”

If SCA 7 passes, Moorlach predicts that California’s economy will be based on just two functions: “In a good economy, government will hire more employees. In a bad economy, with tax revenue falling, government will simply have to raise taxes on the populace” because unions will argue in court that laying off employees would run afoul of the new rights created by SCA 7. “This steamrolling process is about to become explicit if the unions have their way.”

SCA 7 is part of a national effort on the part of government-union leaders in blue states. Consider Illinois’s Amendment 1. Passed by that state’s voters in November, it broadly prohibits any state or local-government action that “interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.” Both laws broaden classes of employees that can be organized, even in violation of federal law.

Indeed, two months after its passage in Illinois, Amendment 1 led to the unionization of Chicago school principals and assistant principals. “The fact of being an essential employee is one reason management isn’t typically unionized,” the Wall Street Journal noted in January. “With two layers of union interests now lined up at schools, children become an even smaller concern of the union-bureaucracy education complex, if that’s possible. . . No wonder thousands of students and their families are leaving Chicago schools.”

“California’s proposed amendment’s language broadens the demands government unions can make beyond wages and benefits to include undefined new subjects such as ‘economic well-being,’” said Illinois Policy Institute attorney Mailee Smith. “That could mean virtually anything,” Smith added. She pointed to Amendment 1 proponent Elizabeth Tandy Shermer’s comment: “We actually don’t know what’s going to be in these union contracts. We don’t know at all.”

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In Harrisburg in April, supporters of Pennsylvania’s H.B. 950 said it would merely “cement” or “enshrine” the “fundamental right to organize and collectively bargain.” In fact, opponents said, H.B. 950, potentially like SCA 7, would erect a permanent barrier to any change in the employment status of government employees and would expand the power of government unions more generally.

In public testimony, one of those critics called out the cut-and-paste quality of the Pennsylvania bill. “The bill language was taken verbatim from the Illinois state constitutional amendment narrowly approved last year,” observed David Osborne, a senior fellow for labor policy at the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives. If passed in the legislature, Pennsylvania’s bill will go to state voters in 2025.

The stakes are high for California. Lotito says that if SCA 7 becomes law, “it cements California as the most anti-employer state in the country — and that includes government employers who are going to find themselves with decreasing power to resist even more unreasonable demands by unions.”

Will Swaim is president of the California Policy Center and co-host with David Bahnsen of National Review’s “Radio Free California” podcast. 

​ Orange County Register 

Lengthy pandemic closures weakened already low-achieving California schools

• July 5, 2023

Gov. Gavin Newsom is fond of rattling off statistics that prove, he claims, California’s enviable status as a national, or even global, leader in all things wonderful.

He tends, however, to cherrypick his numbers rather than provide a full picture, as a recent Sacramento Bee analysis of his economic assertions on national television demonstrates.

However, there’s one aspect of California society – perhaps its most important – that Newsom excludes from his episodes of braggadocio: how the state is educating nearly 6 million public school students.

The sad fact is that California’s students fare poorly vis-à-vis those of other states when it comes to basic skills in language and mathematics, as underscored in a newly published report by the Public Policy Institute of California.

California kids were lagging behind even before Newsom and other officials shut down schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and, the PPIC studies show, educational proficiency plummeted during the closures.

When state academic testing resumed in 2022 after being suspended during the pandemic, it showed “significant declines in proficiency rates.”

Before the pandemic, 51% of students met standards in English language arts (ELA) and it had dropped to 47%. In mathematics, proficiency declined from 40% to 33%.

“Only 35% of low-income students met state standards in ELA and 21% were proficient in math,” PPIC reported, “compared to 65% of higher-income students in ELA and 51% in math.”

Furthermore, PPIC noted, the nationwide test of reading and math proficiency “shows that California has consistently lagged behind most other states … 38th in math and 33rd in reading.”

Since Newsom is particularly fond of comparing California to other states, particularly Florida and Texas, one might wonder how we fare in educational attainment. The answer is, PPIC says, that “Florida ranks much higher than California.” However, the state “is ranked just above Texas in reading but far below in math,” although it does best New York in reading and math.

While school closures loomed large in the overall erosion of educational achievement during the pandemic, there were significant differences within the state because closures were not uniform.

“Most of California’s public school students spent the majority of the 2020–21 academic year fully online – longer than students in other states,” PPIC’s research found, but “the return to in-person instruction varied across the state.” Rural counties tended to return to in-person schooling more quickly than schools in urban areas. By June 2021, San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles counties had fewer than 10% of their school systems returned to classroom instruction.

PPIC did not mention that in urban school districts – Los Angeles Unified most notably – teacher unions often refused to return to the classroom without concessions from their employers, thus continuing online classes for additional months.

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Newsom advocated reopening schools and his own kids quickly resumed classes at their private school, but he refused to intervene in districts that were lagging behind in returning kids to the classroom, apparently unwilling to confront the unions.

Variations in reopening meant that “districts with more Black, Latino, low-income, and English Learner students tended to reopen later than other districts,” and “learning gaps widened the longer students remained remote and may have worsened longstanding achievement gaps between low-income marginalized students and their peers.”

The statistical picture painted in the PPIC research confirms what was obvious to many at the time, that closing schools and forcing at-risk children into haphazard online classes while lacking internet access, tutoring and other resources would make the achievement gap even wider.

California’s economic and social future depends on having a well-educated workforce and citizenry. We were falling behind before COVID-19 struck, and we are even further behind now.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.

​ Orange County Register 

Speakeasy inside Santa Monica’s The Georgian Hotel reopens after 60 years

• July 5, 2023

The Georgian, a boutique Art Deco-style Santa Monica hotel that’s occupied the Southern California coastline since 1933, is reopening its speakeasy utilized during prohibition six decades ago.

The space, dubbed The Georgian Room, once embodied the glamor of Hollywood’s Golden Age, hosting television stars such as Carole Lombard, Clark Gable and Dick Van Dyke, according to it owners, and it’s once again open to the general public.

The room was carefully restored using vintage photographs to bring the speakeasy back to its original design with an L-shaped layout of booths and the entrance showcases a 1918 ebony-polished Steinway & Sons piano built into the rose marble-topped bar. Guests can expect hand-crafted cocktails and signature dishes created by Chef David Almany, including a dry-aged tomahawk ribeye, rigatoni alla vodka and a grilled dorade.

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While the speakeasy concept has become prominent trends in Southern California and even at major music festivals, they were commonly visited during the 1920s Prohibition era within the United States and originated in England and Ireland in the 19th century.

Although most alcohol was banned in the U.S., the law was difficult to enforce, paving the way for speakeasies to offer a place to sneak a drink for over a decade. The term “speakeasy” came from “speak-softly shops” and referenced the need for secrecy with customers asking to speak quietly while inside to avoid detection.

As a callback to a secret and intimate space of a speakeasy, The Georgian Room only allows a maximum of 65 guests and strictly prohibits photography and the use of cell phones.

Reservations for The Georgian Room are available for dinner from 6-10:30 p.m. and late nights from 10:30 p.m.-2 a.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. For reservations, email tgr@thegeorgian.com.

​ Orange County Register 

Trabuco Canyon residents’ water bill rates are increasing

• July 5, 2023

Trabuco Canyon Water District passed a proposal to increase rates for “new water, wastewater and recycled water” in a special meeting that took place on June 29.

The proposed rates have been applied to bills since July 1, and will slowly increase over the next five years.

The rates will incrementally increase for water with an average single-family bill increasing from the current average of $133.38 per month to $287.80 per month. The increased rates will add $24 million in support to the district.

The district also approved a new annual tax on all TCWD property owners. The proposed “Single Family Waste Water Tax” will cost $551.04 per year and will be added to residents’ property tax bills starting in 2024. It will increase incrementally on each year’s property tax to reach its final cost of $930.36 per year starting in 2028.

The extra money will be specifically used for the “aging infrastructure,” board members said, which includes updating the sewage stations and Trabuco dams as well as repairing the water storage throughout the district.

Inflation, too, caused the rates to increase, board members said, stating that “post-pandemic inflation was never anticipated in the last rate study” and “electricity for pumping, chemicals for water treatment, fuel for fleet vehicles costs have dramatically increased.”

The Trabuco Canyon Water District covers residents and businesses in the Trabuco Canyon, Dove Canyon and Portola Hills area.

“This (rate change) is going to be very challenging,” said Trabuco Canyon resident Tim Stone. “We are seniors on a fixed income. It means an extra $230 a month even though we were praised for conserving our water use. Although we have solar, the new rate structure being considered by the state will significantly increase our bill.”

Since the California drought, the transportation and the supply chain of the water has been disrupted, causing an increase in costs to the Southern California water districts, according to legislation in Sacramento that TCWD officials say could impact future pricing.

Introduced by Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, SB 366, also known as “The California Water Plan,” will provide strategies to ensure enough water supply is accessible for California residents at an affordable cost. It passed unanimously out of the Senate and is up for consideration in the Assembly.

“Despite decades of work to improve our state’s water system,” said Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat who represents the Trabuco Canyon area, “our infrastructure remains inadequate to meet our present needs and is woefully unprepared to meet our future water needs.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Frumpy Mom: When people won’t stop talking at a concert

• July 5, 2023

Buried somewhere in my garage is a cattle prod that I inherited from my late father, who was a cattle rancher in Colorado.

You know what a cattle prod is, right? It’s sort of like a taser, in that it has a mild electric charge that will “encourage” large uncooperative creatures to do what you want them to do. And, no, you can’t use it on your teenagers.

However, I’d like to start bringing one to the live music concerts I attend these days. I’m not entirely sure it would make it through the metal detector. Maybe I could hide it somewhere in my walker.

I need a cattle prod to discourage the people around me from talking during the entire show. I know you’re familiar with this scenario because nowadays folks seem unable to exhibit even the basic courtesy of silence while others are trying to enjoy the music. Maybe it’s because they’re used to talking during TV shows at home and they can’t distinguish between that and a public venue.

So, you’re saying to yourself, “Yes, Marla Jo, we agree that people won’t shut up during a show nowadays and it’s maddening, but shocking them with electricity sounds a little extreme. Maybe you could just politely ask them to be quiet instead.”

Um, no. See, the blabbermouths have usually been drinking, and that makes them utterly deaf, not only to everyone around them but to any desperate pleadings for silence.

Are you a brain expert? Can you explain to me why drunk people have to shout at each other? Does something happen to their auditory canals or is it just that they’re morons in general?

This behavior doesn’t bother me much in a bar, where it belongs, but when I’ve paid a ridiculous $221 to hear my favorite artist play his gold-plated guitar at the Forum, I really, really do not need some inebriated knucklehead next to me shouting to his friend about his new car.

Are you kidding me? Didn’t you also pay $221 to get into this show? If so, then why is it that you display absolutely no interest in hearing the music? Please. Email me and let me know.

My friend and I recently drove all the way up to Bakersfield to hear one of my favorite bands, Asleep at the Wheel, play at Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace. This is a place where you sit at a table, have dinner and watch the stage with a dance floor between you.

I was really looking forward to the show, and we had a good table close to the front. Because of the layout, another table was in front of us and one of the occupants’ heads was directly in front of mine even closer to the band.

The show was great, but the people in front of us would never have known that, because Mr. Blabbermouth near me never stopped with his never-ending, pointless babble.

It’s not like he was even saying anything interesting that made you want to eavesdrop. All his blathering did was get between me and my enjoyment of the band. I raised a finger to my lips and went, “Sssh.” He just looked at me like I was speaking Swahili, and kept on with his drivel.

A few minutes later, while he was still talking – it was impossible to get a word in edgewise between it – I leaned over and asked him if he could please be quiet so we could hear the music.

This is how he replied: We have front-row seats so obviously we can do anything we want.

Huh? That didn’t even make sense. Then he pulled out a signed photo of himself and the band, remarking that he was obviously a bigger fan than I was.

“Then why don’t you bleeping shut up and listen to them?” I wanted to scream at him, but I could tell there was just no point.

I sat back and enjoyed the show as best as I could, trying to ignore the running commentary.

A few minutes later, I saw the guy point at me and loudly tell the waitress, “She told me to shut up!” as if that were the most outrageous thing that had ever happened to him since birth.

I saw red, stood up, leaned over their table and told the waitress, “We drove 100 miles to see this show, and thanks to this guy, we can’t even hear it.” Then I sat back down and looked at my friend, because I had a feeling I was probably embarrassing her. I often do this.

She just looked sympathetic. As you may have guessed, Mr. Front Row never stopped blathering and never stopped complaining at my outrageous request for his silence.

When the show was over, I gave him a wide berth when we left.

So, yeah, next time I just need that cattle prod. Mr. Front Row might have paid attention to that. I think Buck Owens would understand.

Write to me at mfisher@scng.com. I especially love it when you tell me what I’m doing wrong.

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Frumpy Middle-Aged Mom
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: Strange but true: We had no Wi-Fi and no one cared
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: The horror of losing your phone
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: The deep satisfaction of watching other people clean my garage
Marla Jo Fisher: No, kids, Led Zeppelin is not a mineral

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​ Orange County Register 

USC pharmacy graduate Ruth Madievsky explores opioid epidemic in debut novel

• July 5, 2023

Shortly after finishing her undergraduate degree at USC and entering the university’s pharmacy school in 2014, Ruth Madievsky began writing a series of short stories that would develop into her debut novel, “All-Night Pharmacy,” which is in stores on July 11 from Catapult. 

“I kind of thought I was writing a feminist ‘Jesus’ Son’ of the opioid epidemic,” says the Los Angeles-based writer and pharmacist on a recent phone call. “That was the first thought that I had in 2014 when I was just out of undergrad, and like everyone else who took fiction classes, I wanted to write a Denis Johnson knockoff.”

Related: Sign up for The Book Pages, our free newsletter about bestsellers, authors and more

In the beginning, Madievsky wrote one to two stories a year, motivated by author T.C. Boyle’s visits with USC’s Creative Writing Ph.D. students. Madievsky wasn’t in the program. In fact, her studies in the pharmacy school had her attending classes on a separate campus in another part of town, but she managed to get into those meetings with a new short story in hand.

“He would very kindly compare it to Denis Johnson, who he had gone to Iowa with,” Madievsky recalls. “I feel like it was so clear at the time that I was still developing a voice and just imitating people, but he was very encouraging and those meetings gave me a reason to keep writing stories in this world.”

By 2019, when Madievsky was working as a pharmacist in Boston, the stories had become a novel. “All-Night Pharmacy” weaves together themes of substance abuse and recovery, familial relationships and intergenerational trauma in the story of the unnamed narrator’s tumultuous journey into adulthood. 

She says her professional training helped her in writing the book.

“It did in some ways. I’m very into books about plotters and schemers and grifters,” she says, adding that she dreamed up the opioid scam in the book after studying the laws regarding pharmaceuticals and DEA reporting. “The background knowledge of how something like that would work was very helpful.”

Plus, she says, in her day job as an HIV and primary care clinical pharmacist, she spends a lot of time talking to people about their priorities and concerns to try to help them find the right medication.

“That work to figure out people’s desires and what they need to live meaningfully, I think that was pretty helpful with constructing characters for the novel too,” she says. 

Madievsky adds that she was inspired by Rachel Kushner’s novel “The Flamethrowers” and Ottessa Moshfegh’s “My Year of Rest and Relaxation.”

“I had that philosophy about describing the bar and the people who would be at the bar with this very intense specificity that feels both kind of unrelatable — I don’t think any of us have been to a bar where someone has a goat drinking beer — but also something about that specificity felt very L.A. and real to me,” she says. “Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean that it won’t.”

The couple travel to Moldova, where the author also traveled during the course of writing the novel. Madievsky herself was two years old when her family immigrated from Moldova to the United States. She grew up in West Hollywood and then in Studio City. In 2019, she visited Moldova and Russia for the first time since her family left.

“I really got to see firsthand what state-sanctioned anti-Semitism looks like,” she says. “I got to hear a lot of family stories about living under Soviet terror, some of which I had heard before, others I hadn’t, but it felt a lot more real in those places. I saw the wedding hall where my parents had gotten married, which was now completely abandoned, leaves everywhere, broken cement.”

She adds, “Just being on that trip and seeing a lot of the family stories come to life really affected me.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the start of the war in Ukraine, the latter of which occurred while Madievsky was revising the novel, the author thought more about intergenerational trauma and family history.

“Even traumas that are several generations back,” she says. “I was thinking about how those affect the living and people who are several generations past it and how that could be connected to family dynamics and addiction.”

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“All-Night Pharmacy” evolved quite a bit in the years that Madievsky spent working on the book. But its conclusion brings the novel back to its roots. The end is derived from the first of the stories in this world that Madievsky wrote. 

“That story, I was never able to publish it. Now, I think that rejection was so protective there,” she says. “How depressing would it be to have the ending plastered all over the internet?”

Ruth Madievsky book events

With Greg Mania, Jen Winston, and Laura Warrell

When: 4 p.m., July 9

Where: Dynasty Typewriter at The Hayworth, 2511 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles

Information: https://thecomedybureau.com/show/empty-trash-ten-writers-read-stuff-they-need-to-get-off-their-hard-drives-in-la/

With Jean Kyoung Frazier

When: 7 p.m., July 11

Where: Skylight Books, 1818 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles

Information: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-ruth-madievsky-presents-all-night-pharmacy-w-jean-kyoung-frazier

​ Orange County Register 

Monday may have set a global record for the hottest day ever. Tuesday broke it

• July 5, 2023

By MELINA WALLING and SETH BORENSTEIN

The entire planet sweltered for the two unofficial hottest days in human recordkeeping Monday and Tuesday, according to University of Maine scientists at the Climate Reanalyzer project.

For two straight days, the global average temperature spiked into uncharted territory. After scientists talked about Monday’s dramatic heat, Tuesday soared 0.17 degrees Celsius (0.31 degrees Fahrenheit) even hotter, which is a huge temperature jump in terms of global averages and records.

The same University of Maine climate calculator — based on satellite data and computer simulations — forecasts a similar temperature for Wednesday that would be in record territory, with an Antarctica average that is a whopping 4.5 degrees Celsius (8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 1979-2000 average.

High temperature records were surpassed July 3 and 4 in Quebec and northwestern Canada and Peru. Cities across the U.S. from Medford, Oregon to Tampa, Florida have been hovering at all-time highs, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Beijing reported nine straight days last week when the temperature exceeded 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit).

“The increasing heating of our planet caused by fossil fuel use is not unexpected, it was predicted already in the 19th century after all,” said climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research in Germany. “But it is dangerous for us humans and for the ecosystems we depend on. We need to stop it fast.”

The daily but preliminary and unofficial heat record comes after months of “truly unreal meteorology and climate stats for the year,” such as off-the-chart record warmth in the North Atlantic, record low sea ice in Antarctica and a rapidly strengthening El Nino, said University of Oklahoma meteorology professor Jason Furtado.

A security guard wearing an electric fan on his neck wipes his sweat on a hot day in Beijing, Monday, July 3, 2023. Heavy flooding has displaced thousands of people around China as the capital had a brief respite from sweltering heat. Beijing reported 9.8 straight days when the temperature exceeded 35 C (95 F), the National Climate Center said Monday. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

This global record is not quite the type regularly used by gold-standard climate measurement entities like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. But it is an indication that climate change is reaching into uncharted territory. It legitimately captures global-scale heating and NOAA will take these figures into consideration when it does its official record calculations, said Deke Arndt, director of the National Center for Environmental Information, a division of NOAA.

“In the climate assessment community, I don’t think we’d assign the kind of gravitas to a single day observation as we would a month or a year,’ Arndt said. Scientists generally use much longer measurements — months, years, decades — to track the Earth’s warming. In addition, this preliminary record for the hottest day is based on data that only goes back to 1979, the start of satellite record-keeping, whereas NOAA’s data goes back to 1880.

But Arndt added that we wouldn’t be seeing anywhere near record-warm days unless we were in “a warm piece of what will likely be a very warm era” driven by greenhouse gas emissions and the onset of a “robust” El Nino. An El Nino is a temporary natural warming of parts of the central Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide and generally makes the planet hotter.

Human-caused climate change is like an upward escalator for global temperatures, and El Nino is like jumping up while standing on that escalator, Arndt said.

On Tuesday, American independence day, Earth average temperature spiked at 17.18 degrees Celsius or 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a common tool often used by climate scientists for a good glimpse of the world’s condition. Tuesday’s temperature was nearly a full degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 1979-2000 average, which is itself is warmer than the 20th and 19th century averages.

Residents carry umbrellas to shield from the sun as they take rest on a bench on a hot day in Beijing, Monday, July 3, 2023. Heavy flooding has displaced thousands of people around China as the capital had a brief respite from sweltering heat. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

On July 3, the reanalyzer had the temperature at 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

The reanalyzer is based on a NOAA computer simulation intended for forecasts that use satellite data. It is not based on reported observations from the ground. So this unofficial record is effectively using a weather tool that is designed for forecasts, not record-keeping.

The global daily average temperature for July 3 came in at 17.01 degrees Celsius or 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This average temperature may not seem that hot, but it’s the first time in the 44 years of this dataset that the temperature surpassed the 17-degree Celsius mark and then it went even higher.

“A record like this is another piece of evidence for the now massively supported proposition that global warming is pushing us into a hotter future,” said Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field, who was not part of the calculations.

Hotter global average temperatures translate into brutal conditions for people all over the world.

In the U.S., heat advisories are in effect this week for more than 30 million people in places including portions of western Oregon, inland far northern California, central New Mexico, Texas, Florida and the coastal Carolinas, according to the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center. Excessive heat warnings are continuing across southern Arizona and California, they said.

When the heat spikes, humans suffer health effects.

“Those hotter temperatures that happen when we get hotter than normal conditions? People aren’t used to that. Their bodies aren’t used to that,” said Erinanne Saffell, the Arizona state climatologist and an expert in extreme weather and climate events.

Saffell added that the risk is already high for the young and old, who are vulnerable to heat even under normal conditions.

“That’s important to understand who might be at risk, making sure people are hydrated, they’re staying cool, and they’re not exerting themselves outside and taking care of those folks around you who might be at risk as well,” she said.

Borenstein reported from Washington and Walling from Chicago.

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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​ Orange County Register 

Swanson: Galaxy, LAFC grudge match delivers before an MLS record crowd

• July 5, 2023

PASADENA – Take any tangible mode of measurement and throw it out the window, far as you can.

So what if the Galaxy came in with a 3-9-7 record, second-worst in Major League Soccer? And that LAFC was 9-5-5, second-best? No one cared! Not one soul commemorating the Fourth of July as part of the MLS record 82,110 in attendance at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday.

The Galaxy’s five MLS championships, more than any other team? LAFC’s first, a thriller in penalty kicks over Philadelphia Union just eight months ago? Whatever.

LAFC’s billion dollar valuation? The Galaxy being operated by AEG, the world’s largest owner of sports teams and events? Irrelevant. Don’t mention it.

Not during an El Trafico, L.A.’s fiercest sports rivalry, which promised lots of goals and “lots of yelling,” like, “nonstop,” said Galaxy fans Sammy Martin and her dad, Fernando. “A lot of trash talking,” said Hector Padilla, an LAFC guy.

In other words: “A spectacular atmosphere,” said Galaxy fan Edgar Hernandez a few hours before the Independence Day LAFC-Galaxy fireworks show.

Just that this El Trafico — a typically up-and-down match the Galaxy won, 2-1 — would be three times as rabid, as rowdy, as spirited a spectacle as usual, because this version of the rivalry showdown was placed perfectly. In the Rose Bowl.

The Galaxy got back to its roots, to “the place we used to call home,” as coach and former player Greg Vanney described it. Back to where the Galaxy made its 1996 debut, a 2-1 victory over the New York/New Jersey MetroStars that attracted a crowd of 69,225.

This year, in the Galaxy’s first official MLS match here since 2002, they kept them separated: A section of the northern concourse was dedicated exclusively to LAFC’s fans. Those folks flexing like it says on the front of their jerseys, their team riding the wave of success after winning last season’s Supporters Shield and Philip F. Anschutz Trophy.

And far, far away, to the south of the stadium, were the Galaxy’s people, the home team’s fans carrying an excess of pent up frustration, their proud history muffled by years of mediocrity that came to a head this season. Supporters groups boycotted home matches and called for the firing of president Chris Klein, their wish granted finally on May 30, since when the Galaxy are 2-0-4 in MLS competition.

It wasn’t easy for those supporters to skip those matches at Dignity Health Sports Park, the 27,000-set soccer-specific venue in Carson where the Galaxy normally play. Earlier this season, some of them teared up earlier talking about the decision to deprive themselves of the thing they love so much – because they loved it so darn much.

Tuesday’s immense, intense holiday crowd — the grudge match initially was scheduled as the season-opener on Feb. 25 before being rained out — poured into the stadium early, both fan bases’ singing and drumming loud enough to penetrate the enclosed press box an hour before kickoff.

And when Galaxy midfielder Tyler Boyd – the Kiwi-American who grew up in Santa Ynez rooting for the Galaxy – connected on turnaround boot to give the Galaxy a 1-0 lead in the 26th minute, that press box rocked.

It was the men and women in black’s turn when LAFC’s Illie Sanchez tied the match in the 57th minute. A recently naturalized U.S. citizen, his pinpoint header came with fireworks popping off in the vicinity and the sky glittering above.

Boyd found Riqui Puig racing up the middle for the deciding goal in the 73rd minute and goalkeeper Jonathan Klinsmann stifled a couple last-gasp LAFC attempts to lift the Galaxy to another dramatic victory over LAFC, their second in three matches this season – which improves their record to 9-6-5 against LAFC all time.

Riqui Puig gets his goal and gives LA Galaxy the 2-1 lead over LAFC and the Rosebowl erupts!#LAGalaxy #LAFC #ElTrafico pic.twitter.com/FyZo69MB79

— Gio Garcia (@GioGarciaLA) July 5, 2023

You can bet the winning team’s devotees let LAFC’s fans hear about it.

“That’s how soccer is worldwide,” said Jonathan Padilla, Hector’s younger brother, for whom it was watching Carlos Vela that made him fall in love with LAFC. “If you grow up playing, there’s something about soccer that whatever happens, it’s a bragging rights.”

So while Hernandez counts some LAFC fans among his acquaintances, “I wouldn’t call them friends.”

That’s why you saw tweets like this one from ahead of kickoff: “To all our Galaxy family going today: have fun. Support like hell. Be safe. And please remember, it’s only a game. Just a game. It’s not worth going to jail or a hospital. G’z up!”

To all our Galaxy family going today: have fun. Support like hell. Be safe. And please remember, it’s only a game. Just a game. It’s not worth going to jail or a hospital. G’z up!

— LAisOurHouse (@LAisOurHouse) July 4, 2023

Show me if you ever spot similar plea before a Lakers-Clippers, Dodgers-Angels or USC-UCLA game.

Show me someone who would’ve thought, back in 1999, a scene like Tuesday’s was coming. There was a game that season – when the Galaxy averaged just more than 17,000 fans in the cavernous confines of the Rose Bowl – that the team drew an announced crowd of 7,581.

Fast forward a couple decades and the Rose Bowl was the epicenter of a soccer city that now supports three pro teams, with Angel City, the National Women’s Soccer League team, averaging nearly 19,000 fans per game in its second season.

A city that was treated Tuesday to a pulsating piece of athletic theater, as promised.

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