At his home in Oakland, inside earshot of the Coliseum sports arena and BART routes, Michale Jones said he typically sleeps just five hours each night. Added to the periodic clatter of local trains and the roar of sports fans is the intrusion of criminal activity that keeps him awake.

“I always hear a lot of gunshots, a lot of music, sideshows and a lot of other things like that at night and even every day at midnight,” Jones said.

Jones might feel some relief on Sunday, when daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. in most U.S. states and clocks move back an hour to straightforward time, allowing an extra 60 minutes to sleep in.

But it will not be much of a break for Jones and his neighbors, whose ZIP code had the best rate of “short sleep duration” within the Bay Area at 41.2%, in accordance with the most recent study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2024 PLACES: Local Data for Better Health Report..

More than one in three American adults report not getting the advisable amount of sleep, which is at the very least seven hours an evening, in accordance with the CDC. Anne Wheaton, deputy associate director for science on the CDC's Division of Population Health, said the national average is 37%, while in California it’s 35%. Experts say the explanations can range from long commutes to health issues and noisy neighborhoods.

“Environmental noise may play a role in short sleep duration,” said Clete Kushida, a neurologist and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Center for Human Sleep Research.

Jennifer Martin, Professor of Medicine on the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and former CEO of the American Academy of Sleep Medicinesaid, “California ranks pretty high” amongst states “in terms of residents not getting enough sleep.”

“California is not the best-sleeping state in the United States, and there are many people in California who don’t get enough sleep,” Martin said.

Jones' 94621 ZIP code includes the Oakland International Airport, the Coliseum and adjoining arena, and the Coliseum BART station. Other Bay Area ZIP codes with what Wheaton said were “statistically similar” insomnia levels were in other parts of Oakland, San Francisco, Richmond, Pittsburg, Antioch and San Quentin, in accordance with the information.

So where do Bay Area residents get a very good rest? The data shows that the Portola Valley ZIP code in San Mateo County, home to wealthy investors like Vinod Khosla and future Sunset magazine publisher Bill Lane, has the bottom percentage of residents with one, at just 23.2% report short sleep duration.

Fiona Barwick, a clinical associate professor within the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, said wealthier communities like Portola Valley may be quieter and more restful.

“You don’t hear any gunshots at night. So you have a very safe and stable environment to sleep in, not just in your community, but even in your household,” Barwick said. “If you live in an unsafe, insecure and unstable environment with fewer resources, not just in your own household but in the larger community, you can't afford adequate policing or traffic lights, and then it's probably even worse .”

Wheaton said lack of sleep may be brought on by a wide range of sleep disorders, reminiscent of insomnia, in addition to poor sleep habits, including irregular sleep schedules and using electronic devices near bedtime. Martin added that one consider why many within the Bay Area don't get enough sleep is commute times to work.

“People tend to live in areas that are not particularly close to their workplace, and they often sacrifice sleep for their morning commute,” Martin said.

Jones, who has lived all his life within the Bay Area's sleepiest zip code, has many neighbors who share his distress concerning the nighttime noise.

Angel Martinez, 35, who has lived on this Oakland neighborhood along with her family all her life, said she typically sleeps six hours at night. Martinez said she will at all times hear the BART station and the planes, even though it doesn't wake her up an excessive amount of at night.

“Everyone who lives here sleeps just OK, not the best,” she said. “Unfortunately, everyone, even me, is only used to the noise when you sleep at night.”

Whether the time change on Sunday will bring somewhat relief is controversial.

Nearly 60% of California voters approved a ballot measure in 2018 that permits the state legislature to vary daylight saving time with a two-thirds majority if the changes are consistent with federal law. So if a big majority of lawmakers agree, the state could either eliminate daylight saving time or, with help from Congress, extend it year-round.

Other states have taken similar measures, including Florida, where Republican Sen. Marco Rubio has repeatedly introduced the Sunshine Protection Act to increase daylight saving time year-round. However, as of October it remained parked in committee.

But while sleep experts like the thought of ​​getting rid of the time change, they're generally in favor of keeping standard time.

“The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and all medical and scientific organizations that have spoken out on this issue believe that we should end daylight saving time and stick to standard time permanently,” Martin said. “It suits people better if we have winter time than summer time.”

However, outdoor enthusiasts and youth sports advocates have advocated for daylight saving time since it allows spring and fall teams to compete within the afternoon after school ends before it gets dark.

Kushida isn't convinced that the additional hour of sleep after daylight saving time ends will provide much relief.

“Individuals whose sleep-wake cycles are strongly linked to the circadian cycles of day and night may have difficulty adapting to daylight saving time,” Kushida said.

Jones said: “It's good to sleep an hour longer, but I definitely need a week to adjust to the time change.”

Residents of the Bay Area's sleepiest neighborhood are searching for other solutions for a peaceful rest.

“Just more housing and police patrols,” Jones said.

Originally published: November 2, 2024 at 6:00 am PST

As a collective term, woodpeckers are one among the better-known families of birds. The general idea is evident enough: medium-sized, black and white birds with red accents hitting trees with their beaks. Some moderately observant backyard birders could also be accustomed to the common native birds that largely fit this description, similar to the acorn, downy, or Nuttall's woodpecker. Today, nevertheless, I would like to shine a lightweight on three of our more rarely encountered woodpeckers, each with their very own surprises: the sapsucker, the ciliate woodpecker, and the mighty pileated woodpecker.

I discussed the classic pattern of our woodpeckers: black and white, not too big and possibly with a bit red on the top. The first of our “special” woodpeckers is the Red-breasted Sapsucker, which matches these patterns in size and color. As the name suggests, this particular sapsucker has a more pronounced red coloration than average, with the whole head and upper chest streaked with a wealthy red in each female and male birds. (In all of our other native woodpeckers, red is merely a highlight, present in a limited area on the crown of the top, and in some species it is totally absent from females.)

There are a couple of special features that you must listen to with red-necked suckers. First, they’re the one one among our reasonably common woodpeckers that’s fully migratory in its Bay Area population: sapsuckers arrive now, stay all winter, after which depart around April to breeding grounds within the Sierras and Pacific Northwest. The key to becoming aware of their presence – and their truly attention-grabbing feature – lies in the opposite a part of their name, the “sap sucking” itself. Have you ever noticed neat rows of circular holes dug into the bark of living trees? These were made by this bird, which excavates these initial incisions after which returns to those “wells” to feed on the sap that flows into the exposed cavities, in addition to any random insects which can be interested in the sweet substance.

The second of our unique woodpeckers we're talking about is the least typical in appearance: the northern woodpecker. This bird is just not black and white, but a kind of coppery brown with black stripes on the back, a semicircular black bib on the highest of the chest, a predominantly gray face and a red whisker patch (it’s absent in females). It is a big and striking bird, whose most striking feature is basically hidden, but can also be clearly visible in its name: in flight, its wings “flicker” with a superb, reddish-orange glow.

This unusual color combination is the superficial manifestation of the deeper unusualness of the glint. Speedsters are unusually brown because they spend an unusual period of time on the bottom. They probably developed their different color scheme in parallel with their evolution as ground-feeding woodpeckers. While many other woodpeckers seek for prey insects in rotting wood or pluck them from the surface of the bark, woodpeckers concentrate on hunting ants, often reaching into their tunnels with their flamboyant tongues, which extend about 2 1/2 inches beyond the top of theirs long beaks.

Woodpeckers are strange and striking creatures, and these three representatives are even stranger. You dig wells for the sap, you stick a snaking tongue into the earth like a winged anteater, and also you spread your mighty wings and trumpets through the forest as if the prehistoric past had develop into present and alive.

Originally published: October 7, 2024 at 6:52 am

In the 15 years since joining the San Francisco Asian American drag troupe the Rice Rockettes, Chi-Chi Kago has witnessed cultural attitudes toward each drag and Asian American representation change dramatically.

Although the group has grown “old and mature,” she said, she hopes it might proceed to bring something “new and fresh” to the table.

“Are we still relevant now that Asian drag is mainstream?” Kago pondered. “I think so.”

The Rice Rockettes are the “premier all-Asian drag group in San Francisco,” says Estée Longah, a Filipino-American drag queen and house mom of the 15-member group. Although Longah says “premier” just means they're the longest-running Asian American and Pacific Islander drag group, the group is a respected institution amongst queer Asian Americans.

It was founded in 2009 by Longah and other drag queens she met while working with AAPI community groups similar to the now-renamed API Wellness Center and the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance.

Longah recalls that there weren't many Asian American drag queens in San Francisco within the mid-2000s. She competed in beauty pageants inside the AAPI community and the mainstream LGBTQ+ community and noticed a difference in the best way each of them operated. She described the mainstream beauty pageants as competitive and focused on getting the job done, while beauty pageants amongst Asian Americans provided a way of community, connection, and camaraderie that she enjoyed.

The Rice Rockettes were in a novel position once they formed. Faced with racist stereotypes that forged them as feminine, passive “bottoms,” many gay Asian men turned to hypermasculinity and rejected drag, seeing it as a stepping stone to gender transition. Several drag queens from a gaggle that predated the Rice Rockettes, the Rice Girls, also underwent gender transition, lending credence to the concept that being a drag queen is a gateway to a transgender identity reasonably than a type of self-expression in its own right.

The Rice Rockettes were founded with two goals in mind, Longah said: to offer a protected space where gay AAPI men can find out about and feel comfortable participating in drag, whether or not they want the gender transition or not, and to recreate the identical camaraderie Longah found at queer AAPI beauty pageants in order that members feel supported of their journey to pull.

“I think what the group excelled at most was storytelling and humor and a kind of crazy, unique San Francisco perspective, and those are things that really appeal to me,” said Imelda Glucose, a Filipino-American drag queen within the group.

Over the subsequent decade, the Rice Rockettes continued to fill an increasing number of bars and clubs with their shows, often acting at the Lookout, a bar in San Francisco. Community involvement was a priority at their shows, hosting fundraisers for local causes and for the victims of Hurricane Haiyan within the Philippines in 2013 and the Tohoku earthquake in Japan in 2011.

Starting in October 2013, the group had their very own monthly show called “Rice Rockettes Presents…” The group also auditioned as a dance group on America's Got Talent in 2011. Kago said that while the experience wasn't entirely positive, it was entertaining and gave the group some exposure. In 2019, the group celebrated its tenth anniversary with a celebratory show, marking the height of the Rice Rockettes' popularity, Longah said.

“We did a 10th anniversary show that was very well received. People really loved watching us play group and solo numbers and sort of a 'best of' and really challenge ourselves to do some pretty difficult things on stage to entertain the audience,” Kago said.

For the queens who joined the Rice Rockettes, the group's unique storytelling provided a possibility to specific their truths in a witty yet provocative way.

Glucose recalled a performance by her drag mother, Doncha Vishyuwuzme, who tackled the stereotype that Asian Americans eat dogs. To the tune of a catchy pop song, Vishyuwuzme revealed that she served dog parts, not chicken parts.

“The way everyone incorporates their identity as Asian into their performances and the way we make fun of the things that others who are not Asian or not part of our community have made fun of us for is, in a way, like a reclamation,” Glucose said.

Another drag queen, Kristi Yummykochi, said drag allowed her to explore her Japanese-American identity with a private number based on a story from her mother's family.

“When you do a drag act about such a personal story, you learn about it. You ask your family members, you research what happened and you ask yourself, 'What was that?', 'How can I tell this story?' And that, I think, brings you closer to your own identity,” Yummykochi said.

When the pandemic shut every part down in March 2020, the Rice Rockettes adapted by hosting two digital shows and keeping in contact with one another through monthly video chats. Although they resumed live shows in 2021, the pandemic had dealt a serious blow to San Francisco's nightlife. Due to the oversupply of drag content, there was little interest of their performances, and the high cost of living kept people from going to bars and clubs. Due to burnout, fewer queens were also willing to perform. The group then modified its direction, and the Rice Rockettes' monthly show was renamed “Estée Longah's Casting Couch,” which regularly featured members of the Rice Rockettes and other guest artists.

Longah said one among the low points within the group's history was when the Proud Boys attacked fellow member Rice Rockette Panda Dulce during a Drag Queen Story Hour event on the San Lorenzo Library in 2022.

The event was interrupted when a gaggle of Proud Boys members burst in and hurled insults at Dulce. One called her a “groomer” and one other wore a T-shirt that read “Kill your local pedophile” and had a picture of an AK-47 on it.

“The right's alarmist, downright fascist bias about who should and shouldn't exist will never override the undeniable reality that we (LGBTQ people) exist,” Dulce said in an interview with CNN.

Longah said the attack affected her deeply since it was not only an attack on a member of her group, but additionally on her drag daughter, who was not within the Bay Area on the time.

“This has really changed the way we work and our attitude towards safety,” Longah said, also advising members to return together and pay attention to their surroundings.

The group tries to tell one another about performances outside the group and, consequently of the attack, now not accepts private bookings.

Vermicelli Versace, a Vietnamese-American drag queen who joined the group in 2019, said that in light of the attack — in addition to recent drag bans and anti-trans laws and the rise of the Stop Asian Hate movement in response to attacks on Asian Americans — the group's work will not be done.

“We are here for a reason. And we are here to continue to be a light for the community,” Versace said.

Longah said many members joined the Rice Rockettes without much drag experience, and now she has seen them grow as people and develop their drag personalities to the purpose where they’ll exit and pursue their individual drag careers. This was true for Siam Phusri, a Thai-American drag queen who joined the group up to now two years. She said her happiest moment was winning Mx. GAPA in 2022, a beauty pageant hosted by the GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance, or GAPA.

Kago said she hopes to recruit recent drag queens and collaborate with other drag performers and groups of color. She added that the group is looking forward to celebrating its fifteenth anniversary, scheduled for Oct. 13. And while there was an influx of Asian American drag representation, Kago said the group is advocating for the art of drag for Asian Americans.

“I'm really excited by how much Asian drag representation there is right now, and I like to think that we were a little bit at the forefront of that and maybe inspired some of these other groups to start up,” Kago said. “I hope that with all this Asian representation in the world, there's still a place for us.”

This November, Bay Area voters could vote on an unprecedented bond measure to boost as much as $20 billion for as much as 90,000 much-needed inexpensive homes within the nine-county region.

Ahead of an important regional board vote next week on which the measure shall be put to a vote, mayors of three of the Bay Area's largest cities met in San Francisco on Thursday to rally support for the proposal.

“If you're concerned about homelessness, this is the measure you should support,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. “If you're concerned about the high cost of housing and the high cost of living, this is the measure you should support.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín also attended the event, which took place in a public housing complex near the Chase Center Arena in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood.

Absent was Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who didn’t show up after the FBI raided her home early Thursday morning.

Across the Bay Area, about 1.4 million residents – 23% of all renters – spend greater than half their income on rent, in line with regional authorities. At the identical time, an estimated 37,000 persons are homeless each night within the region – greater than your entire population of Menlo Park.

To alleviate the chronic shortage of inexpensive housing within the region, Bay Area Housing Finance AuthorityCreated by the state legislature in 2019, the bond measure has worked for years to get on the ballot. The measure must now be approved by the Board of Finance — made up of elected and appointed local officials — on June 26 before it goes before voters.

While the board is anticipated to approve the measure, there continues to be some uncertainty in regards to the final amount of the bond. The financing authority has proposed either $10 or $20 billion.

The bond can be financed by a brand new tax on businesses and houses. For a $20 billion bond, the tax can be $19 per $100,000, or about $190 per yr for a house with an assessed value of $1 million.

The vote comes because the state pushes Bay Area cities and counties to approve greater than 441,000 latest homes by 2031, a roughly 15% increase within the region's total housing stock. More than half of the brand new homes should be inexpensive for low- and moderate-income residents.

On Thursday, Breed said rising rates of interest and other economic headwinds currently slowing the development sector underscore the necessity for greater financing of inexpensive housing.

“How are we going to create the much-needed affordable housing without financial support?” she asked.

Some mayors also identified that the federal government has played a smaller and smaller role in subsidizing inexpensive housing in recent many years, arguing that this measure was obligatory.

“Local mayors have a right to complain,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of South Bay said in an interview.

Khanna said he supports the bond measure, adding that if President Joe Biden is re-elected, he’ll push the administration to make housing a high priority.

If approved, a $20 billion bond would offer $4 billion to determine a regional fund to finance inexpensive projects. The rest can be divided among the many Bay Area's nine counties and five largest cities to come to a decision find out how to support inexpensive housing.

Santa Clara County would receive $2.4 billion, San Mateo County $2.1 billion, Alameda County $2 billion and Contra Costa County $1.9 billion. San Francisco would receive $2.4 billion, San Jose $2.1 billion and Oakland $765 million.

A current report Researchers on the nonprofit housing organization Enterprise Community Partners found that the bond could help construct 433 already approved inexpensive projects totaling greater than 40,000 units, a lot of which lack sufficient funds to finish. This includes greater than 10,000 units in Santa Clara and Alameda counties. Officials estimate that the bond would also help construct tens of hundreds more latest housing units.

Affordable housing is reserved for individuals who earn lower than a certain quantity, normally a percentage of an area's median income. That will be as high as 120% of the median income, or as little as 15% or 30%. In Santa Clara County, 30% of the median income is $38,750 for a single person, in line with the state housing authority. Residents typically spend about 30% of their income on housing costs, although the quantity can vary.

Local authorities could also use the cash from the bonds to construct homeless shelters, including tiny houses, converted motels, group homes and supervised campgrounds.

Earlier this yr, San Jose, which under Mahan has made constructing latest shelters the centerpiece of its homeless response, agreed to spend about 28 percent of its potential bond capital on shelter options. In an interview, Mahan said inexpensive housing is simply too expensive and takes too long to be the primary strategy within the fight against homelessness.

“I will not support an approach that pursues only one strategy, especially one that is the slowest to get people off the streets,” Mahan, a voting member of the Treasury Board, said in an interview.

As it stands, the bond measure would wish a two-thirds majority of all Bay Area voters to pass. However, if a bill passes on the identical November ballot to make it easier to pass tax measures, the bond measure would only need 55% approval.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court removed one other bill from the vote that might have required a two-thirds majority.

Despite broad voter support that the region must create more cost-effective housing, the bond's passage is not any guarantee. According to a Opinion poll Last week, 64 percent of voters statewide said it was a nasty time to issue bonds for presidency programs and infrastructure projects as state and native governments worked to shut budget deficits, in line with a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank.

Berkeley Mayor Arreguín noted that his city's voters rejected a $650 million local inexpensive housing bond for 2022, although the measure still received 56% of the vote.

“I urge my fellow mayors and all Bay Area voters to support this housing bond and do everything they can to get it passed in November,” he said, “because the impact this will have on the region will be transformative for years to come.”

Scenes from the Houston area looked just like the aftermath of a hurricane In early May after a series of severe storms flooded highways and neighborhoods and sent rivers over their banks north of town.

More than 400 people needed to be rescued from houses, roofs and cars, based on The Associated Press. Nearly 20 inches of rain fell in Huntsville from April 29 to May 4, 2024.

Floods are complex events that involve greater than just heavy rain. Each community has its own unique geography and climate, which may make flooding worse. In addition to those risks, extreme rainfall events have gotten more frequent as global temperatures rise.

I work with A Center on the University of Michigan This helps communities transform climate knowledge into projects that may reduce the damage of future climate disasters. Flooding events like those within the Houston area provide case studies that can assist cities in all places address increasing risk.

The risk of flooding is increasing

The very first thing the recent floods show us is that the climate is changing.

In the past, it may need made sense to view a flood as a rare and random event—communities could easily rebuild. But the statistical distribution of weather events and natural disasters is shifting.

What may need been a 1-in-500-year event could turn out to be a 1-in-100-year event on the option to a 1-in-50-year event. When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in 2017, it also took Houston with it Third 500-year flood inside three years.

Fundamental physics points to the increasing risks: global greenhouse gas emissions are resulting in a rise in global average temperatures. Warming results in increased precipitation and heavier rainfall, in addition to increased flooding potential, especially when storms hit already saturated ground.

Communities should not prepared

The recent floods also reveal weaknesses within the design and management of communities.

Plaster is a Main contributor to urban flooding since the water can’t be absorbed and drains away quickly. The frequent flooding within the Houston area highlights the risks. Its impermeable surfaces expanded by 386 square miles According to data between 1997 and 2017 collected by Rice University. More roads, parking lots and buildings meant more standing water and fewer places for rainwater to sink.

If infrastructure is well designed and maintained, flood damage may be significantly reduced. However, researchers have increasingly found that the technical specifications for drainage pipes and other infrastructure vary not sufficient to address the increasing intensity of storms and rainfall. That can result in this Roads are being washed out and communities are being cut off. Failure to take care of infrastructure resembling levees and storm drains is a typical reason for flooding.

Reservoirs are also a necessary a part of flood management within the Houston area. and lots of were at capability of persistent rain. This forced the managers to accomplish that release more water when the storms hit.

For a coastal metropolis just like the Houston-Galveston region rapidly rising sea levels may additionally reduce downstream water management capability. These various aspects mix to extend the danger of flooding and highlight the necessity to not only move water but in addition find secure places to store it.

The increasing risks not only affect technical standards, but in addition Zoning laws that regulate where houses may be built and constructing regulations, which describe minimum standards for safety in addition to permitting and environmental regulations.

By addressing these issues now, communities can anticipate and forestall harm, slightly than reacting when it is simply too late.

Four lessons from case studies

The diverse impacts of flooding show why a holistic approach to climate change planning is essential and what communities can learn from one another. For example, case studies show that:

• It is difficult for a person or a community to handle even the technical facets of flood preparation alone – there is simply too much interconnectedness. However, protective measures resembling dikes or canals could protect a district increase the danger of flooding downstream. Planners should discover the suitable regional scale, resembling your complete catchment area of ​​a stream or river, and establish vital relationships early within the planning process.

• Natural disasters and the way in which communities reply to them may also increase inequalities in wealth and resources. Social justice and ethical considerations have to be included within the planning firstly.

Learning to cope with complexity

In Communities my colleagues and I even have worked withWe have seen increasing awareness of the challenges of climate change and increasing flood risks.

In most cases, local officials' initial instinct was to guard property and carry on without changing where people lived. However, this might only buy time for some areas before people have time no alternative but to maneuver.

As a lot of these communities examine their vulnerabilities, they’re increasingly recognizing the connections between zoning, storm drains and parks that may capture runoff, for instance. They are also starting to acknowledge the importance of engaging regional stakeholders to avoid fragmented adaptation efforts that would worsen conditions for neighboring areas.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on August 25, 2022.