California’s war on plastic bag use seems to have backfired. Lawmakers are trying again – the Los Angeles Times

Plastic Bags (by wastebusters CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

According to a report by the consumer advocacy group CALPIRG, 157,385 tons of plastic bag waste was discarded in California the year the law was passed. By 2022, however, the tonnage of discarded plastic bags had skyrocketed to 231,072 — a 47% jump…The problem, it turns out, was a section of the law that allowed grocery stores and large retailers to provide thicker, heavier-weight plastic bags to customers for the price of a dime….

Battered coastline, flooding rivers trap residents, bring misery in Santa Cruz County – Los Angeles Times

Powerful storm waves roll into Seacliff State Beach on Thursday between the Cement Ship and the heavily damaged pier © 2023 Shmuel Thaler - Santa Cruz Sentinel

On Monday, as huge swaths of Central and Northern California were still assessing damage from a quick succession of storms last week, another winter rain pelted the region, triggering floods that claimed the life of a motorist and swept away a 5-year-old boy who was trying to cross a road with his mother. Conditions were so unsafe Monday afternoon that officials called off the search for the boy…