TARMO HANNULA: Temperatures sunk into the 30s overnight. The National Weather Service said rain will drench our region Thursday, starting up before 8 a.m.
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More than 17.9 million acres have now burned in Australia’s bush fires, an area larger than Belgium and Denmark combined. So far 28 people have died and more than 3,000 homes have been destroyed or damaged. The United States, New Zealand and Canada have joined in the fight. About 70 percent of Australia’s three million square miles of land is now covered by a layer of smoke, NASA reported. By Jan. 8 that smoke traveled halfway around the planet, where South America is now experiencing hazy skies and brownish-yellow sunrises and sunsets.
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House Democrats were expected to send two articles of impeachment for President Trump to the Senate Wednesday. “It is always about marking time. An impeachment that will last forever,” said Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
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This morning homelessness was brought into focus at a special meeting in Watsonville. As I was getting into the elevator at the six-floor parking garage on Rodriguez and Maple streets, I ran into Ané Watts, who works for the UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education department, struggling with a bunch of lecture display posters and things. She asked me about where the Community Room was. I helped her carry her stuff around the corner into the elevator, up to the fourth floor and to the Community Room. There, at 9 a.m., she addressed a group of employees from the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency in a session about issues surrounding homelessness.
