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‘Barbie’ beats ‘Oppenheimer’ in movie showdown A3

Brian Harman wins Open Championship by six shots B1

MONDAY | July 24, 2023 | $1.00

DAILYREPUBLIC.COM | Well said. Well read.

Heat, war, export bans Global food threats are on the rise Tribune Content Agency As scorching temperatures ravage farms from the U.S. to China, crop harvests, fruit production and dairy output are all coming under pressure. That extreme weather is just one of threats to food supplies that are once again mounting around the world. This week, top rice exporter India banned some shipments of the commodity – a staple for about half of the world’s population – to keep domestic prices in check. Russia quit a deal that allowed Ukrainian grain to flow safely across the Black Sea. On top of that is the recent arrival of the El Niño weather pattern that may cause further damage to agriculture. All of this is renewing concerns about food security and prices, creating a risk that rampant inflation on supermarket shelves will stick around for longer. That would be a fresh blow to consumers, who were just starting to see some

Right now, it’s so hot in southern Europe that cows are producing less milk and tomatoes are being ruined. Grain harvests will be much smaller too after struggling with drought. better news after a longrunning squeeze on household budgets. “We’re all still struggling under an inflationary regime,” said Tim Benton, a food security expert at Chatham House in London. “And although inflation is tailing off, that doesn’t of course mean the prices are going down. It means they’re just going up more slowly.” Extreme heat that’s engulfing huge swaths of Asia, Europe and North America is just the latest challenge in what’s been a rough year for farmers. They’ve had to See Food, Page A6

Sacramento

April 1, 2023

Sacramento

San Francisco

SI NE VA

200 MILES

April 1 average, 2018-2022

See Vote, Page A6

92 inches

of its most controversial internal debates over his government’s plan to reduce the power of the judiciary to oversee political decisions. On Saturday night, hundreds of thousands

Snow water equivalent

FRESNO — Californians were preparing for another year of unrelenting drought in 2023. Instead, they got months of incessant rain and some of the heaviest snowfall they have ever seen. They feared blasts of spring warmth would quickly turn snow into floods, adding to the havoc from a series of winter storms. But, until recently, temperatures remained mercifully cool, allowing for a slow and steady melt. The result: a return of water to California that has erased drought maps, poured into longdry irrigation systems and raised expectations that, after months with water bursting from their gates, reservoirs will end the summer melt filled to capacity. It has been a stark transformation, with arid landscapes and trickling rivers replaced with swollen lakes, gushing waterfalls and snow-covered mountaintops. Instead of pumping groundwater to keep crops alive, farmers have access to brimming canals carrying more water than they could use. The same Californians thanking the heavens for their good weather fortune are still wary, to be sure. A series of moisture-laden storms known as atmospheric rivers brought Central Valley flooding, coastal landslides and mountain blizzards – a change from years of drought and wildfires, but hazards all the same. Scientists say shifts in the Golden State’s climate could

Israeli Prime Minister B enjamin Ne t anyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in his office in Jerusalem, June 25.

Water available as snowpack

THE WASHINGTON POST

Abir Sultan/Pool/AFP/Getty Images/TNS file

Scott Dance

As the parliament came close to voting on a contentious change in the judicial system, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was fine after having a cardiac pacemaker inserted early Sunday. The 73-year-old premier, who fainted a week ago, said in a video statement from the hospital that he would join the parliamentary debate on Monday morning. The weekly Sunday cabinet meeting was canceled, and trips to Cyprus and Turkey were postponed, his office said. His health is having added significance with Israel in the midst of one

How state’s weather catastrophe turned into a miracle

Tribune Content Agency

Stark transformation

Netanyahu gets pacemaker as vote nears on judicial overhaul

Melina Mara/The Washington Post file

The high water levels of the Kings River run through a weir in Sanger, June 8.

Los Angeles

San Diego

Source: Climate Engine

SZU YU CHEN/THE WASHINGTON POST

mean more dry years, interspersed with extremely wet ones like 2023. Meanwhile, there are reminders around the globe of the sort of extreme weather California has largely dodged in recent months: Persistent record-setting heat across the southern United States, Europe and Asia; an unprecedently massive swarm of wildfires in Canada; damaging flash floods from Vermont to India to South Korea. Californians know good weather fortune can only last so long, what with a newly accelerating El Niño

WEATHER 92 | 60 Sunny. Five-day forecast on B6.

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climate pattern that they know threatens more extreme flooding and landslides. The coursing rivers and flush irrigation canals nonetheless give Sarah Woolf a sense of relief. The water consultant who works with farms like her family’s in Madera County, north of Fresno, said California needs to take maximum advantage of the precipitation when it hits. After all, she said it’s better to See Water, Page A6

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