Connecting the dots: top news stories for Wednesday, February 3

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President Barack Obama is talking jobs, jobs, jobs, and here in the Bay Area, the news is getting better. High-tech employment nationally seems to have hit bottom in September and flattened out in the fourth quarter, raising hopes that a similar trend is under way in Silicon Valley.

But things can’t get better quickly enough for California. Yesterday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sent another letter to California's congressional delegation asking for more federal dollars, after the President released a budget that provided only $1.5 billion of the $6.9 billion in new money that the Governor wants.

In other political news, a new survey shows San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom would measure up well against other Democrats in the race to be Lieutenant Governor... not that he’s running for Lieutenant Governor.

In his current job, Mayor Newsom’s veto of expanded eviction protections survived a challenge from the Board of Supervisors.

And that’s not the only troubling news for advocates of low-income residents. Civil rights organizations around the country are challenging Sacramento attorney Sharon Browne’s nomination (by President Obama) to Legal Services Corporation, saying she’s long fought against the work of that organization.

In other news, KALW’s Nathanael Johnson has written a front page article for CaliforniaWatch.org about how the rate of California women who die from causes directly related to pregnancy has nearly tripled in the past decade, prompting doctors to worry about the dangers of obesity in expectant mothers, and about the medical complications of cesarean sections.  The article also calls attention to the comparatively high maternal mortality rate for African-Americans, and to the slowness of the state to publish reports revealing these troubling trends. KALW News originally reported this story in July 2009.

Schools are trying to contain their truancy epidemic… and they’re not doing too well. Eleven percent of San Francisco Unified School District students had at least 10 absences last school year without bothering to give an excuse.

There may be a home for them in San Mateo County, where troubled teens are getting the chance to go back to school.

And in Sacramento, well-behaved inmates in Sacramento County are getting the chance to go free.

But if they want to get somewhere, it may cost them more in the Bay Area, where local transit agencies are nearly running on empty.

And the solution may not be found in the electric car.

Of course, commuters can always jog.  It could be good preparation for the revival of the Oakland marathon.

Traveling by foot is also good for the environment. The East Bay Municipal Utility District could apparently use a lesson on that topic. The district recently dumped 170 million gallons of sewage into the Bay, at least 77 million gallons of which were related to aging sewer pipes in Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, Emeryville, and Piedmont.

It won’t monitor Bay pollution, but California is preparing to introduce the first statewide system of monitoring devices to detect global-warming emissions, installing them on towers throughout the state.

The devices may be busy in February, as Bay Area residents turn up their thermostats, but PG&E expects home heating costs to drop by about 4% because of a decline in natural gas prices.

That may entice homebodies to stay inside, which would also be a good idea for black bears, seeing how California is considering dramatically expanding the state’s black bear hunt.

Our Connecting the Dots blog helps you make sense of the day's news.