KGO 810 Podcast

The grinding megadrought that’s plagued the southwestern United States since 2000 plunged to a new level of seriousness on Tuesday, August 16, as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced that the first-ever Tier 2 water restrictions will take effect in January 2023 along the Colorado River. Generous monsoon rains over parts of the Southwest this summer have done little to blunt the grim longer-term prognosis. 

Based on the latest set of two-year projections (called the 24-month study), the water level at Lake Mead will drop to near 1048 feet by next January 1, putting it just below the Tier 2a threshold of 1050 feet. 

The Colorado River, and the 40 million people – plus billions of dollars in agriculture  – that draw on its water across the Southwest, were already in the midst of stringent cuts after a previous 24-month study, released in August 2021, that put into place Tier 1 restrictions (itself an unprecedented step at the time) starting in January 2022. The range that triggers Tier 1 for Lake Mead is 1050-1075 feet.

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Planned Parenthood, the nation's leading reproductive health care provider and abortion rights advocacy organization, plans to spend a record $50 million ahead of November's midterm elections, pouring money into contests where access to abortion will be on the ballot.

The effort, which breaks the group's previous $45 million spending record set in 2020, comes about two months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that created a constitutional right to have an abortion. It will be waged by the organization's political and advocacy arms and will focus on governor's offices, U.S. Senate seats and legislative races in nine states where abortion rights could be restricted or expanded depending on the outcome at the ballot.

Now, for the first time, Republicans who have long campaigned against abortion and Roe v. Wade will face voters on an issue that is no longer hypothetical and carries real life consequences.

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Criminal Defense Attorney David Katz and ABC News Correspondent Andy Field join Chris Merrill, as he fills in for Pat Thurston, to discuss the FBI's search of former President Donald Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago.

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