Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/579514
TheAssociatedPress SACRAMENTO California is instituting an amnesty program for residents who can't afford to pay off spi- raling traffic fines and court fees that have led to millions of driver's licenses being suspended. The program pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown and ad- opted as part of his annual budget goes into effect Thursday and runs through March 31, 2017. Under the plan, driv- ers with lesser infractions would pay either 50 or 80 percent of what they owe, depending on income. Cer- tain drivers would also be able to apply for install- ment payments for out- standing tickets. Drunken- driving and reckless-riving violations are not eligible. Civil assessment fees would be waived for some tickets. Residents who have had their licenses revoked would be able to apply to have them reinstated. Only violations due to be paid before Jan. 1, 2013, are eligible for discounts. Since 2006, the state has suspended 4.8 million driver's licenses after mo- torists failed to pay or ap- pear in court, the Depart- ment of Motor Vehicles said earlier this year. Of those, only about 83,000 licenses were reinstated. When he announced the program in May, Brown called the traffic court sys- tem a "hellhole of despera- tion" for the poor. The push by the Demo- cratic governor highlighted concern among lawmakers and court administrators that California's justice sys- tem is profiting off minor- ities and low-income resi- dents. Traffic fines have been skyrocketing in the state, and courts have grown re- liant on fees as a result of budget cuts during the re- cession. Twenty years ago, the fine for running a red light was $103. Today, it costs as much as $490 as the state has established add-on fees to support everything from court construction to emer- gency medical air transpor- tation. The cost can jump to over $800 once a person fails to pay or misses a traf- fic court appearance. SPIRALING FINES Statereadytooffer amnesty on traffic debt for poor residents The Associated Press PERRIS More than 200 aerial daredevils plunged into the record books this week, linking up in a giant lattice-like configuration 7,000 feet above South- ern California to shatter a world record for the larg- est sequential skydiving formation. The group of 202 leaped Tuesday afternoon at Sky- dive Perris, 80 miles south- east of Los Angeles, the Riverside Press-Enter- prise reported (http://bit. ly/1FEtj3e). The jump center's man- ager, Dan Brodksy-Chen- feld, told The Associ- ated Press on Wednes- day that more skydiving records could fall in the days ahead. The same elite group of jumpers is poised to take to the air again this week in an effort to form three separate formations, he said. The Fédération Aéro- nautique Internationale, which keeps track of sky- diving and other avia- tion-related records, had a judge on site to verify that Tuesday's leap set a record. It shattered the old one of 122. The group that took part was co-organized by Skydive Perris and in- cluded jumpers from the U.S., Russia, Brazil, Italy, France and Germany. About 80 percent of skydivers who show up for such record attempts are experts, said Patrick Passe, a Frenchman who helped organize the jump. The other 20 percent need coaching, he said. Information from: The Press-Enterprise, http:// www.pe.com LATTICE-LIKE CONFIGURATION CRAIGO'BRIEN—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS A record-breaking skydiving formation appears above Perris. 202 skydivers in California set world record By Jennifer C. Kerr The Associated Press WASHINGTON The Edu- cation Department says there's been another drop in the percentage of peo- ple who are defaulting on their student loans in the first years of repayment. More than 5.1 million borrowers began paying back their loans in the 2012 budget year, and about 611,000 defaulted — about 11.8 percent. The rate was 13.7 percent in 2011 and 14.7 percent for 2010. "We're seeing real prog- ress," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednes- day in a phone call with re- porters. The drop was seen across all sectors of higher education — public, private and for-profit institutions. For public institutions, the rate fell from 12.9 per- cent to 11.7 percent, and from 7.2 percent to 6.8 per- cent for private nonprofit schools. For-profit schools had the highest rate — 15.8 per- cent, a decline from 19.1 percent the previous year. All schools with a de- fault rate that is equal to or greater than 30 percent must come up with a plan to identify the reasons for the high rates and submit that plan to the depart- ment. Schools with high de- fault rates may lose eligi- bility to take part in fed- eral financial aid pro- grams. 'REAL PROGRESS' Default rate for repaying student loans plummets The Associated Press OAKLAND An artist was shot and killed in Oak- land while he was helping to paint a street-side mu- ral for a group that works to spread peace and stop violence, authorities said. Police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said Wednesday officers were searching for the shooter as friends mourned An- tonio Ramos, 27, during a vigil at the mural site. Watson said an argu- ment led to the shooting Tuesday at the site under an Interstate 580 overpass in West Oakland. Ramos was among about 10 artists who were working on project. He re- portedly quarreled with a manwhowasn'tpartofthe group.Itescalated,andthe man shot Ramos and ran away, police said. No one else was injured. Watson declined to re- lease further details about the crime while the inves- tigation is ongoing. The idyllic painting of trees, a creek and brightly colored Victorian houses contrasts sharply with the parts of West Oakland that are struggling to cope withdrugs,povertyandvi- olence. Oakland has had 73 homicides this year, and many have happened on thewesternendofthecity. Officials say there is nothing to indicate the subject matter in the mu- ral, called the Oakland Su- per Heroes Mural Project, sparked the violence. "I think this is an iso- lated incident," said Aee- shah Clottey, one of the founders of Attitudinal Healing Connection of Oakland, a group that seekstostopviolencebyin- spiringpeoplewithartand education.The25-year-old organization was sponsor- ing the mural project. ANTI-VIOLENCE Artist killed while painting mural By Dan Elliott The Associated Press DENVER NASA is provid- ing drought-stricken Cali- fornia with valuable data about how much water is locked up in the scant Si- erra Nevada snow, and now Colorado is trying the technique in the mountains where the Rio Grande be- gins its journey to New Mexico and Texas. An airplane called the Airborne Snow Observa- tory flies over California's Tuolumne River Basin east of San Francisco during peak snow months, using scanners to collect data on how deep the snow is and how much of the sun's warming rays are bounc- ing off. That helps project when the snow will melt and how much water it will release into rivers for cities, farms and wildlife. That's critical informa- tion in the West, where re- searchers say 75 to 80 per- cent of the water comes from melting moun- tain snow. It helps reser- voir managers decide how much water to release into turbines to generate elec- tricity and how much to hold for dry months. It also helps determine who gets irrigation water and who doesn't in a rigid pecking order of water rights. "Once the water manag- ers get a look at the data, they say, 'I like that,' " said Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program. NASA has been providing California with snow data from the Tuolumne Basin since 2013, and flights will resume there next spring. Colorado signed up for three flights over the Rio Grande Basin in the south- central part of the state. The first were in March and September of this year. The third will be next spring. Melting snow from the basin — flanked by the tow- ering San Juan and San- gre de Cristo mountains — forms the Rio Grande, which flows south through New Mexico and then southeast to the Gulf of Mexico, forming the Texas- Mexico border. Interstate compacts guarantee Texas and New Mexico a share of the water, so Colorado has to choose carefully when deciding how much to send down- stream and how much to allocate for local use. Estimating how much Colorado snow will melt into the Rio Grande is dif- ficult. The mountains block weather radars that could help gauge how much pre- cipitation is falling, said Joe Busto of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Colorado will use the NASA data to improve com- puter modeling for runoff forecasts. "If you give it lots of wonderful data. It will outperform the old mod- els," Busto said. The plane has also sur- veyed the Uncompahgre River Basin in western Col- orado for a research proj- ect and other areas to map flood plains. The California program costs about $1.2 million a season for weekly flights over the Tuolumne Basin during peak snow months, Gehrke said. NASA picks up most of the bill, with the state contributing $400,000 and irrigation districts also chipping in, he said. Colorado is paying about $300,000 for the Rio Grande basin data, Busto said. Tom Painter, NASA's principal investigator for the project, said it's a good investment because the projections are so ac- curate. Snowmelt flowing from the Tuolumne Basin into Hetch Hetchy Reser- voir was within 2 percent of projections from the NASA data in 2013 and 2014, he said. Most of the airborne surveys have been dur- ing drought, but Painter said they'll be useful in wet times to help regulate heavy runoff. The Airborne Snow Ob- servatory, a propeller- driven plane, sweeps back and forth over mountain snowfields scanning with lidar — the term combines "light" and "radar" — and an imaging spectrometer. Lidar measures snow depth by bouncing a laser off the surface and com- paring that to an aerial survey done without snow. Coupled with snow-density data from ground sites and computer modeling, re- searchers can project how much water is in the snow. The spectrometer mea- sures how much sunlight the snow is reflecting and absorbing. That allows re- searchers to project when it will melt. The ground sites, scat- tered across the West, are the primary source of data for most snowmelt pro- jections. U.S. Department of Agriculture employees trek to some sites to mea- sure and weigh the snow. Other sites are automated. Painter said the airborne survey won't eliminate ground sites, but he fore- sees a day when aerial sur- veys become the standard. Satellites might also play a role, but airplanes can pro- vide a level of detail and frequency that spacecraft cannot, Painter said. "At least not yet. Maybe in 50 years," he said. SIERRA NEVADA NA SA s no w da ta t ha t he lp s state put to work in Colorado HAVEN DALEY — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory fly over the Tuolumne River Basin of California's Sierra Nevada mountain range in a de Havilland Twin Otter plane to measure the snowpack. | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2015 8 A