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KQED. Good morning.

0:35

This is the California Report. I'm

0:37

Madi Bolaños in San Francisco, and

0:39

here are your state headlines. Big

0:42

Sur residents are stranded again as weather

0:44

threatens to wreak more havoc. Locals are

0:46

already dealing with a landslide that took

0:49

out a chunk of Highway One this

0:51

past weekend. Now, the convoys that have

0:53

served as residents only way out have

0:56

been put on hold for Thursday and

0:58

Friday. So, for at least

1:00

the next two days, there's no way

1:02

out. Nick Pascouli is

1:04

Monterey County's Communication Director.

1:07

The Big Sur community has

1:09

been tremendous. They've extended tremendous

1:11

hospitality to people who were

1:14

initially stranded there, the tourists

1:16

and visitors of the area.

1:18

They're resourceful, they're hearty,

1:21

and they pull together. Officials

1:23

say roughly 1,500 people are

1:26

directly impacted. A new

1:28

bill would allow victims of doxxing

1:30

to sue the people who have

1:32

targeted them. Doxing occurs when someone

1:35

publishes a person's private data, specifically

1:37

to harass them. Kathy Mowleg with

1:39

the nonprofit Trans Family Support Services

1:41

in San Diego says her work

1:43

has led to her being doxxed

1:45

in the past. The rise of

1:48

online harassment and dissemination of hateful

1:50

rhetoric has created a climate of

1:52

fear that undermines the very fabric

1:54

of our society. When someone

1:56

is doxxed, they not only face the

1:58

effects of the obsession. harms, but

2:00

are left feeling there are little

2:03

to no resources to hold the

2:05

offender accountable. Doxing is

2:07

already a crime, but the bill from San

2:09

Diego Assemblyman Chris Ward would allow victims to

2:11

sue for as much as $30,000 for

2:14

their pain and suffering. California

2:17

is by far the main U.S.

2:19

source of a planet-warming pesticide used

2:21

by exterminators to kill termites in

2:24

homes. KQED's senior

2:26

science editor Kevin Stark has the

2:28

details of a new study out

2:30

this week. California is home

2:32

to the Western drywood termite. Fumigation is

2:34

the most common method to kill this

2:36

pest. That's when a home is wrapped

2:38

in a brightly colored tent and pumped

2:40

full of the pesticide SO2F2. But

2:43

the chemical is a far more potent greenhouse

2:45

gas than previously known. And

2:47

study author Jans Mueller from Scripps says

2:50

state regulators aren't tracking it. So even

2:52

though S2F2 is a

2:54

very small fish in the ocean, it's

2:57

an example of things we are not

2:59

officially looking into or missing from the

3:01

inventories. Air regulators are studying the chemical

3:04

but have not yet included it in

3:06

their official tally of greenhouse gases. For

3:08

the California report, I'm Kevin Stark. The

3:11

Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History

3:13

has a new specimen on display,

3:15

a fossilized bone from a giant

3:17

creature never before found along the

3:20

central coast. As KAZU's

3:22

Jeremiah Edding reports, the fossil is

3:24

at least 11,000 years

3:26

old and was discovered by

3:28

some very early career scientists.

3:33

Asher Raines isn't your typical paleontologist. He

3:35

doesn't have a fancy degree, not yet

3:37

at least, he's seven years old. But

3:40

Raines has already made a huge discovery.

3:43

Well, I was playing

3:45

and I just found it

3:47

right there in front of

3:50

me. Jackson Mulree, one of

3:52

Raines' classmates, knew they had found something big.

3:54

I thought it was, it might have been

3:56

a fossil. Which is what we're all here

3:58

to see at the Santa Museum

4:00

of Natural History peering through a

4:02

glass case at a large fossilized

4:04

bone. It's reddish in color and almost

4:06

looks like a piece of wood. But

4:09

as writer Antos, another classmate, explains,

4:12

It's a prehistoric animal. A

4:14

prehistoric sloth, to be exact, called a Jefferson

4:16

ground sloth, and it has never been found

4:18

in Santa Cruz County. That is,

4:20

until these young explorers found this bone in

4:23

a creek bed last spring. We were building

4:25

a dam and looking for a

4:27

quadad. The other co-scientists of this

4:29

discovery were Vivian Lane and Harrison Makuta. They're

4:32

all students at Tara Redwood School, a small

4:34

private elementary school in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

4:36

How do you guys feel knowing

4:38

that you found this? Amazing!

4:41

I think this discovery is by

4:43

far one of the most important

4:45

discoveries in paleontology for Santa

4:47

Cruz history. Wayne Thompson has worked as

4:49

a paleontologist in Santa Cruz County for

4:51

47 years. How many

4:54

times have you come across a discovery like

4:56

this one? Once. This

5:00

is a complete unique one-off.

5:03

He says we've known about

5:05

mammoths and mastodons in our

5:07

area. Camels, ancient horses, giant

5:09

bison, cave bears. But

5:11

not until now have we known about a

5:13

ground sloth. The Jefferson ground

5:16

sloth, or Megalonix Jeffersonii, to scientists,

5:18

is a giant creature with a

5:20

blunt snout and long curved claws.

5:23

Its fossil was first described by Thomas

5:25

Jefferson. Yeah, the Thomas Jefferson. The sloth

5:27

is about 10 feet in length and

5:29

grew to the size of an ox,

5:31

weighing over 2,000 pounds. Besides

5:34

their long claws, they had huge

5:36

arms. The arms on these

5:38

things were just immense. The fossilized bone

5:41

the students found belonged to the sloth's

5:43

enormous left arm. So it gives us

5:45

this opportunity or window back in

5:47

time to look at Santa

5:50

Cruz from an age

5:52

that is long gone. The

5:54

Sloth fossil isn't the only recent discovery like

5:56

this one. in Santa Cruz County. Last May,

5:58

a mastodon tooth was found. Unreal. Del

6:00

Mar State beat. Thompson. Identified

6:02

that one to y sus amazing

6:05

discoveries of us together. At

6:10

a great question, when it rains,

6:12

it pours literally. he says the

6:14

intense rain and flooding last winter.

6:17

like we stripped away layers of

6:19

sediment. Unearthing some of these prehistoric

6:21

relics during one of the former

6:23

El nino events on the Love

6:25

Creek slide years. we found a

6:27

giant mastodon skull for the first.

6:29

and so certainly these years where

6:31

there's incredible erosion, Santa Cruz County

6:33

opens up the opportunity to find

6:36

these creatures that have been long

6:38

buried. That's not lost on Johnson.

6:40

More, He and his classmates were still hoping

6:42

to find the rest of the Giants law

6:44

they say now that the storms have happened

6:46

Third cited to keep exploring. As

6:49

long. As. You

6:53

think you're going to be a fossil

6:55

find are in the future of future

6:57

paleontologists. Didn't have to dig too deep

7:00

to figure that one out for the

7:02

California reports on Jeremiah. Adding in. A

7:08

nice. To

7:10

Thursday April fourth or a production.

7:12

A Kid Public Radio on my people.

7:14

on your thanks for listening and have

7:16

a great ball. Support

7:20

for the California report come from

7:22

the Dame Irvine Foundation now accepting

7:24

nominations for the Twenty Twenty Five

7:27

Same Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards at

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Irvine Awards.o R G The William

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and Floor A Hewlett Foundation investing

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in creative thinkers and problem solvers

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who are working to ensure that

7:39

people, communities and the planet and

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forests. and Eric and Windy Smith

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whose philanthropy works to create a

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healthy, resilient, secure world for all.

7:49

On the web at the smith.org.

7:51

Support. For Tiki we do Podcasts

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comes from Star One credit Unions

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now offering real time money movement

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with instant pay, make transfer, The

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payments instill between financial institutions online

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or through Star One's mobile app

8:05

store one credit union in your

8:07

best interest. Take. Your wife

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I further with wall to wall y

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five from X Finity with fast speeds

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and reliable coverage home just got even

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sweeter with the X Finity Tangi network

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restrictions apply not available in all areas

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actual speeds. Very.