Chris Magnus.
Credits: Joseph Schell/File photo
1. Chris Magnus, the Bay Area’s most progressive police chief — and its most successful — has decided to become the police chief of Tucson, Arizona, the CoCo Times$ reports. In Richmond, Magnus eschewed tough-on-crime policies like stop-and-frisk in favor of community policing and improving relations between cops and residents, and the results were dramatic: The city experienced huge drops in crime in the past several years. Magnus, the first openly gay chief in the region’s history, also made headlines last year when he publicly embraced Black Lives Matter. Magnus said he’s looking forward to a new challenge in Tucson.
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3. The massive El Niño weather pattern forming in the western Pacific Ocean produced the highest temperatures on record, indicating that it’s stronger than the monster El Niño that rocked California in the winter of 1997–98, the LA Times$ reports. The temperature of a key area of the Pacific was 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit higher last week than this historic average, breaking the previous record of 5 degrees.
5. And Oakland-based Pandora announced that it purchased online music service Rdio for $75 million, the Chron$ reports. Pandora recently bought TicketFly for $450 million and the company hopes that the acquisitions will stem the company’s stock decline and help it compete more effectively with Spotify.