• California's text-message alert system, called the Wireless Emergency Alert system, was used for the first time in a power emergency Tuesday, and it's being credited with saving the state from rolling blackouts. The warning to conserve energy at 6 p.m., sent to around 27 million cellphones, was followed by a swift drop-off in power demand. [Bay Area News Group]
  • A huge hospital in San Jose, the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, lost power for several hours amid the heatwave on Tuesday, and its emergency backup generator failed. The crisis led to some patients needing to be moved to other hospitals and the cancelation of elective surgeries. [NBC Bay Area]
  • Ousted former SF school board member Alison Collins and her real estate developer husband have listed their three-story Russian Hill home for sale for a second time, despite an unresolved inspection issue that was pending, triggering new city scrutiny. The Chronicle details the history of the property, and how a lengthy anonymous complaint was filed with the city about an illegal merger of two units that occurred there shortly after Collins's school board troubles began last year. [Chronicle]
  • In Oakland's 86th homicide of the year to date, a 22-year-old woman from Fairfield was fatally stabbed in a car in East Oakland on Wednesday evening, and her boyfriend was arrested for the crime. [East Bay Times]
  • Bay Area animal welfare hotlines have been barraged with reports about squirrel's lying spread out flat on the ground during this heatwave — something called "splooting," which is a naturally occurring effort to transfer body heat to the ground beneath, in order to cool down. [SFGate]
  • Two days after meeting with Britain's new prime minister, Queen Elizabeth II is said to be in frail health — or her doctors say they are "concerned" and the royal family is "gathering" at her summer residence in Scotland. [CBS News]
  • A 19-year-old man went on a shooting spree around Memphis, Tennessee Wednesday night, broadcast on Facebook Live, ultimately killing four people in different parts of the city before carjacking two vehicles and crashing during a police chase, after which he was arrested. [Associated Press]

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