California to sue White House for dismantling AmeriCorps, Gavin Newsom says
Sac Bee, LIA RUSSELL: "California will sue the Trump administration for dismantling AmeriCorps while ramping up its efforts to recruit people for its own state equivalent, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The federal government laid off thousands of AmeriCorps members this week as part of an ongoing effort to downsize federal agencies. AmeriCorps members respond to natural disasters and partake in community projects, usually in yearlong stints."
California Republicans want to get tougher on crime. Are Democrats shifting their way?
CALMatters, JEANNE KUANG: "Republican state Sen. Brian Jones has been trying to block sex offenders from being released from prison through California’s elderly parole program for several years. Last week, for the first time, his bill to do so made it out of its first committee.
It was just one of many votes Senate Bill 286 will have to survive in a long road ahead in the Capitol, but it caught Jones’ attention. In a Legislature dominated by Democrats who often shelve Republican tough-on-crime proposals, the approval from the Senate Public Safety Committee was unanimous."
Bill calls for audit of State Bar’s disastrous February exam
Capitol Weekly, BRIAN JOSEPH: "The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has introduced legislation ordering an audit of the California State Bar’s embarrassing rollout of its new exam earlier this year.
In late March, Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, amended a spot bill, SB 47, to order the State Auditor to conduct an audit of the February 2025 bar exam. The bill would direct the auditor to submit findings “as soon as possible” to the Bar’s board of trustees, the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court and the Senate Judiciary Committee and its Assembly counterpart."
‘These clowns are screwing us over,’ says former rocker challenging GOP incumbent in California
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: "Grammy-nominated musician Tim Myers, best known as a former bassist for the pop band OneRepublic, has announced his candidacy for Congress in California’s 41st District.
He’s trying to unseat longtime Republican Rep. Ken Calvert of Corona (Riverside County) in what Democrats view as a crucial race to reclaim control of the House."
A key date is approaching for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. Here’s one way that could unfold (OP-ED)
The Chronicle, BRETT WAGNER/J. HOLMES ARMSTEAD: "Throughout his time as president and his decade on the national political stage, Donald Trump has blasted through the norms and guardrails that have preserved and protected our democratic experiment from people like him for the better part of 250 years.
The next norm to fall may be that of civilian rule after an invocation of martial law."
Robert Hertzberg: Problem Solver
Capitol Weekly, DAN MORAIN: "Robert M. Hertzberg has been one of the most significant legislators of this generation, rising to become Assembly speaker during California’s energy crisis of 2000 and 2001 when Gray Davis was governor and, after a hiatus, Senate majority leader when Edmund G. Brown Jr. was governor.
In this three part oral history interview, Hertzberg talks about the changes he witnessed during his time in politics, starting with his early days working for Mervyn Dymally and organizing campaigns in East Los Angeles, continuing with his battles to implement a privacy law in California, end the practice of gerrymandering in California, and abolish money bail."
More immigrants opt to self-deport rather than risk being marched out like criminals
LAT, REBECCA PLEVIN: "Celeste traveled from Peru to the U.S. two decades ago, then a young woman of 19, and overstayed her tourist visa. She had studied graphic design back home but, unable to work in her field without papers, instead found arduous work cleaning hotel rooms and offices in Los Angeles. She built a life here, making friends and taking courses at a local community college. She paid her taxes annually, hoping she could one day gain legal status.
But years passed without the dramatic reforms needed to reshape and unclog the legal pathways to U.S. citizenship. And in the months since President Trump started his second term, her American dream has imploded. She’s unnerved by the news images of undocumented immigrants being loaded onto planes, shackled like violent criminals, and returned to their native countries. The thought of being ripped from her home, without time to pack up her belongings or say goodbye to friends, shakes her to the core."
Trump policy targeting immigrants shuts California students out of federal programs
CALMatters, ADAM ECHELMAN: "President Donald Trump has taken aim at students and professors at California’s elite institutions, such as UC Berkeley and UCLA, but community colleges, which enroll the majority of the state’s students, have largely avoided the administration’s ire.
Until recently. The U.S. Department of Education announced on March 27 that it was stopping California universities and colleges from using federal funding to “provide services to illegal immigrants.” The education department is specifically referring to federal TRIO programs, which provide various forms of financial aid and counseling to low-income, first-generation students."
UCLA international student detained at U.S.-Mexico border amid Trump visa cancellations
LAT, JAWEED KALEEM: "A UCLA international graduate student has been detained at the U.S.-Mexico border and is being held by Customs and Border Protection, the school confirmed late Thursday.
The student, whose name was not released, was taken into custody Wednesday night, according to faculty members and students who quickly organized a campus rally in her support Thursday evening."
Californians ding Newsom’s, lawmakers’ handling of schools in survey
EdSource, JOHN FENSTERWALD: "Californians’ confidence in their public schools and approval of how Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature are handling public education have fallen sharply since the Covid pandemic, according to an annual survey on K-12 education released Thursday by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). Half believe that the public school system is headed in the wrong direction.
The PPIC survey of 1,591 adults in English and Spanish also found widespread disagreement and overall concern with President Donald Trump’s actions on schools."
California poll shows how parents feel about trans athletes, ICE in schools
Sac Bee, KATE WOLFFE: "Over 64% of California adults and more than 70% of state public school parents agree on a few things:
Those are the key takeaways from a new poll of about 1,500 California adults from the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research group."
Why California air quality — and allergies — could be extra bad this year
The Chronicle, GREG PORTER: "A new drought outlook, released by a coalition of state and federal agencies, paints a concerning picture for California’s spring: worsening air quality fueled by dry soils, gusty winds and an uptick in airborne particulates like dust and pollen.
California’s wet season is just about over and it was a bust for the southern half of the state. Precipitation came in at less than half of normal, and temperatures during that stretch were some of the hottest on record. Now, as the state shifts into spring, the new threat isn’t just continued drought, it’s the air itself."
Bay Area forecast calls for sunshine and 70s in time for Easter Sunday
The Chronicle, GREG PORTER: "A low-pressure system lingering off the coast of Southern California has quietly steered Bay Area weather this week, suppressing sunshine and keeping skies unsettled. Impacts have been subtle, limited to daily thunderstorms in the Sierra and a stubborn marine layer clinging to much of the California coast.
That system will finally shift eastward on Friday. Its exit will open the door for a narrow area of high pressure to build over the Bay Area, just enough to tip the balance toward warmer, sunnier afternoons across the region this weekend."
CA lawmakers want more oversight of sexual assault complaints at women’s prisons
Sac Bee, KATE WOLFFE: "A new budget proposal California lawmakers are considering would add 22 positions to the Office of the Inspector General to better oversee inmate complaints and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s investigatory process.
But the additional staff would only enable the office to monitor about 350 of the estimated 2,400 staff sexual misconduct and assault claims that are investigated each year. Some legislators think that’s not at all acceptable."
Menendez brothers’ bid for freedom stalled by fight over parole board document
LAT, JAMES QUEALLY/RICHARD WINTON: "Erik and Lyle Menendez’s long-awaited bid for freedom will be delayed a little longer.
A resentencing hearing that was supposed to begin Thursday and could have given the brothers a shot at parole for the first time in more than 35 years was delayed after a fight over access to a parole document ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom paralyzed proceedings, and set up a showdown that could end with Los Angeles County prosecutors thrown off the case."
How much does Sacramento County spend jailing homeless people? Here’s what we know
Sac Bee, ARIANE LANGE: "About one-third of bookings in the Sacramento County Main Jail involve homeless people.
The county’s Department of Health Services released data showing that, over the year between October 2023 and the end of September 2024, 10,548 bookings involved someone who was homeless. The data also show that on average, 838 homeless individuals were held in the jail each month."
What happens after a homeless person is arrested for camping? Often, not much
CALMatters, MARISA KENDALL: "Wickey Two Hands sat at the defense table on a recent Thursday morning, holding in his lap the red baseball cap he’d doffed out of respect for the judge.
The 77-year-old homeless man was supposed to be the first person tried in court under an ordinance Fresno passed last year making it a crime to camp in all public places. Over the past six months, he’d spent hours in a courtroom, arriving early for each hearing. He’d packed up and moved his campsite multiple times, trying to find out-of-the-way spots where he could avoid getting arrested again."
The 1906 earthquake devastated downtown S.F. These are the buildings that survived
The Chronicle, PETER HARTLAUB: "Six weeks after the April 18, 1906, earthquake and fire, which ripped through the eastern side of San Francisco, burning most structures to the ground, George R. Lawrence sent a camera airborne to capture a photo of the devastation.
Lawrence’s image, titled “Ruins of San Francisco,” was meant to show that the city’s downtown was all but gone."
This S.F. neighborhood will get its biggest affordable housing development in two decades
The Chronicle, J.K. DINEEN: "Workers haven’t even started to pour the foundation at 1515 South Van Ness, a 168-unit affordable housing project that will be the Mission District’s biggest in two decades.
But already Mission Economic Development Agency Executive Director Luis Granados has his eye on the next project."
LAX drops down the list of the world’s busiest airports by passenger count
LAT, COLLEEN SHALBY: "Los Angeles International Airport fell from a global ranking of the world’s busiest airports following a drop in domestic travel and ongoing struggles to rebound from the pandemic.
The Airports Council International — an organization of airport authorities whose rankings are widely accepted — released its preliminary numbers on Monday ahead of its annual July report. Notably absent from its Top 10 list of busiest airports by passenger count was LAX."