Is fantasy sports a form of gambling or a form of entertainment? Is it skill or luck? Inquiring minds want to know -- including key lawmakers.
From the Bee's Jeremy B. White: "California lawmakers moved Wednesday to regulate the booming daily fantasy sports industry despite uncertainty around whether the contests are a form of gambling and if the Legislature has authority over the issue."
"Responding to the surging popularity of sites like DraftKings and FanDuel – and to a legal backlash in other states seeking to prohibit the sites on the grounds that they offer illegal gambling – Assembly Bill 1437 would authorize California companies to offer Internet fantasy sports after obtaining licenses from the California Department of Justice. It passed the Assembly Governmental Organization on a 17-1 vote."
"Daily fantasy sports sites allow players to place bets on the performance of individual athletes. Online fantasy sports have drawn 56.8 million users in North America, according to a bill analysis. Advertisements dangling huge cash payouts have become commonplace during breaks in televised sporting events."
Football vs. futbol, Part II: A judge has ruled against the soccer moms and their kids, who hoped to boot the NFL out of a park near the Super Bowl site.
From the Mercury News' Ramona Giwargis: "In a blow to the youth sports community, a judge on Tuesday denied the Santa Clara Youth Soccer League's request to temporarily kick the NFL out of a soccer park next to Levi's Stadium -- the latest salvo in what's become an all-out legal war pitting soccer parents against the city and the NFL just one month before the Super Bowl lands in the Bay Area."
"The soccer league last week sued Santa Clara to stop the city from handing the 11-acre soccer park over to the NFL for a Super Bowl 50 media center, but Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Joseph H. Huber declined then to block the move with a temporary restraining order. He denied it again Tuesday, after the soccer league expanded its lawsuit to include the NFL."
"And while the judge will decide the fate of the soccer park in a hearing Monday to consider a long-term injunction, the soccer league wanted a restraining order to stop the NFL from using the fields until then."
Measures aimed at this year's November ballot are multiplying like hobgoblins. Before the holidays, we checked and there were 63. Now there are more than 70. Tomorrow, there probably will be still more.
KPCC's Mary Plummer tells the tale: "Whether the proposal calls for legalizing recreational marijuana, banning single-use plastic bags, or dozens of other actions, voters may find themselves challenged by the number of measures and topics' complexity when they read their ballots."
"Thus far, three initiatives have been certified for the November ballot; an additional four have qualified, but have yet to be certified."
"Additionally, 70-plus proposals are circulating and collecting signatures, having been given a title and number by the state attorney general's office. More may be placed in the pipeline before the deadline. An initiative's signatures must be gathered and qualified by the secretary of state by June 30."
A lot of people in Northern California, just like Peter Finch in "Network," are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore. In fact, they're always mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore, and they have been mad as hell since at least the 1930s. The answer, which comes around every few years, is the same: leave California and form a new state, called Jefferson.
From the Bee's Alexei Koseff: "Now tallying 21 counties among their ranks, supporters of the movement to carve an independent “State of Jefferson” out of Northern California plan to introduce a bill this session seeking sovereignty."
"Organizers on Wednesday turned in declarations for 15 counties, including Sutter, Placer, Nevada and El Dorado, asking the state to grant them permission to separate. Six others petitions – which were either passed by the county boards of supervisors or reflect signature-gathering drives – have already been filed."
"Jefferson proponents contend that their rural areas lack adequate representation in state government, which has led to over-regulation and environmental policies that decimated their regional economies, particularly the logging and mining industries that historically supported them. Their seal bears an XX, signifying that they have been double-crossed by state government."
Hey, something weird is happening 20 miles east of Sacramento: Folsom Lake is starting to fill with water! Slowly but steadily, the level is going up.
From the Chronicle's Amy Graff: "Water-starved Folsom Lake is beginning to slowly fill up and recover from its lowest water levels ever."
"The state's ninth-largest reservoir, the main water source for the sprawling Sacramento suburbs, shrank to a mere 135,561 acre feet on Dec. 4, 2015. The previous lowest level at Folsom was 140,600 acre feet, recorded during the 1976–77 drought. An acre foot is enough water to flood an acre of land under a foot of water, and roughly the amount required by a family of four over a year."
"With the recent rains, Folsom's water level has risen 28.5 feet and the reservoir is now holding 246,497 acre feet of water. "The lake continues to slowly rise," Karl Swanberg, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Sacramento, said in an interview. "While this current storm isn't dropping a lot of rain on Folsom, we're getting runoff from the Sierra from past storms and some snow melt."
And now from our "Off Key Chorale" file, comes word of a church in China that is shaped like a big violin. You heard it here first.
"A Chinese Christian congregation has dedicated its new church, which measures more than 120 feet high and is shaped like a giant violin."
"The Yanbu Church, nicknamed the "violin church" as a result of its design, was officially dedicated this week in Foshan, Guangdong Province."
"The seven-story building includes living quarters for preachers and guest rooms for visitors."
"The Rev. Yu Qing, an official with the church, was quoted by the China Christian Dailyas saying the church's design is meant to evoke the need for practice, an important part of both musicianship and Christianity."
Actually, this all makes perfect sense...