UC Berkeley free speech in spotlight over supertight security plans
The Chronicle's NANETTE ASIMOV: "Ben Shapiro, a conservative speaker headed to UC Berkeley on Thursday evening, hasn’t mocked feminists, as right-wing performer Milo Yiannopoulos has done. He hasn’t boasted of being a “mean-spirited bigot,” as far-right author Ann Coulter has done. And, unlike Steve Bannon, ex-adviser to President Trump, Shapiro doesn’t even like the president."
"Yet the Harvard Law School graduate, author and political commentator has drawn unprecedented security measures at UC Berkeley for his sold-out speech at the campus’ many-windowed Zellerbach Hall, and Berkeley city police have received permission from the City Council to use pepper spray on any violent protesters who show up."
"These defense measures around a standard-issue conservative whose idea of provocative is to call California a “nut-job leftist state” spotlight this question: How left must a speaker be to avoid causing a riot in Berkeley?"
READ MORE related to Battle for Free Speech: Unprecedented measures at Berkeley for conservative writer's speech, from pepper spray to emotional counseling for students -- LA Times' JAVIER PANZAR/BENJAMIN ORESKES/TERESA WATANABE; UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol T. Christ: 'Free speech has itself become controversial' -- LA Times' TERESA WATANABE
Police arrest 2 in SF killing and reveal gun had been stolen from cop
The Chronicle's VIVIAN HO: "A man slain in San Francisco’s Mission District last month was shot by two teenagers wielding a gun that had been stolen three days earlier from a city police officer’s personal car, officials said Wednesday."
"Investigators announced the arrests, made Monday and Tuesday, of Erick Garcia Pineda and Daniel Cruz, both 18-year-old city residents, on suspicion of murdering Abel Enrique Esquivel Jr. on Aug. 15."
"According to a GoFundMe page seeking to help the victim’s family, Esquivel, 23, was shot about 2 a.m. while returning home from his night shift at a market, after he resisted “two hooded individuals” who tried to rob him."
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The pro-Russia, pro-weed, pro-Assange GOP congressman in California who will be tough to beat
The Chronicle's JOE GAROFOLI: "It was a surreal visit to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s Orange County home. The 15-term Republican greeted me in bare feet, sitting on his front step making fundraising phone calls while wearing a stained white T-shirt and khakis he bought at Goodwill. Later, he proudly showed me a blazer he scored there for $10."
"Then again, Ronald Reagan’s 70-year-old former White House speech writer is a surreal kind of guy. He’s a hero to weed-lovers for being a Republican at the forefront of the pro-marijuana legalization movement, and a pariah to fellow Republicans for being so pro-Russia that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy once jokingly said that “Putin pays” him. He wants to cut a deal with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and thinks the Charlottesville riots were staged by liberals and were “a total hoax."
"He’s both a puka-shell-necklace-wearing surfer and a fierce anti-Communist who bragged about battling with Afghan mujahedeen during a fact-finding trip shortly before being sworn into Congress that “probably resulted in the deaths of a number of Soviet troops.” During our visit, he largely dismissed human influence on climate change and strummed a guitar whiling singing a song he wrote about libertarian ideals called “Individual Man."
Alameda Point water deemed OK for bathing, but not consuming
The Chronicle's MICHAEL CABANATUAN: "Residents of Alameda Point can safely bathe in their tap water again, but should continue to refrain from drinking it, cooking with it or using it to brush their teeth, state and local officials said."
"Officials said the system had been flushed with East Bay Municipal Utilities District water and that it was deemed safe for contact."
"They cautioned residents to run their water for 10 minutes before using it to bathe or shower."
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Democrats talk new deal with Trump, this time on DACA
The Chronicle's CAROLYN LOCHHEAD: "Upending the political order in the nation’s capital for the second time in a week, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and her Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer of New York, said Wednesday night that they had reached an agreement with President Trump to shield undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children from deportation and to increase border security, but without building a wall."
"The two Democrats made the announcement after dining on Chinese food with Trump at the White House. The deal came just one week after Trump, Pelosi and Schumer stunned Republicans by announcing a three-month agreement to raise the federal debt limit without attaching conservative budget reductions."
"We had a very productive meeting at the White House with the president,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement. They said the discussion focused on the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, the Obama-era rules that now protect 690,000 immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children without legal documentation. The Trump administration said last week that it would phase out the protections and handed the issue to Congress to resolve."
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Lease-a-dog? You're kidding, right?
Capitol Weekly's LISA RENNER: "Should customers be able to lease dogs and cats in the same way they rent cars, apartments or furniture?"
"California legislators think not. Both houses overwhelming approved Assembly Bill 1491, which would outlaw the practice beginning Jan. 1. The bill, virtually unnoticed in the final days of the legislative session, is now awaiting final action from Gov. Jerry Brown."
"The new financing scheme has popped up in pet stores around the state in the last five years or so to entice people to buy expensive dogs and cats. But according to numerous customer complaints on internet sites like ConsumerAffairs.com, the customers often don’t understand that they are renting the pets – not buying them – and they don’t realize that the hefty interest rates mean they may end up paying two to three times the original cost."
Median income soars in Bay Area, but some are left out
The Chronicle's TRISHA THADANI: "With tech companies flooding the Bay Area with high salaries, San Francisco and four neighboring counties have risen to the top of the list for median income among the country’s 25 largest metro areas."
"According to numbers released Thursday by the Census Bureau, the median income for the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area, which also comprises Alameda, Marin, Contra Costa and San Mateo counties, jumped by 9 percent from 2015 to 2016, surpassing the Washington, D.C., area, which held the No. 1 spot last year. But in a region where the gains are disproportionally enjoyed by white and Asian households over other groups, and even those with six-figure salaries are being priced out of the region, experts worry that this growth may not be sustainable."
"We’ve had a lot of job growth and a lot of pressure throughout the economy of raising salaries in the region,” said Jim Lazarus, president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. But, he said, “it’s hard to get unemployment much lower than it is” at 3 percent."
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Court interpreters near end of labor dispute with tentative contract
The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "A courtroom interpreters’ union and Superior Court officials in 12 Northern California counties reached a tentative wage agreement Wednesday in a yearlong contract dispute that has led to a series of one-day walkouts."
"The agreement would provide a wage increase of nearly 21 percent for a four-year period that began last October, when the previous contract expired. Court officials said the agreement would raise interpreters’ wages to $92,888 a year by September 2020, though they would still be paid less than interpreters with federal courts or private contractors."
"The 142 interpreters covered by the agreement are scheduled to vote on whether to approve it within the next 10 days. The region includes the Bay Area and coastal counties from Monterey to the Oregon border."
Catalans set to begin campaigning for independence ballot
AP: "Tension is mounting between Catalan and Spain's national leaders as Catalonia's president is set to open the "yes" campaign for a planned referendum on seceding from Spain Thursday."
"Catalan President Carles Puigdemont is expected to begin campaigning for the ballot, planned for an Oct. 1, in the Catalan capital of Barcelona."
"Spain's central government insists the vote is illegal and the Constitutional Court has suspended it pending a formal decision by judges."
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Irma pushes Florida's poor closer to the edge of ruin
AP: "Larry and Elida Dimas didn't have much to begin with, and Hurricane Irma left them with even less."
"The storm peeled open the roof of the old mobile home where they live with their 18-year-old twins, and it destroyed another one they rented to migrant workers in Immokalee, one of Florida's poorest communities. Someone from the government already has promised aid, but Dimas' chin quivers at the thought of accepting it."
"I don't want the help," said Dimas, 55. "But I need it."
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'Jordan's Law' just got a 'step closer' to fighting social media-motivated attacks
Daily News' BRENDA GAZZAR: "A revised state bill that aims to deter social media-motivated attacks passed the Assembly Wednesday and is now headed to the governor’s desk for review."
"Jordan’s Law” was introduced by Assemblyman Matt Dababneh following the punch on then 14-year-old Jordan Peisner in December outside a Wendy’s in West Hills by a teen he didn’t know. The brutal attack was caught on Snapchat and went viral."
"We are another step closer to securing justice for victims of social media motivated violence,” Dababneh, D-Van Nuys, said in a prepared statement. “AB 1542, by maximizing the sentence for those who conspire with attackers to videotape a violent crime, will serve as a strong message to anyone who might otherwise be looking to engage in this sick game of internet notoriety."
LAUSD Board President Ref Rodriguez charged with conspiracy
Daily News' ANTONIE BOESSENKOOL: "The president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board and his cousin were charged Wednesday in an alleged money-laundering scheme to hide the source of nearly $25,000 he claimed in campaign contributions, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced."
"LAUSD President Refugio “Ref” Rodriguez and Elizabeth Tinajero Melendrez were each charged with one felony count of conspiracy to commit assumed name contribution and 25 misdemeanor counts of assumed name contribution, according to the DA’s office. Rodriguez, 46, also faces one felony count each of perjury and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument."
"Assumed name contributions happen when one person tells another to make a campaign contribution and supplies the money for that contribution. The process can be used to circumvent rules on contribution limits and to make one appear to have more support than he or she has."
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