State Treasurer Fiona Ma launches legal defense fund to fight harassment lawsuit
Sac Bee, SOPHIA BOLLAG: "California Treasurer Fiona Ma has raised more than $50,000 for her legal defense against a lawsuit that alleges she sexually harassed an employee, campaign finance filings show.
Ma, who is being sued as both an individual and a state official, is being represented by Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office and by the Los Angeles-based private law firm Larson LLP, according to court filings.
Ma’s former employee Judith Blackwell filed a lawsuit against her in July, alleging Ma exposed her backside and climbed into bed with her while the two women shared lodging on business trips. In the complaint, Blackwell, who is African American, also alleges Ma discriminated against her based on her race and fired her for rejecting her romantic advances."
It has been 20 years since a Black man represented California in Congress
NOLAN D. McCASKILL, LA Times: "Black women in California sounded the alarm recently that there could be zero Black women in the Senate once Kamala Harris became vice president. With Gov. Gavin Newsom appointing Alex Padilla to the vacant seat in January, that became the reality.
But there’s an even deeper absence in Congress, one that’s in its third decade: It has been more than 20 years since a Black man represented California.
The last person to do so was Rep. Julian Carey Dixon (D-Los Angeles), who died of a heart attack in December 2000 after winning reelection a month earlier."
How state workers got caught in a $2.7M embezzlement scheme
Sac Bee, SAM STANTON and WES VENTEICHER: "The email from Patricia Roberts arrived in Schenelle Flores’ inbox at the California Office of AIDS at 10:30 a.m. on March 19, 2018.
Roberts was sending an invoice along to Flores, then the chief of the HIV Prevention Implementation Section of the office, which operates under the California Department of Public Health and provides condoms, programs and services to local health entities working to fight the spread of AIDS.
“Please see the attached invoice,” Roberts wrote. “Let me know if you should have any questions or concerns regarding our services. Thank you again for allowing us to be part of your team.”"
‘Rust’ showed more gun control is needed on movie sets. This California lawmaker is working on it
GEORGE SKELTON, LA Times: "There’s a very simple answer to Alec Baldwin’s repeated question after he accidentally shot and killed a movie crew member.
The actor-producer kept asking: “What the f… just happened?”
What happened was undeniable: Every basic rule of commonsense gun safety was broken."
California AG launches investigation into LAPD shooting in Pico-Union
LA Times, KEVIN RECTOR: "California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office has opened an independent investigation into the July shooting of a 53-year-old man by Los Angeles police officers in Pico-Union, the office said Wednesday.
The investigation was spurred by the death of the man, Samuel Soto, on Tuesday from injuries suffered in the summer shooting, Bonta’s office said.
Soto was initially shot while holding a knife by the first officers who arrived on scene. Those officers took the knife away from him, and he was then shot again by newly arriving officers while holding a cellphone, according to body-camera video from the encounter."
Alameda County supervisor struck and killed by motorist
ANDRES PICON and RACHEL SWAN, Chronicle: "Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan, a passionate activist for civil rights, education and health care who rose to become the first Asian American elected to the board, died Wednesday afternoon after a motorist struck her as she was out walking her dog in Alameda, officials said.
Chan, 72, was hit at about 8 a.m. while crossing the street along the city’s waterfront, at Shore Line Drive and Grand Street — an area popular with pedestrians and bicyclists. Emergency responders found Chan, unresponsive, in the roadway and took her to Highland Hospital, where she died at 2:30 p.m.
The woman driving the car that hit Chan stayed at the scene and was cooperating with investigators, police said in a statement that did not name Chan as the victim. Chan’s office confirmed she was the victim."
California begins giving COVID-19 vaccines to children ages 5 to 11
LA Times, LUKE MONEY and RONG-GONG LIN II: "The first COVID-19 vaccinations have been given to children ages 5 to 11 Wednesday as health officials launched an ambitious rollout to offer shots to 3.5 million kids in California.
The Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup, a coalition of public health experts from California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, gave its green light to the vaccine Wednesday morning, formally clearing the way for vaccinations to be distributed in California. The move came after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended late Tuesday that more than 28 million children nationwide in that age group get the shots.
“This expanded eligibility for lifesaving vaccines moves us closer to ending the pandemic,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement."
SF will soon require everyone 5+ to show vaxx proof for indoor activities
The Chronicle, ERIN ALLDAY: "Children ages 5 to 11 will be required to show proof of vaccination to enter certain public spaces in San Francisco — including restaurants, gyms and large events like Warriors games — now that they are eligible to get the shots, public health officials said, though the local mandate likely will not apply to them for another couple of months.
San Francisco has required everyone 12 and older to confirm they are vaccinated since August if they want to go inside many public places. It was the first major city in the United States to issue such an order.
At a meeting with parents of younger children Tuesday night, Dr. Susan Philip, the city health officer, said she expected the order to be extended to 5- to 11-year-olds once enough time has passed for them to be fully vaccinated. People are considered fully vaccinated with Pfizer — the vaccine authorized for younger children — two weeks after completing a two-dose regimen. The shots are supposed to be given three weeks apart."
‘This could be my room for a few days’: Garcetti tests positive, isolates in Scotland
LUKE MONEY, DAKOTA SMITH and JULIA WICK, LA Times: "Nearly two years into a pandemic that he has likened to fighting a war, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has tested positive for COVID-19.
The mayor, who is fully vaccinated, tested positive Wednesday in Glasgow, Scotland, where he had been attending a United Nations conference on climate change.
The mayor is “currently isolating in his hotel room in Glasgow” and has experienced “very mild symptoms,” Garcetti spokesman Alex Comisar said."
CDC endorses COVID vaccines for children 5 to 11, after hearty recommendation by its advisers
The Chronicle, ERIN ALLDAY: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday recommended all children ages 5 to 11 get vaccinated against COVID-19, a move long anticipated by millions of parents whose kids could start getting shots as early as Wednesday.
The CDC approval came hours after an advisory panel enthusiastically endorsed vaccination for children in the age group. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, said in a statement that with the official recommendation, the United States has “taken another important step forward in our nation’s fight against the virus that causes COVID-19.”
The approval gives a formal green light to the Pfizer vaccine authorized for young children by the Food and Drug Administration last week. The first shots could be administered in California on Wednesday or Thursday, after a Western states advisory group weighs in."
Sac County supe asks if jail inmate relase is needed to contain pandemic outbreak
Sac Bee, ROSALIO AHUM: A Sacramento County supervisor this week asked whether health officials need to ask the court for the release of some jail inmates as a COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread the disease among those in custody.
Supervisor Phil Serna asked whether the county health services department should seek a release from custody or home detention for some inmates awaiting trial on misdemeanor or “low risk” charges to contain the recent outbreak of nearly 200 confirmed COVID cases at both county jail facilities.
“Something other than keeping them in an environment where you’re more likely to have them continue to contaminate or infect others in the jail,” Serna said Tuesday evening during the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors meeting.
ADA: "
Young climate activists warn their elders: Stop destroying the planet
LA Times, EMILY BAUMGAERTNER, KATE LINTHICUM and PARTH MN: "After the cops showed up in an urban forest and detained Manisha Dhinde, one of them asked her: “What is this fashion of protesting for the environment?”
“It isn’t fashion,” Dhinde snapped back on that day two years ago. “It is my duty to save trees.”
She was opposing plans to cut down 2,700 trees in order to build a metro train car shed on tribal land in Mumbai. That moment galvanized the petite woman with the deep voice, and now she is aiming to work with marginalized communities across her state of Maharashtra to stop or at least reshape development projects that would harm the environment."
Rain is back in the SF Bay Area forecast -- but for how long?
The Chronicle, MICHAEL CABANATUAN: "Light rain was expected to dampen the Bay Area Wednesday night and possibly over the weekend — with a bigger, wetter storm lurking around the corner early next week.
None of the storms are expected to deliver the kind of downpours or the prodigious amounts of rain that fell last month, flooding creeks, rivers and streets and threatening mudslides in areas where fires over the past two seasons denuded hillsides.
“Around here, we say ‘the storm door remains open,’” said Matt Mehle, a National Weather Service meteorologist for the Bay Area. “This should produce beneficial rainfall.”"
Muni service reduced on some high-ridership lines as 110 operators remain unvaxxed
The Chronicle, RICARDO CANO: "Starting this week, service on Muni bus lines with some of the highest ridership will be scaled back as San Francisco’s transportation agency grapples with a shortage of operators following the city’s employee vaccination deadline.
Four so-called “short” routes — serving parts of the 1-California, 14R-Mission Rapid, 30-Stockton and 49-Van Ness lines — have been temporarily suspended in response to the personnel shortages. These four truncated routes cover portions of these popular lines and are meant to help improve frequencies and reduce crowding.
In its announcement, the Municipal Transportation Agency said it chose to suspend these shortened routes because they “may be temporarily eliminated without jeopardizing access to any stops or connections along the full route.”"