State task force votes to limit reparations to descendants of Black slaves
The Chronicle, Dustin Gardiner: "California’s task force to study reparations for Black residents cast a historic vote Tuesday to set criteria for who could be eligible for potential restitution. But agreement on the matter came only after the task force spent the day drowning in gridlock.
By a 5-4 vote, the task force voted to limit compensation to those who can directly trace their lineage to chattel slavery in the United States or those whose ancestors immigrated before 1900.
“It’s huge relief because this question of the community of eligibility has kind of dominated or loomed over the task force and its proceedings since we started,” said task force Chair Kamilah Moore, an attorney and scholar on reparations. “Now, we can really get into the nitty-gritty of things.”"
Slight drop in California average gas prices could signal relief in the weeks ahead, experts say
SUMMER LIN, Mercury News: “Although Californians have typically paid the steepest gas prices in the U.S., the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has some Golden State drivers shelling out more than $6 per gallon for regular unleaded fuel in recent weeks.
But a slight decline in the state’s average gas price, from $5.919 to $5.910 Wednesday, could spell promising news in the weeks ahead.
Southern California, which has been hardest hit by the spike in prices, could see a drop of between 35 to 75 cents per gallon in the next few weeks, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, wrote on Twitter.”
California cops accused in lawsuit against Oroville police ousted from Chico State jobs
SAM STANTON, SacBee: “Two Chico State University police officers who were placed on leave last week after they were named in a salacious lawsuit over their time with the Oroville Police Department have been removed from their posts with the school, Chico State announced Wednesday morning.
Sgt. Joe Deal, the former Oroville chief of police and fire, and Officer Ray Stott, a former sergeant under Deal, will not return to their jobs in Chico, the university said. “Effective March 31, Chico State has separated two University police officers from employment,” the school said in a brief announcement.
“The officers were originally placed on administrative leave last Friday as the University commenced a review based on information made public in a lawsuit filed on March 22.”
’Our ancestors were there’: California reparations vote brings joy to Black families
MARCUS D. SMITH, SacBee: “California this week took a historic step toward providing reparations to descendants of enslaved people and families who can trace their lineage in America to the 19th century.
A committee established by a 2020 state law recommended that those families should be eligible for state-backed reparations. It rejected an alternate proposal to make proposal to provide reparations to all Black Californians.
It sets up California to be the first state to provide reparations to the descendants of enslaved people, although the Legislature has yet to allocate any funding toward that kind of compensation.”
Unions prepare to fight as California state departments order employees back to offices
WES VENTEICHER, SacBee: “California state departments are getting serious about forcing employees who have been working remotely for two years to return to their offices.
The Public Employees’ Retirement System ordered most employees back for three days a week this month. The Department of Industrial Relations and some Caltrans divisions plan to bring employees back for two to three days per week in April. The State Water Project is saying May.
The orders come after coronavirus infection surges repeatedly delayed earlier return-to-office plans. Some employees are resisting going back to the office, saying they have performed at least as efficiently working from home and should be able to continue to do so.”
COVID cases in California are leveling off, but here’s how BA.2 variant might change
The Chronicle, ERIN ALLDAY: "After more than two months of dramatic decline, COVID-19 cases are leveling off in the Bay Area and most of California while the BA.2 coronavirus subvariant supplants omicron as the dominant strain circulating in the western United States.
BA.2 now makes up roughly half of cases nationally and 60% of COVID cases in the western region, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released its latest variant analysis on Tuesday. Health officials said they don’t yet know what impact the highly transmissible BA.2 will have on cases — or subsequent hospitalization and death rates — in the weeks to come, especially in well-vaccinated places like the Bay Area. California officials hoped to see cases continue dropping, perhaps to levels reported last spring and early summer, but they may stabilize or climb again as BA.2 gains traction.
For now, the Bay Area is reporting between 550 and 700 new cases a day across all nine counties, about the same as during the brief lull between last fall’s delta surge and when omicron took over in mid-December. That’s still more than two or three times higher than last spring, when cases dropped below 200 a day."
Biden administration could revoke controversial border policy blocking asylum in weeks
LA Times, ANDREA CASTILLO: "The Biden administration has reportedly drafted a plan to end a controversial border policy by late May that has prevented most migrants from seeking humanitarian protections at the U.S. border.
The decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is not yet final, according to people familiar with the matter, but would give officials time to prepare at the border before taking effect, several news organizations, including the Associated Press, reported.
Department of Homeland Security officials had been in talks for weeks over how to respond to the potential influx of asylum seekers if the Trump-era policy, known as Title 42, ended. The policy invoked a 1944 public health statute to quickly remove migrants either to Mexico or to their home countries, in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19."
L.A.’s homelessness crisis boils over: Pain, confusion, anger and a congressional F-bomb
LA Times, CONNOR SHEETS: "The nonprofit advocacy group had planned three events at a South Los Angeles office to help unhoused people obtain emergency shelter. Nothing more. Nothing less.
But then an unofficial social media post erroneously promised that those who showed up would get rare vouchers for permanent, subsidized housing. And Fathers and Mothers Who Care was swamped. Homeless people lined up on a corner in West Athens before daybreak on Friday and Tuesday only to have their hopes dashed.
At the Friday event, heated arguments broke out among the hundreds of people who turned out for assistance, more evidence of the brutal Los Angeles housing market and the desperation felt by the tens of thousands of Angelenos who are unable to secure permanent places to lay their heads."
The Chronicle, RACHEL SWAN: "Federal regulators have threatened to pull critical funding from San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital after two patients overdosed at the facility last year, a dramatic measure that could force the hospital to shut down.
Officials with San Francisco’s health department, which runs Laguna Honda, said Wednesday that the hospital had fallen out of regulatory compliance, putting its funding from Medicare and Medicaid in jeopardy. Laguna Honda, one of the largest skilled nursing facilities in the country, is run by the city and cares for more than 700 patients, including people with dementia, drug addiction and other complex medical needs, who live on the hospital’s campus.
The hospital has until April 14 to remedy a number of issues identified by state health officials — including the presence of contraband found on Laguna Honda’s campus — in order to stave off a potential financial calamity that could displace hundreds of medically fragile patients."
Bong smoke is worse than secondhand tobacco smoke, UC Berkeley study finds
The Chronicle, SAM WHITING: "Turns out that the lasting stink of bong water spilled onto the carpet is not the only danger to smoking marijuana through a tall tube cooled by water at its base.
A study conducted at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, and released Wednesday in the JAMA Network, declared that secondhand cannabis smoke released during bong hits contains fine particulate matter at a concentration dangerously higher than that released by secondhand tobacco smoke.
The research was done in the living room of an off-campus apartment of an undergraduate student who came up with the idea, according to professor Katharine Hammond, who oversaw the study and co-wrote the report with graduate student Patton Khuu Nguyen. The subjects were students who supplied their own cannabis and bong of their choosing. They were not observed while partaking of the bong in the apartment. They were aware their partying was being measured but remained anonymous throughout."
Bruce Willis halts acting career after diagnosis with cognitive disorder
LA Times, MEG JAMES: "Legendary “Die Hard” and “Pulp Fiction” actor Bruce Willis has ended his more than four-decade acting career after being diagnosed with a cognitive disorder, his family said.
The 67-year-old actor’s blended family announced the news Wednesday morning in an Instagram post from his daughter Rumer Willis.
“To Bruce’s amazing supporters, as a family we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities,” Rumer Willis said in the post. “As a result of this and with much consideration Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him.”"
Academy: Will Smith refused to leave Oscars after Rock slap
AP, JAKE COYLE: "The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Wednesday said that Will Smith was asked to leave Sunday's Oscar ceremony after hitting Chris Rock but refused to do so.
The academy’s board of governors met Wednesday to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Smith for violations against the group’s standards of conduct. The academy said disciplinary action for Smith could include suspension, expulsion or other sanctions.
Many have focused on why Smith was allowed to remain seated front row in the Dolby Theatre after the incident. On Wednesday, the academy suggested that it attempted to remove the actor from the audience."
Amid new Russian attacks near Kyiv, White House says Putin misled by aides
LA Times, PATRICK J MCCONNELL/JAWEED KALEEM: "A day after Russia said it would “drastically” reduce attacks on strategic northern cities in its war against Ukraine, those regions came under fresh bombardment Wednesday, deepening Ukrainian and Western officials’ skepticism over any easing of the offensive.
As Moscow offered mixed signals about its war aims and negotiating prospects, the White House said Wednesday that U.S. intelligence indicates Russian President Vladimir Putin’s senior aides have been “too afraid to tell him the truth” about an invasion seemingly gone awry.
Five weeks into the war, the humanitarian crisis sparked by the fighting reached stunning new heights, with the United Nations saying Wednesday that more than 4 million people, including 2 million children, have fled Ukraine since the invasion began."