California lawmakers extend eviction ban for some renters
ADAM BEAM, AP: “Tens of thousands of Californians facing eviction on Friday for not paying their rent will get to stay in their homes for at least another three months after state lawmakers voted Thursday to extend a law that protects them just hours before it was scheduled to expire.
California will pay off people’s unpaid rent if they fell behind on their payments because of the pandemic. People must apply to get the money and state law says they cannot be evicted while their application is pending.
That law was scheduled to expire at midnight Thursday. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of households still have pending applications as of Tuesday. It would have been impossible for the state to process all of those before the deadline, meaning households still waiting to get the money could have been evicted beginning Friday.
Stem cell money flows, as search expands for ‘miraculous’ cures
DAVID JENSEN, Capitol Weekly: “California’s stem cell agency, created as a way to develop revolutionary cures based on human embryonic stem cells, has awarded $316 million over the last 12 months, with the bulk of its research spending going for a type of therapy that was not even on the agency’s radar when it was created in 2004.
The research involves genetic treatments and has been described as having “miraculous” potential by federal officials. The burgeoning field is expected to draw millions more from the state stem cell agency, which last week expanded the scope of what it can finance.
The move clears the way for the state agency to enter such arenas as mRNA, which was key to the development of the Covid-19 vaccines, and to fund research that could lead to the creation of vaccines for neurodegenerative diseases, according to the agency.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom heads south on spring break
ANDREW SHEELER, SacBee: “California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his family are leaving the state, and the country, for a vacation.
The governor’s office announced that the Newsom family is heading to Central and South America, though it was not specified which countries the governor and his family specifically would be visiting.
According to Erin Mellon, Newsom’s communications director, Newsom made a commitment to his children that after two years of having vacations deferred by the COVID-19 pandemic, wildfires and a recall election, that they would take a family trip for spring break this year.”
Nearly half of LAUSD students have been chronically absent this year, data show
LA Times, PALOMA ESQUIVEL: "In December, Eva Garcia’s daughter, a high school junior, came in close contact with a COVID-19-positive family member, forcing her to quarantine. A few days later, her daughter also tested positive, causing her to miss more school. When she was ready to return, Garcia, who uses a bus to travel, was unable to get her to the correct coronavirus testing site right away, once again delaying her return to campus.
In all, Garcia’s daughter has missed about a month of school this academic year. Her grades have dropped as her senior year quickly approaches, and she is worried about her college acceptance chances.
“As a mother I tell her to work hard. I tell her that it’s up to her if she wants to keep studying,” Garcia said. “But this situation has made me feel desperate.”"
Men can afford nearly four times as many homes in San Francisco as women, according to a new study
The Chronicle, SUSIE NEILSON: "A new study from real estate listing website Zillow estimates that, because of gender pay disparities, the average man can afford 6.3% of San Francisco homes, while the average woman can afford just 1.7%. The share of homes women and men can afford in the U.S. overall is much higher, at 39% for women and 57% for men.
The small San Francisco numbers for both genders offer stark evidence of the housing crisis that has squeezed out so many residents and forced thousands onto the streets. But the vast gap between them shows how unequal pay makes home buying that much harder for women, despite the city’s progressive equal pay ordinance.
The study used Zillow home value data and census income data to determine what share of homes men and women working in the private sector with the region’s median income could afford. Zillow defined affordability as being able to spend 30% or less of one’s monthly income on a home’s mortgage payment, though its calculation also accounted for a 20% down payment and insurance costs."
Fight over Garcetti’s nomination intensifies amid expanding Senate probe
DAKOTA SMITH and JAMES RAINEY, LA Times: “Mayor Eric Garcetti’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to India has touched off a pitched battle in the U.S. Capitol, as more senators express concern about his handling of sexual harassment allegations and Garcetti and his aides step up their defense.
Sen. Chuck Grassley’s widening probe of the alleged misconduct by Rick Jacobs, a former top Garcetti advisor, and what the mayor may have known about it is forcing senators to weigh the claims ahead of a vote on Garcetti’s nomination.
At the same time, Garcetti and White House staffers continue to reach out to senators to rally support for the nomination, which was announced by President Biden in July.”
‘Kindest, dearest’: Advocates at California’s Capitol mourn lobbyists killed in Loomis home
RYAN SABALOW, SacBee: “Sam Paredes spent this week in a fog of sadness and disbelief as word spread through the tight-knit group of lobbyists who battle over bills and causes that two of their own had been stabbed to death, allegedly by their adopted son.
But few in the California state Capitol knew Kathy Lynch, 67, and her longtime boyfriend, Gerald Upholt, 80, better than Paredes, the executive director of one of the state’s largest gun-rights advocacy groups, Gun Owners of California.
Lynch advocated for years on behalf of hunting groups, and she often opposed or supported the same bills Paredes did. Upholt, before he stepped away from lobbying full time in the mid-2000s, was the lobbyist for the California Rifle and Pistol Association. Paredes said the men worked side-by-side on gun-rights causes for years. He considered the couple dear friends.”
Biden orders release of 1 million barrels of oil a day from U.S. strategic reserve
AP, ZEKE MILLER/JOSH BOAK: "President Biden is ordering the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve for six months, the White House said Thursday, in a bid to control energy prices that have spiked as the U.S. and allies imposed steep sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Biden was to formally announce the release later Thursday.
The White House said Biden would also call on Congress to impose financial penalties on oil and gas companies that lease public lands but aren’t producing. He also intends to invoke the Defense Production Act to encourage the mining of critical minerals for batteries in electric vehicles."
Violence prevention official fired from Oakland says she was bullied by department head
The Chronicle, SARAH RAVANI: "The terminated deputy chief of Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention demanded that the city hire her back as the head of the department and alleged that her firing was retaliatory after she accused the current chief of harassment and discrimination.
Sarai Crain, who was hired in 2020 to lead the department’s work on gender-based violence, accused the chief of the department of “bullying” and “dismissive” behavior. Guillermo Cespedes, the chief of the department, and an employee relations director fired Crain on Jan. 22, according to Crain’s attorneys.
Her attorneys sent a demand letter on March 25 to Mayor Libby Schaaf, the City Council and the city attorney’s office detailing Crain’s allegations. They called on the city to reinstate Crain with an immediate promotion as the chief of the department, reimburse her for attorneys fees and two months of unemployment pay or to pay her a sum of $268,104 to make up for one year of lost work and emotional damages."
If you’re exposed to coronavirus but don’t get sick, does that boost your COVID immunity?
The Chronicle, DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA: "Say someone in your house gets COVID. Maybe it’s your kid, your partner, your roommate. But you never seem to catch it, despite the exposure.
Still — does that close encounter with the virus give you any immunity?
It’s complicated, experts say."
Concerns about Bruce Willis’ declining cognitive state swirled around sets in recent years
LA Times, MEG JAMES/AMY KAUFMAN: "Just days before Bruce Willis was scheduled to turn up on the set of one of his latest action films, the director of the project sent out an urgent request: Make the movie star’s part smaller.
“It looks like we need to knock down Bruce’s page count by about 5 pages,” Mike Burns, the director of “Out of Death,” wrote in a June 2020 email to the film’s screenwriter. “We also need to abbreviate his dialogue a bit so that there are no monologues, etc.”
Burns did not outline one of the reasons why Willis’ lines needed to be kept “short and sweet.” But on Wednesday, the public learned what he and many other filmmakers have privately been concerned about for years: The 67-year-old’s family said he will retire from acting because he has aphasia. The cognitive disorder affects a person’s ability to communicate and often develops in individuals who have suffered strokes."
Russian forces leaving Chernobyl after radiation exposure
AP, NEBI QENA/YURAS KARMANAU: "Russian troops began leaving the Chernobyl nuclear plant after soldiers got “significant doses" of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraine’s state power company said Thursday as heavy fighting raged on the outskirts of Kyiv and other fronts.
Energoatom, the operator, gave no immediate details on the condition of the troops or how many were affected. But it said the Russians had dug in in the forest inside the exclusion zone around the now-closed plant, the site in 1986 of the world's worst nuclear disaster.
The troops “panicked at the first sign of illness,” which “showed up very quickly,” and began to prepare to leave, Energoatom said."
U.S. military veterans answer Zelensky’s call to fight, but not all are chosen
LA Times, PATRICK J MCDONNELL: "First he missed his flight. Then his gear got lost somewhere between Little Rock and Warsaw. Finally, after traveling thousands of miles to help Ukraine fight the Russian military, the country’s foreign legion rejected him.
Cody Heard, a 29-year-old U.S. Army veteran from Arkansas, was undeterred. He and three other young volunteers — a Brit and two Dutchmen — were headed to the Ukrainian capital the next day to try to hook up with a military reserve unit.
“They will take us — I hope,” said Heard, hanging outside a hostel in Lviv with his three comrades, all bedraggled after days on the move, their packs lying on the ground. “I mean, I messaged them. But I haven’t heard back yet.”"