9th Circuit conservatives blast homelessness ruling, say issue is ‘paralyzing’ U.S. West
LA Times, KEVIN RECTOR: "Some of the most powerful conservative judges in the United States took collective aim Wednesday at the idea that homeless people with nowhere else to go have a right to sleep in public, excoriating their liberal colleagues for ruling as much.
Their scathing comments came in a set of responses to a decision Wednesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals not to rehear a case in which a smaller three-judge panel affirmed such rights in September."
California caste discrimination bill stays alive
CALMatters, SAMEEA KAMAL: "An effort to ban caste discrimination in California survived in committee today, despite months of opposition organized by groups that alleged the bill would unfairly target South Asians.
Senate Bill 403, authored by Fremont Democratic Sen. Aisha Wahab, would add caste — a centuries-old social hierarchy system that has historically determined what jobs or education people can attain — to the list of protected classes in the state’s civil rights, employment and housing laws, alongside race, gender and sexual orientation."
California governments spend millions lobbying Sacramento
Capitol Weekly, BRIAN JOSEPH: "Most California taxpayers would tell you they hate that special interests spend so much money lobbying government officials in Sacramento. But what about when the special interest is their own local government?
Nearly one out of five of the special interests currently registered to lobby in the state of California (at least 16 percent) are themselves California government entities. That includes at least 170 cities, 42 counties, 24 community college districts, 63 school districts and 204 local agencies, like joint-powers authorities or special districts."
Breath taking: July 4th fireworks again bring terrible air quality to L.A. region
LA Times, GRACEY TOO: "Dozens of fireworks shows and many smaller, street-level pyrotechnic bursts lighted up Southern California skies throughout the Fourth of July celebration Tuesday — leaving behind some of the poorest air quality in recent years.
“This year was one of the worst we’ve seen in the last decade,” Scott Epstein, air quality assessment program supervisor for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said Wednesday. The agency’s analysis wasn’t yet complete, but he said initial data were looking particularly bad — though not quite to the levels recorded on Independence Day 2020."
‘Worst I’ve ever seen’: More than three tons of July 4 trash left behind at this Lake Tahoe spot
The Chronicle, LAYA NEELAKANDAN: "An environmental nonprofit said Wednesday that it picked up more than three tons of trash and debris from Zephyr Cove on the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe following the Fourth of July holiday.
Clean Up The Lake founder Colin West said Wednesday morning’s trash haul was the worst he has seen in his five years of doing environmental clean-up work."
68 people died in California car crashes over the long weekend. Nearly half did not wear seat belts
The Chronicle, GABE CASTRO-ROOT: "Sixty-eight people died in car crashes throughout California over the July 4 weekend — nearly half of whom were not wearing a seat belt, California Highway Patrol said Wednesday.
CHP officers issued nearly 10,000 speeding citations during the agency’s Independence Day Maximum Enforcement Period, which lasted from Friday evening to Tuesday night. Officers also arrested more than 1,200 people for driving under the influence during that period, or about one DUI arrest every five minutes."
Tulare Lake’s ghostly rebirth brings wonder — and hardship. Inside a community’s resilience
LA Times, ROBERT GAUTHIER, MELISSA GOMEZ: "In the lowlands of the San Joaquin Valley, last winter’s torrential storms revived an ancient body of water drained and dredged decades ago, its clay lakebed transformed into a powerhouse of industrial agriculture.
Rivers swollen with biblical amounts of rainfall overwhelmed the network of levees and irrigation canals that weave through the basin diverting water for farm and livestock use. Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, was reborn, swallowing thousands of acres cultivated for tomatoes and cotton and vast orchards of almond and pistachio trees. In the months since the storms abated, the lake continues to take in runoff from a record snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada, blurring the lines between nature and farmland."
CALMatters, MIKHAIL ZINSHTEYN: "California cemented its status among the most affordable states to earn a bachelor’s degree after lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom fulfilled their promise to expand the state’s Middle Class Scholarship program by another $227 million in this year’s budget deal.
That overhauled scholarship, which debuted last year, is now a $859 million juggernaut. It’s also a growing slice of the state’s financial aid pie: Between 2016 and 2022, California lawmakers poured roughly $1.4 billion more into grants and scholarships, bringing the state’s total contribution to around $3.5 billion."
High-stakes, high-stress college essay stirs more anxiety under affirmative action ban
LA Times, MILLA SURJADI, HOWARD BLUME, TERESA WATANABE: "Olivia Brandeis had a vision for her college application essay: She would write about covering a racist incident as a student journalist of color at Monte Vista High School in Danville, a majority-white city east of Oakland. But last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down race-based affirmative action has filled her with anxious questions about sharing her experiences as an Asian American.
Does her identity matter to colleges? Is her essay subject now a taboo topic? If she doesn’t write about her experience, how will she present her authentic self? Who can she turn to for advice?"
Rate your interaction: Sonoma State's new approach to campus policing
EdSource, ROSIE PADILLA: "Sonoma State University’s police department is looking to improve accountability by leveraging technology to solicit feedback from those who interact with police officers. A new application called Guardian Score aims to offer the campus community a convenient way to leave feedback about their interactions with law enforcement. The two came together this past year, and now the University Police Department carries around business cards with QR codes and encourages the people they have interactions with to rate their experiences.
“The big thing for us is, we were trying to find a way to communicate. We were trying to find another way to engage our community and then get real-time feedback,” said Sonoma State Police Chief Nader Oweis about the program, which was implemented in 2022. Oweis described some apprehension from his officers at first, but said they have since fully jumped on board."
L.A. hotel workers are back on the job, but say more strikes are to come
LA Times, HELEN LI, SUHAUNA HUSSAIN: "Thousands of service workers at 19 hotels in Los Angeles and Orange counties returned to work Wednesday after three days of strikes over the busy Fourth of July weekend.
According to Unite Here Local 11 spokeswoman Maria Hernandez, workers from what she described as a first wave of walkouts returned to work Wednesday “to make room for [workers at] other hotels who have also authorized a strike to walk out.”"
Why S.F.’s ‘doom loop’ fears are ‘premature,’ according to city economist
The Chronicle, ROLAND LI: "San Francisco's economic recovery from the pandemic has stagnated for months in key areas, including employees’ return to the office, public transit ridership and housing costs.
But Ted Egan, the city’s chief economist, said the city showed strength in some metrics like job growth, and signs of a “doom loop” — a vicious cycle of residents fleeing, forcing city service cuts and plunging tax revenue — aren’t borne out by data."
SpaceX-backed Bay Area startup gets green light to test its flying cars
The Chronicle, RICARDO CANO: "A Bay Area startup has won permission from federal regulators to test what it says is a fully electric car that can fly and travel on roads.
Alef Aeronautics, based in San Mateo, received a special airworthiness certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration for its Model A car. The certificate allows the company to test the car model’s flight capabilities in limited locations, according to Alef."
The case of the missing bacteria in Bay Area poop
BANG*Mercury News, LISA KRIEGER: "Our gut is experiencing its own extinction event.
New Stanford research has discovered that the gut of the average Bay Area resident has only half as many species of bacteria as hunter-gatherers in remote northern Tanzania, a decline attributed to the industrialized world’s changing diets and lifestyles."
California’s youth prisons have shuttered — and prompted an end to this secretive group
Sac Bee, ANDREW SHEELER: "What was once the nation’s largest network of youth prisons is no more.
California’s final remaining youth prisons shuttered on June 30, marking an end to a 132-year-old statewide correctional system plagued by violence and abuse. Youths previously in custody under the California Division of Juvenile Justice have all been spread across the state’s 58 counties."
LA Times, LIBOR JANY, RICHARD WINTON: "He felt their gaze on his back as soon as he stepped out of the car.
As he recalls that day, Bernard Robins says he saw three Los Angeles police officers eyeing him suspiciously from their department cruiser. He knew what to do in these situations. Arms in the air. No sudden movements. And, taking the bass out of his voice, he announced that he was one of their own, a cop.