Former Dodgers star and Republican Steve Garvey enters U.S. Senate race
LA Times, SEEMA MEHTA: "After nearly two decades of statewide Republican candidates being rejected by California’s left-leaning electorate, former Dodger All-Star Steve Garvey hopes to drag the GOP back toward political relevance.
Garvey announced Tuesday that he is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by the late Dianne Feinstein, a gambit by a political newcomer banking on his baseball fame and affable demeanor to overcome the long odds Republicans face in this solidly Democratic state. At the very least, Garvey offers GOP voters a dash of celebrity excitement and his candidacy may raise the stakes for the top-shelf Democratic candidates."
Newsom vetoes layoff notice bill that would have protected contract workers
The Chronicle, CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO: "The California legislature took notice of the hundreds of thousands of layoffs that have roiled the tech industry dating back to last year, but on Sunday Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have expanded notice requirements and other protections for laid-off workers.
Authored by Assembly Member Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, AB1356 would have altered the rules for layoffs affecting both employees and contract workers by:"
California bans cosmetics chemicals, following EU (again)
CALMatters, LEVI SUMAGAYSAY: "Your favorite perfume, nail polish or hair dye may have to undergo a makeover by 2027 if it has one of 26 potentially toxic ingredients now banned by California.
A new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom will ban more than two dozen ingredients from cosmetics and other personal care products in California — and most likely the rest of the nation."
RFK Jr.'s independent run for president draws GOP criticism and silence from national Democrats
AP, ALI SWENSON: "Republicans attacked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday as the longtime environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist launched an independent bid for the White House, reflecting growing concerns on the right that the former Democrat now threatens to take votes from former President Donald Trump in 2024.
The Republican National Committee and Trump's campaign both took aim at Kennedy's liberal background while national Democrats stayed silent as Kennedy insisted in a speech in Philadelphia that he was leaving both political parties behind."
Newsom signs climate bills that force large companies to reveal role and risks in climate change
CALMatters, ALEJANDRO LAZO: "Gov. Gavin Newsom today signed two closely-watched, first-in-the-nation bills that will force large companies to disclose their greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change and their financial risks.
Newsom approved Senate Bill 261, which requires large companies to biennially report their financial risks from climate change. But he said in a statement today that he will work with the Legislature on relaxing the law’s 2026 implementation date because the California Air Resources Board won’t have “sufficient time to adequately carry out the requirements.” He added that he also is “concerned about the overall financial impact of this bill on businesses, so I am instructing CARB to closely monitor the cost impacts.”"
Electric school buses, pesticides and oil wells: New environmental laws coming to California
BANG*Mercury News, PAUL ROGERS: "Gov. Gavin Newsom gained widespread attention Saturday for signing a first-in-the-nation law to require corporations doing business in California to add up how many tons of greenhouse gases they emit each year, and make the information public.
The new law will affect roughly 5,300 businesses with more than $1 billion a year in sales — including companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Chevron and Home Depot. The law is expected to put pressure on businesses to reduce pollution when researchers, advocacy groups, media outlets and others issue “biggest polluter” lists showing which companies emit the most chemicals that are warming the planet."
Here’s the Bay Area forecast as October weather whiplash continues Monday
The Chronicle, ANTHONY EDWARDS: "The high-pressure system responsible for last week’s 90-degree temperatures along the California coast is on its way east, leaving the door open for wet weather patterns to return.
Bay Area heat will be exchanged for clouds and rain showers the next few days as October weather whiplash continues. A Monday cold front will increase the chance for light rain showers in the North Bay and Peninsula. It will be much cooler, especially compared with the recent warmth, with highs in the 60s to lower 70s region-wide."
Climate change took them to ‘dark places.’ Now these Californians are doing something about it
CALMatters, SHREYA AGRAWAL: "Maksim Batuyev’s college studies on the climate crisis left him feeling depressed.
“I was questioning the sheer gravity of it all and how all of it is systemic. None of it has an easy solution,” he said. “That really started to bring me into some dark places.”"
Newsom signs treatment-focused bills in response to fentanyl crisis, but vetoes others
The Chronicle, SOPHIA BOLLAG: "Gov. Gavin Newsom pointed to budget constraints and his administration’s existing opioid work in vetoing several bills to combat California’s fentanyl crisis, even as he signed others that aim to make addiction and overdose drugs more widely available.
The state will require stadiums, concert venues and amusement parks to stock doses of opioid overdose reversal drugs under one new law Newsom signed. Another will require community colleges and California State University campuses to provide fentanyl test strips and inform students about how to access them."
Hoping to lower dropout rates, Newsom bans ‘willful defiance’ suspensions through high school
LA Times, ANABEL SOSA: "Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed a bill that will ban “willful defiance” suspensions for middle and high school students who demonstrate bad behavior, including breaking the dress code, talking back to a teacher or using their phone in class.
The legislation Newsom signed into law, SB 274, also will prohibit the suspension and expulsion of students due to tardiness or truancy. Educators can still suspend students for more severe actions, such as physical violence, possession or use of drugs, theft or bullying."
Kaiser Permanente workers warn of potential second strike
CNN: "A coalition of unions representing thousands of Kaiser Permanente health care workers warned they will walk off the job again next month if a deal is not reached with their employer.
Facilities across California, Washington, Oregon, Virginia and Washington DC have threatened to strike for a second time if a new labor contract is not agreed before November 1, after a contract for 3,000 more Kaiser employees in Seattle expires on October 31."
Kaiser chops jobs in two East Bay cities and in Southern California
BANG*Mercury News, GEORGE AVALOS: "Kaiser Foundation Hospitals has disclosed plans to trim scores of California jobs, most of them in the Bay Area, according to official filings with state labor officials.
The healthcare titan revealed that it plans to eliminate 49 non-union jobs in California, the filings with the state Employment Development Department show."
Teachers of recently arrived immigrant students to get help under new law
EdSource, ZAIDEE STAVELY: "As soon as Jenna Hewitt King asked students in her senior English class for newcomers to introduce themselves, she knew she was in over her head.
“I saw this look of fear in their faces, like, ‘What? I have to talk out loud?’ There was a lot of whispering in their home language,” said King, who also wrote a commentary about the experience for EdSource. “We were both looking at each other like deer in headlights and you could sense this was not something that any of us were prepared for.”"
Couch surfing, living in cars. Housing insecurity derails foster kids’ college dreams
LA Times, GAIL CORNWALL: "Citrus College was Kyshawna Johnson’s third attempt at higher education.
She first enrolled in a community college at age 18 while living with her grandmother, who was her foster care guardian. But the house was too chaotic to focus on studies, and without support, Johnson dropped out. She gave it another go at 19, but said when foster care support money stopped, she was forced to leave her grandmother’s house and college."
CapRadio workers worry amid turmoil at Sac State’s NPR station. What does the future hold?
Sacramento Bee, ISHANI DESAI: "The layoffs at Capital Public Radio were bad enough — then emerged a series of devastating blows detailing financial peril. And, at the center, remained employees battered by the turmoil.
An audit showing unpaid bills. More than half of CapRadio’s board later resigned. Potential conflicts of interest came to light. News from competitors — which was how staff members said they often first learned about each instance — painted a public broadcasting institution in dire straits."
WGA members easily ratify new contract to end 148-day strike as anxieties loom
LA Times, WENDY LEE, STACY PERMAN: "As members of the Writers Guild of America voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new contract that ended a 148-day strike, anxieties loomed over a coming contraction in the film and TV business that could limit job opportunities even after Hollywood gets back to work.
WGA members on Monday gave a near-unanimous endorsement of the new film and TV contract — with 99% of those who voted approving a deal."
Tribal leaders and researchers have mapped the ancient ‘lost suburbs’ of Los Angeles
LA Times, LOUIS SAHAGUN, SEAN GREENE: "For millions of Los Angeles-area motorists, the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area flashes by in an instant — a tattered oasis of wetlands, sycamore and oak that punctuates the monotonous sprawl of industrial parks, cinder-block sound walls and residential cul-de-sacs along the 60 Freeway and Rosemead Boulevard.
But to Andrew Salas, chairman of the Gabrieleño-Kizh tribe, this area still echoes with the voices of his ancestors, who called it Shevaanga."
‘America does not deserve me.’ Why Black people are leaving the United States
LA Times, KATE LINTHICUM: "Filmmaker Jameelah Nuriddin was locked down in Los Angeles during the pandemic, watching as the nation convulsed in protest over the murder of George Floyd, when she had an epiphany: “America does not deserve me.”
As a Black woman, Nuriddin always tried to work twice as hard as those around her, thinking: “If I’m smart enough, pretty enough, successful enough ... then finally people will treat me as a human being.”"
Jedidiah Murphy and the evolving debate on mental illness and capital punishment
LA Times, KERI BLAKINGER: "The case that landed Jedidiah Murphy on Texas’ death row is not remarkable, at least not by death row standards. After a childhood of abuse and years in foster care, by his teens he had begun showing signs of severe mental illness, including hallucinations and dissociative blackouts. Soon, he began drinking to self-medicate.
It was during a blackout in the fall of 2000, he says, that he carjacked an elderly woman near Dallas. He shot her to death, which he does not deny. But he said he didn’t mean for the gun to go off. He spent the next two decades appealing his punishment — hoping to avoid the death chamber by arguing that he is not a dangerous man but rather a mentally ill one who’d accidentally fired a shot."
Fired Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong reapplies for Oakland top-cop job
The Chronicle, SARAH RAVANI: "LeRonne Armstrong has applied for the job of Oakland’s police chief eight months after Mayor Sheng Thao fired him and after an independent arbitrator cleared him of accusations that he mishandled misconduct cases against two officers.
A search committee of the Oakland Police Commission on Monday said that Armstrong was one of nearly 20 candidates who applied for the police chief’s job and it is recommending Armstrong – and six other candidates – as finalists."
S.F. police shoot, kill driver who crashed into Chinese consulate building
The Chronicle, NORA MISHANEC, JORDAN PARKER: "San Francisco police shot and killed a suspect at the Chinese consulate building on Monday afternoon after the person drove a car into the visa office.
The driver sped into the consulate visa office on Geary just after 3 p.m. and when police arrived, they shot the driver after they “made contact” with the person, police Sgt. Kathryn Winters said. Police administered first aid and paramedics transported the driver to the hospital where the driver was pronounced dead."
Israel pounds Gaza as it vows to strike Hamas militants ‘wherever they are’
LA Times, JOSEF FEDERMAN, ISSAM ADWAN: "Israel bombarded downtown Gaza City on Tuesday and expanded a massive mobilization of reservists, vowing a punishing retaliation against the Hamas militant group that increasingly left residents of the tiny Palestinian territory with nowhere to go.
Four days after militants stormed into Israel, bringing gunbattles to its streets for the first time in decades, Israel’s military said Tuesday morning that it had regained control over its south and the border."
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