What will shift to zero-emission trucks cost? $1 trillion for charging alone, study says
LA Times's RUSS MITCHELL: "Fossil-fuel burning trucks spew alarming amounts of greenhouse gases, dangerous nitrogen oxides, lung-clogging particulate matter and a toxic stew of other pollutants.
Getting rid of them will be costly — nearly $1 trillion, according to an industry study released Tuesday."
California’s Central Valley is voting, again, to replace Kevin McCarthy in Congress
LA Times's LAURA J. NELSON: "Two weeks after narrowing the field of candidates to represent them in Congress starting next year, voters in the San Joaquin Valley are voting again.
On Tuesday, Central Valley voters will cast ballots in a separate special election to complete the remainder of former Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s term in the House of Representatives. The Bakersfield Republican left Congress at the end of 2023, with a year left in his term, after his own party ousted him as speaker of the House."
DA accuses Rebecca Grossman of ‘illegal conduct’ from jail, her legal team of jury tampering
LA Times's RICHARD WINTON: "Prosecutors want Rebecca Grossman’s access to jailhouse phones cut off after they say she encouraged illegal conduct and her team attempted to tamper with jurors who convicted her of double murder.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Ryan Gould and his colleague Jamie Castro filed a motion Monday that detailed several jailhouse calls Grossman had with her daughter and husband since her Feb. 23 conviction for killing two young brothers in a crosswalk while speeding on a residential Westlake Village street."
‘I couldn’t find a nurse:’ L.A. family sues hospital over life-altering injuries
CALMatters's KRISTEN HWANG: "As he lay tethered to a hospital bed by tubes and wires, Joshua Saeta told his sister his stomach hurt so badly he would take a knife and cut it open to relieve the pressure if he could.
He had been admitted earlier in the day with severe abdominal pain and was swiftly deteriorating. His words slurred together and he couldn’t count backwards from 10. His left eye wandered, and his belly was badly distended, his family says."
The $500K decision: Bay Area parents and experts weigh in on public vs. private school
The Chronicle's KELLIW HWANG, CHLOE SHRAGER: "This is the season when families across the Bay Area are finding out where their children have been placed in public schools, and for those who have also applied to private school, most will be making a decision this week.
Private schools are a particularly popular choice for families in the Bay Area, where attendance rates in most counties outpace averages statewide and in many big cities across the U.S."
Charts show UC admissions rates for every high school in California
The Chronicle's NAMI SUMIDA: "High school students across the state are starting to receive admissions decisions from the University of California for the upcoming fall semester.
While we’re months away from knowing overall acceptance rates for this cycle — the university typically releases this information in August — data from the previous year can provide some guidance on which schools’ students will have the highest rates of success. UC acceptance rates don’t tend to change that much year to year, especially for high schools with sizable numbers of seniors applying."
UC stirs furious debate over what high school math skills are needed to succeed in college
LA Tikmes's TERESA WATANABE: "Briana Hampton, a San Gabriel High School junior, is determined to get into a four-year university to achieve her dream of becoming a social worker or psychiatrist. But she feared she would fail a third-year math course heavy on advanced algebra.
To meet her math requirement, she opted instead for an introductory data science course, approved a few years ago by the University of California as an alternative to advanced algebra. She loves the challenge of learning how to code, conduct surveys and analyze data on topics relevant to her life — sleep hours, stress levels, snacks consumed. She’s also boasting a B average in the class, compared to the Ds and Fs earned in her first-year math class."
UC Berkeley parents were so worried about crime they hired private security. Is it working?
The Chronicle's RACHEL SWAN: "Dusk was gathering around the UC Berkeley campus as six security guards began their rounds, radios crackling from their bright yellow jackets.
It was a balmy Thursday evening. Balls bounced on tennis courts, laughter burbled from the Durant food court, and the sidewalks bustled with students. Still, the guards were aware that the buoyant scene could mask danger lurking around any corner. One of them, Theresa Brooks, said she whips out her cellphone to record video of anything suspicious."
Few low-income Californians claiming kids’ free money in college savings accounts
EdSource's LASHERICA THORNTON: "Despite the fanfare surrounding its launch in August 2022, the California Kids Investment and Development Savings program (CalKIDS), a state initiative to help children from low income families save money for college or a career, has been underutilized as eligible families lack awareness about its existence.
According to a March 6 announcement from CalKIDS, 300,000 students and families — a fraction of the 3.6 million eligible across the state — have accessed the state-funded account."
The end of Skid Row’s cheap hotels? L.A. leaders want to replace last-resort homeless housing
LA Times's LIAM DILLON, DOUG SMITH: "Thirty years ago, when the Produce Hotel fell into disrepair, a newly formed nonprofit, the Skid Row Housing Trust, acquired and rehabilitated the turn-of-the-century building, restoring the brick facade and preserving 100 rooms for formerly homeless residents.
This story was repeated hotel after run-down hotel in the 1980s and ‘90s as homelessness advocates and civic leaders poured money and energy into saving the old single-room occupancy hotels in Skid Row — first built for itinerant railroad and agricultural workers — fearing that their collapse would force thousands onto the streets."
Hundreds of homes may replace part of huge Silicon Valley tech campus
BANG*Mercury News's GEORGE AVALOS: "Several hundred homes could be built on a large chunk of a huge tech campus in the South Bay, a proposal that points to the ongoing and relentless shift in the Bay Area’s economy and real estate sector.