California economy now the world’s fourth-largest, overtaking Japan
LAT, CLARA HARTER: "If California were its own country, its economy would now rank as the fourth-largest of any nation in the globe, Gov. Gavin Newsom said this week.
Newsom announced the state’s new economic ranking Wednesday after recently released data from the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis indicated that California’s nominal gross domestic product now exceeds Japan’s."
READ MORE -- California is now 4th-largest economy in world, surpassing Japan -- The Chronicle, MOLLY BURKE
Fight or flight? Some California nonprofits won’t remain silent in face of Trump budget slashing
LAT, JAMES RAINEY: "With the Trump administration slashing budgets and threatening to revoke tax-exempt status for nonprofits, some Southern California social justice organizations have gone into a defensive crouch, hoping to wait out the passing storm.
They are not openly fighting President Trump’s program cuts. Some have scrubbed their websites of terms such as “equity,” “inclusion” and “transgender.” Others have been told they should drop land acknowledgments — proclamations paying tribute to the Indigenous peoples who were this region’s first human inhabitants."
California Democrats will try again to slash high energy bills
BANG*Mercury News, GRANT STRINGER: "Democrats in the state Legislature will try again to give customers relief from expensive energy bills. But some proposals by Bay Area lawmakers have already been cut down significantly."
Fight intensifies over bill by former Edison executive to gut rooftop solar credits
LAT, MELODY PETERSEN: "A bill to sharply reduce the energy credits given to homeowners with rooftop solar panels is pitting union electrical workers and the state’s big utilities against people who benefit from the solar credits — and one of the first skirmishes took place in the City of Industry on Wednesday.
Waving signs and blowing whistles, dozens of rooftop solar owners protested outside the office of Assemblymember Lisa Calderon (D-Whittier), who proposed Assembly Bill 942 to slash the credits for people who installed the systems before April 15, 2023."
Top S.F. official ousted after probe finds misconduct, ‘unlawful activities’
The Chronicle, MICHAEL BARBA: "A San Francisco city commission unanimously voted Wednesday to remove a beleaguered official from her post after an administrative investigation found that she committed what Mayor Daniel Lurie described as misconduct and “unlawful activities.”
Kimberly Ellis, director of the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women, faced a months-long investigation by the city attorney’s office for secretly working a side job for a political group and directing city money to her friends. She was dismissed from her role leading the small city agency in a late-night vote by her seven-member oversight board, the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women."
Trump fires more immigration judges in what some suspect is a move to bend courts to his will
LAT, RACHEL URANGA: "The Justice Department’s move last week to fire at least eight immigration judges, including four from California, is raising fears among Democratic leaders, academics and others that the Trump administration is chipping away at due process protections for immigrants.
“These firings made no sense,” said Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union representing the nation’s 700 immigration judges. “When you do the simple math, each judge does 500 to 700 cases a year. Most of them are deportation cases. So what he’s effectively done is he’s increased the already huge backlog that the immigration courts face.”"
Why Texas is ahead of California on bilingual education
EdSource, ZAIDEE STAVELY: "On a recent Monday morning in Wendell Norris Marquez’s classroom in Austin, Texas, students were getting ready to read a story in Spanish by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But first, they discussed the differences between a story and a novel, and between a story and a legend.
“Los cuentos son ficción (Stories are fiction),” said one student. “But are legends real?” asked Norris Marquez."
Union-backed Oakland school board majority ousts home-grown superintendent
The Chronicle, JILL TUCKER: "The Oakland school board voted Wednesday to replace the district’s longtime superintendent, giving her a payout to step aside at the end of this school year, officials confirmed, rather than wait until the end of her contract in the summer of 2027.
The 4-3 decision to push out Kyla Johnson-Trammell was announced as a “voluntary separation agreement,” although the board did not immediately provide details of the deal."
Let’s end disposable vape waste (OP-ED)
Capitol Weekly, LUCAS ROCKETT GUTTERMAN/TONY HACKETT: "Electronic waste is the fastest growing part of our waste stream, and there is one cause that California can put a stop to: single-use, “disposable” vapes.
Americans now throw away 5.7 disposable vapes (or e-cigarettes) per second—nearly 500,000 each day, according to the CDC Foundation. This number has increased from 4.5 per second just one year earlier as reported by CALPIRG Education Fund’s Vape Waste report. This relentless stream of electronic waste isn’t just alarming—it’s extremely hazardous and yet entirely preventable."
Late-season California storm to bring rain, thunderstorms. Here's what to expect
The Chronicle, GREG PORTER: "A cutoff low spinning just off the California coast is set to bring scattered rain, isolated thunderstorms and a shot of late-season mountain snow to much of the state Friday into Saturday. But with the storm expected to track farther south, the most active weather is now expected to center on the Central Coast and Southern California.
At the heart of this system is an unusually cold pocket of air aloft, colder than we would typically see in late April. That cold air will help to destabilize the atmosphere, making it easier for rain showers to form along the coast and thunderstorms to develop across the Central Valley late Friday and into Saturday."
Who’s the richest person in California? See state’s 10 wealthiest billionaires
Sac Bee, SARAH LINN: "Four of the 10 richest people in the world live in California, according to Forbes.
The media company recently released its annual World’s Billionaires list, ranking the wealthiest people on the planet based on their net worth."
What happens if I miss the looming Real ID deadline? Can I still travel?
LAT, KAREN GARCIA: "Despite the multiple extensions for the Real ID deadline, there are still many Americans who don’t have one and face the final deadline next month.
If you are among those who don’t have the new identification or have yet to apply for one, here’s what you need to know about getting it as soon as possible and being able to travel domestically until you do."
BART crime is down a lot. But not as much as transit officials say
The Chronicle, DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA: "On Wednesday morning, BART officials touted a 50% year-over-year reduction in crime, which they called “the largest drops in crime in the more than 50-year history of the agency,” on social media.
But while crime rates on BART are down — nearly to pre-pandemic levels on a per-ride basis, the Chronicle found — it isn’t down quite as much as BART says. That statistic seems to be a math error."
More dangerous S.F. streets? Report suggests city saw 50% more car crashes than reported
The Chronicle, NORA MISHANEC/RACHEL SWAN: "An estimated 100,000 vehicular crashes occurred in San Francisco streets between 2018 and 2022, causing 193 deaths and costing $2.5 billion, according to a new report from the Board of Supervisors Budget & Legislative Analyst.
The numbers, while stunning, are based on extrapolations. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 53.2% of vehicle crashes go unreported in the U.S. Applying that logic to San Francisco, the report estimated 18,560 per year during the five-year period in question. That would amount to nearly 100,000 wrecks, leading to 193 deaths."
This S.F. district has $700K for traffic safety. What’s on the wish list?
The Chronicle, RACHEL SWAN: "Take a walk through San Francisco’s District 5 — from the Tenderloin to the edge of Golden Gate Park — and you’ll see a galling illustration of the city’s challenges with road safety.
Drivers barrel down one-way arterials. Cyclists and scooter riders swerve to avoid collisions. People enter crosswalks warily, as though preparing to dodge enemy fire."