A question arises: Will delegate-rch California play a critical role in stopping Donald Trump from receiving his party's presidential nomination?
From Matthew Artz in Costra Contra Times:"Unable once again to turn Donald Trump into "a loser," Republican leaders are girding for a long, desperate and possibly futile fight to deny the brash New Yorker enough delegates to claim the party's nomination."
"And that could easily make delegate-rich California a key battleground -- where residents would be bombarded with political ads and robocalls, à la Iowa and New Hampshire, before the June 7 primary."
"Trump's victories in seven of the 11 Super Tuesday nominating contests weren't as impressive as originally predicted. But they left him in a commanding position -- well ahead of a fractured field, with his top rivals still refusing to rally behind a single champion."
Two students from UC Berkeley have proposed a system that aims to increase the turnout of young voters at the polls by automatically registering young adults to vote when they register for college classes online.
From the LAT's Christine Mai-Duc: "MTV has beckoned them to “Rock the Vote.” Lena Dunham and Lil Jon starred in a music video to urge them to “Turn Out for What.”
"But across the nation and particularly in California, young voters mostly haven’t. A dismal 8.2% of the state’s eligible 18-to-24-year-olds voted in November 2014, the last statewide general election, making up just 4% of voters that year. Nearly half of young people statewide didn’t even bother to register to vote."
"Two UC Berkeley students are looking to change that."
Elsewhere, A sheriff working at the Santa Clara jail where a mentally ill inmate was savagely beaten to death has decided to go into her own pockets to pay for security camera installations in "dark spots" around the institution -- which she did for less than $800 and within a matter of hours; the state told her it would take $20 million and two years.
Mercury News' Tracey Kaplan reports: "Told it would take two more years and up to $20 million to install more security cameras in Santa Clara County's troubled jails, Sheriff Laurie Smith decided Wednesday to whip out her Costco card and buy a few herself."
"The cost for 12 cameras to test: $761.24 -- which Smith put on her personal American Express."
"The sheriff's shopping spree came as three of her correctional officers appeared in court Wednesday on charges of beating a mentally ill inmate to death in August -- an incident that wasn't captured by the jail's existing cameras and exposed troubling surveillance gaps. Smith headed to the store after she learned that the county's plan to buy cameras through official channels could drag on for two years. She denied it was a publicity stunt."
Meanwhile, gun ownership is under fire this week in California as new policies involving fireams and ownership are being pushed through the legislature.
Capital Public Radio's Ben Adler reports: "The battle over the Second Amendment has returned to the California Legislature. An Assembly committee approved several new gun control measures Tuesday on party-line votes."
"One measure would prohibit tools like “bullet buttons” that critics say are used to evade California’s ban on assault rifles."
“The gun manufacturers have essentially made a mockery of our laws,” says Levine."
Speaking of legislators, it appears that the state's own accepted nearly a million dollars in lavish gifts from powerful interests last year.
Patrick McGreevy and Liam Dillion report in the LAT: "State legislators accepted more than $892,000 in gifts last year, including foreign trips, expensive dinners, concert and sports tickets, golf games, spa treatments, Disneyland admissions and bottles of tequila and wine, according to filings released Wednesday."
"Lawmakers had their expenses covered by others for educational and trade trips to France, China, Argentina, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, Mexico and Israel."
"In fact, travel costs dominate the gift tallies from last year with a large number of lawmakers deciding to fly overseas for conferences or policy meetings paid for entirely by influential interest groups and foundations."
And finally, from our "Lost and Found" file, we learn that a man believes he's found the long lost wreckage of flight MH370 -- the Malaysian airliner that disappeared in 2014 with 227 passengers on board.
"A UFO investigator looking for evidence of flying saucers inadvertently stumbled across the suspected aircraft in an eight-month-old Google satellite image."
"If Scott C. Waring is correct, the plane had travelled to the Cape of Good Hope, off Cape Town, South Africa."
"His claim today coincides with the discovery of debris on the east coast of Africa in an area between Mozambique and Madagascar."
