Clinton overpowers Sanders in California, writing a new page in the history books as the first-ever American female presidential nominee -- but Sanders still refuses to back down.
Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin in the NY Times: "Hillary Clinton claimed the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday night after decisive victories in the California, New Jersey and New Mexico primaries, and she quickly appealed to supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont to unite with her against Donald J. Trump."
"The Associated Press reported early Wednesday that Mrs. Clinton had won California, but Mr. Sanders gave no indication that he would yield, insisting earlier that he would continue his campaign and barely acknowledging her achievement."
"With the 14-month Democratic race nearing a close, Mrs. Clinton savored the biggest night of her extraordinary journey from lawyer, wife and first lady to senator, secretary of state and, now, the first woman to win a major party’s nomination. At a rally in Brooklyn, she took the stage with her hands clasped over her heart in gratitude, then threw open her arms in joy and savored a long moment as a jubilant crowd waved American flags and chanted “Hillary.”
Sanders gave an impassioned speech to a supportive crowd in Santa Monica on Tuesday night, praising his patrons and vowing to continue fighting his campaign's uphill battle.
Daniel Strauss reporting with Politico writes: "Bernie Sanders early Wednesday morning pledged to "fight on" in the Democratic primary, even after Hillary Clinton secured the delegates needed to clinch the nomination."
"Next Tuesday we continue the fight in the last primary in Washington, D.C.," Sanders said, as the crowd of supporters roared in Santa Monica."
“And then we take our fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice to Philadelphia," Sanders said, promising to continue his campaign all the way to the convention in July."
SEE ALSO: Sanders campaign to lay off massive numbers of staff -- Daniel Strauss in Politico.
Reeps will be missing out on Barbara Boxer's U.S. Senate seat after too many split votes in California's primary leaves all red party candidates out in the cold.
Politico's Elena Schneider reports: "Democrats Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez finished first and second in California's Senate primary, setting up a Democrat-versus-Democrat general election clash for retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer's seat."
"Harris, the state attorney general, had 40 percent of the vote with 47 percent of precincts reporting when the Associated Press called the all-party, top-two primary. Sanchez, a House member from Orange County, had 17 percent of the vote."
"The leading Republican contender, Duf Sundheim, had 9 percent. Sundheim and 11 other Republicans split thousands of votes among them, locking their party out of the Senate race in the nation's most populous state."
Proposition 50, the measure allowing legislatures to cease the pay and benefits of suspended colleagues, passed the vote Tuesday with very little resistance.
The Chronicle's John Wildermuth reports: "Proposition 50, which will allow both houses of the Legislature to suspend erring members without pay, won easily Tuesday."
"The measure was put on the ballot by a bipartisan vote of state lawmakers in an effort to close a hole in the Legislature’s disciplinary rules."
"In 2014, three Democratic state legislators, including San Francisco state Sen. Leland Yee, were facing criminal charges. Although the Legislature suspended them in March 2014, under the rules, all three continued to collect their $95,000 salaries, along with all benefits, even though they could not vote or conduct any legislative business."
Sacramento mayoral contender Scott Steinberg took opponent Angelique Ashby to the cleaner's and secured a decisive victory by a nearly 40% lead.
Capitol Public Radio's Bob Mofftt reports: "Darrell Steinberg has claimed victory in the Sacramento mayor's race. At his election night party, the former councilman and state senator had a long list of people to thank."
"I want to thank all those, the 64 times two or three hosts and hostesses who opened up their homes to me for the unprecedented numbers of coffees," he says. "Caffeine is me."
"As of 11:30 p.m., Steinberg was leading by 61.04 percent compared to Angelique Ashby's 24.11 percent."
San Francisco's Office of Citizen Complaints are now responsible for a new layer of mandatory, investigative oversight to all serious/lethal uses of force incidents by local police--a system previously inefficient due to it's old case-review-request requirement whenever departmental violence occurred during an arrest.
KQED's Alex Emslie reports: "A San Francisco ballot measure mandating a civilian layer to police shooting investigations looks to be passing, according to the city’s preliminary vote count."
"Voters in favor of Proposition D’s automatic investigations by the Office of Citizen Complaints — following any officer-involved shooting resulting in death or serious injury — outnumbered those opposed 4-1 in early results released by the San Francisco Department of Elections as of 11 p.m. Tuesday night."
“San Francisco has spoken,” said the measure’s author, Supervisor Malia Cohen. “San Francisco has asked for accountability and transparency, and that’s exactly what they’re going to get.”
And now from our "Weird science" file ...
Apparently a team of Chinese scientists have succeeded in a gene therapy that would allow pet owners to customize the way their pet looks before it's actually born--and some see this as the harbinger of a much more sinister philisophical debate: human designer babies.
Mirror.co.uk: "Scientists have bred the world's first spotty sheep that look like "cows" and "spotty dogs" in a controversial genetic engineering experiement."
"The genetically modified animals are the brainchild of Liu Mingjun - chief researcher at the state-run Xinjiang Animal Husbandry Research Institute."
"He says the lambs, which were born in March using Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) technology, “have become our lovely pets,” and pave the way for dye-free wool and pets with customised fur."
