PG&E has been convicted of criminal charges for the San Bruno pipeline explosion, and now faces sentencing in January.
GEORGE AVALOS with The Mercury News: "PG&E must face sentencing in January on its criminal convictions linked to a fatal explosion in San Bruno after a federal judge Thursday night denied the embattled utility’s request to throw out the jury’s verdicts."
"The company had requested that U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson toss out all six guilty verdicts that the jury had reached in August in convicting PG&E of illegal actions before and after the lethal blast that killed eight and leveled a San Bruno neighborhood."
"The court denies PG&E’s motion in its entirety,” Judge Henderson stated in a nine-page ruling filed with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Thursday."
Donald Trump's immigration reform has California officials seeking interim solutions to stop potential mass deportations.
CARLA MARINUCCI with Politico: "As a growing number of California officials assail President-elect Donald Trump's immigration policies, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday called on the state's public university systems to declare themselves “sanctuary campuses” to protect hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrant students from deportation."
"Newsom, a candidate for governor in 2018 and a member of the University of California Board of Regents, urged aggressive action in a letter to UC president Janet Napolitano.".
"California needs to put up a moral wall — as he's putting up a physical wall — to push back against Trumpism,'' Newsom said during a press conference at the University of California, where he met with undocumented immigrant students who expressed fear that Trump’s administration may use confidential financial and family data on file at the universities to accelerate their deportation."
READ MORE related to Immigration: CSU chancellor says campus will remain safe for illegal immigrants -- but not sanctuaries -- City News Service STAFF
Meanwhile, pundits gather to discuss the post-election metrics of last week's momentous vote.
JAVIER PANZAR with LAT: "How did Donald Trump end up on the path to the White House? "
"Nine days after the presidential election, a bipartisan group of consultants and politicians came together for an L.A. Times panel to figure out what we all just went through and what's next."
"Democratic consultants including Sean Clegg, who worked for California Sen.-elect Kamala Harris this cycle, agreed that Trump's populist message tapped into a part of the electorate in Rust Belt states that Hillary Clinton's campaign did not appeal to. "
Cannabis legalization won't really be visible in California until 2018; however, medical marijuana will see an immediate reduction in its taxation during the transition.
DANIEL WHEATON with Union-Tribune: "Many provisions of Proposition 64 legalizing recreational marijuana won’t go into effect until 2018, but one aspect of it takes effect immediately."
"There’s no more tax on medical marijuana."
Fire fighters in California and Nevada train for intense rescue missions under extreme earthquake conditions.
SONAIYA KELLEY with LAT: "Cracked hunks of concrete are all that remain of a six-story hotel after a catastrophic magnitude 7.8 earthquake that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead. Nearby, a three-story garage has collapsed into itself and is littered with cars so badly damaged that the make and model of one is virtually unrecognizable."
"Eight members of Los Angeles County Fire Department's Search and Rescue Team are hard at work breaching the concrete of the hotel's facade to crawl inside and locate any survivors trapped below."
Sacramento County will soon be fined
BRAN BRANNAN with Sacrament Bee: "The state’s political watchdog approved $17,500 in fines against three local officials and political action committees Thursday."
"The Fair Political Practices Commission signed off on the fines as part of settlement agreements reached between the commission and Sacramento County Supervisor Susan Peters, Elk Grove City Councilman Steven Detrick, SMUD board President Nancy Bui Thompson and political action committees associated with San Juan Unified School District."
"The fines capped a busy election year for the commission, which approved 34 cases Thursday, including the four Sacramento County cases. Most involved a failure to file campaign reports.'
Homelessness is still an affliction of California's inner cities.
STEVE RUBENSTEIN, KEVIN FAGAN and JENNA LYONS with The Chronicle: "Homelessness across the United States fell slightly last year but increased in California and other West Coast states, largely due to a shortage of affordable housing, federal officials said Thursday."
"Around the nation, homelessness was down 3 percent amid growing scrutiny of the problem. In California, however, homelessness climbed 3 percent, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual snapshot assessment of homelessness in America."
"We have a lot left to do,” said HUD Secretary Julian Castro, adding that the incoming Trump administration had a responsibility to continue the effort. “I sure hope the next administration will take the baton and make more progress, and not drop the baton."
The Trump Team releases information on three of the President-elect's top choices for key positions within his adminstration.
STAFF with Union-Tribune: "President-elect Donald Trump is announcing his choices for three key administration jobs Friday, naming Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Kansas Rep.Mike Pompeo to head the CIA and former military intelligence chief Michael Flynn as his national security adviser."
"All three have been fierce critics of President Barack Obama and current U.S. policy. In tapping Sessions and Flynn, Trump is also rewarding a pair of loyalists who were among his most ardent supporters during the presidential campaign."
"Trump planned to announce the picks Friday, according to a senior transition official. The official insisted on anonymity in order to disclose the decisions ahead of Trump's announcement."
California's "egg law" lawsuit was just recently shut down in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
SUDHIN THANAWALA with AP: "Six states lacked the legal right to challenge a California law that prohibits the sale of eggs from chickens that are not raised in accordance with strict space requirements, a federal appeals court said Thursday."
"The states — Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky and Iowa — failed to show how the law would affect them and not just individual egg farmers, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. The court upheld a lower court decision that dismissed the lawsuit."
"California voters approved a ballot initiative in 2008 that set the space requirements for egg-laying hens in the state. The standards say chickens must spend most of their day with enough space to lie down, stand up, turn around and fully extend their limbs."
Nestle may find itself in a continued legal battle over water, after environmental groups give a notice of intent to appeal their case with the beverage giant.
JIM STEINBERG with San Bernardino Sun: "Three environmental and community-based groups have given their notice of intent to appeal a federal court’s ruling allowing a subsidiary of Nestlé to continue to remove millions of gallons of water annually from the San Bernardino National Forest."
"This notice comes after Riverside-based federal Judge Jesus G. Bernal rejected plaintiffs’s arguments in September that the U.S. Forest Service had broken federal procedures in allowing Nestlé Waters North America to remove water from the remote West Fork of Strawberry Creek, which is located above San Bernardino."
"The original lawsuit was filed in October 2015 by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Story of Stuff Project, and The Courage Campaign claiming that the Forest Service made errors in allowing Nestlé to maintain pipelines, pumps and other structures in the San Bernardino National Forest for 28 years after its permit expired."
Rumored tuition hikes in the UC school system lead to a protest that disrupts a UC Board of Regents meeting.
FILIPA A. IOANNOU with The Chronicle: "University of California students protesting tuition increases disrupted a UC Board of Regents meeting on Thursday and were threatened with arrest after they began chanting and refused to leave the meeting room."
"Students from across California had traveled by charter buses to UCSF’s Mission Bay Conference Center to protest against a probable tuition increase — the first in six years — that would apply in fall 2018."
"They had gathered outside the center before the meeting and chanted, “Two, four, six, eight — can’t afford to graduate!” as regents entered the building."
READ MORE related to Education: Schools reassure students fearful of deportation -- JULIA MITRIC with CPR
