“We’re sitting here with millions of dollars of investments, millions paid in taxes to the city and 60 local employees. And we’re going to have to shutter our doors,” said Dan Grace, who runs the East Oakland nursery."
READ MORE related to Cannabis: Sacramento City Council finalizes licensing fees for commercial marijuana growers -- Sacramento Bee's PETER HECHT
The CHP has recommended that more than 100 people be charged in a melee that occured during a pro-White supremacy rally last summer.
Sacramento Bee's CATHY LOCKE: "The California Highway Patrol is recommending charges against 106 people after completing an investigation into a June melee on the grounds of the state Capitol."
"The CHP issued a news release Wednesday announcing that it has forwarded a 2,000-page investigative report and several hours of video footage to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors will consider 514 misdemeanor and 68 felony charges involving 106 people. The charges include unlawful assembly and assault with a deadly weapon."
"The violence erupted June 26 between a small group of neo-Nazi demonstrators affiliated with the Traditionalist Workers Party, who had obtained a permit to hold a rally in the west area of Capitol Park, and members of a group called Antifa, which describes itself as anti-fascist. Antifa did not have a permit and showed up to disrupt the neo-Nazi rally."
READ MORE related to Public Safety: Marine Corps women say their photos were posted without consent -- AP's ROBERT JABLON; Family of teen involved in Anaheim scuffle with off-duty LAPD policeman files lawsuit -- OC Register's KELLY PUENTE
Valley fever cases increase and health experts are trying to spread awareness.
Sacramento Bee's ROBIN OPSAHL: "In 2011, Renee Lascaux went to her doctor’s office in Tracy with a fever, cough and headache. Her doctor took an X-ray, said it was pneumonia and sent her home with antibiotics. Within a week, she was in an emergency room with worsening symptoms."
"I was losing hair – literally losing clumps of hair – and they tried to tell me it was because of age,” said Lascaux, 66."
"Lascaux, an artist who now lives in Madera, said her doctors didn’t recognize that she had Valley fever, a fungal lung infection, when they first diagnosed her. She ended up spending 60 days in the hospital as doctors worked to identify and combat the disease. After she was discharged, she was prescribed an anti-fungal medication, Itraconazole, which likely will be part of her routine for the rest of her life."
Women around the country took to the streets Wednesday to participate in 'Day Without a Woman' protest.
AP's ERRIN HAINES WHACK: "Many American women stayed home from work, joined rallies or wore red Wednesday to demonstrate how vital they are to the U.S. economy, as International Women's Day was observed with a multitude of events around the world."
"The Day Without a Woman protest in the U.S. was put together by organizers of the vast women's marches that drew more than 1 million Americans the day after President Donald Trump's inauguration."
"The turnout on the streets this time was much smaller in many places, with crowds often numbering in the hundreds. There were no immediate estimates of how many women heeded the call to skip work."
READ MORE related to Women's Day March: Women's Day march kicks off in Oakland -- The Chronicle's MICHAEL BODLEY; Berkeley women go on strike for International Women's Day -- Daily Californian's CHRISTINE LEE
Jerry Brown will have an opportunity to appoint a new Justice after Kathryn M. Werdegar announced her plan to retire on August 31st of this year.
Sacramento Bee's CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO: "Gov. Jerry Brown will have another opportunity to shape the state’s highest court after Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar announced Tuesday her plans to retire later this year."
"Werdegar’s departure, set for Aug. 31, will give Brown his fourth opportunity in his second stint as governor to mold the seven-member California Supreme Court, long regarded by legal experts as among the most influential in the nation."
"Brown’s recent appointments, of Leondra Kruger, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and Goodwin Liu have recast the court with Democratic appointees from outside the judiciary. Like Brown, all three attended Yale Law School."
READ MORE related to Local: Mayor Garcetti's landslide victory could give him much more political clout -- Daily News' ELIZABETH CHOU; Why did LA voters take a wrecking ball to Measure S? -- Daily News' DANA BARTHOLOMEW
As technology and the internet continue to expand and integrate with our daily lives, some people believe that an expectation of complete privacy is naive in this day and age.
The Chronicle's MARISSA LANG: "Nearly a week before WikiLeaks revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency may be using personal electronic devices for espionage, alawsuit settlement admonished Facebook for reading messages the company had led its users to believe were private."
"These were not the first instances in which Facebook and the federal government have been accused of gathering information from people’s private devices, conversations or even homes."
"And they won’t be the last."
BART is looking to raise its fares and increase the base price for paper tickets if people don't use their Clipper card.
The Chronicle's MICHAEL CABANATUAN/STEVE RUBENSTEIN: "Faced with a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall and flat ridership, BART is taking the first step toward a possible fare hike."
“Nobody wants to increase fares or reduce service or do anything that has an impact on riders,” said Rebecca Saltzman, president of the BART Board of Directors. “But we have to consider all options.”
"Among the possibilities:"
A freeze on federal funds headed for sanctuary cities is going to court as San Francisco tries to have a judge decide if the order is Constitutional or not.
The Chronicle's EMILY GREEN: "President Trump’s executive order to cut funding to sanctuary cities has injected huge uncertainty in San Francisco’s budget, City Attorney Dennis Herrera alleged Wednesday as he asked a federal judge to freeze the order until a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality is resolved."
"If “defendants strip all federal funds from San Francisco, the result will be ‘catastrophic,’” Herrera wrote in seeking an injunction in U.S. District Court. “Under this cloud of uncertainty and budgetary sword of Damocles, San Francisco must adopt an annual budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2017.”
"San Francisco has a $9.6 billion budget, and Mayor Ed Lee is in the process of creating a blueprint for how to spend that money over the next two years. But he is operating blindly, as the Trump administration has not clarified how much money San Francisco stands to lose because of its sanctuary policy limiting its cooperation with federal immigration authorities."
Orange County's largest detention center is coming under scrutiny after the revelation that immigrant detainees were living in horrific conditions.
LA Times' MATT HAMILTON: "The hundreds of immigrant detainees housed in Orange County’s largest detention facility have been served foul, slimy lunch meat; use moldy showers; and contend with inoperable phones, according to the findings of an internal inspection issued Wednesday."
"Some detainees said they had to rinse their acrid lunch meat off with water before eating it, according to the report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General."
"The review, which was based on an unannounced inspection in October and interviews with detainees and staff members, found that the poor conditions violate standards set by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
Pay-to-stay jails which allow defendants the opportunity to stay at satellite facilities with upgraded amenities has many angry over the threat this type of structure presents to 'the spirit of equal justice.'
LA Times' STAFF: "Alan Wurtzel met Carole Markin on Match.com in 2010. On their first date, he took her to coffee. After their second date, he walked Markin to her door, followed her inside and, she said, forced her to perform oral sex."
"Wurtzel later claimed the act was consensual, but in 2011 he pleaded no contest to sexual battery and was sentenced to a year in jail. His victim was disappointed in the short sentence, but she still believed a measure of justice would be served with her assailant locked behind bars at the Los Angeles County Jail."
"Instead, Wurtzel found a better option: For $100 a night, he was permitted by the court to avoid county jail entirely. He did his time in Seal Beach’s small city jail, with amenities that included flat-screen TVs, a computer room and new beds. He served six months, at a cost of $18,250, according to jail records."
Asbestos is still a major threat to Americans as companies continue to look for cheaper alternatives due to a lack of EPA effort in trying to get the substance banned.
LA Times' EVAN HALPER: "Amid the Republican backlash against federal scientists who write rules governing everything from movie theater popcorn to offshore oil drilling, stories abound of overburdened businesses, heavy-handed civil servants and crushing paperwork."
"But another story, one involving a deadly household material, offers a lesson in what can go wrong when government experts are shackled, as currently envisioned under a sweeping regulatory reform bill gliding toward President Trump’s desk."
"The GOP-backed legislation revives many of the rule-making hurdles that for years crippled the government’s ability to respond to the asbestos-exposure epidemic, which has been blamed for tens of thousands of American deaths."
READ MORE related to Environment: County leads join political efforts to ban toxic chemical from refineries in Torrance and Wilmington -- Daily News' NICK GREEN
Hawaii has taken Trump's revised travel ban to court, and is the first state to do so.
AP's JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER/CALEB JONES: "Hawaii has become the first state to sue to stop President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban."
"Attorneys for the state filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Honolulu. The state had previously sued over Trump’s initial travel ban, but that lawsuit was put on hold while other cases played out across the country."
"Hawaii gave notice Tuesday night that it intended to file an amended lawsuit to cover the new ban, which plans to goes into effect March 16."
