Protests demanding racial justice gain momentum across LA
LA Times: "Protests over police brutality and the death of George Floyd continued across Southern California on Tuesday, marking the fifth day demonstrators have taken to the streets to demand racial justice.
The protests, which centered in Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles, were largely peaceful in comparison with earlier demonstrations that devolved into the destruction and looting of businesses.
But confrontations with police persisted. And for the third night, L.A. County extended its sweeping curfew in an attempt to quell civil unrest. Several dozens protesters were arrested in downtown after refusing to leave after the 6 p.m. curfew."
READ MORE related to Criminal Justice Reform/Equality Movement: Photos from around the nation following the death of George Floyd -- WaPo; Police militarization amid protests spreads concern -- LA Times's KURTIS LEE/JENNY JARVIE/MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE; Tech companieds say they support racial justice. Their actions raise questions -- LA Times's JOHANA BHUIYAN; Mayor Garcetti takes a knee amid chants of 'Defund police!' at downtown LA protest -- LA Times; UCLA protests LAPD using Jackie Robinson stadium for protest arrest processing -- LA Times's GALE HOLLAND; Sacramento police investigate officer's use of neck restraint on teenager -- LA Times; Looters wreak havoc on Bay Area as police struggle to keep pace -- The Chronicle's MEGAN CASSIDY/ALEJANDRO SERRANO; National Guard rolls into Vallejo as police respond to second night of looting and violence -- The Chronicle's MATT KAWAHARA; DA Boudin drops charges against black teen in SFPD knee video -- The Chronicle's MEGAN CASSIDY; How Sacramento police left city unguarded over two chaotic nights of vandalism, mayhem -- Sac Bee's JASON POHL/RYAN SABALOW/SAM STANTON
Can Trump use 1807 law to send federal troops into states? It's been done before
The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "The last times U.S. presidents used the Insurrection Act of 1807 to send military forces into a state over the governor’s objections were during the civil rights era, to integrate an Arkansas high school in 1957 and the University of Mississippi in 1962.
The law allows a president to deploy troops to suppress “insurrection, or obstruction to the laws.” Now President Trump is threatening to use it to send armed forces to cities shaken by violent clashes between police and people protesting the death in Minneapolis of a black man who died after being pinned to the ground by white officers.
“If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” Trump said Monday."
California state offices reopening Wednesday in Sacramento, not other cities
Sac Bee's WES VENTEICHER: "State offices in Sacramento will reopen Wednesday after being closed for two days amid protests, the California Department of Human Resources announced Tuesday.
Downtown offices in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Los Angeles will remain closed, according to an emailed news release. All other state offices will reopen, the email says.
The state closed the offices after people broke into buildings and destroyed property in downtown Sacramento and other cities over the weekend amid protests over police killings of black people."
Cause of death: COVID-19, police violence or racism?
LA Times's MELISSA HEALY: "Doctors and public health experts will tell you that, compared to white Americans, African American people die prematurely and disproportionately of many ills: heart disease, stroke, COVID-19, police violence.
The proximate causes of these early deaths vary. But there is a sameness to the pattern, experts say, and a common source of the skewed statistics.
Racism — not in its overt, name-calling form, but the kind woven deeply into the nation’s institutions — harms the 44 million Americans who identify as black and potentially shortens their lives, according to those who study racial inequities in health. For some, including Minnesotan George Floyd, it causes premature death in minutes. For others, a lifetime of disadvantage takes its toll in subtler ways."
Prosecutors push for rules to block California DAs from taking police union campaign cash
Sac Bee's DARRELL SMITH: "As police brutality protests grip the nation, a clutch of progressive present and former prosecutors are demanding new conflict-of-interest rules barring California district attorneys and DA candidates from taking campaign cash from police unions.
Former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, Contra Costa County DA Diane Becton, San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin and San Joaquin County DA Tori Verber Salazar are calling on the California State Bar to prevent county prosecutors and those running for the office from accepting police unions’ donations or soliciting their endorsements.
In a letter to State Bar leaders, the four wrote that the rules must “explicitly preclude elected prosecutors or prosecutors seeking election from seeking or accepting political or financial support from law enforcement unions,” adding the rules would “enhance trust in our criminal justice system at a time when it is sorely needed."
How filing taxes could generate your coronavirus stimulus check
LA Times's LIZ WESTON: "Dear Liz: My adjusted gross income in 2019 was too high for me to get a stimulus relief payment. However, my income this year will be much lower and I would qualify. Will I automatically get the stimulus payment when I file my 2020 return or is there something I must do to get the money?
Answer: Just file your 2020 taxes and you’ll get the money.
The recent relief checks of up to $1,200 per adult were created using a refundable credit that will apply to 2020 taxes. (Refundable credits reduce your tax bill dollar for dollar, with any excess refunded to the taxpayer.)"
On Swann Street, D.C. protesters needed a refuge from police, so one resident ‘just opened a door’
From WaPo's DEREK HAWKINS: "From his front steps on Swann Street, Rahul Dubey watched uneasily as D.C. police in riot gear moved in on a throng of protesters.
There had been no sign of violence from the group of several hundred. But they were violating a newly imposed 7 p.m. curfew as they marched from the White House on Monday night to protest the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd.
Pelosi, bishop blast Trump's Bible visit to church after protesters pushed out of park
The Chronicle's TAL KOPAN: "Responding to President Trump’s displaying of a Bible in front of a fire-damaged church across from the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday read from her own.
Pelosi labeled as “unfortunate” the events of the day before, when federally commanded law enforcement officers used pepper balls and what authorities described as smoke canisters, but many witnesses called tear gas, to clear protesters from a park in front of the White House so Trump could have an unimpeded walk to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church.
It was among the milder reactions from Democrats and even the Episcopal bishop of the District of Columbia, who said the president had “used our sacred text as a symbol of division.”
Promised N95 masks for California still aren't here. Newsom weighs his options
Sac Bee's SOPHIA BOLLAG: "California still has not received millions of N95 masks it purchased from China-based BYD and is weighing how to proceed after the company missed an extended deadline to secure federal certification for the products, the Newsom administration says.
The company did not secure approval by May 31, as stipulated in the amended contract, said Brian Ferguson, spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Office of Emergency Services. The state has not signed any extension of the deal, although that’s still a possibility, Ferguson said.
“We’re looking at what the options are available to us legally, based on what’s happened,” Ferguson said, adding that there will likely be an update in the next day or two."
(OP-ED) There is no excuse for government-sanctioned violence against the free press
LA Times's EDITORIAL BOARD: "Journalists know that when they cover chaotic and dangerous events, a press credential is a thin shield against the bullets flying and batons swinging around them. But as protests have spread around the nation in recent days, journalists have become the targets themselves because they are journalists.
That is troubling on a number of levels. Whatever you think about the fourth estate, news reporters serve as the public’s eyes and ears on the events shaping the world. And in too many cities, local law enforcement has been trying to stop them from showing the public the turmoil caused by the death of George Floyd — and the government’s response to it.
The media’s job is complicated by a president who routinely refers to the media as the the “enemyof the people,” a freighted designation that historically has come with official crackdowns and persecutions. President Trump resorts to inflammatory rhetoric with disconcerting regularity, but words have meaning, and consequences."
SF pays 400k to settle suit over claim former DA Gascon carried guns on commercial flights
The Chronicle's DOMINIC FRACASSA: "San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a $400,000 settlement with a former investigator who claimed George Gascón retaliated against him for his role in blowing the whistle on Gascón’s alleged habit of carrying a firearm on commercial flights when he was the city’s district attorney.
Henry McKenzie sued the city in 2018, claiming that he was subjected to a “pattern of retaliation and harassment” after he and other investigators decided to go to the federal Transportation Security Administration with their concerns about Gascón allegedly bringing a gun onto flights, which they believed was a violation of federal law. McKenzie was fired in October 2017.
The lawsuit claimed the decision to blow the whistle was made by McKenzie and other members of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office Investigators Association, the equivalent of a union for investigators in the D.A.’s office."
Heat wave hits Bay Area as shelter in place, curfew force people to stay indoors
The Chronicle's STEVE RUBENSTEIN: "Temperatures began ramping up Tuesday and will climb even higher Wednesday, with a return of last week’s triple digits on the agenda for parts of the Bay Area, officials said.
“In the interior locations you could call it a heat wave,” said Scott Rowe, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
A heat advisory will be in effect for interior parts of the north, east and south bay, where temperatures were expected to hit the high 90s on Tuesday and low 100s on Wednesday. The advisory Wednesday will last from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m."
SAT plans for at-home tests suspended; some students may not have access to exams
LA Times's TERESA WATANABE: "SAT tests may not be available this fall to all students who want to take the college admissions exam as the coronavirus crisis has limited the availability of testing sites and efforts to develop an at-home exam have run into roadblocks, the College Board announced Tuesday.
The testing organization is calling on universities and colleges to take these circumstances into account and extend deadlines for test score submissions. The testing company also is asking college admissions officers to equally evaluate students who were unable to take the test with those who can and to consider that many students will not be able to take the exam more than once, which often yields higher scores.
The next SAT test is scheduled for August, but those seats already are rapidly filling up as 770,000 students who planned to take the exam this spring were unable to do so. The March, May and June exams were canceled amid the coronavirus crisis but College Board officials said they will offer testing every month from August, if safe to do so, including January 2021 if there is demand for it."
READ MORE related to Education: USC will reopen for fall semester with online and in-person classes, more distancing in dorms -- LA Times's TERESA WATANABE
More California districts would get more in federal aid than they'd lose in budget cuts
EdSource's JOHN FENSTERWALD/DANIEL J WILLIS: "State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and coalitions of labor and school district groups are asserting that California schools won’t be able to open safely if Congress doesn’t provide more aid to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.
Yet by one measure, school districts collectively would get nearly as much in already promised federal aid as their proposed state funding would be cut in 2020-21. And many districts may get more than they’ll lose in state aid.
Through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act that Congress passed in March, California’s K-12 schools would receive enough to cover more than 90% of the $6.4 billion that Newsom is proposing to cut from school districts’ and charter schools’ funding in the next state budget to make up for a massive projected decline in tax revenue."
Three PG&E contractors killed in Solano County helicopter crash
The Chronicle's JD MORRIS/MATT KAWAHARA: "Three people working a contract job for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. died Tuesday in a fiery helicopter crash in Solano County.
The incident occurred about 1 p.m. when a third-party contractor’s helicopter crashed into a 115,000-volt PG&E power line and burst into flames near Lyon Road and Soda Springs Road off Interstate 80 between Fairfield and Vacaville, officials said.
A small fire was ignited as a result of the crash but it was later extinguished by first responders."
California prisons launch statewide internal affairs team after mishandled inmate complaints
Sac Bee's MATT KRISTOFFERSEN: "The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation created a new statewide internal affairs division to investigate complaints against staff, aiming to standardize a process that various prisons had handled inconsistently.
The new unit — staffed with 36 lieutenants and six captains — was disclosed in a reportpublished by the system’s Office of Inspector General last week.
Its development followed a 2019 special review compiled by the Office of the Inspector General, which found that inmate complaints of staff misconduct were handled “inadequately” in more than half of all cases it analyzed at Salinas Valley State Prison."
Trump says GOP forced to find new state to host convention as NC stands by coronavirus measures
CNN's DAN MERICA/RYAN NOBLES/JEREMY DIAMOND: "President Donald Trump will not accept the 2020 Republican nomination in Charlotte, three Republican officials told CNN on Thursday.
The Republican National Committee, because of contractual agreements, will still be required to hold some formal portion of the convention in Charlotte. But the performative aspects of the convention, including the President's speech, will happen in another city.
"The night the President accepts the nomination will not happen in Charlotte," an RNC official tells CNN."
WaPo's GREG MILLER: "
The scenes have been disturbingly familiar to CIA analysts accustomed to monitoring scenes of societal unraveling abroad — the massing of protesters, the ensuing crackdowns and the awkwardly staged displays of strength by a leader determined to project authority.
In interviews and posts on social media in recent days, current and former U.S. intelligence officials have expressed dismay at the similarity between events at home and the signs of decline or democratic regression they were trained to detect in other nations.
“I’ve seen this kind of violence,” said Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst responsible for tracking developments in China and Southeast Asia. “This is what autocrats do. This is what happens in countries before a collapse. It really does unnerve me."
Persona non grata Iowa Rep. Steve King shunned by party leadership and voters at the ballot for consistent racial insensitivity
AP: "Republicans in northwest Iowa ousted Rep. Steve King in Tuesday’s primary, deciding they’ve had enough of the conservative lightning rod known for making incendiary comments about immigrants and white supremacy throughout his nearly two decades in Congress.
The nine-term congressman, shunned by his party leadership in Washington and many of his longtime supporters at home, lost to well-funded state Sen. Randy Feenstra in a five-way GOP primary. The challengers argued that King’s loss of clout, even more than his continuous string of provocative and racially-charged statements, was reason enough for turning on him.
“I said from day one that Iowans deserve a proven, effective conservative leader that will deliver results and I have done that in the Iowa Senate, being in the Iowa Legislature for the last 12 years, and I promise you I will deliver results in Congress," Feenstra said during a Facebook Live appearance with his family behind him."
