Striking teachers, staff rally outside Sac City Unified district offices
SAWSAN MORRAR and MICHAEL McGOUGH, SacBee: “Sacramento schools closed Wednesday morning as teachers and school staff went on strike and stood at picket lines at about 80 campuses across the city.
Many of Sacramento City Unified’s 2,800 teachers and 1,800 classified school employees from SEIU Local 1021 planned to stand outside of their empty, closed schools wearing red, and holding signs calling on the district to negotiate.
It’s the second teachers strike since 2019. SEIU, which represents classified employees, went on strike in solidarity with teachers over health and safety protocols during the pandemic and staffing shortages which have left hundreds of students without a full-time teacher.
Gavin Newsom plan would give California drivers up to $800 to deal with high gas prices
ANDREW SHEELER, SacBee: “Californians who drive could receive up to $800 under a proposal released by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday.
The money — $400 per vehicle, capped at two vehicles — would come in the form of a debit card from the state, according to a statement from Newsom’s office.
The proposed $9 billion allocation comes as part of a $11 billion package aimed at helping provide relief from skyrocketing gas prices in California.
CSU officially drops SAT and ACT admissions requirement in major move
LA Times, COLLEEN SHALBY: "Trustees of California State University, the largest four-year university system in the nation, agreed Wednesday to permanently drop the SAT and ACT standardized tests in its admissions process, solidifying the state’s national role in eliminating the high-stakes exams because of equity concerns.
The move comes after the University of California system led the way, making the bold decision in 2020 to drop the exams, triggering a national debate over whether the tests unfairly discriminate against disadvantaged students or provide a useful tool to evaluate college applicants.
The CSU decision follows a two-year suspension that aimed to decrease anxiety and limited access to the tests for applicants during the pandemic. The Cal State Student Assn. and the Cal State Academic Senate also supported the discontinuation of tests."
University of Southern California Pulls Out of Education-School Rankings, Citing Data Errors
MELISSA KORN, Wall Street Journal: “The University of Southern California is withdrawing its education school from U.S. News & World Report’s graduate-school rankings after determining it had provided the publication with inaccurate data going back at least five years.
USC Provost Charles F. Zukoski told students and staff at the Rossier School of Education in a letter Wednesday that the school’s dean, Pedro A. Noguera, notified him recently of “a history of inaccuracies in the survey data.” A school representative declined to comment beyond the letter.
Dr. Zukoski said the school pulled itself from a set of graduate-school rankings that was set to be released in coming days “while we seek to understand the situation further.”
‘Fighting them all the way’: Santa Clara County sues more businesses for ignoring COVID fines
GABRIEL GRESCHLER, Mercury News: “While its battles with Calvary Chapel and California Ripped Fitness over millions of dollars in COVID-related health fines have grabbed the headlines, Santa Clara County has been quietly pursuing legal action against a handful of small businesses that have refused to pay for their own infractions.
According to court documents filed between October and March, the county is suing six other establishments in San Jose, Los Gatos and Sunnyvale for not paying fines ranging from $13,200 to $43,450. The targeted businesses include a massage therapy facility, café, salon, packing supply center, grill and hookah lounge.
The lawsuits allege that over the last two years, those businesses violated public health orders meant to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by failing to enforce mask and social distance rules and by operating during prohibited periods. The county also claims the businesses were given multiple warnings about the fines — and even offered options — but repeatedly ignored them.”
Former CSU Northridge president appointed CSU interim chancellor
ASHLEY A. SMITH, EdSoure: “Jolene Koester will become just the second woman in California State University history to lead the 23-campus system. CSU’s Board of Trustees announced Wednesday that she’ll be the system’s new interim chancellor.
Koester, 74, served as president of CSU Northridge from 2000 to 2011, is replacing Joseph Castro who resigned on Feb. 17 after coming under fire for mishandling sexual harassment complaints against Fresno State’s vice president of student affairs during Castro’s time as campus president.
In an interview with EdSource, Koester said she wants to repair the relationship between the chancellor’s office, students, faculty and the CSU community.”
More than 500,000 in California will struggle to pay student loans once pause ends, study finds
DAVID LIUGHTMAN, SacBee: “Nearly 545,000 California student loan borrowers will be at “high risk of struggling to repay their loans” once the federal payment pause ends May 1, a new California Policy Lab study said Wednesday.
The federal pause, which has been extended three times, began in March 2020, as the COVID pandemic began, as a way to relieve pressure on strapped lenders.
“Put plainly, the pause on student loan payments worked,” said Dalié Jiménez, director of the Student Loan Law Initiative at University of California, Irvine School of Law.
S.F. residents, like many in California, face water-rate hike — but there’s one way to avoid a bigger bill
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "San Francisco residents are about to see another downside of drought: higher water rates.
Like a growing number of water agencies in California, the city’s water department has been losing millions of dollars as households and businesses, doing their part in a third dry year, conserve more and fork over less money to the utility.
To make up for the loss, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to temporarily raise water and wastewater rates 5% for retail customers starting April 1."
BART reinstates only Black board member after transit agency discovers she was ousted prematurely
The Chronicle, RICARDO CANO: "Lateefah Simon will remain on the BART Board of Directors, the transit agency announced Wednesday morning, nearly two weeks after it forced her to vacate her seat for moving out of her district.
But it turns out that BART jumped the gun in declaring Simon’s seat vacant, and Simon never truly left the Board of Directors despite the agency’s declaration.
After seeking outside legal counsel from election law experts, the agency discovered that “BART staff alone are not independently empowered to declare a vacancy,” and the BART Board of Directors didn’t take the required formal action to declare a vacancy."
$95,000 for 200 square feet: Tiny homes are in demand amid the Bay Area’s affordability crisis
The Chronicle, ANNIE VAINSHTEIN: "With California still in the midst of a deepening housing crisis, some would-be homeowners facing insurmountable barriers to buying a traditional dwelling are turning to tiny homes — with a smaller footprint and a smaller price point to match.
Over the last few years, there has been an increasing interest — and demand for — tiny home living, particularly across the Bay Area, real estate agents say. To keep up with that demand, the marketplace has gotten hotter, and is churning out new manufacturers and sellers everyday.
Some sellers offer plots where people can live after buying their tiny home. Others require them to be shipped or trucked to land that the buyers own."
A ‘blood money’ betrayal: How corruption spoiled reparations for Armenian genocide victims
LA Times, HARRIET RYAN/MATT HAMILTON: "They were bayoneted in their homes. Drowned in the Black Sea. Shot. Tortured in front of crowds. Forced to convert. Forced into prostitution. Burned alive. Poisoned. Driven into the desert to die of thirst. Their bodies were thrown in pits, torched, eaten by dogs and picked over by vultures.
By many estimates, a million Armenians died in the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1920, one of the first genocides in a century that would be defined by mass killings. Ignored by most of the world and denied by the Turkish government, the Armenian slaughter was considered for generations a “perfect genocide,” its victims forgotten, its perpetrators unpunished.
Then, in the mid-2000s, court cases in Los Angeles, home to one of the largest Armenian communities outside Armenia, delivered a measure of justice that history had long denied. Three Armenian American attorneys sued to collect life insurance policies on victims of the genocide, and came away with a pair of class-action settlements totaling $37.5 million. Finally, in an American courtroom, the genocide was treated as fact."
US finds Russian troops have committed war crimes in Ukraine
AP, MATTHEW LEE: "The Biden administration on Wednesday made a formal determination that Russian troops have committed war crimes in Ukraine and said it would work with others to prosecute offenders, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
“Today, I can announce that, based on information currently available, the U.S. government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine,” Blinken said in a statement released as he was traveling to Brussels with President Joe Biden for an emergency summit of NATO leaders.
The assessment was based on a “careful review” of public and intelligence sources since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last month, he said.“
READ MORE NEWS RELATED TO THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE: NATO: 7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops dead in Ukraine -- AP, NEBI QENA/CARA ANNA
