Unprecedented water restrictions ordered as MWD declares water shortage emergency
LA Times, IAN JAMES: “Southern California officials on Tuesday took the unprecedented step of declaring a water shortage emergency and ordering outdoor usage be restricted to just one day a week for about 6 million people in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties.
The outdoor watering restrictions will take effect June 1 under the decision by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and will apply to areas that depend on water from the drought-ravaged State Water Project.
“We are seeing conditions unlike anything we have seen before,” said Adel Hagekhalil, the district’s general manager. “We need serious demand reductions.””
Villanueva backs off investigation of Times reporter who revealed cover-up
LA Times, HARRIET RYAN/BRITTNY MEJIA: “Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Tuesday that his department was targeting a Times journalist in a criminal leak investigation for her reporting on a departmental cover-up, but after a barrage of criticism from politicians, the newspaper and press freedom groups, he backed off his announcement and denied that he considered the reporter a suspect.
The sheriff lashed out at Times staff writer Alene Tchekmedyian during a morning news conference in which he suggested two longtime foes leaked her a surveillance video showing a deputy kneeling on the head of a handcuffed inmate.
Detailing an ongoing criminal probe of the leak, Villanueva displayed a poster with large photographs of Tchekmedyian, his political rival Eli Vera and sheriff’s Inspector General Max Huntsman with arrows pointing from the two men to the reporter.”
Thousands of nurses continue strike as bargaining continues between Stanford, Packard and nurses’ union
ALDO TOLEDO, Mercury News: “About 5,000 nurses at Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital remained on the picket line Tuesday as leaders began the first day of negotiations in the early morning since the start of the strike.
Union leaders and hospital officials were tight-lipped about the closed-door bargaining, but nurses say they are prepared to strike indefinitely until a reasonable contract is agreed upon.
On Monday, Stanford Health Care and Packard Hospital canceled appointments, postponed surgeries and sent chemotherapy patients to sister hospitals as the thousands of nurses walked off the job Monday, forcing hundreds of traveling nurses to scramble to meet patient demand.”
COVID in California: Bay Area infections up 110% in 1 month, most since mid-February
The Chronicle, Aidin Vaziri/Rita Beamish/Erin Allday/Catherine Ho/Nanette Asimov: “Thousands of Stanford nurses, stressed and fed up with what they say are pandemic strains on top of long shifts and compensation issues, are on strike. One nurse felt compelled to tell her story and why she supports the strike in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed piece. Marin County is showcasing youth art aimed at hopeful messages around mental health and suicide prevention following an increase in poor mental health during the pandemic.
Latest updates:
COVID-19 absences delay 2 Biden appointees: Two of President Biden’s nominees to sit on the Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission are in limbo because of a spate of Democratic absences in the Senate due to new COVID-19 infections, the Hill reports. Vice President Harris, who casts tiebreaking votes in the 50-50 Senate, and Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) announced Tuesday they tested positive for COVID-19, which means they will miss Senate votes this week.
That leaves Biden's nominations of Lisa Cook for the Fed and Alvaro Bedoya for the FTC on hold. ”
Conservatives ecstatic about Elon Musk buying Twitter: ‘Time they get their comeuppance’
LA Times, MELANIE MASON: “With tweets laden with exclamation marks and celebratory hashtags, Republicans on Monday made their mood abundantly clear: They were elated by the news Elon Musk was buying Twitter.
“WELCOME BACK FIRST AMENDMENT!” blared Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), in all caps. A Twitter survey by Sen. Ted Cruz asked if Musk’s purchase was a good thing, with the only options to answer being “yes” or “no, I hate free speech.”
His fellow Texan, Rep. John Carter, signaled his approval with no words at all; three clapping-hands emojis were sufficient.
A pot-smoking, meme-posting evangelist for electric vehicles may be an unlikely hero for conservatives. But the Tesla chief executive’s amorphous vow to restore free speech to the social media platform has resonated among Republicans, who see themselves — starting with their de facto leader, former President Trump — as unfairly targeted by Twitter’s content moderation efforts.”
San Francisco is very similar to this state on the East Coast. Here’s why
The Chronicle, NAMI SUMIDA: “Which U.S. state is San Francisco most like?
Could it be Massachusetts, the state with the most Democrats? Perhaps it’s Hawaii, with its large share of Asian residents. Or maybe Vermont, the state with the smallest share of children?
The Chronicle identified the state (other than California) that best matches San Francisco in terms of its demographics, including race and ethnicity, age and income, as well as voting behavior and election results. It’s not the only way to think about similarity across places, but it’s an illuminating one.”
Oakland, Berkeley residents to see water usage capped amid drought fears
The Chronicle, SARAH RAVANI: “The East Bay Municipal Utility District Board of Directors voted Tuesday to cap water usage for households in much of Contra Costa and Alameda counties, including Oakland and Berkeley — marking a significant step to address the state’s dire drought situation.
The move comes as the state faces its third dry year with shrinking reservoirs and a snowpack that is far smaller than normal, despite the recent rains. The water agency’s staff said the region is expected to have one of the driest water periods on record.
In another sign of the difficulty facing California water suppliers, a huge Southern California water district voted Tuesday to limit outdoor watering to a single day per week for 6 million people in Los Angeles and nearby counties — something the district has never done before, according to the Los Angeles Times.”
UC Berkeley student facing felony charges for threatening to shoot staff, prompting lockdown, D.A. says
The Chronicle, JESSICA FLORES: “A 39-year-old UC Berkeley student is facing felony charges for allegedly threatening university staff members in an incident that prompted an extended campus-wide shelter-in-place order while authorities searched for him last week.
Alameda County prosecutors on Monday charged Lamar Bursey of Hayward with two counts of felony criminal threats.
The university had placed Bursey on academic suspension for an incident that occurred April 14, a week before the alleged threats to staff, according to a declaration by UC Berkeley police filed in Superior Court. Officials did not detail what happened in the earlier matter.”
Four days added to the next L.A. school year despite complaints it’s a waste of money
LA Times, MELISSA GOMEZ: “In a significant move to bolster academic recovery efforts, the Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday evening added four more days to the next school year, a decision that leaders said addresses the needs of students struggling to learn over the complaints of some parents and teachers about late changes to family and work calendars.
In a unanimous vote, the board approved a $122-million plan for four extra days and three professional development days for teachers on top of the state-required 180 instruction days. The four days will be scheduled at critical points in the school year — at the 10-week semester mark and before final grades are due. Regular classes will be canceled and schools will be able to customize how best to use the day to help students.
At an elementary school, for instance, the day could bring specialized small-group instruction and individualized support for students, parent-teacher meetings or intensive support for literacy and math skills — even family seminars to support learning with at-home activities. At middle and high schools, counselors and teachers could meet with students to go over work that needs to be made up; students could work on missing assignments to shore up grades, get tutoring or participate in mini-lessons.”
Antisemitism has surged, new ADL audit shows
The Chronicle, RACHEL SWAN: “California witnessed 367 incidents of antisemitic hate and harassment last year, part of a record national spike that observers fear will only continue in 2022, as right-wing extremism ricochets online and fringe groups pop up throughout the Bay Area.
The numbers released Tuesday in a new audit by the Anti-Defamation League demonstrate an unsettling surge across the U.S., with 2,717 antisemitic incidents logged last year — up 34% from the 2,026 documented in 2020, and the highest number since the organization began tracking this data in 1979.
A spate of disturbing local incidents appears to be consistent with this trend. On Sunday, residents of Danville reported finding antisemitic flyers on their driveways and doorsteps. Similar leaflets have appeared in Pacific Heights, Palo Alto and the North Berkeley hills. In February, the owner of two Berkeley yoga studios fired an instructor after learning that her boyfriend runs an antisemitic website that the ADL linked to at least 74 incidents of propaganda.”
Broken Homes
The Chronicle, JOAQUIN PALOMINO/TRISHA THADANI: “For two years, this has been Pauline Levinson’s home:
A run-down, century-old hotel in the Tenderloin, where a rodent infestation became so severe that she pitched a tent inside her room to keep the mice away.
Where residents have threatened each other with knives, crowbars and guns, sometimes drawing police to the building several times a day.”
Escape from Mariupol: 10 minutes to pack up, then a risky 11-hour drive
LA Times, NABIH BULOS: “It had taken 11 hours of driving, bargaining for passage through 20 checkpoints manned by stern-faced Russian soldiers, along with the knowledge that every mile took you farther away from home, probably for good.
But by 6 p.m., the three families crammed into a worn-down Mercedes van had made it out of Mariupol, Ukraine.“There were so many bombs,” said Volodymyr Korotky, a 56-year-old mechanic who left Mariupol with his family and only two suitcases’ worth of clothes he could save from his destroyed apartment. “I’m so happy we’re in Ukrainian territory.”
He and his wife, along with nine other people, arrived at the parking lot of an Epicenter store, a sort of Ukrainian Home Depot, here on the edge of Zaporizhzhia, which has become the primary node for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Melitopol, Berdyansk and Mariupol — cities in the south and southeast that bear witness to the horror and despair of Russia’s occupation.”
