California lawmakers to investigate steep gas prices, accuse oil companies of ‘ripping off’ motorists
LAT, PHIL WILLON: “With steep gasoline prices still stinging Californians at the pump, Democratic Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon on Monday announced a legislative inquiry to determine if oil companies are “ripping off” drivers.
Combined with the highest inflation rate in four decades, California’s highest-in-the nation gas prices remain a volatile political issue in the midst of an election year, and Republican lawmakers continue to attack the Legislature’s Democratic leadership for failing to take quick action to provide relief.
Rendon said the Assembly select committee will consider what measures the state can enact to reduce gas prices and “stand up to the profiteers who are abusing a historic situation to suck profits from California’s wallets.”
California lawmakers promise relief with probe into ‘gas price gouging’
ELIYAHU KAMISHER, Mercury News: "Democratic lawmakers in the State Assembly announced a probe into California’s oil and gas market on Monday, saying profiteering in the industry is partially behind the state’s record high gas prices that are hovering around $6.40 a gallon.
The oil industry has a “foot on our necks and a hand in our pockets,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said during a news conference announcing a committee to investigate the industry’s pricing practices.
“These are companies that are obviously ripping off California consumers, and we need to ask tough questions about them and their business practices,” he said."
School’s Out for Summer and Many Teachers Are Calling It Quits
KATHRYN DILL, Wall Street Journal: "Many teachers have packed up classrooms for the last time as schools break for summer, leaving a profession where stresses have multiplied as a national teacher shortage threatens to grow.
Some 300,000 public-school teachers and other staff left the field between February 2020 and May 2022, a nearly 3% drop in that workforce, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Worn down by the challenges of teaching through the past few years, more educators say they are considering doing the same: A National Education Association poll conducted this year found 55% of teachers said they would leave education sooner than planned, up from 37% last August.
Grappling with remote learning and shifting Covid-19 safety protocols was hard enough, teachers say. But as schools have filled back up with students, more stressors have emerged: staffing shortfalls, contentious masking-policy debates, political battles over what teachers can and can’t discuss or teach in the classroom."
This new California coronavirus wave isn’t sticking to the script: Big spread, less illness
LAT, LUKE MONEY: “In the last two years, COVID-19 has followed a predictable, if painful, pattern: When coronavirus transmission has rebounded, California has been flooded with new cases and hospitals have strained under a deluge of seriously ill patients, a distressing number of whom die.
But in a world awash in vaccines and treatments, and with healthcare providers armed with knowledge gleaned over the course of the pandemic, the latest wave isn’t sticking to that script.
Despite wide circulation of the coronavirus — the latest peak is the third-highest of the pandemic — the impact on hospitals has been relatively minor. Even with the uptick in transmission, COVID-19 deaths have remained fairly low and stable.”
A major California reservoir has hit its peak for the year at just over half full
GRACE TOOHEY, LA Times: "Lake Oroville, the largest reservoir in a state system that provides water to 27 million Californians, has already reached its peak level for the year, barely surpassing half of its capacity, according to the Department of Water Resources.
Officials had warned the lake — key to the roughly 700-mile State Water Project, which pumps and ferries water across the state for agricultural, business and residential use — was at “critically low” levels on May 8.
Those levels, data from the Department of Water Resources now show, were the reservoir’s highest for the year."
Cal Fire Fumbles Key Responsibilities to Prevent Catastrophic Wildfires Despite Historic Budget
SCOTT RODD, CapRadio and DANIELLE VENTON, KQED: "Richard A. Wilson is worried about wildfires this summer, amid dry conditions, extreme temperatures, punishing winds and the amplification of climate change.
"We are very vulnerable," the 90-year-old said while looking out the window of his house on Buck Mountain, part of a 3,000-acre cattle ranch spanning Mendocino and Trinity counties that has been in his family for 80 years.
Wilson estimates about 70% of his land — the whole northern end, including grassland, and pine and Douglas fir timberland — has burned in recent years. It was hit by the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire and the 2020 August Complex Fire, both among the largest fires in state history."
Plastics and tobacco, betting and the arts: Four questions on California’s November ballot
OWEN TUCKER-SMITH, SacBee: "California’s general election ballot is likely not complete, but big money and attack ads are swirling around the four questions that have qualified so far for spots in November.
California voters will be asked to make decisions on the environment, sports betting, tobacco bans and arts funding in schools. Four ballot propositions — three initiatives and one referendum — have qualified for the general election, and organizations in support and opposition have gathered tens of millions of dollars.
The internet is flooded with attack ads and supporting websites alike."
Workers are unionizing across the country. Could staffers in the California Legislature be next?
The Chronicle, SOPHIA BOLLAG: “Every year, Democrats who control California Legislature pass long lists of bills supported by labor unions, a powerful political force in the Golden State. They often work to earn high ratings and endorsements from labor organizations, including by writing and supporting legislation aimed at boosting union participation.
But the staffers who work for those lawmakers and help craft those pro-labor bills are barred under California law from forming a union themselves.
“It is a form of hypocrisy,” said Alan Moore, who works as a legislative aide for Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco.”
Congress wants to save California’s giant sequoias from worsening wildfires. Here’s the plan
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: “California’s fire-ravaged sequoia groves have left scientists and forest managers scrambling to ensure a future for the world’s largest trees.
Over the past two years, nearly a fifth of all giant sequoias, once considered virtually immune to wildfire, burned so badly they died. Fire experts fear more lethal blazes are imminent.
This week, the effort to protect the cherished trees turns to Congress. In a rare show of bipartisanship, California’s Democratic Rep. Scott Peters of San Diego and Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield plan to introduce the Save our Sequoias Act, a bill that would provide money and support to restore and help fire-proof the venerable giants.”
If you still haven’t gotten COVID after the latest surge, what are the odds you never will?
The Chronicle, DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA: “In March of this year — about two years after the COVID-19 pandemic took over the U.S. — The Chronicle asked Bay Area experts: Is getting COVID inevitable?
At that time, the response was a qualified “no.” Even though the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus had recently sent cases higher than ever, the experts said that at least in the near future, people who continued to take reasonable precautions against exposure, and who got vaccinated and boosted, could avoid the disease.
Since then, omicron’s subvariants have sent case numbers soaring across the world once again, with even some who had dodged the coronavirus for two years getting infected, and some even getting reinfected.”
Resentencing for London Breed’s brother delayed; next D.A. will take over case
The Chronicle, MEGAN CASSIDY: “A Monday hearing to determine whether Mayor London Breed’s incarcerated brother qualifies for a new, lesser sentence has been delayed until August, meaning the case will now fall under the authority of Breed’s impending pick for district attorney.
Napoleon Brown, Breed’s older brother, has served about half of a 44-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter, armed robbery and carjacking tied to a 2000 crime spree that resulted in the death of his girlfriend. Brown’s attorney, Marc Zilversmit, said his client should be eligible for a shortened prison term because of new state laws.
Zilversmit is asking a judge to grant a motion for a resentencing, arguing that prosecutors can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Brown is guilty of murder under the current definition.”
TV correspondent, accused of asking child for naked photos, hired ex-D.A. as consultant
LAT, JAMES QUEALLY: “The text messages between the 9-year-old girl and the man old enough to be her grandfather were, at minimum, unnerving.
“I have always been good special friends and you feel safe with me so I will protect you and get you something. They could maybe make you a star if you are willing to take some risks,” Dr. Bruce Hensel, then 72, wrote to a young child he had promised to cast in a movie.
Hensel — who had long served as NBC’s chief on-air medical correspondent in New York and Los Angeles — repeatedly texted the child from March to August of 2019, at some points asking her for photos that were “sexy and private,” according to records submitted to the California Medical Board earlier this year.”
‘Back from the abyss’: Warriors fans pack S.F. for parade awash in confetti and righted wrongs
JULIE JOHNSON, DANIELLE ECHEVERIA, MATHIAS GAFNI and MALLORY MOENCH, Chronicle: "Amid blizzards of confetti and the occasional spritz of champagne, tens if not hundreds of thousands of people packed downtown San Francisco on Monday, lining a Market Street thoroughfare often silenced by the pandemic to celebrate the Golden State Warriors’ first championship since the team’s move back to the city.
As players, coaches, city politicians and others rolled through the crowds on double-decker buses, revelers formed a sea of blue and gold on the streets and sometimes climbed light poles, trees and bus shelters for a better view.
Their verdict was unanimous: the Warriors were unbeatable after all — a team for the history books, with four rings now since 2015.
After two seasons beset by injuries and struggles yielded to an NBA Finals win over the Boston Celtics, Steph Curry and his teammates rode victorious with their families, sometimes jumping off their buses to high-five fans and twirl starstruck children."
Summer arrives Tuesday with a 100-degree heat wave in Bay Area and an advisory to keep cool
The Chronicle, RACHEL SWAN: “A heat wave will scorch the Bay Area Tuesday, the first day of summer, with temperatures rising into the 90s and lower hundreds inland, a forecast from the National Weather Service warned.
The Weather Service issued a heat advisory from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., directing people to reshedule outdoor activities as the region bakes from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., the hottest period of the day.
With daytime temperatures soaring and nights expected to be mild, meteorologists feared risks of dehydration and heat-related illnesses, particularly among the elderly, children or unsheltered people. The advisory comes after scores of people called for medical aid during the Warriors celebration in downtown San Francisco Monday, largely for ailments triggered by the hot weather.”
Tesla illegally fired thousands of workers and denied them pay, lawsuit claims
ETHAN BARON, Mercury News: "A new lawsuit seeking class-action status claims that Tesla broke federal law by abruptly firing thousands of workers and denying them two months’ pay.
The legal action is the latest in a flurry of allegations to hit the electric car maker as it navigates what could be a rough patch amid supply chain issues and other economic woes.
Former Tesla employees John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield allege they were among thousands of workers fired recently amid company-wide cuts. CEO Elon Musk earlier this month emailed executives saying he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and that Tesla would cut 10% of salaried workers, Reuters reported.
The lawsuit filed Sunday in federal court in Texas, where Musk’s electric car firm is headquartered after moving from Palo Alto late last year, alleges the terminations violated federal WARN Act requirements that workers receive 60 days’ written notice before being let go in a mass layoff. Also, because the workers allegedly received no such notice, they are also owed 60 days’ pay by Tesla, the suit claimed."
First gay mayor in U.S. didn’t expect to be LGBTQ rights icon
LAT, FRANCISCO VARA-ORTA: “Gene Ulrich’s gravestone proclaims what he once felt he could never say loudly in life.
But to claim his place in history, up on a hill in this small town notched within America’s Bible Belt, it must be said:
Was the first openly gay mayor elected in the United States of America. Was elected mayor of the City of Bunceton, Missouri April 1, 1980. Served a total of 26 years.”
