California bill to make it easier to place people on psychiatric holds advances
The Chronicle, SOPHIA BOLLAG: "California lawmakers voted to make it easier to compel people with severe mental illness into treatment or temporary psychiatric holds on Wednesday, advancing a bill advocates say could help get a small but visible group of troubled people off the streets.
The bill would expand who can be detained and evaluated for involuntary medical treatment to include people whose mental illness or drug addiction inhibits their ability to keep themselves safe, including by protecting themselves or seeking medical care. It would also let a medical expert testify in a court hearing before a judge about a person’s medical records even if they were written by a different health care provider. Those hearings are the basis of conservatorship, which can include involuntary treatment for mental illness and addiction.
The bill’s advocates include San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who has frequently lobbied state lawmakers to make it easier to compel more people into treatment as she grapples with the crisis unfolding on the city’s streets. Civil rights advocates have often opposed loosening rules, saying voluntary treatment is the best path for most people and the bar for compelling treatment should be very high.The bill, SB43, passed the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday. It will have to clear several more hurdles before it makes it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, but its author, Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, said she’s optimistic that will happen."
Mayor Breed tells Jon Stewart tougher laws needed to compel mentally ill into treatment
The Chronicle, DOMINIC FRACASSA: "San Francisco Mayor London Breed cut to the heart of a central tension in the city’s struggles to provide lasting care and support for people suffering on the streets with a combination of homelessness, addiction and mental illness in a recent interview with comedian and political commentator Jon Stewart.
In an excerpt of an interview released Wednesday morning, Stewart asked Breed whether she was aware of any system – in San Francisco or elsewhere – in which a government could get “people back to a place of function” when they were in dire need of assistance that didn’t involve the criminal justice system."
How improperly obtained election system information is being shared in far-right circles
LA Times, SARAH D. WIRE: "On the third day of the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this month, two men delivered on experts’ biggest concerns about attempts to access election machines after the 2020 election.
Using copies of election software — improperly removed from multiple counties — that has been circulating among election deniers, they presented an unfounded narrative that they had discovered evidence of fraud and foreign interference. They also discussed their goal to secure jobs as election officers and build a team of computer experts to access elections systems in more than 60 counties in order to prove their theories.
“This is exactly the situation that I have warned about,” said election technology expert Kevin Skoglund, a senior technical advisor at the National Election Defense Coalition. “Having the software out there allows people to make wild claims about it. It creates disinformation that we have to watch out for and tamp down.”"
Major storm caps California’s wet season with more rain, winds, snow
LA Times, HAYLEY SMITH: "More rain, wind and mountain snow pelted California on Wednesday as a cold storm swirled over the soaked state, capping a soggy March and one of the most prodigious wet seasons in recent memory.
The massive low-pressure system churning over the Pacific generated dozens of wind advisories and winter storm warnings across the state, with forecasters warning of blustery conditions and even more snow atop what is already a record snowpack. Severe weather — including damaging winds, lightning, hail and a potential waterspout or tornado — is possible in the Los Angeles area through early Thursday."
Hail and thunderstorms mark end of historic round of Bay Area storms — for now
The Chronicle, SAM WHITING: "Wednesday’s intermittent round of showers and hail-producing thunderstorms had mostly dissipated by midafternoon, save for a smattering of rain lingering through the evening.
Then the 48-hour storm will have “exhausted the atmosphere of its moisture,” predicted Chronicle meteorologist Gerry Díaz."
Benicia residents ordered to conserve water after hillside collapse damages main pipeline
The Chronicle, JOEL UMANZOR: "Benicia residents and businesses were ordered Wednesday night to reduce water usage after the city’s main water line was damaged during a hillside collapse off Interstate 680.
The damage happened north of the city near I-680 and Gold Hill Road, authorities said. The incident also caused a temporary closure of the freeway."
Heart attacks are killing more young people. It’s not just COVID
The Chronicle, CATHERINE HO: "The day after Thanksgiving, Shaniya Peterson had just jumped rope with her two young daughters outside their Antioch home when the chest pain began.
Peterson, 30, initially thought it was heartburn, or her body’s reaction to having exercised in the cold air. She lay down and stretched out, hoping the pain would subside. She bought Tums."
UC’s new plan to simplify transferring could have opposite impact, critics say
EdSource, MICHAEL BURKE: "Responding to pressure to simplify the transfer process, the University of California is proposing a new pathway that would guarantee admission to California community college students who meet certain criteria.
But UC’s idea, unveiled Tuesday at a state Assembly hearing, already faces criticism from lawmakers and college access advocates who fear the proposal will only make transferring more confusing for students.
Under the proposal, students who take lower division general education courses and a set of courses specific to their major would be guaranteed admission to UC as long as they earn a minimum grade point average determined by faculty. Students wouldn’t necessarily be guaranteed a spot at the campus of their choice. If they’re not accepted to their preferred campus, they would be redirected to Merced, Riverside or Santa Cruz."
California high schools are adding hundreds of ethnic studies classes. Are teachers prepared?
CALMatters, MEGAN TAGAMI: "On a rainy Friday afternoon at Santa Monica High School, ethnic studies teacher Marisa Silvestri introduced her class to the rap song “Kenji.” As singer Mike Shinoda narrated his family’s experiences in the Japanese American incarceration camps of World War II, Silvestri’s class fell silent. After the last bars of music filled the room, the class set to work analyzing the song’s lyrics, agreeing that Shinoda humanized a historical event some students previously knew little about.
Now in her second year of teaching ethnic studies, Silvestri said she has gone through several iterations of her curriculum – and she expects more changes to come in the future.
She has studied California’s ethnic studies model curriculum, attended workshops at local universities and sought the advice of ethnic studies teachers from other school districts.
But Silvestri has never received a teaching credential in ethnic studies. Whether that’s important or not is a question California officials are weighing now that the state has become the first in the nation to require that high school students take at least one semester of ethnic studies before graduation."
No more exodus? S.F., Bay Area population losses slowed in second year of the pandemic
The Chronicle, ROLAND LI, YURI AVILA: "The Bay Area saw slowing population losses in the second year of the pandemic — a signal that the surge of people moving out may be over, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data.
San Francisco’s population fell by only 0.4% or about 2,800 people between July 2021 and July 2022, much less than the 6.3% plunge, roughly 55,000 people, in the prior 12 months, new census data showed. In the first year of the pandemic, San Francisco saw the second-biggest percentage drop in population among all U.S. counties, behind only Manhattan. It is now the fourth straight year that the city’s population has declined, even losing a small number (900) in the last full survey year before the pandemic."
7 CHP officers charged in death of L.A. motorist caught on video
LA Times, RICHARD WINTON, JAMES QUEALLY: "Seven California Highway Patrol officers and a nurse were charged with manslaughter Wednesday in connection with the death of a man who screamed, “I can’t breathe!” as they tried to draw blood from him, prosecutors said.
Edward Bronstein was suspected of driving while intoxicated in 2020 when he was apprehended and later died in CHP custody at the agency’s Altadena station.
The six officers and a sergeant who filmed the deadly encounter with Bronstein were charged with involuntary manslaughter and assault under color of authority, according to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón. An attending nurse at the scene was also charged with involuntary manslaughter, Gascón said."
Antioch: Eight additional officers on leave for racist and homophobic texts
BANG*Mercury News, NATE GARTRELL: "As a grand jury continues to weigh potential criminal charges against at least eight Antioch police officers, an additional eight cops have been placed on leave for allegedly sending offensive text messages to each other, this news organization has learned.
The officers, who have not been publicly named, were placed on leave this week for violating department policies by texting or receiving racist and homophobic messages, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The revelations are not criminal in nature but surfaced during the FBI’s investigation of other Antioch police officers suspected of a range of alleged crimes.
Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe is expected to announce the personnel changes at a news conference set for 11 a.m. Thursday."
San Jose police union front office manager charged with trying to illegally import fentanyl
BANG*Mercury News, JASON GREEN: "The long-time front office manager for the San Jose Police Officers Association allegedly used her work computer to order controlled substances from abroad, including an analog version of fentanyl, and distributed the drugs from her office, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Joanne Marian Segovia, executive director of the SJPOA since 2003, is charged with attempting to unlawfully import valeryl fentanyl. If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison.
Filed in U.S. District Court on Monday, the 13-page complaint contends that Segovia, 64, was arrested as part of an ongoing Homeland Security investigation into a network that was shipping controlled substances to the Bay Area from abroad."
Mexico opens homicide probe, names 8 guards as suspects in fire that killed 39 migrants
LA Times, PATRICK J. MCDONNELL, KATE LINTHICUM: "Mexican authorities said Wednesday that the deaths of 39 men in a fire inside an immigrant detention center here are being investigated as homicides and that they were planning to arrest eight guards.
Three of those guards are government employees and five are members of a private security company, said Rosa Icela Rodríguez, Mexico’s secretary of security and citizen protection."
