Amid a rise in reported hate crimes, California creates a special hotline
LA Times, EMILY ALPERT REYES: "California is officially launching a hotline this week for people to report acts of hate, as the state grapples with a rise in reported hate crimes.
The statewide hotline, California vs. Hate, gives Californians an alternative to contacting law enforcement after a hate incident occurs. It can also connect people with support and resources in the aftermath of an act of hate, which could include mental health support, legal services or assistance with housing.
“It’s not just a black hole where people will report things that happened to them,” said Kevin Kish, director of the California Civil Rights Department. “It’s something that’s going to connect people with resources.”"
The Biden effect (PODCAST)
Capitol Weekly, STAFF: "In this week’s Capitol Weekly podcast CW’s Rich Ehisen is joined by frequent contributor Dan Morain and Washington Bureau Chief of RealClearPolitics and Executive Editor of RealClear Media Group, Carl Cannon. The trio discusses the impact of President Joe Biden’s announcement to run for a second term on a host of ambitious California politicos, from Kamala Harris and Kevin McCarthy in Washington D.C. to Gavin Newsom and others here in California. And, as always we’ll get into another favorite topic – who had the Worst Week in California Politics."
S.F. corruption scandal: Here’s the latest prominent figure to plead guilty
The Chronicle, MALLORY MOENCH: "A former executive at the Recology trash company pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to conspiracy to commit fraud, admitting he paid more than $55,000 in bribes to disgraced former San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru.
John Porter, 39, the former SF Recology Group vice president and general manager, entered his plea in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, becoming the latest figure to fall in the corruption scandal involving Nuru. SF Recology Group has contracted with the city to provide its trash services for decades.
Nuru was at the center of a web of corruption in multimillion-dollar contracts for city services and now faces seven years in prison. The charge against him for fraud in January 2020 started a domino effect of criminal actions against other city employees and contractors."
Bob Lee murder case: Clash over toxicology report unfolds in S.F. courtroom
The Chronicle, ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH: "Prosecutors and a defense attorney clashed Tuesday over a toxicology report that showed Cash App founder Bob Lee had drugs in his system the night he was fatally stabbed, with the defense saying the information was relevant and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins saying it was a tactic to denigrate the victim.
The topic arose after a court hearing for Nima Momeni, the man accused of murdering Lee on April 4.
Police say Momeni attacked Lee at roughly 2:30 a.m. on April 4, stabbing him three times with a kitchen knife in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill neighborhood after a dispute over the victim’s relationship with Momeni’s younger sister, Khazar Elyassnia, who lives with her husband in the nearby Millennium Tower. The nature of that relationship has not been disclosed."
Doctors tried frantically for 4 hours to save Cash App founder Bob Lee, autopsy report reveals
LA Times, SUMMER LIN: "Cash App founder Bob Lee died on the operating table in San Francisco last month after being stabbed three times, including through the heart, according to an autopsy report from the San Francisco chief medical examiner’s office.
Nima Momeni, a 38-year-old tech consultant and entrepreneur, is accused of killing Lee, 43. Momeni was arrested April 13 in Emeryville on suspicion of murder after San Francisco police pieced together a narrative involving Lee, Momeni and Momeni’s sister.
Momeni was set to be arraigned Tuesday, but the hearing was postponed for the third time, to May 18, at the request of his attorney."
Santa Clara County using drones to control mosquitos
BANG*Mercury News, GRACE HASE: "After experiencing a particularly wet winter, Santa Clara County is rolling out drones to spray larvicide in non-residential areas to prevent what could be a booming year for mosquitos and vector-borne diseases like West Nile Virus.
This is the first year the county’s Vector Control District will use drones to deploy larvicide — an insecticide that targets mosquito larvae. The drones will only be used in uninhabited and remote areas that can’t be accessed on foot, like some of the county’s marshlands at the Baylands Nature Preserve in Palo Alto.
The district previously used helicopters to reach those areas, but that posed several downsides."
U.S. authorizes sending 1,500 troops to southern border before Title 42 ends
LA Times, ANDREA CASTILLO: "The Biden administration plans to send 1,500 active-duty soldiers to the U.S.-Mexico border for 90 days, federal officials have announced.
The move Monday comes ahead of the anticipated increase in the number of migrants at the border as of May 11, when Title 42, a pandemic-related immigration policy, expires. U.S. Homeland Security officials said service members would not perform law enforcement functions or interact with migrants in custody. Troops will begin to arrive as soon as May 10.
About 2,500 members of the National Guard are already stationed at the nine sectors of the southwest border, doing support work for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, one official said. The additional troops will bring the total to 4,000 military personnel."
Loneliness is an epidemic, and the health risks are ‘profound,’ U.S. surgeon general warns
LA Times, ALEXANDRA E. PETRI: "Isolation and loneliness are an epidemic as damaging to Americans’ individual and public health as smoking and obesity, the surgeon general of the United States said in a stark advisory issued Tuesday.
Nearly half of U.S. adults reported experiencing loneliness in recent years, according to research cited in the advisory. A 2021 study commissioned by the Cigna healthcare company showed 79% of people ages 18 to 24 reported feeling lonely — a rate nearly twice as high as that of seniors ages 66 and older.
Though the issue was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, it has long been mounting — the rate of loneliness among young adults increased every year from 1976 to 2019, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy pointed out."
Is the child care crisis escalating?
EdSource, KAREN D'SOUZA: "Nearly 90% of brain growth happens before children start kindergarten. That’s why experts say high-quality care is so vital for small children. It’s also why the ongoing child care crisis is so worrisome and why the Biden administration is once again trying to address the issue on a national scale.
To be sure, the child care sector has long been marked by a brutal economic tug-of-war. Most families can’t afford the skyrocketing high cost of care, while many child care workers can’t survive on their pay. Note that child care for a baby in Alameda County cost about $20,000 a year in 2021, for example. Now consider that the average child care worker makes about $13 an hour. Raising awareness of this predicament is the goal of events like the upcoming Day without Child Care, when many providers nationwide close down and speak out about the issues.
“Child care is a textbook example of a broken market,” as Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen has put it. “The free market works well in many different sectors, but child care is not one of them. It does not work for the caregivers. It does not work for the parents. It does not work for the kids. And because it does not work for them, it does not work for the country.”"
Oakland’s teachers are preparing to strike on Thursday — how has it gotten this far?
BANG*Mercury News, ELISSA MIOLENE: "Oakland teachers are poised to strike on Thursday, a walkout that could shutter schools and affect 34,000 students unless a deal is reached between the district and the teachers’ union.
The Oakland Education Association, which represents 3,000 of the city’s educators and school staff, announced the strike late Monday afternoon. The move came after months of negotiations. Since October, teachers have been pushing for increased pay, reduced class sizes, and higher safety standards, along with additional support services for students.
“We promise you, we’ve done everything we can to avert this strike,” said Ismael Armendariz, interim president of the union, in a Monday press briefing. “The district has truly failed our students and the time for us to act is now.”"
Veteran teachers: Why some stay in tough classrooms
CALMatters, STAFF: "It’s an old story: New teachers in California start their careers at schools with many low-income students, spend a few years, then transfer to more affluent communities. It’s a pattern that leaves these schools with fewer experienced teachers.
At these schools, teachers confront towering obstacles before they can even get to instruction. Students living in poverty are more likely to come to school hungry and without enough sleep. They might not have permanent housing. Students living in those conditions are more likely to be behind grade level in reading and math and less likely to graduate high school and attend college.
“It’s kind of impossible,” said Esther Honda, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at San Francisco’s Willie L. Brown Jr. Middle School, where 60% of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. “But I think I have enough years under my belt to know how to deal with impossible.”"
Your bank just switched to Chase: What First Republic customers need to know
The Chronicle, JESSICA FLORES: "The takeover of First Republic Bank early this week meant that, overnight, customers of the failed San Francisco lender became clients of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced early Monday it had closed First Republic, a week after the bank lost more than $70 billion in deposits.
Federal regulators said in a news release that the bank is being acquired by JPMorgan Chase, which will “assume all of the deposits and substantially all of the assets of First Republic Bank.”"
Exodus: San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, L.A. all lose population amid California’s tumble
BANG*Mercury News, GEORGE AVALOS, SCOOTY NICKERSON: "The Bay Area and California as a whole endured yet another population decline in 2022, and the dip may mean San Jose can no longer crow about being the 10th largest city in the country.
The population of the nine-county region, which is home to about 7.55 million residents, dwindled by 0.4% — just shy of 34,000 residents, about the size of Pleasant Hill — between January 2022 and 2023 compared with 0.7% the previous year, according to estimates from the state Finance Department.
California lost 138,400 residents and now has a population of 38.94 million, for a decline of 0.4%. The shrinkage was tempered by a rebound in foreign immigration and other factors, according to the state report that explores the ongoing exodus of residents from the nation’s largest state."
Oakland mayor Thao plans to split city’s homelessness chief into two jobs
The Chronicle, SARAH RAVANI: "Mayor Sheng Thao has proposed splitting the position of Oakland’s homelessness chief into two jobs — her latest attempt to get a handle on the city’s surging crisis and to buttress a key role that the city has struggled to keep filled.
Thao, who released her $4.2 billion budget proposal Monday, is making the case to shift responsibility for addressing homelessness in Oakland onto two people who would report to an assistant city administrator to manage the heavy workload and improve results.
Thao’s plan, which the City Council will have to approve, comes as the city grapples with a rising homelessness crisis and increased pressure from residents to address the issue. The number of unhoused people has increased by 131% since 2015, and grew 22% from 2019 to 2022. A recent city survey revealed that homelessness is the top concern for Oakland residents, cited by more than 35% of respondents as the city’s most urgent problem."
L.A. County to deploy reserve deputies in juvenile facilities
LA Times, REBECCA ELLIS, JAMES QUEALLY: "Los Angeles County leaders plan to reopen a shuttered juvenile hall and deploy reserve sheriff officers to work in the facilities as they scramble to fix a staffing crisis that has state regulators threatening to close down the county’s two remaining juvenile halls.
The steps are among more than a dozen changes to the Probation Department that Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously approved Tuesday as part of a plan to fix a juvenile justice system in crisis and stave off state intervention.
Under the plan, the county would reopen Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, which was shut down in 2019 amid a dwindling population and accusations of abuse by staff. Roughly $28 million would be put into upgrading Los Padrinos as well as Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights. And the Sheriff’s Department would send in reserve officers — volunteer members of the department — to staff the long-troubled juvenile halls."
Davis stabbings: Police don’t consider ‘brazen and brutal’ attacks the work of a serial killer
The Chronicle, NORA MISHANEC, KEVIN FAGAN: "Police here do not consider three recent nighttime stabbings the work of a serial killer, city leaders said Tuesday as they sought to reassure residents rattled by the spate of attacks.
“We might have three separate crimes here,” Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel said at a news conference. “When can you call this a serial killing? We can’t yet.”
Pytel’s comments came hours after his department issued and later lifted a temporary shelter-in-place order while officers searched for a man suspected in the stabbing of a woman in a homeless encampment, the third attack in the quiet college town in less than a week. The first stabbing victim was discovered dead in a park Thursday morning, and the second — a UC Davis senior — was killed Saturday night at another park just miles away."
Mayor Sheng Thao ‘outraged’ at viral video of West Oakland sideshow assault
The Chronicle, JOEL UMANZOR: "Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao says she is “outraged” by a widely circulated video of a man being assaulted at a sideshow in West Oakland last weekend, according to a statement she released Tuesday.
The video, which as of Tuesday had been viewed more than 313,000 times on Twitter, depicted the brutal attack Sunday of a man who tried to hit a car with a bucket at the intersection of 34th and Adeline streets while the sideshow was going on.
The car stopped and at least two people chased the victim before kicking and punching him while he lay on the ground, the video showed."
After 18 years in prison, he took over his old L.A. gang. A string of murders followed
LA Times, MATTHEW ORMSETH: "Ezequiel Romo had been gone a long time.
He went to prison in 1996. When he returned to Panorama City 18 years later, he didn’t like what he saw.
He was going to “clean out house,” Romo told another veteran of his gang. He would rid the neighborhood of rivals, of informants, of drug addicts and the do-nothings he considered dead weight.
Prosecutors said the 45-year-old made good on that promise: On Romo’s orders, members of his gang, Blythe Street, turned on and killed one another in a string of murders that left eight dead, according to evidence presented at a months-long trial that began in March in Los Angeles Superior Court."
