California leaders ask Biden to create a ‘moonshot moment’ to regulate AI
The Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI: "Top artificial intelligence experts urged President Biden on Tuesday in San Francisco to create a “moonshot moment” for the expanding industry in the city, one that would enable it to grow while creating guardrails to ensure its power is harnessed for good.
Biden met for about an hour with eight top industry experts and Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday at the Fairmont Hotel, hoping, he said, to gauge the technology’s “enormous promise and its risks.”"
Bused from Texas to L.A.: Little food, sketchy bathroom facilities for 20 hours on the road
LA Times, BRITTNY MEJIA, JACK HERRERA: "As the bus full of migrants prepared to embark June 13 on a more than 20-hour journey from Texas to Los Angeles, the passengers were offered bags of chips, water and energy bars.
Ambar, who asked to be identified by her first name due to privacy concerns, said they were offered their first real meal several hours later. It was military field rations, known as MREs, or meals ready to eat. Her 10-year-old daughter took a couple of bites of packaged lentils and soon after battled a stomachache."
U.S. is rejecting asylum seekers at much higher rates under new Biden policy
LA Times, HAMED ALEAZIZ: "A new Biden administration policy has dramatically lowered the percentage of migrants at the southern border who enter the United States and are allowed to apply for asylum, according to numbers revealed in legal documents obtained by The Times. Without these new limits to asylum, border crossings could overwhelm local towns and resources, a Department of Homeland Security official warned a federal court in a filing this month.
The new asylum policy is the centerpiece of the Biden administration’s border efforts."
Newsom is proposing a boost in mental health funding. Why children’s advocates are worried
CALMatters, KRISTEN HWANG: "Come March, California voters will get the chance to weigh in on sweeping changes proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to the state’s mental health funding system — including a $4.68 billion bond measure to add treatment beds — but critics say the proposal pits children’s mental health services against the state’s ballooning homelessness crisis.
Newsom announced his intent in March to divert nearly one-third of the state’s Mental Health Services Act money — roughly $1 billion — to housing homeless individuals with severe mental illness or drug addiction."
Ron DeSantis posts video from S.F. street corner, says liberals have failed ‘once great city’
The Chronicle, JORDAN PARKER: "In California for a fundraising tour Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made a stop in San Francisco to promote his presidential campaign, posting a video on social media saying “leftist policies” have ruined “the once great city.”
In a one-minute video on his official Twitter account, DeSantis stood at the corner of Geary Boulevard and Hyde Street and, with garbage and graffiti visible in the background and cars zooming by, said, “We’re here in the once great city of San Francisco. We came in here and we saw people defecating on the street, we saw people using heroin, we saw people smoking crack cocaine.”"
California Attorney General faces tough questions as he touts organized retail theft crackdown
BANG*Mercury News, JOHN WOOLFOLK, CAROLYN STEIN: "California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced what he called an unprecedented agreement Tuesday with large retailers and online marketplaces aimed at cracking down on organized theft rings that resell stolen goods online.
But in a state that has become notorious lately for brazen smash-and-grab thefts at stores — sometimes captured on video and replayed on nightly newscasts — the state’s top law enforcement official faced tough questioning on whether Tuesday’s agreement is enough."
Harris-Dawson says he and others are ‘scratching their heads’ over case against Price
LA Times, JULIA WICK, DAVID ZAHNISER: "A week after being rocked by public corruption allegations against yet another one of its members, the Los Angeles City Council regrouped Tuesday, electing Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson to serve as its next president pro tempore.
The council’s No. 2 role was previously held by Councilmember Curren Price, who stepped down from the position last week after being charged with perjuring himself by failing to disclose his wife’s business dealings with developers whose projects he voted on, and with embezzling city funds by having his now-wife receive spousal health benefits when they were not legally married."
Measure tackling ambulance surprise billing moving through the Legislature
Capitol Weekly, LISA RENNER: "When his teen son had a seizure, Irvine resident Chuck Bock called for an ambulance to rush him to the hospital.
While his son fortunately recovered, Bock was shocked a short while later to get a bill for $1,600 for the two-mile ambulance ride. He was fully insured by Blue Cross/Blue Shield and was stunned to realize that the health insurance company didn’t cover ambulance service."
California lawmakers wage Delta water war with Newsom
CALMatters, RACHEL BECKER: "Amping up their concerns as a deadline looms, key California legislators today escalated their pushback on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts to streamline the Delta water tunnel and other infrastructure projects.
The stalemate could become a critical lever while lawmakers haggle with Newsom over the 2023-2024 budget leading up to his June 27 deadline for approving the spending plan."
Letter to the Editor: Offshore wind power (OP-ED)
Capitol Weekly, KAREN R. WHITE: "To the editors in regard to the opinions expressed in the op-ed Thanks to tribal partnerships California can lead the world on offshore wind:
On behalf of the Xolon Salinan Tribe, we the People refute this opinion."
The big plan to save Tahoe from itself has finally arrived
The Chronicle, GREGORY THOMAS: "The long-awaited plan to save Lake Tahoe has arrived.
On Tuesday, community leaders unveiled a 126-page document, two years in the making, that seeks to course-correct Tahoe from an economy increasingly dependent on tourism as well as address concerns about environmental degradation in the basin and a widely held belief among locals that Tahoe “is on the wrong track.”"
‘Banging’ heard, raising hopes that passengers of vanished Titanic tourist sub are still alive
LA Times, ALEXANDRA E. PETRI, NOAH GOLDBERG: "As search-and-rescue teams raced against the clock Tuesday to find a submersible that vanished on an expedition to explore the wreck of the Titanic, a group associated with two of the people believed to be on board issued a statement saying there was “cause for hope” that the passengers were alive.
“There is cause for hope, based on data from the field — we understand that likely signs of life have been detected at the site,” the statement read."
‘A huge landscape’: $35 million ranch of early Apple CEO to become nature preserve
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "A picturesque ranch in Carmel Valley, owned by an early investor and CEO at Apple, is being purchased by a conservation group with the hope of turning it into a nature preserve.
The Southern California-based Wildlands Conservancy announced this week that it had reached a deal with billionaire Mike Markkula to acquire his 14,100-acre holding in the Santa Lucia Mountains east of Monterey for $35 million. Escrow is scheduled to close by July 30."
'Fiscal cliff' approaching for some districts in California as costs soar and enrollment falls
EdSource, CAROLYN JONES, ALI TADAYON: "For many school districts in California, the flush years of budget windfalls are decidedly over.
Declining enrollment, expiring Covid funds, inflation and ballooning staff costs have combined to lead some districts — particularly those in urban areas — to make painful budget cuts."
At dueling LGBTQ+ protests outside Glendale school board meeting, violence erupts — again
LA Times, JEREMY CHILDS, CHRISTIAN MARTINEZ: "The Glendale Unified School District office was again the scene of violence as dueling groups protested over the teaching of gender and sexuality and whether it has a place in the classroom.
Tuesday night’s clash was the second this month between pro- and anti-LGBTQ+ activists outside a GUSD board meeting."
Can you leave a child home alone in California now that school is out? What the law says
Sac Bee, JACQUELINE PINEDO: "Finding day care for you child during the summer months can be expensive and difficult, and so you may be wondering if your kid can stay home alone in California — the answer depends on a few factors.
The laws in the Golden State are relaxed compared to a few other states when it comes to leaving your kid alone, but parental experts suggest assessing a child’s comfort level and maturity."
The biggest survey of homeless Californians in decades shows why so many are on the streets
CALMatters, MARISA KENDALL: "Losing income is the No. 1 reason Californians end up homeless – and the vast majority of them say a subsidy of as little as $300 a month could have kept them off the streets.
That’s according to a new study out of UC San Francisco that provides the most comprehensive look yet at California’s homeless crisis."
Big change for Bay Bridge as old Treasure Island exit closes this week
The Chronicle, KATE GALBRAITH: "The old eastbound off-ramp to Treasure Island from the left lane of the Bay Bridge will close at 7 a.m. Thursday, Caltrans announced, as drivers move fully to a newly constructed off-ramp that opened last month.
To use the new off-ramp to Yerba Buena Island, with access to Treasure Island, drivers must exit from the right lane, just past the tunnel on the bridge’s lower level."
Former Trump attorney John Eastman’s law license trial raises big questions
BANG*Mercury News, TERI SFORZA: "John Eastman sat between his lawyers — a laptop open before him, a pen and pad within easy reach — as the California State Bar put him on trial early Tuesday, June 20, for alleged “dishonesty and moral turpitude.”
Eastman, former dean of Chapman University’s law school and alleged architect of Donald Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, wore a dark suit, occasionally peering over his glasses at the judge who’ll decide if he loses his law license."
