Single-payer healthcare is a ‘tough, tough sell’ as California faces massive budget shortfall
LAT's ANABEL SOSA: "California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas cast doubt on the latest proposal to create a state-run single-payer healthcare system, saying he likes the idea but isn’t convinced the state can afford it in the face of a budget shortfall of at least $38 billion.
“The concept of single-payer and expanding access and affordability are good ideas,” Rivas, a Democrat from Hollister, told reporters at the state Capitol on Tuesday. “I say this with great respect to stakeholders and advocates: We need to see how this is funded. It’s a good idea but it’s a tough, tough sell, especially in a budget climate that we are experiencing now.”"
As massive California dam-removal project nears completion, who gets the once submerged land?
The Chronicle's KURTIS ALEXANDER: "The nation’s largest dam-removal project, the dismantling of four hydroelectric dams near the remote California-Oregon border this year, may be the end of one story.
But it’s the beginning of another."
Kevin McCarthy made a chaotic exit from Congress. The race to replace him is just as messy
The Chronicle's SHIRA STEIN: "When former Rep. Kevin McCarthy announced he would retire from Congress at the end of 2023, it came after an embarrassing and unprecedented campaign that ultimately ousted him from the speakership. Now, the race to replace McCarthy in Congress has become just as chaotic as his exit, with a court fight over who can appear on the ballot, surprising endorsements and Donald Trump weighing in — on the same side as the former speaker.
When the presumed front-runner to replace McCarthy in the deep red Central Valley district, conservative state Sen. Shannon Grove, said she wouldn’t run for the House, it set off a messy chain of events."
Judge clears charges against alleged white supremacists, says there’s a bias against the far right
LAT's BRITTNY MEJIA: "An Orange County federal judge has dismissed criminal charges for the second time in five years against accused members of a Southern California white supremacist group suspected of inciting brawls at political rallies throughout the state.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney on Wednesday dismissed charges against Robert Rundo — who was extradited from Romania last year — and Robert Boman of Torrance. The two were charged with conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act and rioting."
Biden, at Culver City stop, announces $1.2 billion in student debt forgiveness
LAT's SEEMA MEHTA: "President Biden announced the cancellation Wednesday of $1.2 billion in student loan debt for more than 150,000 borrowers, saying the relief will allow them to buy homes, start families and otherwise benefit the economy.
“Folks, I’m happy to have been able to forgive these loans because when we ... relieve Americans of student debt, they are free to chase their dreams,” he told dozens of supporters at the Culver City Julian Dixon Library."
READ MORE -- In the Bay Area, President Biden shows he can still energize donors. But what about voters? -- BANG*Mercury News's JULIA PRODIS SULEK and SCOOTY NICKERSON
Capitol Spotlight: Cynthia Moreno, Press Secretary for Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas
Capitol Weekly's LISA RENNER: "When she was working as a journalist, Cynthia Moreno rejected the possibility of ever working in government communications.
When the idea was suggested to her, it was a “hard no,” she said. “That’s the dark side,” she thought."
This California department suggests Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered in-office work for state employees
Sacramento Bee's MAYA MILLER: "Confused about when and whether you’re supposed to come back to the office? You’re not the only one.
Workers at several California state agencies and departments have recently received notices of impending plans to bring them back to the office at least two days per week. They’ll join the handful of departments that already require their employees to report to the office."
California voters will decide on Newsom’s mental health overhaul. How did we get here?
CALMatters's JOCELYN WIENER: "Fallout from our state’s long history of breaking promises to people with serious mental illness is everywhere.
It can be found under our overpasses and in our tent encampments, but also inside our jails and prisons, our emergency rooms, our schools, our homes."
S.F. ballot measure to mandate drug screenings for welfare recipients could be blocked if passed
The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "Proposition F, Mayor London Breed’s proposal to require welfare recipients in San Francisco to undergo drug testing and treatment in order to keep their benefits, will remain on the March 5 ballot despite a union’s arguments that the city was required to negotiate over the measure’s impact on overstressed workers. But if the measure passes, the courts will be asked to block it — and may well do so — until city officials hold good-faith meetings with the union.
That was what happened in San Diego in 2018, after the city’s mayor promoted a privately sponsored ballot measure cutting employees’ pension benefits. A union argued, and the state Supreme Court unanimously agreed, that state law required the city to meet and confer with the union before reducing anyone’s benefits."
READ MORE -- City workers union says S.F. mayor violated law by putting Prop. F on ballot -- The Chronicle's JORDAN PARKER
Here’s how much California’s snowpack has improved after recent storms
The Chronicle's JACK LEE: "After a slow start to the year, the Sierra Nevada snowpack has grown by leaps and bounds in recent weeks, thanks to a series of heavy storms with especially big impacts in the northern Sierra.
The latest measurements from the California Department of Water Resources places the statewide snowpack at 85% of normal for this time of year, according to data as of Tuesday. In comparison, the snowpack was just 52% of average on Jan. 30 and a paltry 25% of average on Jan. 2."
It’s not just toxic chemicals. Radioactive waste was also dumped off Los Angeles coast
LAT's ROSANNA XIA: "For decades, a graveyard of corroding barrels has littered the seafloor just off the coast of Los Angeles. It was out of sight, out of mind — a not-so-secret secret that haunted the marine environment until a team of researchers came across them with an advanced underwater camera.
Speculation abounded as to what these mysterious barrels might contain. Startling amounts of DDT near the barrels pointed to a little-known history of toxic pollution from what was once the largest DDT manufacturer in the nation, but federal regulators recently determined that the manufacturer had not bothered with barrels. (Its acid waste was poured straight into the ocean instead.)"
Piece of space junk the size of a school bus could crash into ocean off California coast
The Chronicle's MICHAEL CABANATUAN: "A school-bus-sized piece of European space junk was expected to crash into the Pacific Ocean off California’s coast Wednesday, marking a dramatic end of an instrument that helped measure climate change for nearly two decades.
The space junk, an abandoned and defunct satellite known as ERS-2, weighed 5,500 pounds and was taken out of commission in 2011 after spending 16 years collecting data on the earth’s changing climate — measuring the decreasing polar ice cap, rising sea levels and shifting land surfaces, according to the European Space Agency, which owned and operated the satellite. It also tracked natural disasters, including flooding and earthquakes."
L.A. ethics panel rejects proposed $11,250 fine for Leslie Moonves as too low
LAT's DAKOTA SMITH and MEG JAMES: "The Los Angeles City Ethics Commission on Wednesday unanimously rejected a proposed settlement between the city and former CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves, saying a tougher penalty was warranted for the executive, who had been accused of interfering with a police investigation into sexual assault allegations against him.
Moonves had agreed to pay an $11,250 fine to settle a City Ethics Commission complaint that accused him of inducing a government official to violate laws so that Moonves would have a tactical advantage in a police complaint against him."
Property-poor districts demand fairer funding for school facilities
EdSource's JOHN FENSTERWALD: "A public-interest law firm threatened Wednesday to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom and state officials unless they create a fairer system of subsidizing the costs of school facilities. That system must be as equitable as the Local Control Funding Formula, the decade-old formula for funding schools’ operating budgets, Public Advocates demanded in a lengthy letter.
At a news conference announcing their demand, Public Advocates and school board members, superintendents and parents with decrepit, inadequate and unhealthy school buildings charged that the state’s school facilities program discriminates against districts with low property values. Districts with high property values gobble up most of the state’s matching subsidies to modernize schools, while property-poor districts serving low-income families can’t afford local school bonds to qualify for state subsidies to build comparable facilities, they said."
LAUSD front-runner apologizes for liking antisemitic, pornographic social media posts
LAT's HOWARD BLUME: "Los Angeles school board front-runner Kahllid Al-Alim — who is endorsed by the influential teachers union — is under fire for social media activity that has prompted accusations that he agreed with antisemitic content, glamorized guns and celebrated pornographic images.
A post on X (formerly Twitter) that drew particular criticism was Al-Alim‘s praise of an antisemitic publication from the Nation of Islam organization titled: “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews: How Jews gained control of the Black American economy.” The book accuses Jews of stealing prosperity from Black people — their “40 acres and a mule” — and of “collaborating with and even financing such racial terrorists as the Ku Klux Klan,” according to a blurb about the book on the Nation of Islam online store."
Murderer or scapegoat? Very different versions of Rebecca Grossman emerge in closing arguments
LAT's RICHARD WINTON: "Rebecca Grossman was an impaired motorist who committed murder and manipulated her teen daughter into defending her on the witness stand. Or she was a scapegoat whose famous lover ran into two young brothers in a Westlake Village crosswalk and got away with it.
As closing arguments unfolded Wednesday in a Van Nuys courtroom, jurors were presented with two very different versions of the Hidden Hills woman and the Sept. 29, 2020, incident that ended the lives of two boys."
S.F. revives old parking ban to clear RV sprawl in Bernal Heights
The Chronicle's RACHEL SWAN: "When neighbors started complaining about the vans and trailers that park — more or less permanently — on a swooping road atop San Francisco’s Bernal Hill, city officials scrambled to find a solution.
It turned out they already had one."
A Ukrainian Teen’s Dark Transformation Into Russian Propaganda Star
WSJ's MATTHEW LUXMOORE: "When Russian troops invaded his hometown in 2022, Ukrainian teenager Denys Kostev filmed TikTok videos cursing Vladimir Putin and praising Ukrainian courage.
A few months later, after he had been transferred against his will to Russian-held territory, he suddenly appeared in propaganda clips on Kremlin-controlled channels."
