Highway 1 crisis: 1,600 trapped near Big Sur after roadway crumbles
JESSICA FLORES and SAM WHITING, Chronicle: "A portion of Highway 1 in Monterey County remained closed Sunday after collapsing during Saturday’s storm, state transit officials said, stranding 1,600 people on Easter weekend.
Engineers with the California Department of Transportation were assessing the slip-out that forced the closure of Highway 1 south of the Rocky Creek Bridge at Palo Colorado on Saturday, the state agency said Sunday. An estimated 1,600 residents and visitors were stranded after parts of the southbound lane collapsed. The rain was coming down at a rate of 2 inches per hour at one point, according to the National Weather service. An estimated time for reopening was not released.
READ MORE: Convoys helping to move stranded travelers after Highway 1 landslide near Big Sur, LIBOR JANY, LA Times.
California fast food minimum wage just jumped to $20 an hour. Who actually gets it?
ANGELA RODRIGUEZ, SacBee: "Whether someone prepares burgers, blends smoothies or tosses pizza dough, what determines which California fast food workers will be paid $20 an hour? Assembly Bill 1228 is in effect as of Monday, setting wages for California fast food workers $4 above than statewide minimum. It also creates a Fast Food Council to determine future minimum wage increases and to establish other employment standards at fast food restaurants, according to the Department of Industrial Relations...
Employees of a “national fast food chain” — with more than 60 establishments across the country offering “limited-service” — will receive the wage increase."
READ MORE: California’s Fast-Food Workers Just Got a Pay Bump, SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, NY Times
Powerful unions allege schools are misusing arts education money, demand state intervention
HOWARD BLUME, LA Times: "Powerful unions have joined forces with former Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner to call for state intervention to stop what they allege is the misuse of voter-approved funding to expand arts education in California.
In a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state officials, Beutner and the unions claim that some school districts are taking funding, approved by voters in November 2022, to expand arts education and are using it for other purposes. This year that funding totals $938 million."
Salmon populations are struggling, bringing economic woes for California’s fishing fleet
IAN JAMES, LA Times: "On the docks at Pillar Point Harbor, fishing crews have been arriving with loads of freshly caught Dungeness crab.
The season is almost over, and this time of year the harbor would typically be bustling with crews preparing their vessels and gear for catching salmon. But this year, those in the fishing fleet of Half Moon Bay — as well as other California marinas — expects to catch very few, if any, of the popular fish."
State workers in 8 more California departments receive two-day return-to-office mandate
MAYA MILLER, SacBee: "Roughly 19,000 permanent state workers under the California Natural Resources Agency will be required to return to their offices or work in the field at least twice a week starting this spring.
Secretary Wade Crowfoot announced the change Friday afternoon in an all-staff email, which The Sacramento Bee obtained via a California Public Records Act request. Similar to other state agencies and departments that have announced return-to-office orders, Crowfoot’s email cites the importance of in-person work for increasing collaboration, mentorship and productivity."
California winemakers’ open secret: They don’t drink their own wines
ESTHER MOBLEY, Chronicle: "Gianpaolo Paterlini sees a lot of California winemakers at his San Francisco restaurants Acquerello and Sorella. Naturally, winemakers tend to drink wine when they dine out, and Paterlini observes one consistent pattern in their ordering habits. “They never drink American wine,” he said. “Absolutely never.”
It’s something of an open secret: Among American winemakers, American wine is not cool. These aficionados would prefer to drink bottles from Champagne, Burgundy, the Jura — really, just about anywhere in Europe."
Why some vehicles are set to lose access to carpool lanes in California
MICHAEL CABANATUAN, Chronicle: "For the first time since 1999, carpool lanes in California will likely soon be reserved for carpools only.
Barring congressional action, come Sept. 30, 2025, the maroon, green and yellow stickers allowing electric, plug-in hybrid and compressed natural gas vehicles to use the carpool lanes — regardless of the number of occupants — will expire, along with federal authorization to let them into the diamond lanes."
EPA issues new clean air rules for heavy-duty trucks. California’s rules are tougher
RUSS MITCHELL, LA Times: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued tough new emissions standards Friday for heavy-duty trucks and buses, with the aim of cutting air pollution, addressing climate change and boosting economic growth.
The new federal rules will curtail a billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year and provide financial benefits worth $13 billion annually “related to public health, climate, and savings for truck owners and operators.” Big rigs, delivery trucks, cement mixers, garbage trucks, transit buses and school buses are all included."
No hallucination: Hundreds back magic mushrooms at Oakland psychedelic wellness conference
RICARDO CANO, Chronicle: "Supporters of psilocybin want voters in 2026 to legalize consumption of what’s commonly referred to as magic mushrooms for medicinal and therapeutic use, as well as make it legal to grow and sell the psychedelic substance.
The idea that California should follow Colorado and Oregon in decriminalizing psychedelics felt long overdue for the hundreds of people who flocked to Oakland’s Kaiser Convention Center on Saturday for the Church of Ambrosia’s fourth annual “Spirituality and Beyond” conference."
Ready or not, self-driving semi-trucks are coming to America’s highways
TRISHA THADANI, WaPo: " Perched in the cab of a 35,000-pound semi-truck lumbering south on Interstate 45, AJ Jenkins watched the road while the big rig’s steering wheel slid through his hands. Jenkins was in the driver’s seat, but he wasn’t driving. The gigantic 18-wheeler was guiding itself.
Over several miles on the popular trucking route between Dallas and Houston, the truck navigated tire debris, maneuvered around a raggedy-looking flatbed and slowed for an emergency vehicle. Exiting the highway, it came to an abrupt stop as a pickup jumped its turn at a four-way intersection."
Amid political IVF debates, parent hopefuls struggle to afford fertility care in California
MACKENZIE MAYS, LA Times: "In between chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and all the other medical appointments that come with a cancer diagnosis, Katie McKnight rushed to start the in vitro fertilization process in hopes that she could one day give birth when she recovered.
McKnight, 34, of Richmond, Calif., was diagnosed in 2020 with a fast-spreading form of breast cancer. IVF can help boost chances of pregnancy for cancer patients concerned about the impacts of the disease and its treatment on fertility. The process involves collecting eggs from ovaries and fertilizing them with sperm in a lab, then implanting them in a uterus."
