------------------------
Today, May 1, is the Big Day of Giving - we're guessing you might see the #BDOG2024 hashtag today. Big DoG is a 24 hour campaign to promote support of local nonprofit organizations. Open California, the nonprofit organization that produces Capitol Weekly, The Roundup, The Capitol Weekly Podcast and many other nonpartisan political projects is taking part in this year’s event.
And, this year, donations we receive during this year's BIG Day of Giving campaign will be matched by two generous grants from some of our longterm supporters, the Tribal Alliance of Sovereign Indian Nations and Bicker, Castillo, Fairbanks & Spitz Public Affairs. TASIN will match all donations up to $2500, and BCFS will match all grants up to $1500. WOW!
We hope you will take this opportunity to support informed, nonpartisan public policy journalism from Capitol Weekly and Open California. Thank you!
https://www.bigdayofgiving.org/organization/Open-California
---------------
Kamala Harris blasts Trump’s policies in first major speech since leaving office
LAT, SEEMA MEHTA: "Former Vice President Kamala Harris, in her sharpest remarks about President Trump since leaving office, blasted his policies as a dangerous betrayal of the nation’s founding principles and warned Wednesday of a looming constitutional crisis.
“Now I know tonight’s event happens to coincide with the 100 days after the inauguration,” she told about 500 people at a fundraising gala at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. “And I’ll leave it to others to give a full accounting of what has happened so far. But I will say this, instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals.”"
READ MORE -- Kamala Harris reemerges for an ‘I told you so’ moment -- The Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI
Grants for LA clean trucks frozen in Trump effort to defund green energy
CALMatters, ALEJANDRO LAZO: "The Trump administration has frozen $250 million in grants to a nonprofit helping companies replace diesel trucks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, part of a broad federal effort to claw back $20 billion in green energy funding.
The program by Climate United, announced last October, would offer affordable leases for new electric heavy-duty trucks operated by small fleets and individual truckers serving the ports."
Bill to slash rooftop solar incentives weakened by Assembly committee
LAT, MELODY PETERSEN: "An Assembly committee backed away on Wednesday night from a controversial provision in a proposed bill to end solar credits for 2 million owners of rooftop solar systems, saying it would apply only to those who sold their homes.
Assembly Bill 942, introduced by Lisa Calderon (D-Whittier), targeted long-standing programs that provide energy credits to Californians who installed solar panels before April 15, 2025."
AB 255 is commonsense reform for addiction recovery (OP-ED)
Capitol Weekly, ADRIAN COVERT/STEVE ADAMI: "Over the past decade California’s homeless residents have endured a catastrophic addiction epidemic that has claimed thousands of lives and spread despair in communities across the state. Compassion requires a new course. AB 255 by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) is a commonsense reform to support addiction recovery and save lives.
According to the Benioff Center for Homelessness and Housing at UCSF, homelessness and addiction are closely related, each worsening the conditions that lead to the other. An estimated 46 percent of homeless Californians—roughly 86,000 people—report substance use as “currently leading to health, legal, social, or financial problems.”"
State discipline law keeps Black, Latino kids in class. Trump says it’s illegal
LAT, DANIEL MILLER: "Violating a school dress code. Using a cellphone in class. Mouthing off at a teacher.
There was a time when that kind of behavior, called “willfully defiant” conduct, would get a California public school student suspended."
Literacy bill compromise gains support of a former foe and passes first hurdle
EdSource, JOHN FENSTERWALD: "A new bill that could reshape early reading instruction quickly passed its first test in the Legislature on Wednesday, with a major opponent doing an about-face and publicly announcing support.
Members of the Assembly Education Committee unanimously passed Assembly Bill 1454 after a short hearing. The compromise legislation that Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas helped create, after months of stalemate, won over the California Teachers Association (CTA)."
Visa uncertainty hits California community colleges’ international students
EdSource, AMY DIPIERRO/MICHAEL BURKE: "As Kaung Lett Yhone finished high school at home in Myanmar, he knew he wanted to go to college in the U.S. So to find the perfect fit, he did what anyone would do: He searched online.
“I looked up on Google, ‘best community college,’ and De Anza showed up as No. 1,” he said. So he soon enrolled at De Anza College, a two-year school located in Cupertino, in the heart of Silicon Valley, which has an international reputation for preparing students for transfer into their dream universities."
California forecast models show unsettled weather pattern could persist through mid-May
The Chronicle, GREG PORTER: "A lingering upper-level trough will keep California locked in a springtime pattern of cooler than average temperatures, scattered showers and occasional high-elevation snow through at least mid-May.
The setup, a continuation of the same broad-scale pattern that made April cooler and drier than normal, remains unusually far south for this time of year, said Scott Handel, a forecaster at the Climate Prediction Center."
Amid tariff turmoil, these warehouses are in big demand in L.A.
LAT, ROGER VINCENT: "As steep tariffs on imports throw Los Angeles-area ports into turmoil and chill industrial property leasing, one rare type of building is suddenly in hot demand — bonded warehouses where goods can be stored without paying tariffs until they are removed.
Key personnel at bonded warehouses have to undergo background checks and the operator must put up a bond to protect potential government duty revenue. The customs bond typically starts at about $100,000."
After disasters, FEMA leases apartments for survivors. But not after the L.A. fires
LAT, LIAM DILLON: "Since her Altadena rental home burned down in January’s Eaton fire, Tamara Johnson has crisscrossed Southern California looking for a place to live. She started in San Bernardino, where she stayed with a friend, and continued to Oceanside, where an Airbnb voucher let her remain a week.
She’s driven from Long Beach to Azusa searching for apartments, spending her days scanning listings for those that would accept her Federal Emergency Management Agency housing assistance and calling 211 for help. Most nights, she’s slept in her van. The worst came when a truck smashed into the back of her vehicle one morning as she was pulling into a fast food parking lot. Johnson got a rental car and then slept in that."
They found their homeless loved ones after years apart. But that was just the beginning.
CALMatters, MARISA KENDALL: "The last time Julie Crossman saw her little sister, Nanie Crossman, it was 2019 and Nanie was moving out of Julie’s San Francisco apartment, destination unknown.
For the next six years, Julie worried — especially every time it rained. She assumed Nanie was homeless, but she had no idea where she was or how to find her."
Overhaul the LAPD, in this economy? Questions surround chief’s plan amid budget crunch
LAT, LIBOR JANY: "When Jim McDonnell took over as Los Angeles police chief late last year, he promised to take stock of the department within 90 days and start overhauling what needed fixing.
Nearly six months later, seemingly little has changed and there are growing questions about when — or even if — McDonnell will shake things up."
San Francisco officials blast SFPD over soaring overtime, sick leave use
The Chronicle, ALDO TOLEDO: "City officials excoriated the San Francisco Police Department over its massive overtime spending during a hearing Wednesday on an audit that found that some officers potentially abuse sick leave to work security details for private entities like banks and retail stores.
City leaders probed the SFPD during a special meeting of the Board of Supervisors on its overall overtime spending and its 10B program, which allows entities like offices, retail stores and neighborhood associations to hire sworn police officers for security. When officers call in sick, other officers work overtime to fill those shifts, costing the city more money."
This busy Bay Area highway is nearly rebuilt, but officials are fighting over one final detail
The Chronicle, RACHEL SWAN: "After 14 years of grueling construction, a project to widen the Marin-Sonoma Narrows — that glacial choke point on Highway 101 linking Marin and Sonoma counties — has reached the finish line.
But now officials are bickering over a final detail: carpool hours."
Highway 1 slide area in Big Sur is still closed. This new equipment could speed up repairs
The Chronicle, GREGORY THOMAS: "A 7-mile segment of Highway 1 in Big Sur closed for more than a year due to a landslide won’t be repaired in time to reopen this summer, according to Caltrans.
Crews have been working year-round to rebuild a segment of Highway 1 on a remote stretch of Big Sur’s southern region, just north of San Simeon, that was damaged when the so-called Regent’s Slide occurred in February 2024. A setback occurred last fall when a fresh slide formed in the work zone, and Caltrans has had to adapt to the challenge of grading and packing ground that continues to sink about a foot per day."
