The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest shipping complex, are closed as a strike by hundreds of clerical workers has been honored by the dock and warehouse workers that keep the huge operation going.
From the LAT's Ronald White: "The small band of strikers that has effectively shut down the nation's busiest shipping complex forced two huge cargo ships to head for other ports Thursday and kept at least three others away, hobbling an economic powerhouse in Southern California."
"The disruption is costing an estimated $1 billion a day at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, on which some 600,000 truckers, dockworkers, trading companies and others depend for their livelihoods."
"Despite the union's size — about 800 members of a unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union — it has managed to flex big muscles. Unlike almost anywhere else in the nation, union loyalty is strong at the country's ports. Neither the longshoremen nor the truckers are crossing the tiny union's picket lines."
The feds have told a century-old oyster farm at Drake's Bay to get out, a move that has outraged just about everybody but the government.
From the Chronicle's Peter Fimrite and Justin Berton: "U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a popular oyster farm at Drakes Bay on Thursday to pack up and leave, effectively ending more than a century of shellfish harvesting on the picturesque inlet where Europeans first set foot in California."
"Salazar's decision ends a long-running dispute between the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. and the National Park Service over the estuary at Point Reyes National Seashore where Sir Francis Drake landed more than 400 years ago."
"The National Park Service intends to turn the 2,700-acre area into the first federally designated marine wilderness area on the West Coast, giving the estuary special protected status as an unaltered ecological region. To do that, Salazar rejected the oyster company's proposal to extend its 40-year lease to harvest shellfish on 1,100 acres of the property."
Southern California Edison customers -- there are 5 million of them across the Southland -- are in for a jolt: Their rates are going up early next year, and more increases loom in succeeding years.
From the LAT's Marc Lifsher: "The decision, which Edison says will add an average of $7 a month to residential bills for the first year, covers Edison's costs to provide service, which amounts to about half a ratepayer's bill. Other costs for buying fuel and contracting for power deliveries fluctuate and are passed directly to consumers."
"The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved new rates, retroactive to the beginning of this year, on Thursday as part of an every-three-years process of reviewing finances at the heavily regulated utility."
"The 5% increase for 2012 — providing the Rosemead company with $5.7 billion in revenue — is less than the 16.6% the company had sought. Rates, however, are estimated to rise an additional 6.3% for 2013 and 5.9% in 2014 under the PUC order."
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule by Monday on the legality of Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage measure approved by California voters but tossed out by a federal appeals court.
From the Bee' David Siders: "More than two years after a federal judge in San Francisco ruled California's Proposition 8 unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide today if it will take up the landmark gay-marriage case."
"If it elects not to grant review, gay and lesbian Californians who have waited for years to wed are preparing to do so as early as next week."
"The court is expected to announce its decision Monday, though it could come as early as today."
Proposition 13, the tax-cutting measure that California voters approved in 1978 and has remained sacrosanct ever since, faces a new challenge: A San Francisco lawmaker wants voters to toss it out in 2014.
From Sacramento Channel 10's John Myers: "The plan by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, will be introduced next week as a constitutional amendment to be placed on the statewide ballot in 2014. Because it takes a supermajority of each house of the Legislature to place a measure on the ballot, such proposals have historically been rare - because it took bipartisan consensus. Now, Democrats safely control two-thirds of the seats in both the Assembly and Senate. And while they've shied away from talk of raising taxes on their own, Leno's proposal may only be the first of tax-related questions posed to California voters."
"Leno's proposed amendment would lower the vote needed for a parcel tax to help local schools from its current 66.67 percent approval to 55 percent."
"This change in law would give voters the power to make decisions about public education at the local level, allowing schools much-needed flexibility
to improve instruction," said Leno in an emailed statement."
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