Gov. Jerry Brown filed an appeal to a federal ruling over California’s teacher tenure law.
Adam Nagourney reports for the New York Times: “In a one-page appeal filed late Friday afternoon, Mr. Brown and the state attorney general, Kamala D. Harris, argued that a decision of such scope needed to be made by a higher court, and that the judge in this case had declined a request by the governor and attorney general “to provide a detailed statement of the factual and legal bases for its ruling.””
““Changes of this magnitude, as a matter of law and policy, require appellate review,” it said of the case, Vergara v. California.”
Aftershocks tremble the Bay Area region this weekend, as thousands of homes remain unfit for the turbulence.
Pete Carey reports for The Mercury News: “"This could be our Katrina," said Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, referring to the deadly 2005 hurricane. She is working on an ordinance to require owners of about 1,400 Oakland apartment buildings to retrofit them.”
“A major quake on the Hayward fault could destroy 15,000 rental units, or about a quarter to a third of the city's rental housing, she said, citing a U.S. Geological Survey report. "If we fix it we can save lots of lives and maintain the cultural integrity of the city and the balance of residents." Many of the older apartments house lower-income families, she noted.”
Lawmakers approved a bill requiring paid sick leave for California’s part-time workers.
Redi Wilson reports for the Washington Post: “With Brown’s signature, California will become the second state to offer paid sick leave for part-time and temporary workers, after Connecticut passed a similar bill in 2011. Democrats in California have been pushing paid sick leave since 2006, when San Francisco became the first city in the country to require employers to give their employees time off. In subsequent years, the District of Columbia, Seattle, Portland, Ore., New York City and Jersey City, N.J., among others, passed their own laws.”
Lawmakers didn’t manage to reach a deal on a Tesla battery factory.
Marc Lifsher reports for the Los Angeles Times: “As the Legislature sprinted toward adjournment, the talks lost some momentum, said policymakers not authorized to discuss the sensitive issue. "The administration gave up about a week ago," said one of the policymakers.”
“Another Capitol insider suggested that Tesla wasn't ready to cut a deal.”
“"Tesla still needs to get all the pieces in place about what the project would be so that the [proposed] statute would be as helpful as possible," he said.”
Dry weather have your lawn looking bad? Don’t worry – there’s a paint job for that.
Jennifer Medina reports for the New York Times: “Already, there are dozens of lawn paint options available, from longer-lasting formulas typically used on high-traffic turf such as ballparks and golf courses, to naturally derived products that rely on a highly concentrated pigment. Some formulas tend to have a blue-tinged hue, a telltale sign of the unnatural that most homeowners avoid.”
““Beauty, though, really is in the eye of the beholder,” said James Baird, a botany and plant sciences professor at the University of California, Riverside, who has done extensive research on lawn paints, including trying several of them on his own backyard. “What I call the fake Christmas tree look, that is by far the most popular hue in our research. When you put it on turf that is already brown, it can come out a lot more blue than green, but some people love it.””
