PG&E, which can't seem to catch a break when it comes to big-time fines, faces another one in a legal dispute stemming from a 2014 explosion tha destroyed and damaged nearly 4 homes in Carmel.
The Chronicle's Jaxon Van Derbeken reports: "Pacific Gas and Electric Co. should be fined nearly $112 million in connection with a natural-gas explosion that leveled a Carmel cottage and damaged three other homes in 2014, the safety division of the state Public Utilities Commission says."
"“Protecting public safety mandates a substantial fine being applied to PG&E,” Ed Moldavsky, an attorney for the safety division, said Friday in urging administrative law Judge Maribeth Bushey to impose a $111.9 million fine against the company for its “deeply flawed” records and for allegedly failing to reveal a 12-year gap in pipeline repair documents."
"It would be the second-largest penalty ever against PG&E for gas-related violations, behind the $1.6 billion that the commission imposed last year stemming from the 2010 explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people."
Meanwhile, California's online registered voter database is finally made active after nearly a decade.
From the LAT's John Myers: "A single, instantly updated list of registered voters in California became reality on Monday, as two final counties plugged in to an electronic database mandated by a federal law enacted in the wake of the contentious 2000 presidential campaign."
"In other words, a database that was long overdue."
"It's been more than a decade in coming," Secretary of State Alex Padilla said."
Back in Baghdad by the Bay, a bribery case involving officials in San Francisco has been kept hush-hush, but' that's due to a court order that may soon be rescinded.
The Chron's Bob Egelko reports: "A San Francisco judge left a curtain of secrecy in place Tuesday over the bribery case against three former San Francisco officials but indicated he might lift it if that didn’t interfere with a long-running federal investigation."
"The defendants — Keith Jackson, a former school board president; Nazly Mohajer, a former San Francisco Human Rights Commission member; and Zula Jones, a former member of the commission staff — are charged with taking and trying to conceal $20,000 in purported campaign contributions to Mayor Ed Lee from an undercover FBI agent."
"District Attorney George Gascón, who filed the charges in January, has not revealed the details of the case, including the goal of the alleged bribery and how much, if anything, Lee knew about it. Gascón says he will disclose that evidence to defense lawyers if he gets a court order requiring them to withhold the material from the public, reportedly hundreds of thousands of pages, from the public. Lee, who has denied wrongdoing, has not been charged."
Speaking of crime, a hearing for three correctional officers in Santa Clara County has begun into an alleged murder that left a severely mentally ill inmate dead.
San Jose Mercury News' Tracey Kaplan writes: "In crime scene photographs released publicly for the first time Monday, mentally ill inmate Michael Tyree, who has become a larger-than-life symbol of the problems plaguing Santa Clara County jails, looks surprisingly puny."
"Splayed nude on his back, his spindly arms akimbo, Tyree appears to be no match for the three muscular, young jail guards charged with beating him to death. Clad in charcoal business suits, the guards watched impassively Monday as prosecutor Matt Braker displayed the photographs during the first day of their preliminary hearing."
"As the stark image of Tyree's body -- smeared with his own blood, feces and vomit -- snapped into focus on the courtroom screen, a woman identified only as one of his sisters quietly sobbed."
The U.S. Transportation Secretary discussed L.A.'s transportation future at The Times' California Conversation, describing a mobile future that sounds like it's straight out of your favorite science-fiction book.
Matt Stevens reporting with the L.A. Times: "U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx did not mince words. "
"The future of Los Angeles and the West “looks crowded,” he said, conjuring nightmarish images of gridlock in the minds of the hundreds of Angelenos."
"But over the course of more than three hours Monday, transit experts, business executives and policymakers such as Foxx also presented hopeful visions of an exciting and high-tech transportation future. Later in the 21st century, they said, people will sit in self-driving cars, freight will move at 750 mph though vacuum tubes, and the Los Angeles International Airport will finally connect to rail."
And now from our "Down Under" file ...
Australia really is the craziest place on earth. Only here will you find a man drinking an ice cold beer while playing and giving kisses to a snake in the ocean: "A bizarre video has emerged online showing a man taking his pet snake for a swim in the ocean."
"In the clip, the man throws the reptile into the water several times, in what appears to be some sort of 'game' between the pair."
"The snake repeatedly floats back to the surface and approaches the man again, waiting to be hurled back under the ocean."
