Dianne Feinstein returns to U.S. Senate after months-long absence
The Chronicle, SHIRA STEIN, JOE GAROFOLI: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein returned to the Senate on Wednesday after a nearly three-month absence that prompted some members of her own party to call for her resignation.
Feinstein, who arrived in a wheelchair, told a mob of reporters and photographers gathered to document her arrival that she was feeling “much better.”
“I’m still experiencing some side effects from the shingles virus,” Feinstein said in a statement ahead of her arrival. “My doctors have advised me to work a lighter schedule as I return to the Senate. I’m hopeful those issues will subside as I continue to recover.”"
Feinstein casts her first Senate vote in months, finally shedding light on health issues
LA Times, ALEXANDRE E. PETRI: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein returned to the Capitol on Wednesday to cast her first vote in the Senate since taking an extended illness-related absence that threatened Democrats’ slim majority and led to mounting calls for her resignation.
Feinstein, who at 89 is the eldest sitting senator, was brought onto the Senate floor in a wheelchair that she may at times require to travel around the Capitol as she works “a lighter schedule,” her office said in a statement. Videos on Twitter showed Feinstein emerging from a car outside the Senate building, where she was helped into the wheelchair and greeted by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Offering her most detailed description yet of her health problems since she took leave in February to be treated at a San Francisco hospital for shingles, Feinstein said in the statement that she’s made some “significant progress” but still is experiencing some side effects, including vision and balance issues."
Newsom’s reparations statements set off debate over viability of cash payments
The Chronicle, DUSTIN GARDINER: "California’s task force on reparations hasn’t even sent its final recommendations to lawmakers, but there are early indications that the call for cash payments faces a precarious road in Sacramento.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who would ultimately need to sign off on any reparations program, set off rampant speculation this week when he released a statement that many interpreted as a signal that he might not support cash payments for Black residents whose ancestors were enslaved, a crucial piece of the task force’s findings.
“Dealing with that legacy is about much more than cash payments,” the Democratic governor said Tuesday night. “Many of the recommendations put forward by the task force are critical action items we’ve already been hard at work addressing.”"
California Reparations Calculator: How much does a state panel say I’m owed?
CALMatters, WENDY FRY, ERICA YEE: "After two years studying the effects of slavery and modern-day racism, the state task force is urging California to repair the long-term damage African-Americans here have suffered.
Among its recommendations: that the state make a “down payment” on financial reparations.
Economic experts devised ways to calculate African Americans’ losses due to certain types of racial harm — such as health care disparities, discrimination in housing and mortgage lending, over-policing and over-incarceration, and devaluation of Black-owned businesses."
California court reinstates defamation suit against Rep. Maxine Waters
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: "A state appeals court reinstated a defamation suit Wednesday against Rep. Maxine Waters, a veteran Democratic congresswoman from Los Angeles, for accusing her 2020 campaign opponent of having been dishonorably discharged from the Navy.
Waters was first elected to the House in 1990, after seven terms in the state Assembly, and is California’s second-longest-serving member of Congress, after Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. She defeated Republican Joe Collins in 2020, with 72% of the vote, after a campaign in which she repeatedly said Collins had been dishonorably discharged in 2017 after 13 years in the Navy.
Waters cited a federal judge’s ruling in 2018 that dismissed a suit Collins had filed against the Navy. The judge said the case arose from “events related to (Collins’) dishonorable discharge from the Navy” for engaging in partisan politics while in military service and declaring a campaign to run for president in 2020. Waters said other documents showed Collins had engaged in additional misconduct in the Navy."
Sexual assault evidence in California: a slow moving story
Capitol Weekly, CLAIRE MCCARVILLE: "Almost a year after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a measure (SB 215) allowing survivors of sexual assault to track and receive updates regarding the status of their sexual assault evidence kit, its authors are optimistic about the outcome.
Senator Anthony Portantino (D), a coauthor of the bill, says, “We’re getting good data to show that it’s working.”
As that data continues to be processed, question remain on how a rape kit is dealt with and why there is such a backlog in processing them."
California’s catastrophic three-year drought might have had a surprising trigger
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "California’s recent drought flared into the state’s driest three-year period on record before its abrupt end this spring, and few people saw it coming.
Research published Wednesday suggests that the drought and the climatic conditions behind it had an unlikely driver: the Australian bushfires of 2019 and 2020.
According to the groundbreaking study, the massive wildfires thousands of miles away unleashed so much smoke that they triggered a chain of events in the atmosphere, ultimately cooling the tropical Pacific Ocean and hastening formation of a La Niña climate pattern. La Niña, which stuck around for an unusual three winters, is associated with droughts throughout much of California."
Striking satellite photos show the dramatic scale of California’s 2023 snowpack
LA Times, TERRY CASTLEMAN: "After a series of atmospheric rivers and cold weather hit California, this year’s snowpack was one of the biggest in history.
“This year’s result will go down as one of the largest snowpack years on record in California,” Sean de Guzman, manager of the Department of Water Resources’ snow surveys, said in a news release.
Striking images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite show just how massive the snowpack was."
New ICE program will put families under home curfew, deport those who fail asylum screenings
LA Tiomes, HAMED ALEAZIZ: "Asylum-seeking families that cross the U.S. border without authorization will be subject to GPS monitoring and a curfew and will be deported if they fail an initial screening under a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement program set to take effect soon, an agency official told The Times on Wednesday.
Under the plan, known as Family Expedited Removal Management, migrant families will be directed to appear for an initial asylum screening, known as a credible fear interview, when they reach their destinations. Another new Biden administration policy that limits asylum for those who cross through a third country and do not seek protection there will apply to them.
ICE will seek to deport families that fail the screening."
Fleeing bloodshed, poverty and despair, immigrant asylum seekers line up in the desert
LA Times, RAUL ROA: "The yip-howls of coyotes cut through the night as an almost full moon sets to the west, where only I-beam barricades stand silently, marking the U.S. border with Mexico through this largely agricultural section of the Sonoran Desert.
This is where, except for Mexicans, many of the migrants from throughout the world who are seeking asylum take their first steps onto American soil and turn themselves in to U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Somerton, Ariz.
According to a Customs and Border Protection officer who did not want to be identified because he did not have permission to speak to the media, Mexican nationals who try to cross here do it as stealthily as as they can and run toward Yuma, fearing that they’ll be sent back immediately if caught."
Biden administration will urge asylum seekers to voluntarily return to Mexico
LA Times, HAMED ALEAZIZ: "Beginning Friday morning, the Biden administration plans to offer some migrants the chance to voluntarily return to Mexico.
DHS officials are planning to inform some asylum seekers from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti who have been arrested by Border Patrol agents that they can choose a different pathway to the U.S.
“I want to let you know about a process that is currently in place for individuals in your situation,” a script for asylum officers encountering these migrants reads. The script, included in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services training materials, was obtained by The Times. “I will give you an opportunity before we start the interview to choose to follow this process if it is something you would like to do.”"
Can California find better paying jobs for people with disabilities?
CALMatters, JEANNE KUANG: "At a warehouse tucked into a suburban Bay Area office park, along white folding tables lined up like an assembly line, about 50 people on a March morning snapped together plastic pieces of bicycle safety mirrors or stuffed envelopes with a nonprofit’s donor letters.
The tasks were simple, but it’s work.
The laborers are all adults who have intellectual or developmental disabilities, performing jobs under contract for local businesses and nonprofits. VistAbility, the nonprofit employment services provider that runs the shop, pays them each $3 to $14 an hour, depending on their speed."
Community colleges had a deadline to serve struggling students. Did they hit it?
CALMatters, ADAM ECHELMAN: "The Ram Pantry serves more than 900 students a day, Monday through Thursday, with free food on the Fresno City College campus.
The college also offers subsidized housing for students facing homelessness, serving as many as 300 students a year.
Community colleges across the state have different programs aimed at combating problems students face such as homelessness, food insecurity, transportation and even healthcare in some cases. To help and make the system less fragmented for students, lawmakers included $100 million in one-time funding, plus $30 million in annual funding, in the 2021-22 state budget for community colleges to establish a “basic needs center” on each campus by July 1, 2022."
Schools struggle for bodies and potties one year into California’s big preschool expansion
LA Times, JENNY GOLD, KATE SEQUEIRA: "Two years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a big plan for some of California’s littlest children. By 2025, he said, nearly 400,000 4-year-olds would be enrolled in an additional year of public education called transitional kindergarten, or TK, launching what is expected to become the largest universal preschool program in the country.
The $2.7-billion plan, and the legislation that followed, sent school districts scrambling — hiring teachers and aides, building additional classrooms, creating an age-appropriate curriculum — to be ready to welcome the first tranche of newly eligible children in the 2022-23 school year.
But as the first year of this ambitious expansion comes to a close, family interest in the program has been surprisingly lackluster and many school districts are still focused on meeting even the most basic requirements for starting this new grade. Possible funding cuts and ongoing teacher and aide shortages are compounding the pressure — and many educators are uncertain what’s ahead for the 2023-24 school year."
S.F. could bring back algebra in eighth grade. Here’s what you need to know about city’s math wars
The Chronicle, JILL TUCKER: "For years, San Francisco public schools have been caught up in a bitter debate over the district’s math curriculum. A vocal group of parents has argued that the district’s decision to delay teaching Algebra I until high school hobbles children who are ready to take the math course in middle school. But some experts and district leaders have argued that pushing back algebra can level the playing field for kids who are struggling in math.
The debate gets to the heart of larger fights about merit and equity playing out in the district.
The battle boiled over into a lawsuit filed by a group of San Francisco parents in March who demanded officials put Algebra I back into middle schools and stop forcing students to retake the course in ninth grade if they have already passed it in a private school or through other providers before entering high school."
‘Everyone is feeling robbed’: Chaos, alleged fraud and $25 million debt at an S.F. wine startup
The Chronicle, JESS LANDER, ESTHER MOBLEY: "Underground Cellar, the innovative wine reseller that suddenly ceased operations in late April after attracting customers with a game-like wine-collecting experience, owes roughly $25 million dollars worth of wine and other debts to creditors, according to bankruptcy filings.
On May 1, the San Francisco company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy with the District of Delaware, where it was incorporated, to end business operations and liquidate its assets. The bankruptcy documents list more than 37,000 unsecured claims, largely for purchased wine that customers haven’t received.
As the bankruptcy case proceeds, Underground Cellar’s thousands of customers, investors and suppliers are left wondering what went wrong at a company that seemed poised for huge success, with $13.5 million in funding, according to Crunchbase, and $20 million in reported revenue last year. Now, there are conflicting accounts of the company’s leadership structure, an allegation of fraud and questions over who rightfully owns the many wines supposedly housed in Underground Cellar’s Napa warehouse."
San Jose spent $116 million on homelessness last year. What did it get for the money?
BANG*Mercury News, ETHAN VARIAN: "Last year, San Jose spent $116 million on programs to alleviate its homelessness crisis. What did it get for the money?
For one, the funds helped move more than 1,800 homeless people into permanent housing, according to a new city report.
But San Jose’s homeless population spiked 11% last year to around 6,700 people, highlighting the dire challenges the city faces getting people off the street and out of shelters as it struggles to build enough affordable housing for everyone who needs it."
California to pay $24 million in death of man who yelled ‘I can’t breathe’ as CHP pinned him
LA Times, NATHAN SOLIS: "California has agreed to pay $24 million to the family of a man who died after yelling “I can’t breathe” as officers pinned him to the ground and tried to draw his blood following a traffic stop, attorneys for the family said Wednesday.
The deadly March 2020 encounter came just months before the police killing of George Floyd as he uttered the same phrase to Minneapolis officers more than 20 times. Video of Edward Bronstein’s final moments in a California Highway Patrol maintenance yard in Altadena, however, would not come to light for two years.
Seven CHP officers and a nurse have been charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of Bronstein, a 38-year-old Burbank resident."
22-year-old collapses leaving court, found dead next day in jail cell, CA lawsuit says
Sac Bee, MADELEINE LIST: "William Hayden Schuck was a thrill-seeker, an adventure lover and a risk-taker, his parents said.
He jumped off high cliffs, drove too fast and surfed in places he wasn’t supposed to, his mother said.
His parents never expected him to die in San Diego County Jail in March 2022."
The Mercury News sues San Jose over Pink Poodle strip club scandal involving firefighters
BANG*Mercury News, GABRIEL GRESCHLER: "The Mercury News sued the City of San Jose on Wednesday, seeking to make public the details behind an October scandal where firefighters were seen dropping off a bikini-clad woman at the Pink Poodle strip club.
In its lawsuit filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, the news organization is pursuing records pertaining to the city’s investigation into the Oct. 5 incident and subsequent disciplinary measures fire department officials say were taken against the employees involved.
So far, those documents have been kept hidden from the public despite repeated attempts by reporters and a media attorney to unearth them through records requests and communications with city attorneys. Although then-mayor Sam Liccardo called for “heads to roll” when the scandal broke, the city will offer no details about the nature of any discipline."
FBI won’t provide Comer with ‘alleged criminal scheme’ document
CNN, SARA MURRAY, EVAN PEREZ: "The FBI declined Wednesday to provide House Oversight Chairman James Comer with an internal law enforcement document that some Republicans claim will show Joe Biden was involved in an illegal scheme involving a foreign national.
“You have asked for what you say is a ‘precise description’ of an ‘alleged criminal scheme’ contained in is a single FD-1023 report. You express concern that the FBI has inappropriately ‘failed to disclose’ such a report ‘to the American people,'” Christopher Dunham, acting assistant director for the FBI’s office of congressional affairs, said in the letter to Comer, a copy of which was obtained by CNN.
“It is critical to the integrity of the entire criminal justice process and to the fulfillment of our law enforcement duties that FBI avoid revealing information — including unverified or incomplete information — that could harm investigations, prejudice prosecutions or judicial proceedings, unfairly violate privacy or reputational interests, or create misimpressions in the public,” he continued in the letter."
Trump returns to CNN for town hall filled with false claims
The Hill, BRETT SAMUELS: "It was 2016 all over again Wednesday night as former President Donald Trump took part in a raucous town hall filled with incendiary claims and jabs at the network.
Trump fielded questions from CNN's Kaitlan Collins and Republican voters in Manchester, N.H., for more than an hour about his false claims surrounding the 2020 election, his myriad of legal troubles, abortion, the war in Ukraine, immigration and the economy. It was Trump's first appearance on the network since 2016.
While Trump's advisers explained that the former president was returning to the network he routinely lambasts as "fake news" to reach a wider audience, the former president largely offered up the same type of pugilistic politics that defined his 2016 campaign and his four years in the White House."
