Will California’s largest pensions, CalPERS and CalSTRS, divest from fossil fuels?
CALMatters, GRACE GEDYE: "Climate activists and retirees have pushed retirement funds in Maine and New York to sell their stocks in fossil fuel companies. The push is called “divestment”, and it’s a move that the University of California has embraced as well.
Now, divestment may be coming to more pensions near you."
California gas taxes are going up again. Here’s how much you’ll have to pay
Sac Bee, DAVID LIGHTMAN: "California’s gasoline taxes are going up again Saturday.
That means there’s little hope that the price at the pump, already more than $1.25 above the national average, will come down soon."
These new California laws go into effect July 1. Here’s what you need to know
Sac Bee, GRACE SKULLION: "On July 1, a slate of new laws goes into effect in California that will tighten regulation of the firearm industry, codify a new state holiday and seal criminal records. Here’s a brief overview of the legislation that becomes operative Saturday:
AB 1594, the Firearm Industry Responsibility Act, creates a new firearm industry standard of conduct and makes it easier for Californians to bring firearm retailers to civil court."
Exclusive: Gavin Newsom doubles state police in San Francisco fentanyl crackdown
The Chronicle, SOPHIA BOLLAG: "Gov. Gavin Newsom will double the number of state police officers helping crack down on fentanyl dealing in San Francisco, he told The Chronicle on Wednesday.
The move doubles down on an approach Newsom launched in May, when he deployed California Highway Patrol officers to assist local police in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. He called the open-air drug dealing in the city “unacceptable” and said California needs to do a better job enforcing the drug and theft laws it already has by putting more police officers on the streets and enhancing collaboration between law enforcement agencies. He said the state-local effort in San Francisco is an example of that strategy in action."
Dianne Feinstein, still recovering, is skipping a California visit during Senate break
LA Times, OWEN TUCKER-SMITH: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is recovering from a serious shingles infection, is spending the Senate’s two-week Fourth of July recess in Washington.
Senators and House members usually use recesses to return to their home states and connect with their constituents. But the California Democrat has no plans to make a trip home to San Francisco, her spokesperson Adam Russell told The Times."
California Assembly Speaker Rendon: The exit interview
CALMatters, LYNN LA: "As of Friday, Anthony Rendon will no longer be the speaker of the California Assembly — the culmination of a messy and protracted handover of power to Democratic Assemblymember Robert Rivas from Salinas.
On his way out, the Lakewood Democrat has been conducting a very public HR exit interview of sorts — reflecting openly on his seven years serving in the high-ranking role as he steered the lower house through a pandemic, a #MeToo reckoning and the Donald Trump presidency."
Critical pipeline for prospective lawmakers finally goes coed
Capitol Weekly, BRIAN JOSEPH: "After a years-long wait, young women have finally been granted equal access to a program that has proven to be a pipeline for state lawmakers.
For years, the American Legion California Boys State Program had offered high school students entering their senior year a hands-on, mock legislature experience. The program has created future California politicians, notably former Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, and current Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica."
California is the first state to tackle reparations for Black residents. What that really means
CALMatters, WENDY FRY, ERICA YEE, RYA JETHA: "Will reparations for Black residents in California become a reality? If not, are they likely to happen anywhere else in the United States?
All eyes are on California, long considered the nation’s test tube for progressive policies, and its pioneering reparations task force, which this week is giving the state Legislature its recommendations for repairing the damage of slavery and racism."
Column: The craziest reparations idea you won’t find in the California task force’s report
LA Times, ERIKA D. SMITH: "At long last, California’s reparations task force will release its final report on Thursday, providing a blueprint for how Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature might go about compensating Black people for the lasting harms of slavery and the ongoing indignities of systemic racism.
By most indications, it will land at the Capitol in Sacramento with the thud of a politically radioactive bomb."
Building California: How will the infrastructure deal affect development, wildlife?
CALMatters, RACHEL BECKER: "California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom are poised to enact a package of bills that aim to speed up lawsuits that entangle large projects, such as solar farms and reservoirs, and relax protection of about three dozen wildlife species.
Newsom and Senate and Assembly leaders unveiled the five bills earlier this week as they negotiated the state’s $310 billion 2023-24 budget. The deal ended a standoff over the governor’s infrastructure package, which he unveiled last month in an effort to streamline renewable energy facilities, water reservoirs, bridges, railways and similar projects."
Tulare Lake floodwaters now receding, Newsom’s office says. ‘We’ve turned a corner.’
LA Times, SUSANNE RUST: "After months of concern that Sierra Nevada snowmelt would send torrents of water into an already flooded Tulare Lake and inundate more communities and infrastructure, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has announced that the waters of the resurgent lake have finally begun to recede.
“We’ve turned a corner,” said Alex Stack, a Newsom spokesman."
Yosemite finalizes controversial rules for climbing El Capitan, Half Dome
The Chronicel, GREGORY THOMAS: "A highly scrutinized plan to manage big-wall rock climbing in Yosemite National Park for the first time has been finalized.
Last week, Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon signed approval documents formalizing the park’s recently created wilderness climbing permit program, which regulates overnight climbs on famous granite walls like El Capitan, Half Dome and Washington Column. The program web page is expected to be updated imminently, according to Yosemite climbing program supervisor Jesse McGahey."
Amid crumbling cliffs, Orange County considers moving its famously scenic rail line inland
LA Times, GABRIEL SAN ROMAN: "It’s among the nation’s most iconic and heavily utilized passenger rail lines, linking Southern California’s cities via a stunning coastal route. From the grassy headlands of San Luis Obispo to Orange County’s wide-open beaches and San Diego’s oceanside bluffs, the so-called Lossan rail corridor is famous for its breathtaking views of the pounding Pacific.
But can it last?"
Supervisors vote to name wild parrots official animal of San Francisco
The Chronicle, PETER HARTLAUB: "San Francisco supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to place a crown on the city’s wild parrots, enshrining the colorful species — a relative newcomer — as S.F.’s official animal.
The idea started on the Total SF podcast co-hosted by me and Chronicle columnist Heather Knight, after Knight discovered in February that San Francisco has an official instrument, official flower and two official songs, but no official animal."
Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions
LA Times, DAVID G. SAVAGE: "In another major reversal, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action policies at colleges and universities that use race as a factor in deciding who is admitted.
In a pair of decisions, the six conservative justices ruled that Harvard, the nation’s oldest private college, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the oldest state university, were illegally discriminating based on race and violating the 14th Amendment of the Constitution."
What does the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action mean for California?
BANG*Mercury News, ELISSA MIOLENE: "The Supreme Court has ruled against affirmative action, banning colleges and universities from considering race in student admissions.
The decision comes after two elite universities — Harvard and the University of North Carolina — were challenged by Students for Fair Admissions, an anti-affirmative action nonprofit that claimed the institutions discriminated against Asian American and White students in their admission decisions."
Sonya Christian on her ambitious goals as California's new community colleges chief
EdSource, MICHAEL BURKE: "Sonya Christian, the new chancellor for the California Community Colleges, has ambitious goals for the system of 116 colleges.
To tackle declining enrollment that she describes as a “crisis situation,” she wants to appeal to millions of low-income adults across the state who have never enrolled in college. She hopes to simplify the state’s complex transfer process, possibly by working with the 23-campus California State University to automatically admit students who complete an associate degree for transfer. And she’s already made it clear that she wants every ninth grader in the state to participate in dual enrollment and take classes at a community college."
As a hotel workers’ strike looms, Anime Expo attendees sound off
LA Times, HELEN LI: "The largest U.S. hotel workers’ strike in recent memory and the largest anime convention in North America are both set to kick off this weekend in the same downtown Los Angeles spot — with all the attendant agitation playing out on social media.
More than 15,000 union employees at 62 hotels in Los Angeles and Orange counties are scheduled to walk off the job as early as Saturday after their contracts expire. They are seeking higher pay, which might allow them to live in more expensive areas closer to their jobs, as well as improved benefits and working conditions."
S.F. tech layoffs: Uber, Robinhood and two other companies cut hundreds of jobs
The Chronicle, ROLAND LI: "Four San Francisco tech companies laid off hundreds of employees over the past week, a sign that while downsizing has slowed, the industry isn’t done cost cutting.
Software company New Relic is laying off 155 U.S. workers and up to 57 people overseas, according to a company memo. The company is cutting redundancies and roles not aligned with priorities, CEO Bill Staples wrote. In the past fiscal year, the company lost $55.2 million from operations."
A Texas city shelters nearly all homeless residents in one place. It’s turning heads in California
CALMatters, MARISA KENDALL: "It’s a common question as one walks past the sprawling tent camps that line the streets of so many neighborhoods in California: Why can’t we build a place for all these people to go?
The pope’s ‘favorite nun’ defends migrants. So why did she agree Texas could bus them to L.A.?
LA Times, JACK HERRERA: "When a bus carrying 42 migrants from the Texas-Mexico border rolled to a stop in Los Angeles this month, activists and local politicians were quick to excoriate Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
“It is abhorrent that an American elected official is using human beings as pawns in his cheap political games,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass wrote in a statement.
He could have saved an innocent friend from prison. He waited three decades to try
The Chronicle, JOSHUA SHARPE: "Roberto Socorro rose early in the Cuban countryside with plans to reveal a devastating secret he had carried for half his life.
The weathered 59-year-old hired a taxi into Havana. Farmland blew past the window as he thought of what he’d done. Three decades earlier, he’d witnessed a murder in San Francisco and then watched a close friend go to prison for it — knowing he was innocent and that another man was guilty. The friend was still in prison, oblivious to Socorro’s betrayal."
