Store owner in Shasta county who has elevated conspiracy theories about mosquitoes and vaccines gets seat on local board
Ever since the far-right movement in California’s Shasta county gained control of local government, they have sought to throw out voting machines in favor of hand counting and pledged to defend the second amendment using all “lawful means”.
This week they focused their efforts on a new target: mosquitoes.
Continue reading...Gavin Newsom, the governor, signed a law that adds an 11% state fee to the existing federal taxes for arms sales
California will double the taxes on guns and ammunition and use the money to pay for more security at public schools and various violence prevention programs under a new law Gavin Newsom, the governor, signed on Tuesday.
The federal government already taxes the sale of guns and ammunition at either 10% or 11%, depending on the type of gun. The law Newsom signed adds another 11% tax on top of that – making it the only state with its own tax on guns and ammunition, according to the gun control advocacy group Brady.
Continue reading...Writers Guild of America says agreement on pay and conditions ‘due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power’
The tentative deal reached between Hollywood and studio executives has been received well by those on strike and others within the industry.
Members from the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who took on the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) with demands that included better pay and residuals, and safeguards on the use of artificial intelligence, shared their collective relief.
Continue reading...Gavin Newsom signs bills a day after controversial veto on parental support of their child’s gender identity
The California governor, Gavin Newsom, signed several bills on Saturday aimed at bolstering the state’s protections for LGBTQ+ people, a day after the Democrat issued a controversial veto that was criticized by advocates.
The new laws include legislation that focuses on support for LGBTQ+ youth. One law sets timelines for required cultural competency training for public school teachers and staff, while another creates an advisory taskforce to determine the needs of LGBTQ+ students and help advance supportive initiatives.
Continue reading...Two children stopped on interstate highway attempting to run away to California after mother confiscated girl’s electronics
A 10-year-old Florida boy and his 11-year-old sister who were running away to California drove 200 miles (320km) in their mother’s car before sheriff’s deputies stopped the pair on an interstate highway, authorities said.
The two children had made a run for it after their mother confiscated the girl’s electronics as punishments, according to officials.
Continue reading...BlueTriton, the company that owns Arrowhead brand, has been taking water from San Bernardino springs for more than 100 years
California has ordered the company that owns Arrowhead bottled water to stop using some of the natural springs it has utilized for more than a century, following a years-long campaign by environmentalists to stop the operation.
Regulators on Tuesday voted to significantly reduce how much water BlueTriton – the owner of the Arrowhead brand – can take from public lands in the San Bernardino mountains. The ruling is a victory for community groups who have said for years that the bottled water firm has drained an important creek that serves as a habitat for wildlife and helps protect the area from wildfires.
Continue reading...Civil lawsuit filed by the state targets Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP
California has filed a lawsuit against some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, claiming they deceived the public and downplayed the risks posed by fossil fuels.
The civil lawsuit filed in state Superior Court in San Francisco also seeks creation of a fund – financed by the companies – to pay for recovery efforts after devastating storms and fires. Democratic governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement the companies named in the lawsuit – Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP – should be held accountable.
Continue reading...Diego Stolz died after being beaten by two middle school classmates at campus in southern California in 2019
The family of a 13-year-old boy who died after being beaten by two middle school classmates at their campus in southern California has secured a $27m settlement in what the plaintiffs’ attorneys are calling the largest bullying-related settlement in the history of US litigation.
Felipe and Juana Salcedo received the settlement from the Moreno Valley unified school district over the September 2019 death of Diego Stolz.
Continue reading...Los Angeles officials intervened to block the tearing down of the property and are considering it for historic preservation
The final home of Marilyn Monroe – and the only residence she ever owned independently – will remain standing for now after Los Angeles officials intervened to block the property’s demolition.
The news that the new owners of 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, where Monroe died at age 36, filed for demolition permits had attracted widespread outrage. Los Angeles city councilwoman Traci Park said she received hundreds of calls urging her to save the Spanish colonial-style house in the city’s Brentwood neighborhood.
Continue reading...The pup’s owners were arrested in a Walmart parking lot on suspicion of animal cruelty and possession of narcotics
California police administered an overdose-reversing drug to a pit bull puppy in attempts to save it from a potential fentanyl overdose.
On Friday, the Irvine police department announced that it administered a dose of Narcan to the puppy after it was exposed to fentanyl in a car and began to “show signs of an overdose”.
Continue reading...The company, formerly known as Twitter, argued an assembly bill violates its free speech rights under the first amendment
Elon Musk’s X sued California on Friday, challenging the constitutionality of a state law establishing new transparency requirements for social media companies, including how they police disinformation, hate speech and extremism.
X, the social media platform once called Twitter, said the law, known as Assembly Bill 587, violates its free speech rights under the US constitution’s first amendment and California’s state constitution.
Continue reading...Small rise in global temperatures would affect hundreds of millions of people and could cause a sharp rise in deaths
Life-threatening periods of high heat and humidity will spread rapidly across the world with only a small increase in global temperatures, a study has found, which could cause a sharp acceleration in the number of deaths resulting from the climate crisis.
The extremes, which can be fatal to healthy people within six hours, could affect hundreds of millions of people unused to such conditions. As a result, heat deaths could rise quickly unless serious efforts to prepare populations were undertaken urgently, the researcher said.
Continue reading...Lawyers for family say Saudi government took brother’s data in breach and ‘arrested, tortured, and imprisoned’ him and others
The company formerly known as Twitter is “unfit” to hold banking licenses because of its alleged “intentional complicity” with human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and treatment of users’ personal data, according to an open letter sent to federal and state banking regulators that was signed by a law firm representing a Saudi victim’s family.
The allegations by lawyers representing Areej al-Sadhan, whose brother Abdulrahman was one of thousands of Saudis whose confidential personal information was obtained by Saudi agents posing as Twitter employees in 2014-15, comes as Twitter Payments LLC, a subsidiary of X (the company formerly known as Twitter), is in the process of applying for money-transmitter licenses across the US.
Continue reading...Chabot elementary in Oakland received racist and threatening emails, forcing 50 students and staff to vacate the premises
A California elementary school was evacuated on Tuesday in response to a bomb threat, days after the school was targeted online by rightwing extremists over a playdate event.
Chabot elementary in Oakland received the threat over email before school started on Tuesday, forcing roughly 50 students and staff members to evacuate, authorities said. Police found no explosives after searching the school using dogs from the bomb detection team.
Continue reading...Andrea Smith, an ethnic studies scholar at a California university, had faced decades of criticism for claiming Cherokee heritage
An ethnic studies professor at the University of California, Riverside, will resign next year following more than a decade of outrage over accusations that she falsely claimed Indigenous American heritage.
Andrea Smith, once a heralded scholar of Native American studies, faced criticism since at least 2008 for claiming she was Cherokee but had remained employed at the southern California university. Last year, 13 of her colleagues at UC Riverside alleged that she made fraudulent claims to Indigenous American identity and violated academic integrity.
Continue reading...Maj Andrew Mettler – known as ‘Simple Jack’ – was a native of Georgia and a leader of the Fighting Bengals squadron
The US military has identified the Marine Corps pilot who was killed on Thursday when his combat jet crashed near a San Diego base during a training flight.
Maj Andrew Mettler was piloting an F/A-18D Hornet when it went down at 11.54pm on Thursday near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, the Second Marine Aircraft Wing said in a statement from its headquarters in Cherry Point, North Carolina. He was the only person on board.
Continue reading...Residents of Carmel, California, have named the bird Cupid, and are monitoring its health, which seems unaffected by the injury
For months, a wild turkey has been spotted roaming the rolling hills of Carmel, California, with a 30in arrow sticking through her chest. It hasn’t seemed to faze her.
Local residents first began spotting the bird, who they’re calling Cupid, last winter. Since then, she has been photographed and filmed roosting in trees, foraging for grubs and evading predators and generally going about her business as if she hadn’t been impaled.
Continue reading...About 1.3 million people under warning as storm moves inland over south Texas and governor deploys state’s national guard
The skies began to darken over southern Texas on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Harold hurtled toward the state, just as California began cleanup from the historic storm system Hilary.
Texas, still grappling with the effects of one of the hottest and driest summers on record, is now bracing for a deluge. As Harold continued on its westward trajectory after sweeping through the Gulf of Mexico, forecasters warned it could drop up to 7in of rain in some areas with risks of flash flooding.
Continue reading...Storm downgraded to post-tropical cyclone as of Monday morning but mudslides still possible
First responders rescued over a dozen unhoused people who were trapped in knee-deep water in Southern California, AP reported.
Fire officials saved 13 people who were caught in a flooded homeless encampment near the San Diego River.
Continue reading...Damage from rare tropical storm is less than feared, but experts warn of further danger as it heads to Nevada and Oregon
Vast swaths of the US south-west are reeling after Tropical Storm Hilary pummeled the region with historic amounts of rain and strong winds, even as the storm weakened on its path northward on Monday.
The rare tempest left downed trees, flooded streets, and cascades of mud and debris in its wake after slamming into the US west coast on Sunday. In California, the storm had largely cleared by Monday afternoon, and officials celebrated that damage had been less severe than feared.
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