California pension fund reports $29-billion loss, first since Great Recession, amid market turmoil
CHRISTIAN MARTINEZ, LA Times: "The California Public Employees’ Retirement System reported a loss of more than 6% last fiscal year, its first negative investment return since the Great Recession, the state pension fund said Wednesday.
At the close of the 2021-22 fiscal year, which ended June 30, the fund stood at $440 billion, a loss of nearly $30 billion from the previous year, when CalPERS reported a positive 21.3% return to bring the fund’s total to $469 billion.
“Tumultuous global markets played a role in CalPERS’ first loss since the global financial crisis of 2009,” the organization said Wednesday in a release."
Ruling will change California DMV rules on license suspensions after DUIs
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: “A state Supreme Court order Wednesday will require California’s Department of Motor Vehicles to change its rules for hearings on whether to suspend the license of someone accused of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Under the current rules, the same DMV officer who advocates for license suspension also presides over the hearing. A state appeals court ruled in April that those rules violated the driver’s constitutional right to a fair and impartial hearing. On Wednesday, the high court unanimously denied the DMV’s request to withdraw the ruling as a precedent for future cases. It is now binding on trial courts statewide.
A 2005 California law prohibited all state agencies — except the DMV — from assigning an employee to preside over a hearing if the same employee has acted as an advocate or investigator in the same case.”
COVID in California: Odds of omicron reinfection five times higher than with delta
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: “Bay Area doctors are preparing for the arrival of the recently approved Novavax vaccine, which uses a more traditional medical technology that might persuade some skeptics to get protective shots. The fourth vaccine option arrives amid an historic surge in cases that hasn’t yet resulted in moves by local health officials to tighten policies on masking or social distancing. At this point, most Americans seem to think that COVID will never go away, but it’s unclear how they plan to adapt to that.
The risk of COVID-19 reinfection is approximately five times higher with the currently dominant omicron variants compared to the period when the delta variant was dominant, according to new research from the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics. Based on patient data collected from July 2020 to July 2022, a majority of individuals who experienced reinfections in the period when omicron became dominant had their first infections in the alpha (37.9%) and delta (37.1%) dominant periods. But for those who had a first and second infection with the same variant, the rate was highest for those in the omicron dominant period (14.6%). Comparatively, only 1% of the reinfections happened from a delta to delta infection and 1.8% with alpha to alpha.
Starting July 25, the federal government will expand the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for green card applicants to anyone who is eligible for the shots, including those 6 months through 4 years of age. “The applicant must complete the COVID-19 vaccine primary series and provide documentation of vaccination to the civil surgeon in person before completion of the medical examination,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its updated guidance. For the youngest age group, that means three doses of the Pfizer vaccine or two doses of Moderna. Older applicants are already subject to the requirements."
‘Chaotic’ and ‘dangerous’: S.F. shuts down Mission District plaza as it confronts drugs and illegal vending
The Chronicle, ANNIE VAINSHTEIN: “A fence has been put up to deter illegal vending and open-air drug use at the 24th and Mission Streets plaza, an act officials said they hope will curtail chaos above the BART station.
In a tweet Wednesday afternoon, San Francisco District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen announced that while it has never been her desire to close public space, the situation at the BART plaza had become “untenable” and was causing problems for the entire neighborhood.
“It’s been chaotic and it’s getting increasingly dangerous,” Ronen told The Chronicle by phone, explaining that the issue isn’t just the dozens of vendors that have taken over the plaza but the open air drug-use that had grown inside of its perimeter.”
Small business grants overshadow loan program in COVID-19 response
LAT, GRACE GEDYE: Which would you choose: free money you get to keep, or money you need to pay back with interest?
That was the easy decision some small businesses got to make when California rolled out two financial assistance programs around the same time in late 2020, according to a recent report from the Little Hoover Commission, an independent oversight agency.
In response to businesses struggling with the pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a small business loan program called the California Rebuilding Fund in late November 2020.”
How two L.A. COVID swindlers dodged the FBI and joined the European jet set
LAT, MICHAEL FINNEGAN: “The private jet banked eastward as it ascended out of Lisbon. After passing Madrid and Barcelona, it flew over the Mediterranean and the Italian peninsula — Rome on the left, Naples on the right.
The husband and wife enjoying the plush cabin with their black dog were convicted swindlers from Los Angeles on the sixth day of a daring getaway. With police worldwide on alert to arrest them, they had slipped off to Portugal and hoped to vanish in the Balkans by nightfall.
Their destination was Montenegro, a small mountainous nation a few hundred miles up the Adriatic coast from Greece — an appealing alternative to prison in the United States.”
‘I’m over it.’ Many in L.A. shrug off COVID-19 wave despite super-infectious subvariants
LAT, REBECCA SCHNEID/HEIDI PÉREZ-MORENO/HAILEY BRANSON-POTTS: “There was a time during the pandemic when the scene at Westfield Valencia Town Center in Santa Clarita would have evoked gasps and much scolding.
As summertime temperatures flirted with 100 degrees this week, families and teenagers crowded into the indoor mall, soothed by its air conditioning. But there was nary a mask in sight, even though coronavirus infections are skyrocketing because of the ultra-infectious Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.
Amid the carefree atmosphere, few seemed concerned.”
California poised to restrict bee-killing pesticides
CALMatters, RACHEL BECKER: “Widely used insecticides that harm bees and songbirds would face far-reaching restrictions in California under regulations proposed by the state’s pesticide agency.
The new limits would be among the nation’s most extensive for agricultural use of neonicotinoids, a class of insecticides used to kill plant-damaging pests like aphids. The highly potent pesticides have been shown to harm bees, birds and other creatures.
Aimed at protecting bees that pollinate crops, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s proposed rules would restrict four closely-related neonicotinoid chemicals: imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, clothianidin and dinotefuran.”
Fourth person dies after being transferred out of S.F.’s Laguna Honda
The Chronicle, NANETTE ASIMOV: “A fourth person has died after being transferred out of Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in San Francisco as part of a federally mandated closure plan, The Chronicle has learned.
Officials from Laguna Honda confirmed the death of a person in his or her 60s on Wednesday, a day after city public health officials said three other frail patients had died within days of being moved from the skilled nursing facility run by the city.
Laguna Honda is required by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to transfer or discharge all patients by mid-September. The federal agency decertified Laguna Honda in April, six months after state inspectors declared it to be “in a state of substandard care.””
Foster City’s plan to kill more than 100 geese, potentially by spinal disclocation, is moving forward
The Chronicle, ANNIE VAINSHTEIN: “Foster City officials decided this week to move ahead with plans to kill at least 100 geese they said were contaminating the city and posing a nuisance to its residents.
All but one member of the Foster City Council voted Monday in favor of a contentious “depredation plan” that will allow the city to kill a percentage of its Canada geese and goslings, which have multiplied considerably in recent years.
City officials have said the overpopulation of the geese — and their droppings — are a health hazard and are driving people away from their parks, which are their “biggest investment as far as real estate,” said Councilmember Sam Hindi.”
Low-income students are more likely to be in classrooms with underqualified teachers
CALMatters, JOE HONG/ERICA YEE: “New California education data helps tell an old story: Schools with higher rates of low-income students have more underqualified teachers.
A CalMatters analysis of teacher credentialing data released this month by the California Department of Education found this correlation statewide as well as within districts.
The state’s data from the 2020-21 school year details the percentage of classes by school and district that were taught by fully credentialed teachers, intern teachers or teachers without proper subject credentials. The data also shows the percentage of classes taught by “experienced” teachers —those with more than two years of experience.”
Newsom says UCLA owes explanation over its decision to join Big Ten
EdSource, MICHAEL BURKE: “With UCLA planning to move its athletic programs from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten conference, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that the campus must explain how the move will benefit its students and the University of California, Berkeley, a member of the Pac-12 conference.
“The first duty of every public university is to the people — especially students,” Newsom said in a statement. “UCLA must clearly explain to the public how this deal will improve the experience for all its student-athletes, will honor its century-old partnership with UC Berkeley, and will preserve the histories, rivalries, and traditions that enrich our communities.”
Newsom’s statement was released after the governor joined in a closed session of the UC’s board of regents in San Francisco. They met for about two hours, apparently to discuss UCLA’s move to the Big Ten. The governor’s position was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. As governor, Newsom is an ex-officio member of the board, which includes six other ex-officio members and 14 appointed members, who were each selected either by previous governors or by Newsom.”
Top S.F. official calls for resignation of school board member Ann Hsu after racist comment
The Chronicle, JILL TUCKER: “The fallout over racist comments made by a San Francisco school board member continued Wednesday, with a top city official calling for her resignation.
Board of Supervisors President Shamann Walton called for Ann Hsu to step down immediately, despite an apology, for claiming Black and brown parents do not encourage their children to focus on or value learning.
“Yeah sure, thank you for the apology, but at the end of the day this is probably reflective of how a person really feels,” Walton said. “It’s disheartening that someone like that is in a position to make decisions for our children.””
S.F. sales tax data shows that, yes, people are spending more in residential neighborhoods
The Chronicle, CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO: “Strolling along Ninth Avenue in the Sunset District around lunchtime, many of the restaurant parklets are full, with people window shopping or taking a midday stroll. It’s a normal enough scene on a weekday, but before the pandemic, those streets and business were less busy, with many patrons previously hopping the train to their downtown offices and taking their daytime business elsewhere.
But take the N-Judah to the Powell or Montgomery street stops in and around the Financial District and the scene is very different. The besuited lunchtime crowd is there, but snaking lines for coffee and takeaway spots are largely a thing of the pre-pandemic past with fewer daily commuters coming from out of the city and elsewhere in San Francisco.
The striking shift toward more vibrant daytime neighborhoods has been a sign of pandemic life, as San Francisco office attendance has remained sluggish compared with the rest of the country, despite a recent uptick. That juxtaposition is also evident in city sales tax data, which shows the city’s residential areas are seeing those revenues recover faster than downtown and the northeastern parts of the city, which rely heavily on tourism.”
Piedmont saw its official homeless count spike. Now its unsheltered residents are nowhere to be found
The Chronicle, SARAH RAVANI: “How many homeless people live in Piedmont, a wealthy East Bay enclave surrounded by Oakland?
It seems like a simple question, but the answer isn’t clear. According to a recent count, Piedmont saw its homeless population rise from zero in 2019 to 42 in 2022. The count found four people in tents, nine in cars or vans, 14 in RVs and 15 on the street or outside. But a recent foray to find the unhoused in the exclusive town found no tents, people sleeping outside or in RVs and a city official said the town isn’t sure where they live.
It’s unclear how many homeless people are living in Piedmont despite the latest official count. The challenge in finding Piedmont’s homeless population makes it that much harder to connect those living on the street to resources and help.”
S.F. Muni’s long-delayed Central Subway has had another setback. When will it open?
The Chronicle, RICARDO CANO: “San Francisco’s decades-in-the-works Central Subway extension has been delayed once again, this time by about two months, the Municipal Transportation Agency said Tuesday.
A June 20 fire in the subway’s Yerba Buena/Moscone Station is expected to delay completion of the Central Subway by six to eight weeks, Jonathan Rewers, SFMTA’s acting chief financial officer, told the agency’s Board of Directors. The fire didn’t result in any injuries or damage to trains, though it temporarily halted testing inside the Central Subway, one of the final steps toward the project’s completion.
A surge arrester ignited a fire inside a circuit breaker cubicle and damaged two other cubicles — all three of which need to be replaced, Rewers said.”
‘Stranger Things’ helped this small nation find its home in Hollywood — at a cost
LAT, JAWEED KALEEM: “The kitchen staff in one of this city’s newest chic hotels, housed in a 15th century palace, knew Hollywood had arrived when film crews flown in from California started calling room service to demand smoothies — juiced celery and all.
Yet most Americans can’t find this Baltic nation on a map. The people of Vilnius, the medieval capital of cobblestone streets conquered easily by foot, don’t feel slighted even if they make it a point to understand the health fads of Los Angeles.
But the American film industry — three decades after this sliver of country broke free of the Soviet Union — is bringing about a change here few would have predicted.”
To get their degrees, Mexico’s medical students practice medicine at gunpoint
LAT, LEILA MILLER: “When Alfredo Cortes arrived at a tiny clinic for his year of community service required of all medical students in Mexico, he found that he had no cellphone or internet access — only a radio.
He lived alone at the clinic, a simple dwelling in a rural community of Michoacan state where police were a rare sight. In the early hours of a spring morning in 2020, he was roused from sleep by growling trucks and pounding on the front door.
Several armed men ordered Cortes to leave with them. When he refused, one truck sped away and quickly returned with a man bleeding heavily from his belly. He had been shot.”
What really happened during the wait for Trump to quell the Jan. 6 insurrection
LAT, SARAH D. WIRE: “The House Jan. 6 committee’s prime-time hearing Thursday is billed as a look at what former President Trump did in the 187 minutes between the start of the insurrection and when he urged his supporters to leave the Capitol.
The panel will detail the calls Trump made to lawmakers trying to convince them to further his plan to stay in power even as they were evacuated; the tweets he sent decrying Vice President Mike Pence, who was fleeing the mob; and the time a reportedly gleeful Trump spent watching the riot on television as family and aides begged him to intervene.
But just as telling are the actions the former president did not take in that time.”
