Good morning. It’s Thursday, June 2.
• | Reparations task force proposes free tuition and health care. |
• | Sheryl Sandberg steps down from Meta after 14 years. |
• | And the battle to save the last “Olympic Oak” of Los Angeles. |
Statewide
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Peopled lined up to address California’s reparations task force in San Francisco on April 13.
Janie Har/A.P.
A state reparations task force on Thursday released a 492-page study detailing the state’s role in discriminating against Black Californians. “Segregation, racial terror, harmful racist neglect, and other atrocities in nearly every sector of civil society have inflicted harms, which cascade over a lifetime and compound over generations,” the report said. In 2018, the panel found, Black Californians earned on average just under $54,000 compared to $87,000 for white residents. The panel recommended guaranteeing Black Californians low mortgage rates, free health care, and free college tuition. A.P. | Bloomberg
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A University of California faculty committee halted a proposal to require that high school students take a semester of ethnic studies to qualify for admission. Critics had objected to an activist tone in the proposed criteria, which they say pressures students “to foment a political revolution.” Andrew Jolivette, an ethnic studies professor at UC San Diego, accused committee members of caving to “fears of Fox News and white supremacist backlash.” EdSource
3
A school violence roundup:
• | A 16-year-old Berkeley High student was arrested for trying to recruit classmates to carry out a mass shooting, the authorities said on Wednesday. At Chico State, a recent graduate was arrested for calling for a “race war” targeted against white people on social media, prosecutors said. Berkeleyside | Action News Now |
• | In Van Nuys, a student was shot in the leg outside his high school on Wednesday, and in Rialto a deadly gun battle broke out at a park where elementary school children were taking a field trip. Other gun scares led to arrests or lockdowns at schools in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, and the San Gabriel Valley. NBC Los Angeles | KABC | A.P. | O.C. Register | KTLA |
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Ecoinometrics
☝️ A market analyst illustrated how the price of Costco’s $1.50 hot-dog-and-soda combo might have risen with inflation had it not held constant for 37 years.
The West Coast superstore has maintained the low price since 1985 on the wishes of cofounder Jim Sinegal, who once famously warned an executive, “If you raise [the price of] the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.” With inflation, the author of the Ecoinometrics newsletter estimated that the hot-dog-and-soda combo would cost $4.10 today. Costco’s price stubbornness may seem irrational, analysts say, but it pays off in brand loyalty and foot traffic. @ecoinometrics
Northern California
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Sheryl Sandberg has been one of the most high-profile female executives in the U.S.
Lino Mirgeler/picture alliance via Getty Images
Sheryl Sandberg, Meta’s chief operating officer, announced that she would leave the social media giant after 14 years. When she joined Facebook in 2008, Sandberg was 38 and Mark Zuckerberg just 23. Regarded as the adult in the room, she developed the company’s advertising business, helping grow revenue from $153 million in 2007 to $27.6 billion by 2016. She steps down now as one of the wealthiest self-made female billionaires in the world. N.Y. Times | Washington Post
6
Elon Musk on Tuesday ordered his Tesla and SpaceX workers to return to the office for 40 hours a week — or quit. “If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned,” he said in a memo. The hard-line stance is a departure from the embrace of remote work at other tech companies, including Twitter, which Musk agreed to buy last month. Nick Bloom, a Stanford economist, said Musk should expect to lose up to 20% of his workforce as recruiters poach employees with offers of more flexibility. Reuters | N.Y. Times
7
Oakland.
Oakland’s City Council voted on Tuesday to cap rent increases at 3% for rent-controlled apartments, blocking a looming 6.7% hike pegged to inflation. Most Oakland rentals built before 1983 are covered by the city’s rent control law, which allows landlords to set any price at move-in but restricts increases. Landlords vehemently opposed the new limit. “This is everybody getting together and saying, ‘We like free stuff.’ Inflation is real — everyone lives with it, whether you’re a tenant or a property owner,” said Joshua Polston. Oaklandside | Mercury News
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Miriam Pawel on the effort to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin: “It is not only the far right that has embraced the idea that truth is what you think it is, that facts are what you experience. Recall supporters mock data that shows that crime is down; they post photos of broken car windows and ask, are you going to believe statistics, or your own eyes?” L.A. Times
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Bumpass Hell has been described as Yellowstone in miniature.
Overflightstock
Few places on the continent allow a person to mingle so intimately with the forces molding the planet as Bumpass Hell. The geothermal basin is located along the Pacific Ring of Fire in Lassen Volcanic National Park, where the grinding of tectonic plates has turned rock into magma that acts like a furnace heating water underground. Exploring the 16 acres of boiling springs, mud pots, and steam vents engages all of the senses, with hissing, brilliant colors and an infernal rotten-egg odor. Then there is the heat. Signs in the park warn visitors to stay on the boardwalk for good reason: the steam at Bumpass Hell has been measured at 322 degrees Fahrenheit. Thrillist | Outdoor Project
Southern California
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Students gathered at a Corinthian Colleges campus in City of Industry in 2015, the year the chain closed.
Al Seib/L.A. Times via Getty Images
As California attorney general in 2016, Kamala Harris obtained a $1.1 billion judgment against Corinthian Colleges, of Santa Ana, for targeting vulnerable students with false promises about their career prospects. On Thursday, she will formally announce a Biden administration plan to wipe out $5.8 billion in debt for more than 560,000 borrowers who enrolled in the for-profit college chain, the largest-ever group cancellation of student loans. Washington Post | Politico
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On Wednesday, new restrictions began on outdoor watering for more than 6 million residents of the Los Angeles area. Some people were defiant. “If they really wanted to make a difference,” said Alfred Gonzalez, 73, “they’d put a moratorium on pools, they’d put a moratorium on almonds, they’d put a moratorium on grapes and they’d put a moratorium on marijuana. Then I’ll listen to what they have to say. Then I’ll listen to their bullshit.” L.A. Times
San Diego County residents pay much more for their water than Angelenos. But they aren’t facing cuts. A.P.
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Delos Thurber, Cornelius Johnson, and Dave Albritton raised their arms in a Bellamy salute, a tribute to the U.S. flag at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
Paul Thompson/FPG/Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, each champion received a baby oak tree. One of them is still alive in Los Angeles. Cornelius Johnson, a high jumper who was one of 18 Black Americans to compete, planted the sapling in his backyard, where it grew to almost 50 feet. It now faces the axe to make way for luxury apartments. Preservationists say it would be an unthinkable loss. Christian Kosmas Mayer, a German artist working to save the tree, said that for the Nazis the oak symbolized superiority. That one still lives amid the diversity of Los Angeles is, he said, “completely poetic.” N.Y. Times
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