Good morning. It’s Monday, Feb. 7.
| • | Report finds rampant sexual abuse at East Bay women’s prison. |
| • | Two Oakland teachers enter sixth day of a hunger strike. |
| • | And the 10 best food experiences along the Central Coast. |
Statewide
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Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration wants to give Kaiser Permanente a no-bid Medi-Cal contract that would allow the health care giant to expand its reach while cherry-picking healthier enrollees. The special accommodation has infuriated executives of other providers who say they would be left with a disproportionate share of Medi-Cal’s sickest and costliest patients. Kaiser has been one of Newsom’s most generous supporters. CalMatters | Kaiser Health News
Politico: The collapse of California’s single-payer health care legislation has left progressives deflated.
2
Justice Leondra Kruger in San Francisco last Thursday.
Jeff Chiu/A.P.
Three tidbits from a New York Times profile of Leondra R. Kruger, the California Supreme Court judge who could become the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court:
| • | Jurists across the political spectrum said she is moderate, writing opinions that have on occasion drawn sharp dissents from liberal colleagues. |
| • | Her manner is described as “chill.” On the bench she uses a conversational style — less like a debate than an invitation to solve a problem together. |
| • | She is by many accounts whip-smart. When interviewing Kruger for the California Supreme Court, then-Gov. Jerry Brown said he knew within 15 minutes he would appoint her: “Superior people are noticeable and unusual if you have the eyes to see it.” |
3
Coronavirus roundup:
| • | “I’m exhausted. Exhausted.” As Omicron retreats statewide, it’s still overwhelming rural Victor Valley, where only about half the population is fully vaccinated and chronic diseases are widespread. L.A. Times |
| • | Mask protests have been spreading in California schools. At one San Joaquin Valley high school, maskless students were corralled in a gym. The principal said this week rule-breakers would be sent home. CBS Sacramento | Modesto Bee |
| • | A San Francisco man said his wife told him the pandemic was making him weird. Get some friends, she said. So he posted flyers offering to make pancakes for his neighbors. To his surprise, more than 75 people showed up. Today |
4
The Madonna Inn is famous for its over-the-top cakes.
Barbecue grilled over red oak coals. Self-shucked oysters at a seaside winery. And pink champagne cake from a pink Eisenhower-era resort.
Too many people zip mindlessly through the Central Coast when traveling between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A travel writer recommended the region’s 10 best food experiences. USA Today
Northern California
5
An Associated Press investigation uncovered a culture of rampant sexual abuse at a women’s prison in the East Bay city of Dublin. According to internal documents and recordings from inmates, the mostly male staff assaulted inmates for years, using threats and punishment to keep victims quiet while complaints were ignored. The abuse was such an open secret that inmates and staff had a name for it: “the rape club.”
6
Gene Ransom was a leading scorer at Cal.
Cal Athletics
The authorities arrested a suspect Saturday in the fatal highway shooting of Gene Ransom, a basketball star at UC Berkeley in the 1970s. Investigators said Juan Angel Garcia, 25, of San Francisco, pulled up beside Ransom and began firing into his vehicle on Interstate 880 in Oakland on Friday. The motive appeared to be road rage, they said. Inducted into the Cal Athletics hall of fame in 2001, Ransom was described as one of the school’s all-time great point guards. East Bay Times | A.P.
7
A sixth-grader got A’s on her report card from San Francisco’s Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. But the girl didn’t attend the school, having been transferred to a parochial school after fifth grade. Heather Knight’s column on what went wrong is not a tirade against incompetent administrators, but rather a distressing story of front-line educators doing their best in hugely challenging circumstances. S.F. Chronicle
8
Two Oakland teachers have been on a hunger strike since Tuesday, urging officials reject a proposal to close or merge 16 schools located mostly in poorer parts of the city. Oakland Unified has faced pressure to make cuts due to falling enrollment, as more parents choose private or charter schools. One of the teachers on hunger strike is a former Harlem Globetrotter with two young children. “We are very adamant that this is until death,” he said. S.F. Chronicle | Mercury News
Southern California
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U.S. Navy SEAL candidates participate in “surf immersion” in Coronado on May 4, 2020.
MC1 Anthony Walker/U.S. Navy
One Navy SEAL candidate died and another was hospitalized after completing the notorious “Hell Week” test at Naval Base Coronado, Navy officials said Saturday. The seaman who died was identified as Kyle Mullen, 24, of Manalapan, New Jersey. More than half of candidates don’t make it through Hell Week. Over five days, they typically run 200 miles or more and perform exhausting drills in mud and water on almost no sleep. S.D. Union-Tribune | N.Y. Times
10
“To put it mildly, these are scary times in Los Angeles. … you can all but smell the fear on the streets. Even in zip codes where violent crime was once unheard of, residents are starting to sweat.”
Los Angeles Magazine’s latest cover story explores how bad crime has become in Los Angeles. It noted that the city saw six times as many annual murders in the early 1990s. Yet the paranoia, the magazine reported, is real and widespread.
11
More than 150 workers at a Los Angeles County factory that makes ice-cream cakes have been on strike for better wages since early November. The workers, who earn an average of $17 an hour, asked for a $1-an-hour raise every year for three years. The counteroffer included a cut to health care that the union called intolerable. The company, Rich Products, is run by a chief executive whose net worth is $4.9 billion. The Guardian
12
In 1844, the American explorer Lt. John C. Fremont wrote of the Joshua tree: “Their stiff and ungraceful form makes them to the traveler the most repulsive tree in the vegetable kingdom.”
Many would disagree, including the photographer Sungjin Ahn, who created this award-winning ode to the awkward guardians of the Southern California desert. 👉 Vimeo (3:30 mins)
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