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• Advocates Welcome 'Inspiring' Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act as 'Exactly What America Needs Right Now'

  Posted by Jessica Corbett at Wednesday, October 21st, 2020 11:14am

  By presenting smart, focused solutions to the climate crisis, this pioneering legislation propels the oceans into the heart of the climate debate in Congress.

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• Long-Lasting Consequences

  Posted by EMILY HOEVEN at Friday, October 16th, 2020 8:29am

  California ran up against a slate of important deadlines Thursday that could affect the state’s fiscal, political and environmental landscape for decades to come. Here’s a breakdown of what’s at stake

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• At a glance: See the biggest spenders in California’s prop battles

  Posted by Ben Christopher at Wednesday, October 14th, 2020 5:06pm

  The top spenders behind 2020 state props include Lyft, Uber and the DaVita. This data visualization shows every prop's biggest funders.

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• KPFK in the 21st Century

  Posted by Alan Minsky at Sunday, October 11th, 2020 9:30pm

  Near the beginning of the latest installment of his Theme Time Radio Hour (his first episode in 11 years), Bob Dylan reflects on the place of radio in the 21st Century society: "...it has been fun to get the gang back together. Though it's been so long, I'm not even sure if we should call it Theme Time Radio Hour anymore. I mean, does anybody still have a radio? Some folks may even be listening on a smart toaster. I don't know, Theme Time Device Hour doesn't sound right. Tell you what, we're going to keep the name and not worry about where you're going to listen to it."

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• Veep debate: Fact-check on Kamala Harris as California prosecutor

  Posted by BEN CHRISTOPHER at Thursday, October 8th, 2020 12:04pm

  Kamala Harris called her record as California attorney general a "model" on criminal justice, but she and Mike Pence offered different takes.

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• As Trump Gets 'Excellent Taxpayer-Funded Care,' Analysis Finds Frontline Workers Disproportionately Lack Health Insurance

  Posted by Jessica Corbett at Tuesday, October 6th, 2020 9:48am

  Given how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted people in "essential" industries and their high uninsured rates, the Public Citizen report says "the argument for Medicare for All has never been stronger."

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• An Elegy for Bob Gibson

  Posted by Alan Minsky at Sunday, October 4th, 2020 11:55am

  For me, seven years old in the summer of 1972, the tales of socially systemic cruelty (told in Gibson's autobiography) and how they were inflicted on the person who was my hero, seared into my soul the abject and utterly disgusting nature of American racism. I understood from that point forward, for the rest of my life, that the society I was living in was actively engaged in a crime against humanity.

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• #CountOnUs: Youth Organizers Have a Plan to Mobilize If Trump Tries to Steal the Election

  Posted by Jessica Corbett at Friday, October 2nd, 2020 2:01pm

  "Together, we're going to vote and organize like our communities and planet are at stake, because they are."

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• California Caught in Presidential Cage Match Debate

  Posted by BEN CHRISTOPHER at Wednesday, September 30th, 2020 9:06am

  If you didn’t catch the first presidential debate of 2020 tonight — and if you didn’t, and did virtually anything else with that time, congratulations on a restful evening well-spent — you missed a cameo appearance by California.

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• Iconic Landmarks Destroyed

  Posted by EMILY HOEVEN at Wednesday, September 30th, 2020 9:01am

  Gone are sections of well-known wineries, including Chateau Boswell, Castello di Amorosa, Hourglass Winery and Spring Mountain Vineyard. Gone are at least 113 structures, including homes. And potentially gone

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• California NAACP president aids corporate prop campaigns — collects $1.2 million and counting

  Posted by LAUREL ROSENHALL at Monday, September 28th, 2020 7:38am

  Alice Huffman, who is both a professional campaign consultant and long-time NAACP leader, was especially sought after this year as political campaigns respond to the national reckoning over race.

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• The Battle Lines are Drawn, Time for Action

  Posted by Alan Minsky at Sunday, September 27th, 2020 1:35pm

  The time for words is over, It's time to get in the game and play to win. No more faffing around. We have to be as results-focused as Mitch McConnell or Bill Belichick.  2020 has been cruel and stark - but if we haven't learned it's lessons we're fools, and that ain't us.  However, to date, our side has failed to fight with a singular-focus that matches the resolve of our foes. That changes now.

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• Independent Autopsy Shows Dijon Kizzee Was Shot 15 Times, 7 Times After Collapsing to the Ground

  Posted by Dan Fritz at Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020 3:08pm

  'He put his hands in the air, dropped the bag, and they continued to shoot him,' said Kizzee family attorney Ben Crump, at a press conference on Tuesday. 'Even though he posed no threat.'
  
  Kizzee was shot and killed by two L.A. County sheriff's deputies at the end of August. L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva last week released a series of videos capturing portions of the confrontation between deputies and Kizzee.

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• Inside California’s Declining Unemployment Rate

  Posted by Emily Hoeven at Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020 8:50am

  As California settles into its sixth month of the pandemic, unemployment levels appear to be dropping — a spot of bright news for residents and the state’s embattled unemployment department alike — though the numbers belie a more complex and uncertain reality.

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• Trump Gives Himself "A+" on Covid-19 Response as US Death Toll Hits Grim 200,000 Milestone

  Posted by Jake Johnson  at Monday, September 21st, 2020 4:14pm

  "Trump and his cowardly enablers, they all have blood on their hands," said an activist who lost his father to Covid-19.

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• Contending with Catastrophe: Expressions of 2020

  Posted by Alan Minsky at Sunday, September 20th, 2020 12:55pm

  To use my own nervous system as a social weather vane, the fact that I responded with a physical response to news of Ginsburg's death told me all I needed to know. We were in deep trouble before, we're in Code Red territory now...

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• Apocalypse or Democracy Now?

  Posted by Alan Minsky at Sunday, September 13th, 2020 8:45am

  This is California at 1.1 degrees Celsius of temperature rise due to anthropogenic climate change: unprecedented Megafires; toxic air, and 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Woodland Hills - all in the past week. Scientists say the best we can realistically hope for now is to contain global warming to 2 degrees. Let that sink in.

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• UCLA Researchers Detail How COVID-19 Pandemic Has Disproportionately Hurt Blacks and Latinos in California

  Posted by Dan Fritz at Wednesday, September 9th, 2020 5:15pm

  The initial results are in, and they show that non-white racial and ethnic groups are experiencing the gamut of pandemic fallout at much higher rates.

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• A 21st Century Priority: The PRO Act will Revive the Labor Movement and Re-Build the Middle Class

  Posted by Alan Minsky at Sunday, September 6th, 2020 10:45am

  Labor Day is a celebration of how organized labor won tremendous benefits for the American people. How the collective struggle of working people established a standard of dignity for all workers, against the wishes of bosses and investors - that is, against capitalism itself, against the most powerful force in modern times.

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• Next up: Californians brace for the ‘twindemic’

  Posted by ANA B. IBARRA at Thursday, September 3rd, 2020 12:24pm

  As we head toward fall, and COVID-19 persists, experts forecast how our lives may look and the challenges we are likely to confront.

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• 50 Years Later, Chicanos are Still Clamoring for Justice

  Posted by Ernesto Arce at Wednesday, September 2nd, 2020 9:32pm

  Hundreds of people gathered across East Los Angeles to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium, the largest anti-war protest in the city at the time. Although the crowds were impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, many marched, walked, skated, and even drove in a car caravan retracing the route of the original march.
  As a reporter for Pacifica Radio, KPFK News, I was granted access to the LA County Sheriff's secret files on the event's organizers and leaders. Here's my story.

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• Analysis: How renters, landlords and banks fared in the eviction compromise

  Posted by MATT LEVIN at Tuesday, September 1st, 2020 11:34am

  A compromise to prevent feared eviction tsunami passes Legislature with little time to spare.

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• California Bill to Help Prisoner Firefighters Find Work After Release Awaits Governor's Signature

  Posted by Brett Wilkins at Tuesday, September 1st, 2020 6:30am

  As the Golden State burns amid a firefighter shortage, AB 2147 would expedite criminal record expungements so ex-inmates can apply for EMT licenses.

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• Divide, Conquer, Disorient

  Posted by Alan Minsky at Sunday, August 30th, 2020 9:15am

  This was the week that the world woke up to the very real possibility of Trump's re-election; and the reality of 17 year-old murderous armed white supremacist vigilanties and their mainstream apologists; and how a devastating super-storm that shatters the gulf coast can pass as an afterthought... All of this against the backdrop of the new normal: a global pandemic and economic catastrophe.

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• 'Get Your Knee Off Our Necks': On 57th Anniversary of Historic Civil Rights Rally, Tens of Thousands March on Washington

  Posted by Julia Conley at Friday, August 28th, 2020 9:34am

  "We've been here before, but this time we know that it is necessary to redefine public safety in order to save black lives."

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• Deadlines Fast Approaching

  Posted by EMILY HOEVEN at Thursday, August 27th, 2020 8:40am

  The clock is ticking for lawmakers to chart a recovery path for the world’s fifth-largest economy, keep millions of Californians from being evicted and respond to fires of historic proportions.

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• COVID-19 Is Disproportionately Impacting Working-age Latinos in California, Say Researchers

  Posted by Dan Fritz at Wednesday, August 26th, 2020 5:16pm

  Scientists at UCLA's Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture released a report this week sounding the alarm over the spike in death rates among younger Latino adults in California, due to COVID-19.
  
  'In the early days of the pandemic, we worried about the skyrocketing death rate for the elderly,' said David Hayes-Bautista, lead author of the report, in a statement released Tuesday. 'Now the virus is falling on the working-age population, and the young Latino population is disproportionately represented in this demographic.'

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• DNC 2020: Enough with the Infomercials, Time to Get Serious

  Posted by Alan Minsky at Sunday, August 23rd, 2020 11:55am

  If you want to see Donald Trump defeated, and his variation of 21st century proto-facism vanquished - it is time for an intervention.
  You have to wrest the Democratic Party out of the hands of the consultancy class; and, yes, you have to alert those at the top of the Party to the reality that the public loathes where the country is at currently. To win, Democrats have to offer some substantive change.

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• Los Angeles Files Lawsuit to Stop Trump Administration from Sabotaging the U.S. Census

  Posted by Dan Fritz at Wednesday, August 19th, 2020 7:55pm

  'The rush plan is unconstitutional. The rush plan violates federal law. The rush plan is a recipe for a severe undercount with repercussions that will last for years,' L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer said Tuesday.

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• 19th Amendment Turns 100: Fight for Voting Rights Builds on Centuries of Struggle Led by Black Women

  Posted by Democracy now! at Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 12:42pm

  As this year marks 100 years since the ratification of 19th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing women’s right to vote, we look at the connection between the movement for women’s suffrage and the movement to abolish slavery.

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