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      San Francisco mayor: recalled school board members were distracted by politics

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      San Francisco mayor: recalled school board members were distracted by politicsCovid closures and attempt to rename schools deemed named for figures linked to injustice, including Abraham Lincoln, fueled vote San Francisco school board members recalled from their posts this week allowed themselves to become distracted by politics, the city’s mayor said on Sunday.Florida governor: school districts that defied no-mask mandate to lose $200m Read moreVoters overwhelmingly approved the recall of board president Gabriela López, vice-president Faauuga Moliga and commissioner Alison Collins.The board was enveloped in controversy over Covid regulations and closures; an attempt to rename 44 schools deemed to be named for figures linked to racism, sexism and other injustices, among them Abraham Lincoln; and remarks by Collins about Asian Americans.The mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, spoke to NBC’s Meet the Press. Discussing her obligation to name replacements, she said: “I’m going to be looking for people that are going to focus on the priorities of the school district and not on politics, and not on what it means to run for office, and stepping stones, and so on and so forth. “We need people who want to be on the school board to make a difference, and who meet those qualifications to do the job.”Breed sidestepped suggestions the recall showed voters rejecting progressive policies.“My take is that it was really about the frustration of the board of education [not] doing their fundamental job,” she said. “And that is to make sure that our children are getting educated, that they get back into the classroom. And that did not occur. They were focusing on other things that were clearly a distraction.“Not to say that those other things around renaming schools and conversations around changes to our school district weren’t important, but what was most important is the fact that our kids were not in the classroom. “And San Francisco … we’ve been a leader during this Covid pandemic. In some cases, we have put forth the most conservative policies to ensure the safety of all San Franciscans. And our vaccination rates, and our death rates and other numbers demonstrate that we are a clear leader. “But we failed our children. Parents were upset. The city as a whole was upset, and the decision to recall school board members was a result of that.”School boards have become battlegrounds across the US, often as conservative parents and activists look to control what children are taught and how schools deal with Covid.Breed said: “This is not a Democratic/Republican issue. This is an issue about the education of our children.”She also said parents wanted “someone who is going to focus on … making sure that children get the education that they need in our schools, dealing with the challenges of learning loss, dealing with the mental health challenges that exist”.López, the board president, said her recall was the “consequence” of her “fight for racial justice”, and added: “White supremacists are enjoying this, and the support of the recall is aligned with this.”Breed said: “Well, of course [that’s] not the right kind of reaction. And the fact that we’re still even listening to any of the recalled school board members is definitely a problem. Bills to ban US schools’ discussion of LGBTQ+ issues are threat to free speech – reportRead more“… This person is making it about them when it really should be about our kids who have suffered, not just in San Francisco but all over this country as a result of this pandemic.”Her host, Chuck Todd, asked: “How much of this was about renaming the schools of George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln, and [Senator] Dianne Feinstein [and] how much of it was also parents upset that the rules were changed at how you got into some specific magnet schools?”Breed said it “was probably both. But at the end of the day, our kids were not in school. And they should’ve been.”“… And yes, of course there were people who were probably upset about some of the proposed changes. But those are discussions that are important to have, but not at the expense of making sure that the priority of what the school district is there to do is met.”TopicsSan FranciscoCaliforniaUS educationRaceCoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      California gives people leaving prison just $200 to start over. After 50 years, that could change

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      California gives people leaving prison just $200 to start over. After 50 years, that could change The ‘gate money’ the state offers is ‘insufficient to survive’, one activist says, and can contribute to recidivism A California lawmaker wants to increase the allowance that people released from prison receive to cover basic needs for the first time in nearly 50 years.Sydney Kamlager, a state senator representing Los Angeles, is introducing legislation Friday to bump up the “gate money” – funds that people released from state prisons are given – from $200 to nearly $2,600.Omicron wreaks havoc across California prison facilities as staff cases surgeRead more“This is really about making sure that when people get out, we are not perpetuating a cycle of economic violence,” said Kamlager, whose office exclusively shared with the Guardian plans to introduce the new bill. “We have got to stop legislating poverty.”This is the first major effort to increase gate money in recent memory. The roughly 600,000 people released from federal and state prisons each year are usually offered a pittance – if anything – to buy a bus ticket home, or a first meal, clothing and toiletries. California currently provides a debit card loaded with at most $200, though people serving short sentences receive even less. It already offers more than other states, an investigation by the Marshall Project found. Colorado, Texas, Florida and some other states provide $100 and Louisiana and Alabama offer just $10.California last increased the amount of gate money it offers in 1973 when $200 could cover a month’s rent. “Now that money is simply insufficient to survive,” said Samual Nathaniel Brown, the co-founder of the Anti-Violence Safety and Accountability Project.When Brown was released in December after being incarcerated for 24 years, the first thing he bought was a meal for his wife, his two daughters, his sister and his niece. It was a way to thank them for their love and support throughout his imprisonment. They got Korean barbecue, and the bill was about $140.“And there went my gate money,” he said.Brown considers himself blessed that his family picked him up from prison, and he has been able to depend on them after his release. For those without people to lean on, the $200 can be a taunt – or a sign to simply give up, he said.Re-entering society after years or decades behind bars can be rough, with scarce housing and job opportunities available for people with a criminal record. Parole requirements, obligations to family, outstanding debts and health needs stack up quickly, and can be a steep hill to climb.More and broader reforms are required, said Kamlager and the activists she is working with – including of the low wages paid for exploitative prison labor. But upping gate money is also urgently necessary, she said.People often enter prison impoverished and are being thrown into poverty upon release, Kamlager said. The system “perpetuates a fall deeper into desperation for folks who have just been released”, she added.Kamlager is proposing increasing the allowance to $2,590 after consulting with federal data on the cost of food and housing, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Living Wage Calculator, to find the average monthly expenses for a single adult with no children in 2021. Starting in 2024, the bill specifies that the allowance should also be adjusted annually to account for inflation. Kamlager pushed to introduce the bill on Friday, which is the last day to broach new bills during this legislative cycle.It costs California more than $8,800 to keep someone incarcerated each month, the senator noted – and increasing gate money allowance would cost the state less than pushing those just released back into the prison system.Kamlager said she decided to introduce the legislation after receiving a letter from an incarcerated person, asking, “How do you expect any of us to make it if we’re getting out with just $200?”. “It struck a chord,” she said“In 2022, when the price for a gallon of gas in Los Angeles is almost $5, it is unconscionable that the state of California still gives just $200 in allowance for folks who are getting out of prison,” she added.Experts view a person’s first 72 hours after release as a vulnerable, crucial time that can determine whether or not they end up back in prison, said Amika Mota, the policy director for the Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition, a group that is working with Kamlager’s office on the bill. In a criminal justice system that purports to uphold public safety, providing a pittance to people when they are released is “counterproductive public safety”, Brown added. “Not having enough money, it makes people think ‘I need to do something fast.’ And that’s the same type of thinking that led most women and men to prison to begin with.”For mothers leaving incarceration, $2,600 could offer a chance at finding secure housing and reuniting with their children, Mota said. Amid the pandemic, when re-entry after release has been especially perilous and chaotic for many, a pilot program by the nonprofit Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) has been distributing $2,750 in cash assistance to people leaving prisons all over the US. An early evaluation found that participants were able to use the funds to buy food, pay for transportation and contribute to caring for families. Some participants said the money helped lift them out of homelessness.Meanwhile, Rasheed Stanley-Lockheart, a reentry director for the Ahimsa Collective, a restorative justice non-profit said, “I’ve seen guys come out holding that $200 in their hand, and it’s almost like they don’t know what to do with it because they’re scared.”“We need much more than that to survive,” he said.TopicsCaliforniaUS prisonsLos AngelesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Blue states are rolling back mask rules – but experts warn it’s too soon

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      Blue states are rolling back mask rules – but experts warn it’s too soonThe lifting of mandates is coming at a time when the CDC says a vast majority of the country is still seeing high Covid transmission Several US states, many of them governed by Democrats, began rolling back mask mandates this week, a move public health experts warn could set back progress battling Covid.On Wednesday, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York and Rhode Island joined California, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon in lifting mask mandates for some public places.The wave of relaxations comes after months of private meetings among state leaders and political focus groups after the November elections, according to reports. “Now, it’s time to give people their lives back,” Sean Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, tweeted in support of New York suspending its indoor mask-or-vaccine mandate.Covid-era Americans are using public transit less and having more car crashes Read moreYet the lifting of rules has not been universally applauded and is coming at a time when the vast majority of the country (99%) is still seeing high transmission of the virus, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Public polls show consistent support for mask mandates and other precautions, and experts say the time to relax precautions is not here yet – and acting prematurely could prolong this wave.“In my view, it’s too soon. I feel like we’re anticipating too much,” said Justin Lessler, a professor of epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. “We’re being too confident that things are going to keep going the direction that they have been going.”The CDC’s director Rochelle Walensky also recently said that “now is not the moment” to drop masks in public, although the agency is reportedly weighing changes to its guidance on masks.While Covid cases have dropped from Omicron’s record-shattering peak, the US still has an average of more than 230,000 cases each day – similar to the height of last winter’s wave – and more than 2,300 people are dying from Covid each day, according to the CDC. While hospitalizations are beginning to fall, 80% of hospitals are still under “high or extreme stress”.Treatments, including antivirals and monoclonal antibodies, that keep Covid from progressing to serious illness and death are still in short supply throughout the country. Children under the age of 5 are not yet eligible for vaccines, while less than a quarter of kids ages five to 11 are fully vaccinated.“We have hundreds of thousands of people dying, we have millions who’ve been hospitalized and we have an unknown number who have long Covid and who will get long Covid as we roll back what little mitigation we have,” said Julia Raifman, assistant professor at Boston University School of Public Health and creator of the Covid-19 US state policy database.“Saying things are normal undercuts us in getting more people vaccinated and in helping people wear masks, because transmission actually remains quite high,” Raifman said. “The best way to help people think things are more normal is to reduce the amount of virus with the mitigation measures that we have.”The failure to set measures on when to drop or reinstate precautions “starts from the top”, including the CDC and the White House, Raifman said. “The whole of the pandemic response is being mismanaged, and only better leadership can help us come together to better address it.”Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, says the US is leaving the “full blown” phase of the pandemic. In September, he said controlling the pandemic meant having fewer than 10,000 cases a day.“This is not a declaration of victory as much as an acknowledgment that we can responsibly live with this thing,” said the New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy, who is also a key leader of the National Governors Association. Governors have reportedly urged Biden to “move away from the pandemic”.Many states – including Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Oregon, New Jersey and Rhode Island – are also set to lift school mask mandates. California is considering changes to the rules on school masks, while Illinois and New York will keep theirs for now. The governor of Pennsylvania lifted the school mask rule last month.Teachers’ unions have joined health experts in calling for science-based recommendations in order to keep educators and students safe, and to keep the virus from forcing further school closures caused by worker shortages.“I worry about taking off measures just because cases are trending down,” Lessler said. “At least some of the rate of decrease has to do with what little we’re doing to try to control transmission, and by stopping these measures – both directly and in the message it sends about the risk of the virus – you slow that down-trend.”A new variant could also emerge and change the situation yet again, he said. “We’ve time and time again been surprised by new variants.”Lifting measures too early and slowing the decrease in cases can result in “a lot of unnecessary cases and deaths that you might have avoided simply by waiting a few weeks”, Lessler said.“And if we change what we’re doing substantially, we may not get there, or it may take us longer to get there than anticipated.”TopicsCoronavirusOmicron variantDemocratsUS politicsCaliforniaNew YorkOregonnewsReuse this content More

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      Wealthy California town cites mountain lion habitat to deny affordable housing

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      Wealthy California town cites mountain lion habitat to deny affordable housing Officials in Woodside – a mansion-filled, tech entrepreneur enclave – claim wildcat land keeps them from building multi-unit homes At first glance, the town of Woodside may look more like a sprawl of mansions built on big-tech billions than crucial habitat for threatened California mountain lions.But town officials might suggest looking again.The wealthy San Francisco Bay area suburb has said it cannot approve the development of new duplexes or fourplexes to ease the statewide housing shortage because it encompasses the habitat of the elusive wildcats.Crow-plagued California city turns to lasers and boomboxes to clear the airRead moreResidents in Woodside had long bristled at SB 9 – a new California measure that makes it easier to build multi-unit housing in neighborhoods previously reserved for single-family homes. But a clause in the measure exempts areas that are considered habitat for protected species. “Given that Woodside – in its entirety” is habitat for mountain lions that environmental groups are petitioning to list as threatened or endangered under the state’s Endangered Species Act, “no parcel within Woodside is currently eligible for an SB 9 project”, the town’s planning director wrote in a memo on 27 January.Critics of the town council, including many housing advocates, have accused the town of cynically using environmental concerns to avoid compliance with state law. “This is nimbyism disguised as environmentalism,” said Scott Wiener, a California senator who co-authored SB 9. “The notion that building duplexes hurts mountain lions – it’s just ridiculous.”Woodside is not only a habitat for mountain lions, but also for notable tech entrepreneurs including the Intuit co-founder Scott Cook and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. The latter modeled his 23-acre Woodside estate on a 16th-century Japanese imperial palace. The median home price in the town is $5.5m, and the median household income is more than $250,000. The landscape is scattered with sizable mansions and estates as well as sprawling ranches.Mountain lions – also called pumas, cougars and panthers – have been known to wander into suburbs and cities across California, and may occasionally traverse the town. “You can see there’s a fair amount of habitat in the undeveloped areas around the city,” said Winston Vickers, director of the Mountain Lion Project at the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center.“Any development should be done with careful consideration of whether it is going to impact a nearby travel corridor, green belt or large adjacent habitat area for mountain lions,” Vickers said. “But to say that any expansion of housing, anywhere in a given city, would likely impact mountain lions is likely a bit of a stretch.”Woodside’s mayor, Dick Brown, declined an interview request from the Guardian. “We love animals,” he told AlmanacNews. “Every house that’s built is one more acre taken away from [mountain lions’] habitat. Where are they going to go? Pretty soon we’ll have nothing but asphalt and no animals or birds.”As far as wildlife biologists know, mountain lions are not especially comfortable on land zoned for single family homes, nor are they particularly put off by two-story apartment buildings.The biggest challenge that mountain lions are facing is “ex-urban development pushing into the wild areas that they need, and major roadways cutting through those habitats,” said Josh Rosenau, a conservation advocate with the Mountain Lion Foundation, one of the organizations seeking to have the mountain lions in the south and central coast listed as threatened or endangered under the California Endangered Species Act.In most cases, “increasing [housing] density where possible, is going to be better for mountain lions ultimately”, he said, than expanding construction further into wildland areas.As California pushes to expand housing amid a crisis of housing affordability and homelessness, communities across the state have resisted efforts to build more densely, often using the state’s strict environmental laws as a shield. With SB 9 taking effect this year, cities across the state also sought to pass design restrictions, or designate historic districts and sites in a scramble to find loopholes in the law.Earlier last month, Woodside had passed an ordinance prohibiting basements in SB 9 developments, capping their size to 800 square feet – the minimum required by the law – and prohibiting their construction in “very high fire severity zones, for health and safety reasons”.“My hope is that Woodside thinks better of its position, and figures out how to comply with this new law,” Wiener said.Or there’s an option that some critics have offered: return all the land to the mountain lions that once prowled there freely.TopicsCaliforniaWildlifeUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      California county recalls top official, giving militia-aligned group a path to government

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      California county recalls top official, giving militia-aligned group a path to governmentSupervisor Leonard Moty has been ousted after two years of threats and increasing hostility over pandemic health restrictions Voters in far northern California have solidified the ouster of a Republican county official, giving control of the Shasta county board of supervisors to a group supported by local militia members.Leonard Moty, a retired police chief and Republican with decades of public service, lost his seat in a recall election in one of California’s most conservative counties. The Tuesday recall came as tensions reached a high in the county after two years of threats and increasing hostility toward moderate Republican officials over pandemic health restrictions.California county on track to be run by militia-aligned groupRead more“I really thought my community would step up to the plate and they didn’t and that’s very discouraging,” Moty said in an interview with the Guardian earlier this week, warning the recall would shift the area to the “alt-right”.Updated polling numbers released on Friday showed about 56% of 8,752 voters supported recalling Moty. Cathy Darling Allen, the county registrar of voters, said there were about 121 ballots left to count. The results won’t be finalized until next month, but the two candidates in the lead to replace Moty attended a celebration on Tuesday with members of an area militia group, the Sacramento Bee reported.The recall is a win for the county’s ultra-conservative movement in their efforts to gain a foothold in local government in this rural part of northern California and fight back against moderate Republicans they felt didn’t do enough to resist state health rules during the pandemic.Though Shasta county was among the least restrictive in California amid Covid, residents unhappy about state rules and mask requirements have showed up to meetings in large numbers since 2020. Moty and others were subjected to what law enforcement has deemed “credible threats” and personal attacks in meetings – one person told him that bullets are expensive, but “ropes are reusable”.Experts have warned the pandemic and eroding trust in US institutions has fueled extremism in local politics and hostility against officials. In Shasta county, the successful recall campaign will likely set up more conflict between the local government and the state government, said Lisa Pruitt, a rural law expert at the University of California, Davis.Carlos Zapata, a local militia member who helped organize the recall efforts, in 2020 told the board there could be blood in the streets if the supervisors didn’t reject state health rules such as mask requirements.“This is a warning for what’s coming. It’s not going to be peaceful much longer. It’s going to be real … I’ve been in combat and I never wanted to go back again, but I’m telling you what – I will to stay in this country. If it has to be against our own citizens, it will happen. And there’s a million people like me, and you won’t stop us,” he said.TopicsCaliforniaUS politicsThe far rightCoronavirusnewsReuse this content More

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      Silicon Holler: Ro Khanna says big tech can help heal the US heartland

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      InterviewSilicon Holler: Ro Khanna says big tech can help heal the US heartlandLauren Gambino in Washington As part of his drive to use tech to close social divides, the California Democrat has written a book, Dignity in the Digital AgeShortly after Silicon Valley sent him to Washington, Ro Khanna visited “Silicon Holler”, a name coined by a colleague, Hal Rogers, for the fledgling tech sector in eastern Kentucky.Gentrification destroyed the San Francisco I knew. Austin is next | Patrick BresnanRead moreThe two congressmen’s districts had little in common. Khanna’s was among the wealthiest, most diverse and most Democratic. Rogers’ was among the poorest, whitest and most Republican.But when he visited Rogers’ district, in once-prosperous coal country, the California Democrat did not meet with resentment. Desire to participate in the digital revolution was there. Only opportunity was lacking.“In my district, young people wake up optimistic about the future – there’s $11tn in market value in the district and surrounding areas,” Khanna said.“But for many working-class Americans, across the country, globalization has not worked. It’s meant jobs going offshore. It’s meant the shuttering of communities and it’s meant that their kids have to leave their hometowns.“We need to figure out how to bring economic opportunity for the modern economy to these communities that have been left out.”In his new book, Dignity in a Digital Age, Khanna lays out his vision for democratizing the digital economy. He wants the tech industry to expand to places like Paintsville, Kentucky, and Jefferson, Iowa, where the Guardian watched him make his case.Khanna is an intellectual property lawyer who taught economics at Stanford before serving as the congressman for California’s 17th district, home to companies like Apple and Intel. The top contributors to his most recent campaign were employees of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.And yet Khanna is a member of the Congressional Antitrust Caucus and was a co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. He says tech companies must be held accountable for harm, and has backed regulatory and privacy reforms.Two senators, Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, have introduced legislation to stop tech platforms disadvantaging smaller rivals. Khanna calls it a “promising” start. Despite fierce opposition from large tech companies, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act was voted out of committee this month on a bipartisan vote, 16–6.A House committee passed a version of the bill last year. Khanna, however, was critical of that effort, warning that the language was imprecise and could have unintended consequences. His nuanced views on tech and its impact on the economy and democracy have helped make him a rare figure in Washington and Silicon Valley, taken seriously by politicos and entrepreneurs alike.“You can’t just have the tools of antitrust and think, ‘OK, now we’re going to have jobs in Youngstown or jobs in New Albany,’” Khanna said. “You want to have antitrust so new competitors can emerge but then you also need a strategy for getting jobs into these communities.”Antitrust: Hawley and Klobuchar on the big tech battles to comeRead moreKhanna says Silicon Valley has a responsibility to address inequality it helped create. Tech companies would benefit, he argues, from a diversity of talent and lower costs of living. Such a shift, he says, would help revitalize communities devastated by the decline of manufacturing and construction, and by automation and outsourcing, thereby allowing young people to find good jobs without leaving their home towns.For years, Khanna said, the notion met resistance. But millions have transitioned to remote work during the coronavirus pandemic, pushing tech companies to embrace changing practices. He says he has gone from “swimming against the tide” to “skiing down the mountain”, so much so that an industry friend said he had put into practice many of the ideas Khanna outlines in his book.“It’s amazing how people go from, ‘It’s impossible’ to ‘It’s already been done’ as if there are no steps in between,” Khanna said. “The truth is, it’s not impossible, but it hasn’t already been done. My book is sort of an accelerant for what is now taking place.”Early in the pandemic, tech workers fled San Francisco for smaller cities in neighboring states. While the transplants brought new business and wealth, in some places they widened wage gaps and drove up real-estate prices. Growth has to be planned, Khanna says.“It’s important to learn some of the lessons and the mistakes of the Valley. There has to be more housing supply, there has to be proper conditions for workers and fair wages so you don’t have the stark inequality that you see in Silicon Valley, where you have, in certain communities, 50% of people’s income going to rent because rents are so high.”Khanna thinks bridging the digital divide might also begin to alleviate polarization that Donald Trump exploited.“Just having good economic empowerment and prosperity for rural Americans, for Black Americans, for Latino Americans is not a silver bullet for becoming a multiracial, multi-ethnic democracy,” he said. “But it could be a starting point.”He has called for billions in federal investments in research, manufacturing and workforce development; building tech hubs that emphasize regional expertise, such as a hub in eastern Washington state to focus on lumber technology; providing tax incentives for federal contractors who employ workers in rural areas; underwriting training programs at historically black colleges; and expanding Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in public schools.Such ideas have captured the attention of Joe Biden’s White House, as it looks to expand opportunity at home and counter China abroad.This week, House Democrats turned to a bill that aims to make the US more competitive with China by strengthening technology, manufacturing and research, including incentives for producing computer chips, which are in short supply.The plan incorporates key planks of Khanna’s Endless Frontier Act, including the establishment of a Directorate for Science and Engineering Solutions. A similar measure passed the Senate with unusual bipartisan support last year but House Republicans seem less amenable.“We need to produce things in this country, including technology, and have the supply chains here,” Khanna said. “Everyone now recognizes that it’s a huge challenge for America to have semiconductors produced in Taiwan and South Korea. With the shipping costs and the disruption with Covid, it has created huge challenges in America from manufacturing cars to making electronics.”‘Can we get more Republicans?’With much of the Democrats’ agenda stalled, Khanna believes the new bill can provide a second major bipartisan accomplishment for the party to tout in a difficult midterms campaign.Billionaire Republican backer donates to Manchin after he killed key Biden billRead more“Can we get more Republicans than voted for the infrastructure bill?” Khanna said, recalling 13 who crossed the aisle. “That’s the barometer.”Khanna, who is also a deputy whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Democrats must be ready to accept a less ambitious version of Biden’s Build Back Better domestic spending plan. That is in limbo after Joe Manchin – a senator from West Virginia, the kind of state to which Khanna wants to bring tech jobs – announced his opposition.“A big pillar of [the spending plan] should be climate,” Khanna said, “and then let’s get a couple more things that can get support from Senator Manchin, like establishing universal pre-K and expanding Medicaid.”When it comes to combatting climate change and easing child and healthcare costs, he said, “something is certainly better than nothing”.
      Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work For All Of Us is published in the US by Simon & Schuster
      TopicsBooksPolitics booksDemocratsSilicon ValleyUS politicsCaliforniaUS domestic policyinterviewsReuse this content More

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      California prosecutor who campaigned against vaccine mandates dies of Covid

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      California prosecutor who campaigned against vaccine mandates dies of Covid Kelly Ernby, who recently ran for the state assembly, was unvaccinated at the time of her death, husband says A deputy district attorney from California who regularly spoke out against vaccine mandates has died of complications from Covid-19.Kelly Ernby, 46, a prosecutor from Orange county, southern California, who recently ran for the state assembly, died after contracting the virus, her family and friends have said.According to Ernby’s husband, Axel Mattias Ernby, Kelly Ernby was unvaccinated at the time of her death.“She was NOT vaccinated. That’s the problem,” Axel Ernby said on social media posts.A month before her death, Kelly Ernby spoke out against vaccine mandates at a rally outside Irvine city hall. The protest was organized by chapters of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organization, representing members at California State University, Fullerton and University of California Irvine.“There’s nothing that matters more than our freedoms right now,” Ernby said, according to the Daily Titan, a student newspaper.On her personal Facebook, Ernby also spoke out against Covid vaccine mandates, writing in August that “thevaccine is not the cure to Covid, and mandates won’t work”.Before the pandemic, Ernby also denounced vaccine mandates. At an online town hall in 2019, Ernby said she opposed a new state law that would tighten vaccine rules for California school children.“My fundamental belief is that government should be very small and I don’t believe in mandates,” said Ernby then.“I don’t think that the government should be involved in mandating what vaccines people are taking,” she said. “I think that’s a decision between doctors and their patients … If the government is going to mandate vaccines, what else are they going to mandate?”News of Ernby’s death has gained widespread attention online, underscoring tensions between those who oppose vaccine mandates as a form of government overreach and others who see it as critical protection against Covid and the way to end the pandemic.Among the posted condolences to Ernby’s friends and families, some online commenters blamed Ernby for her own death and posted replies about Ernby’s anti-vaccine-mandate stance.Ernby lived in Huntington Beach, California, an hour outside of Los Angeles, where a number of anti vaccine-mandate rallies have taken place.She had worked in the district attorney’s office since 2011 and specialized in environmental and consumer law, according to a statement posted by the Orangecounty district attorney, Todd Spitzer.“Kelly was an incredibly vibrant and passionate attorney who cared deeply about the work that we do as prosecutors – and deeply about the community we all fight so hard to protect,” said Spitzer in the statement following Ernby’s death.In 2019, Ernby ran for the California state assembly and lost in the 2020 primary to fellow Republican politician Diane Dixon.Ernby later was elected as an Orange county GOP central committee member in 2020 but died halfway through her four-year term.Vaccine mandates have continued to receive pushback, despite soaring cases of the Omicron variant.The Mayo Clinic, the non-profit medical center, fired about 700 out of 70,000 employees who refused to comply with the mandatory vaccination policy, reported NBC news.Employees were told to receive their first dose of the vaccine by Monday or get a medical or religious exemption. Staff who had already received their first jab were told to not delay getting their second shot.“While Mayo Clinic is saddened to lose valuable employees, we need to take all steps necessary to keep our patients, workforce, visitors and communities safe,” said the clinic in a statement, also confirming that 99% of Mayo Clinic employees across all locations complied with the mandate.TopicsCaliforniaUS politicsOmicron variantVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

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      California bill would hold gunmakers liable for injuries or deaths

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      California bill would hold gunmakers liable for injuries or deathsThe legislation is modeled after a first-in-the-nation New York law that declares such violations a ‘public nuisance’ Some Democratic California lawmakers want to make it easier for people to sue gun companies for liability in shootings that cause injuries or deaths, a move advocates say is aimed at getting around a US law that prevents such lawsuits and allows the industry to act recklessly.In general, when someone is injured or killed by gunfire it’s very hard for the victim or their family to hold the gun manufacturer or dealer responsible by suing them and making them pay damages. A federal law prevents most of those types of lawsuits.But US law does permit some types of liability lawsuits, including when gunmakers break state or local laws regarding the sale and marketing of their products. Last year, New York approved a first-in-the-nation law declaring such violations a “public nuisance”, opening up gunmakers to lawsuits.Reporting on US gun violence in 2021 revealed how the toll is spread unequallyRead moreOn Tuesday, the California assembly member Phil Ting of San Francisco unveiled a bill modeled after the New York law.“Almost every industry in the US is held liable for what their products do … The gun industry is the one exception,” Ting said. “Financial repercussions may encourage the firearms industry and dealers to be more responsible.”The bill is co-authored by assembly members Chris Ward of San Diego and Mike Gipson of Carson. Gipson’s son, his son’s fiancee and another man were shot in Los Angeles in April 2020. Gipson’s son and fiancee survived. But the other man, Gary Patrick Moody, was killed.“This is absolutely personal to me,” said Gipson, a former police officer.The New York bill is already being challenged in court by gunmakers. And critics were swift to denounce the California proposal as well.Gun advocates denounced the bill, known as AB1594, as a smokescreen for another attempt by California progressives to ban guns. Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, compared it to suing the California governor, Gavin Newsom, because he owns a winery and people have misused his products by drinking and driving.“He can’t ban guns, but he’s going to try to bankrupt lawful firearms-related businesses,” Paredes said.California already has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, including a ban on most assault weapons that has been in place for decades. But last year, a federal judge overturned California’s assault weapons ban, prompting a lengthy appeals process.Angered by the move, Newsom last month asked the state legislature to pass a law allowing citizens to enforce the state’s assault weapons ban through lawsuits. The idea is similar to a Texas law that bans most abortions but leaves it up to private citizens to enforce the law by taking offenders to court.The bill announced on Tuesday would not do that. Instead, Ting said it would let people and governments sue gun manufacturers or dealers for liability in shooting deaths or injuries. That’s a key distinction from the Texas abortion law, which is only enforceable by private lawsuits.It’s unclear what these potential lawsuits against gunmakers could include. The bill filed in the state legislature is just one sentence long, declaring gun manufacturers have created a public nuisance if their failure to follow state and local gun laws result in injury or death. The bill will probably be changed several times as it moves through the legislative process.Tanya Schardt, senior counsel for gun control group the Brady Campaign, said lawsuits could include suing gun dealers who knowingly sell weapons to people who then sell them illegally to others who are not allowed to own them. Or it could mean suing a gun manufacturer that supplies dealers they know are selling guns used in crimes.The goal is to “create an environment where the gun industry is held accountable”, Schardt said.Chuck Michel, a civil rights attorney and president of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, said that goal will likely backfire by making it harder for law-abiding citizens to have guns for self-defense.“As a matter of policy, to try and shift the blame for the criminal misuse of a lawful product that is used far more often to save lives and protect lives than to take them is a terrible idea,” he said.TopicsCaliforniaGuns and liesUS gun controlUS politicsnewsReuse this content More