California

Berkeley City Council approved a plan to ban police from conducting “routine” traffic stops. Instead, the city will create a program using unarmed employees to conduct traffic stops and issue tickets for violations. Police will be allowed to respond if drivers pull weapons on the employees.Berkeley City Council approved a plan to ban police from conducting “routine” traffic stops. Instead, the city will create a program using unarmed employees to conduct traffic stops and issue tickets for violations. Police will be allowed to respond if drivers pull weapons on the employees.

Peggy Hall says there is no law requiring the closure of small businesses in California and, therefore, they cannot be fined for staying open. Governor Newsom's tweet is not a law, and statements published on the website of the California Department of Public Health are not law either.

"Die For Him Grandpa" by Nancy OhanianCalifornia is a COVID-mess, particularly the southern part of the state, where all the counties followed Gov. Gavin Newsom into a wait-and-see approach (while the Bay Area counties ignored Newsom's cowardice and shut down fast and managed to stave off the worst of the pandemic that is devastating southern California.

I don't have any school-aged kids who I need to think about sending back to school next month. But my closest friend is an elementary school teacher in Compton. I'm worried about him, although neither the school district nor his union has said anything definitive about preparing for school. Yesterday, reporters Howard Blume, David Lauter and Nina Agrawal reported for the L.A. Times about the whole reopening idea.

5-Watt Bulb by Nancy OhanianGetting COVID-19 can be extremely serious to your health, even if you don't die. NPR rerouted yesterday that as the pandemic continues, we're learning more about what it means to survive the disease.

Places of worship must therefore discontinue singing and chanting activities and limit indoor attendance to 25% of building capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees, whichever is lower. A choir practice without masks was blamed for an acute outbreak of coronavirus in Washington State in March.

I can't say Gavin Newsom's mishandling of the pandemic has changed my mind about him. I recognized him as a soulless political ghoul the first time I met him in 2010. He called the L.A. politics bloggers together for a getting-to-know-me session at a sleek Hollywood hotel when he first ran for governor against Jerry Brown. He was well-prepared and smart and everyone in the room loved him but one-- me.

Butte County in northern California has about 220,000 people. The closest towns that could pass for cities are Chico (pop-103,301) and Oroville (pop-20,737). After the devastation of the 2018 Camp Fire, the city of Paradise went from a population of 26,218 to just 4,476.Now Butte has another problem its residents never imagined they would have to confront: a pandemic. About a month ago, writing to the L.A.

Debra J. SAUNDERS
In the war for social justice, academic freedom is an early casualty.
Consider the plight of UCLA Accounting Professor Gordon Klein.
A student sent Klein an email, screenshots of which were reviewed by Inside Higher Ed, that asked for “no-harm” grading for the final exam. (That term means counting a grade only if it improves a student’s overall course grade.) The student also asked for shorter exams and extended deadlines for black students who attended protests after the death of George Floyd.

We've been eating well during the pandemic, actually better than we have for the preceding couple of decades. That's because we ate out a lot and even the very best restaurant food is never as healthy as home-cooking. Also because I was a chef for almost 4 years-- and in a vegan/health food restaurant-- when I lived in Amsterdam.