Posts Tagged: activities

News

Coronavirus and authors: Book promotions in CA take a hit

The setting for a book-signing event at a Calabasas bookstore, just before the pandemic hit. (Photo: Jesse Watrous, via Shutterstock)

On Tuesday March 17, the nation’s first effective coronavirus shelter-in-place order took effect in California. At midnight, non-essential businesses in six San Francisco Bay Area counties – from salons to bookstores – closed. As Pete Mulvihill, co-owner of Green Apple Books, told KQED about the order, “We haven’t closed since the 1989 earthquake and that was only one day.”

Opinion

Summer camp? Now, more than ever, we need it

One of the joys of summer camp: gathering around the campfire. (Photo: Volodya Senkiv, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: As a team that works on developing, producing, and running cool camp programs, most of us can’t think of a more challenging time.  The old adage “nailing Jello to a tree” rings true as we plan for what camp in this current environment might look like.  Just when we think we’ve got something solved, a new hurdle or change comes about.

News

Independent governance eyed for State Water Project

The California Aqueduct, part of the State Water Project, flows by an almond orchard in the Central Valley. (Photo: Alabn, via Shutterstock)

The State Water Project comprises 700 miles of tunnels, pipelines, aqueducts and siphons that transport water from California’s north to its more arid south, serving 26 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland along the way. It’s a huge project with a lot of infrastructure, and it’s most of what DWR does. But more than 60 years later, there is a move under way to take control of the project out of the hands of DWR and place it in an independent commission.

Opinion

Online charter schools under attack

Photo illustration: Africa Studio, via Shutterstock.

OPINION: Imagine enjoying your summer holiday vacation only to learn that special interest lawmakers beholden to the California Teachers Association are voting to close down your child’s school. As a parent, you’ve never received any school closure information or a single news report.

Opinion

Does curbing drones stifle innovation?

OPINION: One of the next great areas of innovation is at risk because of SB 142, which would make it an offense to fly a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over private property at an altitude of 350 feet or below – regardless of the reason – without the permission of each private property owner in the flight path.

News

PUC chief to step down

A devastated zone in San Bruno following the 2010 gas pipeline explosion. (Photo: Brocken Inaglory)

Michael R. Peevey, the beleaguered president of the California Public Utilities Commission who has served under three governors, said Thursday he is stepping down at the end of the year. The move follows turmoil at the powerful regulatory agency that includes state and federal investigations amid complaints that the PUC has been too cozy with Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

Opinion

The fallacy of forest ‘offsets’

Banana trees in the forest at Agua Azul waterfall, Chiapas, Mexico. (Photo: Elisa Loco)

OPINION: When it comes to reducing California’s climate emissions, should we allow companies to pollute our local communities, while paying our neighbors in Mexico to clean up the carbon? Should we gamble our climate policies on saving trees in other countries that can easily be destroyed by forest fires, just so that we can indulge in our own emissions instead of reducing them responsibly?

News

FPPC not investigating De León

The state Fair Political Practices Commission, which enforces California’s campaign finance laws, has decided not to open an investigation of Sen. Kevin de León in connection with a $25,000 donation to a nonprofit advocacy group headed by the brother of Sen. Ron Calderon, a figure targeted in an FBI undercover investigation.

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