Important Takeaways:
- A new law in California will raise the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour next year, an acknowledgment from the state’s Democratic leaders that most of the often-overlooked workforce are the primary earners for their low-income households.
- When it takes effect on April 1, fast food workers in California will have the highest guaranteed base salary in the industry.
- The state’s minimum wage for all other workers — $15.50 per hour — is already among the highest in the United States.
- Newsom’s signature reflects the power and influence of labor unions in the nation’s most populous state
- Unions have played a big part in Newsom’s political rise in California, offering a reliable source of campaign cash.
- Right now, California’s fast food workers earn an average of $16.60 per hour, or just over $34,000 per year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the California Poverty Measure for a family of four
- The new $20 minimum wage is just a starting point. The law creates a Fast Food Council that has the power to increase that wage each year through 2029 by 3.5%
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Important Takeaways:
- “Each school district, county office of education, and charter school” is required to have at least one gender-neutral bathroom on campus on or before July 1, 2026
- In addition, the gender-neutral bathroom may only be temporarily closed if there is a documented student safety concern, an immediate threat to student safety or for the bathroom to be repaired.
- “These measures will help protect vulnerable youth, promote acceptance, and create more supportive environments in our schools and communities,” Governor Newsom said
- Senate Bill 760 is part of a cluster of bills aimed at expanding access to LGBTQ+ Californians, according to the governor, who applauded the state as having some of the most “robust laws in the nation when it comes to protecting and supporting our LGBTQ+ community.”
- “This year the LGBTQ Caucus took up the important work of protecting our communities in the face of vile anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, discriminatory laws across the country, and hatred,” Chair of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, said in the press release
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Important Takeaways:
- The California legislature passed a bill Friday that requires a judge to consider whether or not a parent “affirms” their child’s “gender identity” in a custody dispute.
- Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener and Democratic Assembly Member Lori Wilson introduced the bill in February, with Wiener claiming that the legislation was needed to protect the “health, safety, and welfare of the child,” according to the Associated Press. The bill passed the state Senate Wednesday with a 30-9 vote before making it through the general assembly only days later at 57-16, according to KCRA, an NBC affiliate.
- “This bill, for purposes of this provision, would include a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity or gender expression as part of the health, safety, and welfare of the child,” the legislation reads.
- Conservative commentators quickly took to Twitter after the vote to warn about the potential damage this would cause to parental and religious rights.
- “California is one Governor’s signature away from the power to remove children from parents who don’t affirm their children’s fake gender identity. This is tantamount to forced sterilization of children,” Nicole Solas, an attorney and senior fellow for the Independent Women’s Forum, wrote in a post. “I know another govt that forcibly sterilized kids.
- Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk called the bill “anti-parent,” according to a post.
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Important Takeaways:
- California Digging From Mud Left By Tropical Storm Hilary
- While northern Californians fight wildfires, southern Californians are recovering—particularly those in the drier parts of the Golden State—after receiving heavy rainfall from their first tropical storm in more than 80 years.
- Damaged roads and mud-deep vehicles ill Californians after Tropical Storm Hilary and its remnants dropped several inches of rain to areas that are typically dry.
- The damage across southern California after the storm’s passage has caused road closures and power outages and pushed community clean-up efforts.
- Riverside County—where Cathedral City and Desert Hot Springs are located—saw about 1.5 inches of rain recently, causing I-10 freeway flooding and excessive damage that prompted the county’s chief executive to proclaim a local emergency.
- Palm Springs International Airport recorded 3.23 inches of rain in flooding unseen in the area since 2019, the National Weather Service says.
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Important Takeaways:
- California gas prices soar to the highest point of the year
- Gasoline prices in California have surged to the highest point of the year and are approaching prices seen last summer, according to the American Automobile Association.
- According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded in California was $5.26 on Tuesday, up 10 cents over the past week and 37 cents over the past month. A year ago, drivers were paying $5.34 per gallon.
- In Los Angeles County alone, the average price for regular unleaded was $5.36/gallon on Tuesday.
- The national average was $3.85/gallon.
- California, once again, has the highest gasoline prices in the nation. Washington State ($5.05/gallon) has the second-highest.
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Important Takeaways:
- 50 Cent Slams Los Angeles over Flash Mob Robberies: ‘LA Is Finished’
- “I told you LA was finished,” 50 Cent wrote in an Instagram caption, sharing a screenshot of a headline, which read, “Flash Mob Hits Another High-End Store in L.A. County, Steal Estimated $100K in Merchandise.”
- “They are gonna have to lock the doors, appointment only,” the rapper added in his caption.
- 50 Cent was reacting to a recent news headline about scores of thieves appearing to ransack a Nordstrom in Canoga Park.
- In July, the rapper shared the same sentiments after it was revealed that the Democrat-controlled city implemented a zero bail policy and non-violent criminals would no longer be detained in the city, writing on Instagram, “LA is finished watch how bad it gets out there”
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The American Heritage Dictionary “plagues”
1. A highly infectious, usually fatal, epidemic disease; a pestilence.
2. A virulent, infectious disease that is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis (syn. Pasteurella pestis) and is transmitted primarily by the bite of fleas from an infected rodent, especially a rat. In humans it occurs in bubonic form, marked by lymph node enlargement, and in pneumonic form, marked by infection of the lungs, and can progress to septicemia.
3. A widespread affliction or calamity seen as divine retribution.
Important Takeaways:
- CDC detects coronavirus, HIV, hepatitis and herpes at unlicensed California lab
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested the substances and detected at least 20 potentially infectious agents, including coronavirus, HIV, hepatitis and herpes, according to a Health and Human Services letter dated June 6.
- An investigation found the tenant was Prestige BioTech, a company registered in Nevada and unlicensed for business in California. City officials spoke with Xiuquin Yao, who was identified as the company president, through emails included in the court documents.
- Yao told officials that Prestige BioTech moved assets belonging to a defunct company, Universal Meditech Inc., to the Reedley warehouse from Fresno after UMI went under. Prestige Biotech was a creditor to UMI and identified as its successor, according to court documents.
- Officials were unable to get any California-based address for either company except for the previous Fresno location from which UMI had been evicted.
- “The other addresses provided for identified authorized agents were either empty offices or addresses in China that could not be verified,” court documents said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Californians Struggling With High Rent Prices, End of Eviction Moratoriums
- More than 768,000 households are behind on rent in the Golden State, with debts totaling more than $5 billion, putting approximately 721,000 children at risk of eviction, according to the National Equity Atlas—a collaborative data and analytics tool founded by Oakland-based Policy Link and the University of Southern California Equity Research Institute.
- Residents in the City of Los Angeles are facing a deadline of Aug. 1 to repay all rental debt accrued between March 2020 and September 2021, with that from October 2021 to January 31, 2023, due by February 2024.
- Average rent prices in California are $2,902 across all sizes and property types, according to online real estate listing company Zillow as of July 21.
- Based on current listings in many areas like Orange, San Diego, Santa Clara, or San Francisco counties, homes with three bedrooms and space to accommodate a family cost at least $4,000 a month to rent.
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Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”
Important Takeaways:
- A dormant California lake that reappeared isn’t going anywhere fast
- Tulare Lake, which refilled for the first time in 40 years after atmospheric river storms pummeled California, will take at least a year to evaporate entirely, experts said.
- “We are still going to have a Tulare Lake next year,” said Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Water Policy Center of the Public Policy Institute of California.
- The sudden reappearance of the lake, which was drained for farmland in the late 1800s, has caused hundreds of millions of dollars in agricultural losses and will require a substantial cleanup effort once the water has gone, as flooded farm buildings, vehicles, homes and electrical infrastructure still lurk within its waters.
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Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”
Important Takeaways:
- California has spent billions to fight homelessness. The problem has gotten worse
- California has spent a stunning $17.5 billion trying to combat homelessness over just four years. But, in the same time frame, from 2018 to 2022, the state’s homeless population actually grew. Half of all Americans living outside on the streets, federal data shows, live in California.
- Across the country, homelessness is on the rise. But California is adding more homeless people every year than any other state. More than 170,000 unhoused people now live here.
- “The problem would be so much worse, absent these interventions,” Jason Elliott, senior adviser on homelessness to Gov. Gavin Newsom, told CNN. “And that’s not what people want to hear. I get it, we get it.”
- But with $17.5 billion, the state could, theoretically, have just paid the rent for every unhoused person in California for those four years, even at the state’s high home costs.
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