“I tell people all the time: I’m a child of the #Flint #water crisis,” said Brown. “I love my city. And we put the world on notice that you cannot just poison a city and we’ll forget about it.” https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-04-22/children-of-flint-water-crisis-make-change-as-young-environmental-and-health-activists?

#FTC throws out the vast majority of the 30 million do-not-compete employment clauses in the U.S. Legal challenges about to ensue. #NonCompete #Employment https://thehill.com/business/4615452-ftc-votes-to-ban-non-compete-agreements/

Flame-throwing #robot dog with #napalm is yours for only $9420 as the war comes home. Not in CA though. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/you-can-now-buy-a-flame-throwing-robot-dog-for-under-10000/

Americans Friends Committee releases study on the use of military-style #weapons in CA #prisons. Short version: 90% of the 22K incidents involved inmates with #mentalhealth disorders. https://afsc.org/sites/default/files/2024-04/2024-uses-of-force-cali-prisions_final.pdf

"It’s less persuasive to say that the reason you’re going to ban the foreign platform is because you’re afraid of the messages that it communicates,” #TikTok #FirstAmendment https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/24/media/tiktok-bytedance-american-right/index.html

U.S. House considering bill to allow the US Treasury to quickly strip #nonprofit status for accusations of supporting #terrorism. https://reason.com/2024/04/24/this-bill-would-give-the-treasury-nearly-unlimited-power-to-destroy-nonprofits/?

LA Court strikes down SB-9, a #housing bill which encouraged multi-unit development in single home family zoned areas by right. The judge said charter cities did not need to comply with the law because the stated need affordable housing was not directly addressed by the law which did not require the new units to be affordable. https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2024/04/25/la-court-strikes-down-controversial-california-law-abolishing-single-family-zoning/?

Kern County supervisor and Kevin McCarthy protegee stabbed by his own child who was defending a sibling from sexual assault. https://www.kvpr.org/local-news/2024-04-25/kern-county-supervisor-stabbed-by-own-child-under-investigation-for-alleged-sexual-assault

"In its decision, the commission admitted that granting PG&E half a billion up front, based only on PG&E’s word, “departs from the general requirement to raise rates only after the costs are determined reasonable.” #UtilityJustice https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/california-electric-bills-news-puc-19410274.php

More #robotaxi fun. A #Waymo drove on the wrong side of the street for almost two blocks in Downtown SF with a passenger in the back seat. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/s-f-waymo-robotaxi-19416858.php?

"The Appeal found #prison prices up to five times higher than in the community and #markups as high as 600 percent". https://theappeal.org/locked-in-priced-out-how-much-prison-commissary-prices/

#Google fires 28 workers for taking that "don't be evil" thing too seriously. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2024/04/19/1245757317/google-worker-says-the-company-is-silencing-our-voices-after-dozens-are-fired/

Notes found by #Alameda County prosecuters show the office seeking to keep Black and Jewish people off of #juries in the 1980's and 1990's, which is illegal. Federal judge asks DA Price to review all #deathpenalty convictions prosecuted by the office for similar prosecutorial misconduct. https://www.kqed.org/news/11983705/allegations-of-prosecutorial-bias-spark-review-of-death-penalty-convictions-in-alameda-county?

Pandemic-caused #crime rates are now plummeting. #Media and PR need to catch up. https://sfstandard.com/2024/04/23/san-francisco-crime-rate-down-mayors-race/

Brechner Insitute study confirms that #FOIA and state public records acts work better for corporations than for journalists, researchers and the general public. https://brechner.org/2024/04/16/study-average-americans-more-likely-to-be-shut-out-of-government-records-process/

Sweeping #homeless encampments is a growing private business that profits off your tax dollars and human misery. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/16/us-homeless-encampments-companies-profiting-sweeps

Small Press Distribution, the legacy distributor for independent publishers, finally goes under marking the end of an era. #publishing #books https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/books/small-press-distribution-closure.html#commentsContainer

Shocker. "“Certainly, this is not what housing advocates were thinking would happen,” said Jordan Grimes, who works on sustainable #housing policy at the Greenbelt Alliance, a climate-focused nonprofit". #Yimby #MoreSprawl https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/21/its-not-just-skyscrapers-and-high-density-builders-remedy-is-also-bringing-more-urban-sprawl/?

AT&T lost 73 million social security numbers and lied about it for years. #databreach https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/04/att-takes-2-years-to-confirm-leaked-data-belongs-to-millions-of-customers/

"An autonomous #Waymo led its robotaxi brethren and several human drivers down a closed road on Tuesday night, causing traffic chaos on a San Francisco Highway 101 on-ramp". https://sfstandard.com/2024/04/18/waymo-leads-drivers-into-closed-road-causes-chaos-on-freeway/