Stories you shouldn’t miss for Jan. 22, 2019:
1. Oakland teachers are scheduled to vote next week on whether to allow union leaders to call for a strike, reports Ali Tadayon of the East Bay Times$. Oakland teachers have been working without a contract since 2017 and are demanding 12-percent raises over three years and smaller class sizes. The school district, which is facing a $30 million budget gap, is offering 5 percent raises over three years and is talking about closing up to 24 schools to save costs.
2. BART’s approval rating among riders has plummeted to a record low level as commuters “bemoan crime and filth on the system, saying it’s become a de facto shelter for transients and a laboratory of societal problems,” reports Rachel Swan of the San Francisco Chronicle$. A new survey of 5,292 customers “shows that customer satisfaction plunged to 56 percent last year, from 69 percent three years ago.”
3. The Berkeley City Council is slated to vote tonight on a new law that would require restaurants, cafes, and other businesses to enact a 25-cent surcharge on disposable cups, KTVU reports. “The ordinance also would require all dine-in foodware to be reusable and takeout foodware to be compostable by January 2020.”
4. The Capital Corridor train service has asked the state for an additional $51 million to ramp up service between San Jose and Oakland, reports Jody Meacham of the Silicon Valley Business Journal$.
5. The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the nation’s DACA program to remain in place, declining to hear the Trump administration’s latest appeal of lower court rulings, the Washington Post$ reports. The court’s decision means that DACA, “which has protected nearly 700,000 people brought to this country as children, commonly known as ‘dreamers,’” from being deported will remain in place until 2020.
6. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, allowed the Trump administration’s ban on transgender people from serving in the military to remain in effect while the case wends its way through the courts, CNN reports.
7. And two Oakland natives, Ryan Coogler and Mahershala Ali, were nominated for Academy Awards. Ali was nominated for best supporting actor for his role in Green Book, and Coogler’s film Black Panther was nominated for best picture.
$ = news stories that may require payment to read.
