.Friday’s Briefing: Ghost Ship owners plead the Fifth; Berkeley Unified proposing to build housing for teachers

Swalwell presidential campaign to focus on gun safety

News you don’t want to miss for April 5-7:




1. The owners of the Ghost Ship building appeared in court Thursday, the East Bay Times reports. Each took the stand, but refused to answer questions, instead, pleading the Fifth Amendment. $$




2. Berkeley is losing good teachers due to the city and region’s high cost of housing. Berkeleyside reports the Berkeley Unified School District is eyeing a plan to build affordable housing for its teachers and the Berkeley City Council may soon be asked to help pay for pre-development costs.




3. An Alameda County Superior Court judge set a $2 million bail for David Xu, the Berkeley engineer who is accused of slowly poisoning his co-worker by placing cadmium in her water bottle, SFist reports. Xu has pleaded not guilty.




4. The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department is not complying with requests under a new state law for the release of its police investigation records, citing a large number of files, the East Bay Times reports, along with the question, “Is the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department overwhelmed with problem officers?” $$




5. Swalwell switcheroo? Rep. Eric Swalwell’s will focus his forthcoming presidential campaign on gun safety, not Russian collusion, The Atlantic reports. Swalwell will announces his campaign for president next week, reportedly on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. A local event is also scheduled for April 14 in Dublin.




6. One of Swalwell’s future opponents, Sen. Kamala Harris, missed an important Senate vote on wildfire relief for California while she was fundraising this week in Sacramento, Politico reports.




7. Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin received a retraining order against perennial mayoral candidate Zachary RunningWolf, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The order was sought after RunningWolf posted a threatening message against Arreguin on Facebook. $$




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