News you don’t want to miss for Feb. 13:
1. Fifteen thousand Safeway workers represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 in Northern California may be going on strike, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The union and Safeway have been in negotiations for a year and a half. The unions opposes Safeway’s proposal to pay a similar pay scale for all workers across the region, and are demanding more full-time opportunities. $$
2. More bad news for Safeway. The non-profit Public Interest Research Group gave Safeway a falling grade for its food contamination policies in a report released Wednesday, KPIX reports. The survey also gave falling grades to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.
3. “The man accused of murdering Nia Wilson on a BART station platform in 2018 admitted to the brazen double stabbing in court Tuesday, but he said he believed Wilson and her sisters were aliens and part of a gang that had kidnapped his grandmother,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports. On Thursday morning Cowell was removed from the courtroom in Oakland for unruly behavior, NBC Bay Area reports.
4. A man was beaten, possibly with a bike lock, while on board a BART train that was travelling toward the Lake Merritt station, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The victim was treated for injuries. $$
5. A Berkeleyside reporter was denied access to a student-led protest last Monday morning at Berkeley High School, the community news website reports. Students held the demonstration and rally to protest the school’s handling of sexual assault complaints.
6. More than one-third of the state is “abnormally dry,” according to a federal report and that includes most of the Bay Area, according to the Sacramento Bee. Concerns over a return of drought conditions have heightened after a relatively dry new year. $$
$$ = Stories you may have to pay to read.
