The Mercury News

Bipartisan bill to make Big Tech pay publishers for news advances despite Meta threat

A bipartisan California bill that would require big technology companies to pay publishers for using news reports that help drive their profits passed the state Assembly, despite a threat this week from Facebook parent Meta that the law would spur it to remove news articles from its platforms. The state Assembly voted 46-6 to pass AB 886, the California Journalism Preservation Act by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat, co-authored by Assemblymen Bill Essayli, a Riverside Republican, and Josh Lowenthal, a Democrat representing Long Beach. It now heads to the state Senate. “Free pres...

Facebook owner Meta will chop 1,100-plus additional Bay Area jobs

MENLO PARK, California — Facebook app owner Meta Platforms has revealed plans to chop at least 1,100 more Bay Area jobs, a disquieting series of layoffs that are poised to deal a fresh jolt to the region’s wobbly tech sector. The new layoffs affect Meta employees in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Sunnyvale and Fremont, according to official notices that the company sent to state and local government officials. With these latest job cuts, Meta Platforms has chopped well over 5,100 jobs in the Bay Area through staffing reductions that occurred during 2022 and so far in 2023, according to this news o...

Can California’s coastline be saved? Study shows up to 70% could be wiped out by 2100

In the not too distant future, California’s coastline and its iconic beaches could be washed away, leaving only cliffs behind.

A new U.S. Geological Survey study found from 25% to 70% of California’s beaches could erode by 2100 due to rising sea levels caused by global temperature increases and greenhouse gas emissions. Substantial management efforts like dune restoration are necessary to maintain the beaches and prevent catastrophic erosion, the authors of the study said.

FedEx ordered to pay $2 million to deaf worker spat on by supervisors

Younes Mchaar transferred from his FedEx package-handler job in Virginia to a similar position in San Jose, California, hoping to leave behind the disability discrimination he experienced at work as a deaf person. Instead, he found more of the same, and worse: Managers mocked him, yelled at him, and one even spit on him, Mchaar claimed in a lawsuit against FedEx that earlier this month led a jury to award him $2 million. Mchaar alleged in his lawsuit, filed in 2020, that after FedEx in Virginia denied him promotions and proper interpretive services from 2011 to 2017, he moved to the San Jose p...

Child labor, mayhem, lewd comments to teen girls alleged at California Popeyes

OAKLAND, Calif. — Children as young as 13 worked illegally, female teen employees were subjected to sexually suggestive comments, and security guards contributed to violent mayhem at a Popeye’s fried-chicken restaurant in Oakland, newly filed worker complaints to state regulators claim. Popeyes said it learned Thursday morning about the worker complaints filed Wednesday with CalOSHA and the California Labor Commissioner, and immediately shut down the restaurant.

Elizabeth Holmes ordered to pay massive restitution over fraud

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her co-accused and former lover Sunny Balwani were ordered late Tuesday to pay more than $450 million in restitution for defrauding investors. Holmes, the founder and former CEO of the now-defunct Palo Alto, California, blood testing startup, has said in court filings that she “continues to work on ideas for patents” but “has essentially no assets of meaningful value” and “has incurred substantial debt from which she is unlikely to recover.” In his restitution order, Judge Edward Davila, who presided over the trials and convictions of Holmes and Balwani, h...

Teaching from 3,000 miles away: San Jose school’s response to the California teacher shortage

On a Wednesday morning in May, a dozen students streamed into their geometry class at the Cindy Avitia High School. But instead of looking toward the blackboard, the 10th-graders opened up their laptops — and got ready to connect with a teacher nearly 3,000 miles away. Their class is one of 11 taught by a virtual teacher at the charter school, which is pulling in educators from Alaska, Maryland and Texas to address California’s teacher shortage. “I know it’s not ideal for our students — we all know that,” said Shara Hedge, the CEO of Alpha Public Schools, a charter network with four schools in...

Harry and Meghan grabbed sushi with Gwyneth Paltrow: Sharing tips on testifying in court? Being lifestyle influencers?

SAN JOSE, Calif. — For Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s first public appearance since he attended King Charles III’s coronation, the renegade royals met up for a power sushi dinner this past weekend with Montecito neighbors Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz, Page Six reported. The full group that met for dinner Friday night at the swanky Sushi Bar in downtown Santa Barbara also included Paltrow’s TV producer husband, Brad Falchuk, Diaz’s husband, musician Benji Madden, and Whitney Wolfe Herd, the billionaire CEO and founder of Bumble, and her husband, Texas oil heir Michael Herd. This Harry and...

Oakland teacher’s strike continues into third day as school district and union fail to reach weekend agreement

The Oakland Unified School District and Oakland Education Association, which represents teachers and staff, did not reach a bargaining agreement over the weekend, pushing a strike affecting 34,000 students into its third day Monday. The latest package from the school district included pay bumps for teachers and staff, one-time bonuses of $5,000, and responses to some of the union’s demands, such as training staff to de-escalate mental health crises. The two sides appeared closest on compensation changes, as the district was offering to boost salaries from 13% to 22% for the next school year. T...

California detects first case of COVID infection in wildlife

The COVID virus has been found in a deer in the Sierra Nevada, representing the first detection of the pathogen in California’s free-ranging wildlife. The discovery, revealed in a new analysis of a sample from a mule deer buck collected in 2021, has no immediate consequence for people. There is already much human-to-human transmission, and vaccines largely protect us. But the finding, announced by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, adds to the growing concern by scientists that animals could act as a hiding place for the virus, perhaps breeding dangerous variants that cause new ou...

A’s announcer Glen Kuiper suspended after appearing to use racial slur during broadcast

Longtime Oakland A’s television announcer Glen Kuiper has been suspended indefinitely by NBC Sports California after he appeared to utter a racial epithet during the pregame show before Friday night’s game in Kansas City. Kuiper, who has been announcing A’s games on television for 18 years, will be off the air while the incident is reviewed, a spokesperson for the station confirmed Saturday. Kuiper was talking about the “phenomenal” time he and broadcast partner Dallas Braden had while visiting the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City earlier in the day, but instead of saying “Negro Le...

A’s announcer Glen Kuiper apologizes for appearing to say racial slur on-air

Longtime Oakland A’s television announcer Glen Kuiper apologized on the air after he appeared to utter a racial epithet during the pregame show before Friday night’s game in Kansas City. While talking about how he and broadcast partner Dallas Braden visited the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City earlier in the day, instead of saying “Negro Leagues,” Kuiper seemed to say the n-word. Before the sixth inning, the clearly flustered Kuiper issued an apology, telling NBC Sports California viewers, “I just want to … a little bit earlier in the show, I said something, didn’t come out quite t...

San Francisco, Los Angeles, other California cities lose population

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Bay Area and California suffered a population decline in 2022, according to a disquieting new government report that hints at an ongoing exodus of residents from the nation’s largest state. The population decline engulfed all four of California’s largest cities and seven of the state’s 10 largest cities, which shows that the dwindling trend of residents isn’t merely some isolated cases, but extends to all of the state’s major population centers, the state Finance Department reported in its new release. The Bay Area lost just a shade under 34,000 residents in 2022, a revi...

Coronation organizers wonder if Prince Harry will be a ‘no-show,’ report says

Even though Prince Harry finally let Buckingham Palace know — more than a week after the RVSP deadline passed — that he would be attending King Charles III’s coronation Saturday, he’s still keeping organizers in suspense about key details about his plans. Sources told The Mail on Sunday that Harry has yet to let organizers know “when he is coming, where is staying, when he is going back and whether he is happy with his seating position” in Westminster Abbey. Organizers even suspect he could pull out at the last minute. The Sun reported last week that Harry’s solo trip to the United Kingdom — w...

Facebook owner chops more than 1,500 Bay Area jobs as tech layoffs soar

Facebook app owner Meta Platforms has disclosed plans to chop more than 1,500 jobs in the Bay Area, layoffs that suggest the region’s waves of tech cutbacks have yet to relent. The most recent Meta Platform layoffs are slated to affect the tech company’s workers in the California cities of Menlo Park, Sunnyvale, Burlingame, San Francisco and Fremont, according to WARN notices filed on April 24 with the state Employment Development Department. Meta Platforms has now revealed plans to eliminate slightly over 4,000 jobs in the Bay Area, based on filings during 2022 and so far in 2023. These are t...