Remote surveillance trailer in Sacramento, CA

The California Capitol building in Sacramento was evacuated due to a threat. | Rich Pedroncelli for POLITICO

By Lindsey Holden

12/06/2024 01:55 PM EST

Updated: 12/06/2024 06:15 PM EST

SACRAMENTO, California — The California Capitol building in Sacramento and other legislative workspaces have reopened after being evacuated on Friday morning due to an emailed threat.

A memo from Lia Lopez, Assembly chief administrative officer for the Rules Committee, that POLITICO obtained said law enforcement has “completed a thorough assessment and sweep” of the Capitol building as well as the nearby “swing space” offices and Legislative Office Building.

“Staff may continue to work remotely for the rest of the day, and return to the office on Monday,” Lopez wrote. “Staff who need to report back to work in person today are cleared to do so.”

California Highway Patrol spokesperson John Ortega said in a statement on Friday afternoon the threat was “thoroughly investigated and determined to be unfounded” after a search of the Capitol and office buildings.

“No suspicious items were located,” Ortega said. “The buildings have been reopened at the direction of the Joint Rules Committee.”

Lopez this morning sent a memo to all assemblymembers and Assembly staff urging them to leave the Capitol and legislative spaces as “law enforcement is actively working to determine if the threat is credible.” Senators and Senate staff received a similar message, sent just before 9 a.m. from Sheila Braverman, deputy secretary for Senate Human Resources.

The Legislature is on recess until Jan. 6, meaning most lawmakers are likely away from Sacramento in their home districts. Gov. Gavin Newsom is in Los Angeles for a Democratic Governors Association meeting.

CHP, which is responsible for securing the Capitol, dispatched officers on bicycles to circle the area and prevent staffers and tourists from entering. Police brought dogs into the buildings to help with the sweeps.

Ortega earlier in the day said the agency was the only one involved in the investigation. Ortega declined to describe the threat, and he wouldn’t say when it was received.

Tenth Street outside the Capitol was already blocked off in preparation for Sunday’s California International Marathon.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

Outgoing Mayor Darrell Steinberg officially passed the baton on Tuesday to the new mayor of Sacramento, Kevin McCarty.

Steinberg held his last meeting at 2 p.m.

At the 5 p.m. meeting, McCarty and council members decided to defer the consideration of city manager Howard Chan's new contract to the next council meeting.

"We have a new council tonight. Tonight's about celebrations and swearing-ins," Mayor Kevin McCarty said. "And so, I thought that was appropriate tonight to focus on the new council and give us some time to suck in the oxygen and talk about these issues. So we'll come back to this issue at a later date."

Originally, the council meeting schedule showed no meeting happening on Dec. 17. However, the Sacramento city clerk noted Tuesday's meeting was adjourned to a meeting on Dec. 17 at 5 p.m.

Howard Chan's current contract with the city of Sacramento expires at the end of the month.

He has requested a contract extension until Dec. 31, 2025.

His pay has been a political issue of late. At the beginning of the year, the Sacramento City Council gave the city manager a raise and then had to rescind it after public outcry because it was done without the community's input.

Chan is one of the highest-paid city managers in California. His base salary is $400,000, which was last increased in 2022.

The State Controller’s Office reports his total wages in 2023, which included a vacation payout, were nearly $600,000. His total wages after his first contract in 2017 were $272,339, according to the office.

During a KCRA 3 election debate in October, McCarty expressed interest in voting to extend Chan's contract by one year "and then talk about what's after that."

He said Chan's experience was needed when a new mayor is coming in.

“I don’t support any pay increases for our executive,” McCarty said.

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When going to the hospital for medical treatment, surgery or a simple exam, patients in California expect medical staff to meet a certain standard of care.

Falls, infections after surgery, miscommunications with staff and other preventable safety issues kill up to 250,000 people in the United States each year, according to health care watchdog organization The Leapfrog Group.

In its most recent report, the nonprofit organization graded healthcare facilities nationwide on a scale from A to F, with A representing the highest level of safety and F the lowest.

A number of California hospitals — including medical care centers in Fresno, Merced, Modesto and San Luis Obispo — received A grades for fall 2024.

However, a total of 18 hospitals across California received D or F grades in the new Leapfrog Group report.

Here’s which facilities fell short and why:

Doctors Hospital of Manteca, 1205 E. North St. in Manteca, received a D grade in The Leapfrog Frog’s fall 2024 report after achieving below-standard scores in communication among doctors, handwashing, safely administering medications, and preventing urinary tract infections.

However, the hospital performed at or above standards in terms of preventing infections, patient falls and bed sores.

Oroville Hospital, 2767 Olive Highway in Oroville, got a D grade for its poor communication about medicines and discharges, as well as failture to prevent blood infections.

The medical care facility fared well in preventing blood leaking in patients, reducing bed sores and limiting harmful events, such as infections.

San Mateo Medical Center, 222 West 39th Ave. in San Mateo, had issues with patient falls and injuries as well as consistent hand washing and providing doctor orders through a computer.

It also lacked physicians with training in critical care medicine, leading to its D grade.

UC Davis Medical Center, 4301 X St. in Sacramento, received a D grade for improper staph infection control, sepsis infection prevention after surgery and patient fall and injury incidents.

Other hospitals that received D grades from Leapfrogs were:

Only one California medical care facility — Pacifica Hospital of the Valley in Sun Valley — received a failing grade in the latest Leapfrog Group report.

The Southern California hospital received below-standard assessments in communication between doctors and nurses, infection control, hand-washing, and safe medication administration.

The Leapfrog Group grades hospitals on a scale of A to F based on “overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.”

The group said it came up with its hospital safety grades by looking at up to 30 national performance measures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and other supplemental data sources.

Leapfrog then worked under the guidance of a panel of patient safety experts to select 22 “evidence-based measures” — divided into five key categories — and develop a scoring methodology.

Those categories are:

A magnitude-5.5 earthquake Monday in Nevada rumbled through the Lake Tahoe region and parts of the Sacramento region, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The temblor struck at 3:08 p.m. 15 miles northeast of Yerington, a small town in Lyon County, according to the USGS. The incident was followed by at least 10 earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 2.5 to 3.3, according to the federal agency.

The earthquake, which struck at a depth of roughly 4 miles below the surface, was initially recorded at a magnitude of 5.8 before it was downgraded by seismologists. The epicenter’s location is not on a known fault, according to mapping from the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, but is near multiple unnamed faults that dot the rugged, empty terrain southeast of Reno.

The quake’s epicenter is about 43 miles east from South Lake Tahoe and 127 miles east of Sacramento.

Sacramento residents reported feeling waves from the earthquake from downtown Sacramento to the Pocket neighborhood.

Chris Micheli, a Sacramento lobbyist, said he swayed while sitting at his desk on the eighth floor of the Senator Hotel on L Street, just across from the California state Capitol.

“I haven’t felt one like that” in about 15 years, Micheli said.

Monday’s earthquakes happened on the heels of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake off the Northern California coast last week that uprooted homes in Humboldt County and cut power for thousands.

That temblor briefly prompted a tsunami warning from Oregon to San Francisco. Bay Area residents were also given evacuation warnings before authorities gave the all-clear.

The last moderate earthquake in the area occurred on Oct. 1, 2011, when a magnitude-4.8 quake struck 23 miles south-southeast of Monday’s epicenter. In the past 100 years, according to USGS records, only 15 earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 4.5 have occurred within a 30-mile radius of Monday’s temblor.

Most of the faults in the area have had little to no movement since the Ice Age, data from the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology show.

This story was originally published December 9, 2024, 3:39 PM.

Your Facebook account could soon come with a recurring warning label, under a proposed law California lawmakers will consider next year.

Assembly Bill 56, by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, would require the following “black box” warning label to appear as a popup on social media users’ accounts on a weekly basis: “The Surgeon General has advised that there are ample indicators that social media can have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”

That requirement would apply to platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and others.

Bauer-Kahan said that companies are conspiring to keep young people hooked online.

“There is a powerful profit motive to keep our young people hooked online and engaged and it is exploiting the human psychology with notifications, likes, endless scrolling and algorithmic amplification that is harming our children every day,” she said at a press conference Monday announcing the bill.

Lawmakers have passed a series of laws aimed at curbing youth social media addiction in recent years, though the tech industry has pushed back hard with both lobbying efforts and legal challenges, and most of those laws are in limbo as the cases are ongoing. It’s unclear whether the wording of AB 56, which is yet to be posted online, would withstand legal scrutiny.

Todd O’Boyle, of the center-left, tech-funded Chamber of Progress, said in a statement that “slapping a warning label on social media is like a broken fire alarm going off with no evidence of smoke.”

“It ignores the reality that most teens view social media as an important outlet for social connection,” said O’Boyle said. “Forcing this kind of label despite a lack of scientific proof will run into the same First Amendment buzzsaw that has doomed previous California kids’ bills.”

The bill is sponsored by California Attorney General Rob Bonta as well as the advocacy group Common Sense Media.

At the press conference, Bonta said that “this is about real children and teenagers, real families, real impacts on real lives.”

Bonta said that social media platforms are “built and designed” to addict children “and they do it well,” that they “purposely prey on the psychological vulnerabilities of young people.”

“Time is up, it’s time we stepped in and demanded change,” Bonta said.

Bauer-Kahan said that children aren’t oblivious to the fact that they’re being addicted to social media.

“But they feel trapped, they feel afraid of being isolated, and they just can’t stop,” she said.

Bauer-Kahan said that black box warning labels helped to reduce smoking rates and she hopes it will due the same for social media usage.

“It will raise public awareness and turn the tide in this public health crisis,” she said.

This story was originally published December 9, 2024, 11:26 AM.