Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. Oakland A’s co-owner Lew Wolff announced yesterday that the team had agreed to a ten-year lease extension at the Coliseum, but city and county officials said the deal was not yet complete and that both sides were still negotiating, the Bay Area News Group$ reports. Wolff also told Major League Baseball about having a deal, even though it’s not finalized. Wolff also indicated that the team is interested in pursuing a new ballpark on the Coliseum site.
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2. Legislation that sought to raise the minimum wage to $13 an hour in California by 2017 died in the state Assembly when centrist Democrats refused to vote for it. The SacBee$ reports that business groups had lobbied against SB 935, authored by state Senator Mark Leno, arguing that it would harm the state’s economic recovery.
3. A compromise deal that sought to close a loophole in Prop 13 unraveled in Sacramento when tax reform groups pulled their support for it, contending that it would allow corporations to avoid paying their fair share of property taxes, the SacBee$ reports.
4. Governor Jerry Brown is proposing to slash the total pricetag of a state water bond measure proposed for the November ballot from $10.5 billion to $6 billion, the LA Times$ reports.
5. In a rare unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement cannot search a cellphone without a warrant, the LA Times$ reports. The decision may impact the NSA’s warrantless phone data collection program.
6. A new Field Poll shows that 44 percent of state residents say they’re in better financial shape this year than in 2013, but 53 percent said they still think the economy is in bad shape, the Chron reports.
7. And there are about 2,400 Great White Sharks off the California Coast — much more than scientists had thought, the Chron reports, citing a new study in the journal PLOS ONE.
