(AP) — San Francisco officials have approved a task force that will study financial compensation, community programs and other ways to make reparations to the descendants of slaves, becoming the largest city in the nation to take such a step. The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to appoint the 15-member African American Reparations Advisory Committee. It includes Black people who have been displaced from San Francisco, have been incarcerated or have experienced homelessness, among other criteria. In the next two years, the committee will have to submit a final draft that should determine "the scope of and eligibility for a citywide reparations program."

(AP) A federal judge is weighing whether Pacific Gas & Electric violated its criminal probation by sparking a wildfire north of San Francisco. The fire destroyed more than 100 homes and injured six firefighters in October 2019. Prosecutors and attorneys for PG&E appeared at a hearing Tuesday before U.S. District Judge William Alsup. The hearing came a month after the Sonoma County district attorney charged the company with five felony and 28 misdemeanor counts in the fire. PG&E has accepted investigators’ findings that its transmission line ignited the fire. But it has denied committing any crimes.

Organized labor is reportedly contributing to the anti-recall campaign designed to keep Governor Gavin Newsom in office. The donation of 250-thousand dollars comes from the Professional Engineers in California Government, a group representing some eleven-thousand state engineers. Other unions are also expected to defend Newsom against the recall in the weeks ahead. Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also expressed their support for Newsom via videos released to the California Democratic Party statewide convention over the weekend.

Wildfire Preparedness Week is underway in California ahead of what is expected to be another challenging fire season. The state office of emergency services says the 2020 fire season featured six of the largest and most destructive fires in state history. The more than four-million acres burned last year was more than the 2017 and 2018 fire seasons combined. CAL FIRE says the time is now to harden your home and create a defensible space. They say it is also good to have a family escape plan and a go-bag ready in case of evacuation.

A long-standing double-murder case in Chico has come to a conclusion. Steven Crittenden was convicted in the double murder of prominent Chico doctor William Chiapella and his wife in 1987. While awaiting trial in Butte County Crittenden escaped and kidnapped a resident in a nearby neighborhood. He was captured in Sacramento and his trial was moved to Placer County due to the publicity surrounding the case. The jury found him guilty of the murders in 1989 and he faced the death penalty. But, his conviction was overturned in 2013 when an appellete court ruled that a black juror was illegally excused from the jury. With California putting a moratorium on all executions....the District Attorney Mike Ramsey negotiated a plea agreement with Crittenden. He will serve 63 years to life in prison with no credit for time served up until 2015. It's the same sentence the Placer County jury gave him. He is not eligible for parole until 2035

The Chico Unified School Board voted to adopt the reopening plan for the 2021-2022 school year at Wednesday's board meeting. The vote comes with a contingency that if a state mandates require it, the district would return to the a.m./p.m. model. The full-time in-person model that was adopted would include safety considerations like face masks, social distancing and cleaning.

California is committing hundreds of millions of dollars towards early wildfire prevention ahead of what is expected to be another difficult fire season. Governor Gavin Newsom signed a 536-million-dollar wildfire prevention funding and preparedness plan this morning. Newsom calls it a down payment towards the more than one-billion-dollars being set aside in this year's state budget. Newsom says funding will go towards forest and vegetation management, and the creation of more fire breaks around vulnerable communities. This will include the hardening of infrastructure and creating more defensible space.

Chico State University will require all on-campus residents and athletes to be vaccinated against the Coronavirus. University officials said even though they will require on-campus students to be vaccinated they are looking at contingency plans just in case some students can't for medical reasons. Mike Guzzi is the Operation Center Director for Chico State. He says they really want their students to get vaccinated to protect the campus. Chico State officials say they are looking at mandatory vaccinations for the entire student body

A federal judge has put a stop to the removal of campers at the Comanche Park Greenway in Chico....halting the city's planned eviction of the homeless. The court order issued by Judge Morrison C. England was issued Sunday and prohibits the City of Chico from enforcing 72-hour illegal encampment notifications to unhoused people. The order is based on the finding by the court that there are not enough available emergency shelter beds and other emergency shelters locations for the number of unhoused people in Chico. England also said the city cannot destroy the property of unhoused people. Some city leaders have been contending for months that there is enough housing for those that are on the streets right now.... a contention which the Judge dismissed by virtue of his ruling.

Confused if you are eligible for the Covid 19 Vaccine? click the link to see if you fall into one of the sectors.  www.buttecounty.net/publichealth

Local excitement and anticipation is being tempered by Butte County health officials as residents wait to be put in the COVID red tier.... Lisa Alamaguer with Butte County Public Health says Governor Newsom raised local expectation...Almaguer says Butte is on a good track, but the county numbers still need to get better to move to red....Butte's current case rate is 10.4 percent. To move to the red tier Butte must have a case rate below 7 percent. Butte's test positivity rate of 4.1 percent does qualify the county to move to the less restrictive tier

PG&E electricity and natural gas residential customers must brace for a jump in their monthly bills in March, an increase the utility says will be used to finance an array of efforts to improve safety and reliability. That works out to an increase of 4.6% in the average monthly electricity and gas bill compared to the average bill in January. The higher revenue that PG&E is collecting will be used to finance varied measures and programs to improve the utility's electricity and gas system as well as wildfire managmenet efforts.

An officer on his motorcycle was rear-ended and ejected by a distracted motorist on Monday, Chico Police Department said. Chico Police Traffic Sergeant Todd Lefkowitz was stopped at the traffic light on East 1st Ave and Neal Dow Ave. when he was rear-ended, Chico Police Department said.the Officer suffered minor injuries ..the driver of the vihecle who struck the MOtorcycle was not found to be impaired...

(AP) — California's coronavirus death toll has topped 50,000 as Los Angeles County updated its count using backlogged records. The nation's most populous county on Wednesday reported 806 deaths that occurred during a fall and winter virus surge and 136 new deaths. Johns Hopkins University put the state's death figure at 50,890. L.A. County health director Barbara Ferrer calls the figures heartbreaking. The state hit the 40,000 mark on Jan. 30. But its COVID-19 infection and death rates have begun to taper off. The new figures come days after the U.S. recorded a half-million deaths from the pandemic.

The Fire Victim Trust filed a lawsuit in a San Francisco Superior Court against former officers and directors of PG&E Corporation and PG&E for their role in causing the Camp Fire The Trust, represents nearly 80,000 victims, is suing nearly two dozen former executives and board members of PG&E for Dereliction of Duty. It says in 2017 PG&E was six years behind on its vegetation management program, meaning vegetation was not properly trimmed and maintained. In the Camp Fire, the Complaint alleges the defendants failed to detect and replace aging equipment as part of PG&E's transmission inspection program. the suit points out the 100-year-old "C-hook" that was mounted on a transmission tower failed and started the fire. The Trust is seeking enough monetary damages and injunctive or declaratory relief to reform PG&E's corporate governance.

A Cottonwood man is behind bars facing murder charges after police saw him dragging a bound man behind his motorcycle in Red Bluff late Monday night. 37 year-old Ray Cain was seen dragging the man and refused to stop even after officers confronted him. Authorities say eventually the bound body came loose from the motorcycle. Police fired shots trying to get Cain to stop. Red Bluff Police say he eventually crashed and was taken to the hospital after suffereing moderate injuries. He has been booked into the Tehama County jail. Police do not know if the descedent was dead prior to be dragged behind the motorcycle

Butte County Board of Supervisors voted to draft a letter for CalOES and FEMA to request to sell their travel trailers to Camp Fire survivors on Tuesday, according to Butte County Clerk of the Board. Nearly 170 families currently live at the Chico and Gridley FEMA sites but in three months the direct housing comes to an end. The county wants people to have the opportunity to purchase their unit and permanently move to another location. If units are left over, the county says non-profits would have the chance to receive them as donations.

Green Bay Packers quarterback and Chico native Aaron Rodgers is donating a half-a-million dollars to local small businesses through the North Valley Community Foundation. Rodgers and the Foundation are starting the Aaron Rodgers COVID-19 Small Business Fund. He says it is vital to support local businesses as they are getting crushed by the pandemic....Businesses can apply on the NVCF dot-org and will be eligible for grants. Rodgers wants the money to get to businesses quickly so they can get the help they need.

Oroville Dam, is getting an additional three-hundred-eight million dollars in federal funds. The money comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the extra funding will be used for Spillway repairs and reconstruction. Those funds are on top of the two-hundred-sixty million dollars that FEMA has already committed to the lower portion of the Spillway. Massive erosion in the Spillway forced the evacuation of more than 180-thousand Californians four years ago.

A rescue operation as a car goes over the edge of the road on the Skyway near Lookout Point. Cal Fire and CHP crews responded to reports of a car over the edge of the Skyway. Authorities say they rescued the woman who suffered minor to moderate injuries. The CHP told Action News Now that the woman was reaching for her phone when she lost control of her car and went over the edge of the roadway...... Authorities say alcohol does not appear to be a cause of accident

(AP) — Law enforcement officials are investigating escalating threats of death and violence against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, his family and the wineries, shops and other businesses he founded. The Sacramento Bee reports it heard a voicemail and reviewed emails containing graphic abusive language about Newsom, violent sexual threats against his wife and a reference to his children. The newspaper said one communication included a threat to burn down one of the wineries owned by the PlumpJack Group, the hospitality company Newsom founded in the 1990s, with patrons inside. The Bee says Newsom is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of the company.

(Chico ER) Chico Fire Chief Steve Standridge has tested positive for COVID-19, Standridge said he is the only new positive case within the Chico Fire Department and his contraction of the virus was not “work related.” Back in November, a cluster of cases occurred in the department and further exacerbated what was already a staffing shortage. More than 20 close contacts were also identified in the spread of the virus. The outbreak was believed to have started when a firefighter who unknowingly contracted the virus and was asymptomatic returned to work his normal in addition to a few overtime shifts. The firefighter was part of a crew that had recently moved with an engine from Fire Station 3 located at the Chico Municipal Airport, back to Fire Station 2 at 182 East Fifth Ave. near The Esplanade. Fire Station 2 was “hit very hard” by the virus, Standridge said.

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OROVILLE — The Butte County Board of Supervisors voted during Tuesday's meeting to repeal and replace a portion of the county code titled "Fire Protection and Prevention" with new guidelines that property owners will be required to comply with, as well as outlining how the county will enforce the guidelines. The new amendments include requiring true defensible space of 100 feet from a structure, regardless of property lines, as well as a five-foot ember resistant zone. Additionally, property owners are required to clear vegetation from the edge of their road or driveways by 10 feet horizontally and 14 feet vertically. For evacuation routes officially designated in community evacuation plans, those requirements increase to 20 feet horizontally and 14 feet vertically from the edge of the roadway.

(AP) — Federal prosecutors say a Northern California man has been charged with stockpiling weapons, including pipe bombs, and the FBI said he sent texts that could be seen as threats against the governor's office. The Justice Department announced weapons charges against Ian Rogers of Napa on Wednesday after weapons and explosives were found at his home and auto repair shop. An FBI court affidavit says Rogers talked about wanting to blow up a building and made references that could be to the governor's office and Twitter and Facebook headquarters. His attorney says the texts were just "drunken bluster."