Last week’s national day of protest by Third Act members urging banks, including local branches of Wells Fargo and CHASE Bank, to stop lending to and underwriting the fossil fuel industry, included a demonstration attended by around 60 persons in Arcata. Many attendees brought their bank cards to cut up in protest March 21, as […]
Business / Economy
Posted inNews
CalPERS to Pay $800 Million Settlement Over Claims It Misled Retirees on Costs of Long-term Care Insurance
CalPERS is preparing to pay out roughly $800 million to settle claims that it misled retirees when it began offering long-term care insurance in the late 1990s and pledged it wouldn’t substantially raise rates on certain plans. The nation’s largest public pension fund in the 1990s and early 2000s sold long-term care insurance with so-called […]
Posted inNews
Duffy Tapped as Interim Fair GM
The Humboldt County Fair Association is under new — if temporary — leadership. The association board voted March 13 to approve the hire of retired Humboldt Waste Management Authority Executive Director and former county Fifth District Supervisor Jill Duffy as the association’s interim general manager. Duffy officially started the job March 15, succeeding Rich Silacci, […]
Posted inNews
No California Salmon: Fishery to be Shut Down This Year
Most summer mornings at first light, Jared Davis is a few miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge, motoring his charter fishing boat Salty Lady over the Pacific Ocean. His eyes sweep the horizon, looking for diving birds, but mostly he watches the screen of his dashboard fish-finder for schools of anchovies — a sure […]
Posted inNews
Court Upholds California Prop. 22 in Big Win for Gig Firms Like Lyft and Uber
In the winding story of California’s gig worker laws, another chapter has come to a close. Justices in a California court of appeals ruled Monday that Proposition 22 — a 2020 ballot measure that allowed Uber, Lyft, and other platforms to classify their workers as independent contractors rather than employees – is largely constitutional, but […]
Posted inNews
NCJ Preview: Snow and Hot Pierogi
How about this weather? This week we’re looking back at a wild week of snow around the county, how it affected roads and safety, as well as the beautiful photos our readers took to capture the scene. Then we’re warming up with a story about a food stand bringing Polish potato dumplings to Humboldt. Hit […]
Posted inNews
Jump-Starting Electric Car Batteries: Will Supply Problems Stall California’s Mandate?
After more than 30 years toiling in obscurity in the ultra-complex world of battery technology, Kurt Kelty and the other chemists, electrical engineers and minerals experts racing to design the next generation of electric vehicle batteries are at last having their moment. Kelty, who ran Tesla’s battery cell team for more than a decade, now […]
Posted inNews
‘Dream Big:’ Cannabis Workers Search for New Futures as Emerald Triangle Economy Withers
GARBERVILLE — Leann Greene’s rose-colored glasses are scratched, cracked, sitting askew, but still firmly planted on her face during her latest monthly open house for the Humboldt Workforce Coalition. For three hours this Wednesday afternoon in a sunny conference room at the public library, apprehensive cannabis workers, lured by a segment on the community radio […]
Posted inNews
101 Still Closed With No Estimate for Re-opening Between SoHum, Willits
U.S. Highway 101 remains closed in both directions from Garberville at Sprowel Creek Road to Willits, with no estimated time of re-opening, as crews from multiple agencies work to clear downed trees and power lines, and disabled cars from the roadway. On the heels of an historic winter snow storm, the California Highway Patrol, meanwhile, […]
Posted inNews
Is California Breaking Its Promise to Cut Health Care Costs?
Brian Iv works in a factory in Orange County, earning around $26 per hour. He suffers chronic pain from a lifetime of manual labor jobs and previous workplace injuries, but often treats the pain with home remedies or traditional Cambodian practices. Going to the doctor is too expensive, he said. Iv recently got a raise […]
Posted inNews
NCJ Preview: Post-Chinese Expulsion History, Student Housing and Pizza
This week, we’re looking back on how anti-Chinese racism kept a cannery from making money for the Eel River Valley in the 1880s. And as the housing drama at Cal Poly Humboldt grows, we’ve got an update on how the university plans to house incoming and continuing students. We’re also sinking our teeth into the […]
Posted inNews
More than 12,000 Californians are Getting Cash from Guaranteed Income Experiments
Four years after Stockton conducted a nationally-watched experiment, giving 125 households $500 a month with no strings attached, dozens of programs throughout California are testing the idea of a guaranteed income. CalMatters identified more than 40 similar pilot programs that have run, are operating or are planning to launch around the state. They are sending […]