State to offer $116M in coronavirus vaccine prize money

Have a nice Friday this holiday weekend! I wish you all a happy, memorable day on Monday as we honor the women and men who lost their lives while serving in the military. Interesting fact (as reported by history.com): Memorial Day, which began in the years after the Civil War and became the official federal holiday in 1971, was originally known as Decoration Day.

Just a little warning: If you are in the Fresno area and want to spend time in a city park, don’t be bothering lizards there, believe it or not, it is against the law.

I’m Winston Gieseke, philanthropy and specialty editor at The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, and I’m about to take off my work hat and chillax. But first, here are some of today’s Golden State headlines.

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California is offering $ 116 million in prize money for coronavirus vaccines

The Californians will receive $ 116.5 million in prize money for coronavirus recordings, Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday. This is a godsend aiming to get millions more residents of the Golden State vaccinated before the country’s most populous state fully reopens next month.

California isn’t the first state to offer vaccination prizes, although its cash pot is the largest, and therefore most valuable, single prize: $ 1.5 million.

The reopening of the state is scheduled for June 15th. A drawing will be held on that day to award the grand prize to 10 vaccinated people. Another 30 people will win $ 50,000 each. These drawings will take place on June 4th and 11th.

Anyone 12 and over who has received at least one shot is eligible regardless of immigration status, Newsom said. Exceptions are incarcerated individuals, non-California residents, and other “categories” such as: B. People who work for the state lottery.

People who have received at least one shot are already in the registry for the drawing, he added.

Newsom said there will be more ideas after June 15, but it did not provide any additional details.

Sports betting initiative supported by California tribes and eligible for the 2022 election

Agua CalienteÊResort Casino SpaÊRancho Mirage opens on December 19, 2020 in Rancho Mirage, California.  Tribal casinos across California remain open for home stay despite regional state orders.

An initiative to enable California tribal casinos to offer sports betting was allowed to vote Thursday after more than 1 million signatures were verified by county election officials across the state.

The move would allow nationally recognized tribes in California to conduct roulette, dice games, and sports betting in tribal areas as long as tribal state negotiation packages are negotiated with the governor and approved by lawmakers.

Privately operated horse racing tracks in the counties of Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego will also be allowed to offer sports betting on site for people aged 21 and over from 2022.

The California tribes have donated millions of dollars in cash to the committee that supports the initiative known as the Coalition to Approve Regulated Sports Betting.

However, a number of non-tribal card halls and casinos have opposed the initiative, and the California Gaming Association, a trading group of licensed card halls and providers in the state, is opposed to the move.

“This initiative will not legalize sports betting in California,” the association’s president Kyle Kirkland wrote in a statement to The Desert Sun. “Instead, it expands the tribal casino operators’ untaxed gaming monopoly of no benefit to Californians and prioritizes the prosperity of tribal casino operators over the needs of California communities and public health.”

The measure is expected to appear on the ballot papers in November 2022.

Suspect charged with attempted murder in 91 freeway shootings

A busy stretch of Riverside County freeway (represented here by archive image) was the site of a number of shootings.

Last week this newsletter covered a series of shootings on the 91 Freeway. This week the Los Angeles Times reports that a suspect has been arrested.

Jesse Leal Rodriguez, a 34-year-old Anaheim resident, was detained in Riverside and charged with three attempted murders related to a BB and pellet gun rash on the highway.

Riverside County’s District Attorney Mike Hestrin said in a statement that Rodriguez has been charged with three additional assaults that are likely to result in serious bodily harm.

“Shooting moving vehicles with a BB cannon or pellet gun while we are driving at high speed on our streets or highways is incredibly dangerous,” Hestrin said. “Shooting out car windows could easily frighten drivers in traffic and cause a serious accident. We are all relieved that no one was seriously injured by these crimes. “

Rodriguez is due to be charged on Tuesday. He faces a 90-year prison sentence if convicted on all charges, the prosecutor said.

In other highway news According to NBC News, the reward for information about the suspects in the apparent killing of a 6-year-old boy in Southern California has increased to $ 310,000.

Jobless claims in California increased last week

New weekly jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, are an indicator of the health of a state's economy.

The first jobless claims in California rose last week compared to the previous week, the US Department of Labor said on Thursday.

New claims, which are an indicator of layoffs, rose to 71,787 in the week ended May 22, up from 70,282 the week before, the department reported.

There were 203,262 new claims in California at the same time last year.

U.S. jobless claims fell to 406,000 last week, a seasonally adjusted decrease of 38,000 from 444,000 the previous week.

“As companies are less constrained by restrictions, filings should continue to decline and hires should rise as the economy nears normal capacity,” Rubeela Farooqi, US chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said via email.

Farooqi noted that new claims are still heightened. In the months leading up to the pandemic, there were around 200,000 new claims a week. At the beginning of April, the new claims peaked in the pandemic with more than 6 million claims and have slowly declined since then, with some bumps along the way.

Meanwhile, Monterey County lawyers and officials are arguing over notices of pesticide use. On Thursday, the Californians for Pesticide Reform, a statewide coalition of grassroots organizers and advocates, held a rally on the steps of the Monterey County’s Agriculture Commissioner asking for blanket notification of proposed pesticide uses. Proponents say that knowing beforehand when the dangerous chemicals will be used near their homes and schools would help residents protect themselves and their families.

Early morning on Monday, April 26, 2021, farm workers in Salinas, California will pick up irrigation sprinklers.

However, the Monterey County’s Chief Agriculture Officer believes advocates will use the notifications to ban the county’s growers and agricultural offices from legal purgatory, and faces myriad challenges that the state and federal government view as safe, legal pesticide uses.

That’s it guys. We wish you a safe and informed weekend vacation. We’ll be back in your inbox on Tuesday with the latest headlines.

In California, there is a summary of news from the USA Today network newsrooms. Contributors: history.com, Los Angeles Times, NBC News.

Winston Gieseke is the editor of Philanthropy and Special at The Desert Sun, writing about charities, fundraisers and people giving back in the Coachella Valley. Reach him at [email protected].

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