The Brief

Ozzy Osbourne, the influential and salt-of-the-earth singer who came to be known as the Prince of Darkness, has died in Birmingham, England, according to a statement from his family.

That statement, attributed to his wife, Sharon Osbourne, and his children Jack, Kelly, Aimee and Louis, reads, "It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time."

Ozzy Osbourne was born John Michael Osbourne on Dec. 3, 1948, the son of John "Jack" Thomas Osbourne and Lillian Osbourne (née Unitt), the fourth of six children. The Osbournes lived at 14 Lodge Road in the Aston area of Birmingham, U.K., where Ozzy would remain for some time, including while pursuing a career as a rock and roll singer.

Once he became a star, he remained associated with the city, and returned often. He played a much-heralded final show with Black Sabbath, one of the most influential bands in hard rock and heavy music, in Birmingham just 17 days ago, on July 5.

England's second-largest city, Birmingham was still pocked with rubble from World War II when Osbourne was growing up there; the city was a target of German bombers due to its importance as a hub of arms manufacturing.

He was, by his own admission, a terrible student — in large part due to his dyslexia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, which would go undiagnosed until he was in his 30s — and left school at the age of 15. But not before being lightly bullied by, among others including a teacher, his future bandmate, Tony Iommi, who was a year ahead of him. Iommi "might have kicked me in the bollocks a few times and given me some s***, but nothing more than that," Osbourne wrote in his memoir, I Am Ozzy. It was around this time that he self-applied both his famed knuckle tattoo, which spelled out OZZY on the fingers of his left hand, and two smiling faces on his kneecaps, which he said brought him joy whilst sitting on the toilet.

After his unceremonious exit from school, Osbourne seemed to have little future outside of manual labor, though it would later become clear that "rock star" may have been the only viable career path for him. The "class clown," as Iommi described him in his own memoir, was dismissed from several jobs in quick succession.

After 18 months of working in a slaughterhouse — after failing at several other trades — Osbourne was fired for beating a coworker bloody with a metal rod. The dismissal led Osbourne towards a short-lived, star-crossed career as a criminal, during which he accidentally stole baby's clothes (it was nighttime and he couldn't see well); a television, which he had to leave behind after it fell on him mid-burgling; and finally, while pilfering some shirts, Osbourne wore gloves that didn't cover his thumb, leaving prints all over the scene and leading the police to his door. ("Not exactly Einstein, are we," he recalls them saying.) He was given a three-month prison sentence, and was sent to HM Prison Birmingham, known as Winson Green, where he spent six weeks. (Twenty-odd years later, Osbourne's "last good memory of the '80s" would be playing a gig at the same prison.)

After his release, Osbourne's father — despite money having been tight his whole life — took out a loan in order to buy his son a PA, the only equipment required of aspiring rock singers at the time. Then Ozzy placed an ad — "OZZY ZIG NEEDS GIG" — in the window of a local music shop. "One day, I thought," Osbourne wrote, "people might write newspaper articles about my ad in the window of Ringway Music, saying it was the turning point in the life of John Michael Osbourne, ex-car horn tuner."

The ad led guitarist and man-about-town Geezer Butler to his door, kicking off a brief attempt at forming a band — Rare Breed — that went nowhere, but gave Osbourne his first taste of performing. The pair, now friends, went their separate ways a few months later. But, fortuitously, the ad also led a former acquaintance of Osbourne's to his door: guitarist Tony Iommi, accompanied by drummer Bill Ward, both recent wash-outs from the relatively vibrant English rock touring circuit. (Iommi's previous band, Mythology, had been forced to break up due to a pot bust at their hotel during a tour, making them all-but unbookable at the the time.)

Iommi was initially dismissive of Ozzy, but the four eventually ended up rehearsing together. Despite the theatrical malevolence they would come to be known for, the group was first called something far more innocuous: the Polka Tulk Blues Band, with singer Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, drummer Bill Ward, saxophonist Alan Clark and bottleneck guitar player Jimmy Philips.

The group's first gig was Aug. 24, 1968, at the County Hall Ballroom in Carlisle, in the northwest of the country. Immediately afterwards Clark and Philips were out, as was the band name (which Ozzy had come up with after seeing it on a bottle of his mom's talcum powder). The four were now known as, simply, Earth. But just as they were generating some momentum from touring, Iommi left to join the big-deal band Jethro Tull as its new guitarist.

After Iommi returned to Birmingham and his bandmates, Earth redoubled its efforts, inspired by the professionalism Iommi saw during his brief detour with Jethro Tull. They also decided on a new, darker direction. The first fruits of the change would eventually come to be eponymous — but "Black Sabbath" was a song before it was a band, and a horror movie before it was a song, though Osbourne had no idea at the time (he suspected that Butler, who had come up with the song's title, had never seen seen the film).

Booked by their first manager, Jim Simpson, the four spent pretty much all of 1969 touring — including a residency in Hamburg at the Star Club, the same place where Osbourne's beloved Beatles had honed its chops. The group, now officially Black Sabbath, signed a record deal in early 1970, to Vertigo, an imprint of Philips.

Black Sabbath's self-titled first record, which they'd recorded by essentially playing a quick live set, was released on Feb. 13, 1970 (a Friday, of course). It was an unexpected, and runaway, success, entering the U.K. charts the following month and cracking the top 10 that July.

Black Sabbath's vaguely occultish presentation was entirely superficial, but against the backdrop of Manson murders and the disintegration of the utopianist '60s, the group's overdriven, electrified take on the blues, its blackened psychedelia and vaguely political overtures, the image clicked. (Maybe too much; Black Sabbath would eventually be celebrated by Satanist leader Anton LeVay in a San Francisco parade. "At one point we were invited by a group of Satanists to play at Stonehenge. We told them to f*** off, so they said they'd put a curse on us," Osbourne wrote. "What a load of bollocks that was.") "The good thing about all the satanic stuff was that it gave us endless free publicity," Osbourne remembered in his book. "People couldn't get enough of it. During its first day of release, Black Sabbath sold five thousand copies, and by the end of the year it was on its way to selling a million worldwide."

But it didn't click for everyone — the record was near-universally panned by critics ("the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much except stiff recitations of Cream clichés," Rolling Stone wrote) and was all-but ignored entirely by disc jockeys at the time (save the legendary John Peel, an acquaintance of Jim Simpson's, who booked them for one of his historical, if off-air, sessions). Regardless, that year they performed on Top of the Pops, which Osbourne had watched religiously with his family at home while growing up. He was 21 years old.

The group had Paranoid, its indelible follow-up — which contains several canonical rock songs, like "War Pigs / Luke's Wall," its title track and "Iron Man" — written and practically in the can by the time Black Sabbath had reached its peak on the U.K. charts. Paranoid was released later in 1970; cementing the ascent of Osbourne, Iommi, Butler and Ward. After a management change the group would later come to regret — it hired Patrick Meehan, who it turned out "was taking nearly everything" and for whom they would title the album Sabotage — Black Sabbath was on its way.

The four's early and rapid success was the spark that ignited a decade of dizzying excess — for which Osbourne was, it would become evident, genetically predisposed to endure. But by the end of the '70s, the four were barely speaking.

Osbourne's pursuit of a solo career, aided by his future wife and manager Sharon Osbourne, still Arden at the time — the daughter of the well-known executive who had first signed Black Sabbath — began in 1980 with the release of Blizzard of Ozz. The album was largely co-written by Osbourne, guitarist Randy Rhoades and bassist Bob Daisley. Rhoades, whose short-lived career is considered wildly influential on the sound of metal, died in an airplane crash in 1982, while on tour with Osbourne. In 1986, Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake successfully sued over songwriting credits on the album.

Ozzy on his own

While the rest of the band may have had more musical chops, what Osbourne brought to the table was his showmanship. "Ozzy was a wild man," said publicist and journalist Mick Wall, who wrote Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe. "He left it all on the stage, he put everything into it."

He lived that way off stage, too. The band's early and rapid success was the spark that ignited a decade of dizzying excess — for which Osbourne seemed to be predisposed. His drug and alcohol use was a strain on the band, and by the end of the decade the four were barely speaking. A breaking point came when, after a days-long bender, Osbourne fell asleep in the wrong room and slept through a gig. By 1979 he was fired from Black Sabbath.

But it wasn't long before he found a young American guitar virtuoso named Randy Rhoads, and started working on a solo venture. Their first album together was titled Blizzard of Ozz — a sort of play on The Wizard of Oz and cocaine. The album did well in England, but the band had trouble breaking through in the U.S., despite the record containing what's possibly his most recognizable solo song, "Crazy Train." Luckily, he now had a manager who knew exactly how to push the public's buttons to get the band some attention: his future wife Sharon Osbourne.

The two were starting up a romantic relationship, and at the same time, Sharon was setting up stunts for Ozzy to get more attention.

"At this stage, Sharon is secretly organizing protests outside his shows, because it gets all this publicity," said journalist Wall. "All this is stoking the fires, which is building album sales, and turning him into a major star."

Osbourne quickly began being known for his wild, rockstar antics. Some of these stunts (biting the head off a dove) were planned. Others, (biting the head off a bat) weren't. But they did become part of his identity — something that, to Osbourne's annoyance, journalists would pester him about for the rest of his life.

By 1982, Osbourne was touring the U.S. with his second solo album, Diary of a Madman. Osbourne was asleep on the tour bus when it pulled over into an airfield to fix something wrong with the air conditioning. There, the bus driver convinced Rhoades and hair and make-up artist Rachel Youngblood to go on an airplane ride with him, promising to not pull any stunts. But in an attempt to buzz the tour bus, the plane clipped the bus and crashed. The driver, Rhoades and Youngblood died.

In his memoir, Osbourne described this moment with a mix of confusion, anger and sadness. But he and Sharon ultimately decide to continue the tour. Osbourne even kept his commitment to appear on Late Night with David Letterman, where he explained, "I'm going to continue because Randy would've wanted me to continue, and so would Rachel. And I'm not going to stop because you can't kill rock and roll."

"The Osbournes"

Shortly after the plane crash, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne got married, and later they had three kids. They would later recount getting into fights, amped up by alcohol and drugs. As a father, Osbourne could be fun and lovable, until he got drunk enough that he got scary and angry. In one incident, he attempted to kill his wife in a drunken stupor.

"He lunged on me," Sharon Osbourne told 60 Minutes Australia. "And got me down to the floor and started strangling me."

He ended up doing a long stint in rehab, though he'd continue to have an on-again, off-again relationship with sobriety. But the family did manage to calm things down enough to start inviting cameras into their home and filming The Osbournes. The show was a hit. Premiering on MTV in 2002, and co-produced by Sharon Osbourne, it laid the groundwork for much of reality television to come (there is a fairly straight line from The Osbournes to the Kardashian empire).

The Osbournes followed Ozzy, Sharon, Kelly and Jack (eldest daughter Aimee refused to be filmed), in their day-to-day habitat — Ozzy struggling with the T.V., Kelly and Jack bickering, Sharon attempting to keep everyone in line. The show softened Ozzy Osbourne's image enough that it wasn't a complete shock when he was invited to the 2002 White House Correspondents Dinner and received a special shout out from President George W. Bush.

The rush of mainstream TV fame got to him. That very night at the White House Correspondents Dinner, he started drinking after a long stretch of sobriety. And seeing his image constantly forced him to confront some things about his health. He'd developed a stammer. His tremors got worse. In 2020, Osbourne revealed to Good Morning America that he had Parkinson's disease, after years of rumors about his medical condition. "To hide something inside for a while is hard," he said. "Because you never feel proper. You feel guilty."

As the show came and went, Osbourne never lost his ties with the music world he came from. He released solo records at a consistent clip, and he (along with Sharon, of course) ran Ozzfest — an annual music festival dedicated to the types of bands that could cite Osbourne as a primary influence: Slipknot, Slayer, Tool, and more. It's a long list of bands — and, perhaps, the most concrete example of Ozzy Osbourne's legacy.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Doctors and health insurers filed a lawsuit Friday alleging Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature violated the law when they approved a healthcare tax that could substantially increase insurance premiums for Californians.

The lawsuit claims the recently passed tax on health plans, known as the managed care organization tax or MCO tax, circumvents a 2024 initiative that limits healthcare taxes and directs revenue toward specific purposes. The California Medical Association and California Association of Health Plans filed the complaint with the California Supreme Court.

“California voters passed Proposition 35 and made it law. The state does not get to ignore that law simply because following the law is inconvenient,” medical association CEO Dustin Corcoran said in a statement.

Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance, said in a previous statement to CalMatters that the state wanted to balance the affordability concerns of privately insured patients against large-scale federal Medi-Cal cuts.

Newsom stopped short of opposing the 2024 initiative when it was on the ballot, but he warned at the time it would “hamstring” the state budget.

For more than 20 years, California has levied taxes on health insurers to help fund Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income people. The state historically taxed private health plans at a lower rate than Medi-Cal insurers, but in June, the Legislature passed a bill substantially raising the tax on private plans.

Health insurers said they will pass the cost directly on to consumers, spiking premiums by about $100 per person each year. That means a family of four could pay a $400 annual increase. That would come on top of the rate increases people typically see year to year.

“California is breaking the law by blowing through a tax limit voters put in place to protect Californians and businesses from higher health care costs,” said Charles Bacchi, CEO of the health plans association.

Doctors, hospitals, clinics and Medi-Cal insurers have argued for many years that the revenue from the tax should go toward improving Medi-Cal. They said that the state was inappropriately using the money to replace general fund spending, and that many providers were being paid far less than their services cost. In 2024, they asked voters to approve a limited tax that would be reserved for Medi-Cal improvements.

But Congress last year changed the rules on taxes used to generate revenue for healthcare, including the ones imposed on health plans. Rather than lose the money generated by the tax, Newsom proposed and the Legislature agreed to submit two taxes to the federal government for approval: one that complied with the 2024 initiative but would be rejected by the feds, and one that complied with federal regulations and largely disregarded the initiative.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

California could create its own multi-billion-dollar science and health research agency under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday, helping to fill a gap left by the politicization of science under the second Trump administration. Voters will decide in a year and a half whether to fund the idea, which the University of California has championed.

Approved by state lawmakers at a time when federal science funding has become increasingly unpredictable, the bill places a $7.5 billion bond measure on the March 2028 ballot to pay for the creation of the California Foundation for Science and Health Research. The new state agency would provide grants and loans for projects in public health, climate science, agriculture and other areas. Panels of scientists would review proposals, and the agency would develop rules allowing the state to share in some of the profits from inventions made with its support.

“Scientific advancements are curing and preventing diseases, improving the lives of people living with chronic conditions, protecting our communities from wildfires, lowering the cost of food, and powering our economy,” the bill’s author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, said in a statement. “We cannot allow the federal government to throw away that hope for a better future.”

Newsom joined Wiener to sign the bill Wednesday atop the Golden Gate Bridge, a landmark built with voter-approved bond money in the 1930s that his press office described as a symbol of California ingenuity. He said the proposed science agency “does the opposite of what Donald Trump is doing (and) will allow us to double down on what makes this state great.”

It was a dramatic comeback for a measure that almost died in the Legislature earlier this year, when a more ambitious $23 billion version of the plan failed to make it onto the November ballot despite bipartisan support.

Researchers from UC Berkeley and elsewhere had joined with UC leadership to lobby for the bond, hosting rallies and inviting lawmakers to a science fair highlighting projects that had seen their funding stalled or canceled by the federal government.

There were plenty to choose from: The Trump administration canceled nearly $2 billion in research grants to the University of California beginning in early 2025, later acknowledging in court that officials searched for keywords such as “health equity” and “sexual orientation” in order to decide what to cut. While a court order restored much of the money, the National Science Foundation has since slowed grantmaking nationwide, and President Trump has proposed giving political appointees more power to veto National Institutes of Health grants that don’t align with his agenda.

This spring, the National Science Foundation canceled an additional $21 million in grants to UC Berkeley, accusing the projects’ lead researchers of accepting foreign funding without disclosing it, a charge some of those scientists denied. UC President James Milliken has called the disruption of federal research funding “one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history.”

Lawmakers nevertheless declined to move the science bond forward this spring amid worries about competing demands on state funds – including a housing bond on the November ballot and the possible need to backfill other federal cuts. But negotiations among bill supporters, legislative leaders and the governor over the summer led to the scaled-down version that Newsom signed Wednesday.

Along with the University of California, California State University, private universities, and independent labs would all be potentially eligible for grants from the new state fund. A $7.5 billion state fund would not by itself make up for the instability in federal grants – the UC alone received nearly $5 billion in federal research funding in fiscal year 2024-25. But supporters say it could be especially helpful to researchers in fields such as climate science that are critical to the state’s future but have run afoul of Trump administration priorities.

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Berkeleyside partners with the nonprofit newsroom Open Campus on higher education coverage.

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This story was originally published by Berkeleyside and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

A winter of potentially devastating weather driven by what scientists predict to be a massive El Niño event could strain many of California’s TK-12 public schools, experts say, likely damaging aging structures and forcing school closures.

The southern and central parts of the state are expected to be hit hard along with coastal areas, as they were in 2023 when mid-March storms forced the closure of at least 178 schools. Only this time, weather scientists predict El Niño could stress levees to the max, and even bring potential for tornadoes, along with torrential rains, mudslides, storm-driven tides and heavy winds.

While district superintendents in especially vulnerable areas are already planning ahead, some schools may be ill-equipped to handle punishing weather. At least 59 California school districts are seeking voter approval for bonds in the November election, and have identified the need to repair or replace “leaky,” “dilapidated” and “decaying” roofs, an EdSource examination of local ballot language shows.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Sept. 21, ordering pumps and sandbags to be stockpiled near vulnerable areas, among other precautions. Federal flood data show roughly 20% of the state’s schools are located within flood plains. In 2023, heavy storms flooded schools in Alameda and Merced counties as well as one near Watsonville, where a levee ruptured.

“Climate-driven El Niño conditions could mean months of dangerous weather, heavy rain, strong winds, deep mountain snow and flooding,” Caroline Thomas Jacobs, director of the California Office of Emergency Services, said at a news conference, adding that the public shouldn’t underestimate “the power of water.”

Preparing for a severe El Niño

As predictions of severe weather spread, there isn’t a school superintendent in an area that the El Niño is predicted to impact “that hasn’t been thinking about this for weeks already,” said Scott Borba, executive director of the California Small School Districts Association. Many small districts have aging buildings — some as many as 75 years old, Borba said.

“You’ve got leaks and dry rot and all the things that a super wet winter is going to just exacerbate,” he said.

While district leaders work with other local agencies during weather emergencies, they are largely on their own when making major decisions, such as whether to cancel school, Borba said.

“Sometimes you have some county office of emergency services’ support. But when it comes to making that decision, that decision lies with the superintendent alone,” he said.

One small school district leader who may soon be making such decisions is Raven Coit, the superintendent and principal of the 61-student TK-8 Peninsula Union School District on the south end of the Northern Humboldt Peninsula in Humboldt County. It’s perhaps the most isolated coastal school in California, roughly 600 yards from the ocean. Dunes often serve as a play area for students.

Coit took steps this year to try to limit storm damage. She had trees cut back and used money saved by deferring other projects to complete much-needed roof repairs. “There was a big storm that caused leaking. I’m proud to say that it won’t rain inside this year,” she said.

But the likelihood of impacts from El Niño remains. The school’s “in a vulnerable spot,” she said. Flooding could cut off access to the only road leading to the school. There’s a backup generator that she’s “trying to figure out if I can make it work.”

While nearly all the school’s students live nearby, many teachers do not, and may not be able to get to work. Local high school students are bussed to Arcata on the mainland — if buses can get through.

She said the school could also turn to remote learning in a crisis.

How El Niño may impact schools in coastal areas

One of the things that makes El Niños so dangerous in coastal areas like Coit’s is that they are known in California for also causing rising tides known as Kelvin waves.

They are slow moving, and can raise sea levels for weeks. Some could reach shore as early as October. At the same time, an astronomical phenomenon known as super king tides is expected from November to January, Danial Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, said in an online presentation.

“That would probably bring record-breaking coastal flooding this year.”

A worst-case scenario “would be an El Niño Kelvin, plus a peak king tide, plus a significant storm,” he said.

A Southern California school leader of one of those districts said it’s bracing for storms.

Don Austin, superintendent of Laguna Beach Unified School District in Orange County, said that living on the coast, “I have seen our beaches get washed away with recent storms and homes destroyed.”

His schools have “roof leaks and other issues that will be heavily impacted by an El Niño,” he said.

The most impactful weather-driven damage to a California school in recent years was in March 2023 when a broken river levee caused the Pajaro Middle school near Watsonville to flood, along with the heavily Mexican immigrant and farmworker community it serves.

The school reopened in 2024. A complete replacement of the entire levee by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could take a decade, officials said.

Mark Strudley, executive director of the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency, said the agency is spending roughly $1 million to strengthen the levee, and that the breach that led to the school flooding has been permanently repaired. El Niño, he said, is the obvious concern, and the work is aimed at protecting the town of Pajaro and the middle school.

Leaders of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District remain concerned about El Niño, but haven’t identified a temporary site to move students to if the school floods again, according to Peggy Pughe, the district’s executive director of teaching and learning.

Asked what the district officials are doing based on their experience with the 2023 floods and the threat of El Niño, Pughe said they are “canvassing local neighborhoods, encouraging families and residents to sign up for emergency alert services.”

Data journalist Daniel J. Willis and staff writer Emma Gallegos contributed to this story.

In August, the Trump administration announced a significant overhaul of the Head Start program, leaving early childhood providers in Los Angeles concerned about their ability to serve low-income children.

The proposed rules strip Head Start of many of its regulations and impose new requirements, like teaching in English only.

The public comment period ends Oct. 6 — after which the administration could finalize the new rule. It’s unclear when that will happen, and experts say it could be caught up in litigation.

Why does the administration want to change the rules?

Federal officials said the deregulation would provide for more local flexibility.

An administration statement said the moves reduce both regulatory burden and administrative costs, allowing for more available slots — as many as 236,000 Head Start slots nationwide — and save $2.2 billion.

“We are removing unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthening nutrition and physical health, trusting parents and local communities, and opening Head Start to hundreds of thousands more children,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services. “That’s how we renew the promise of Head Start for the next generation.”

Earlier in the administration, the White House proposed to cut Head Start entirely from the budget but reversed course.

The case against the proposed rules

Head Start providers worry the new rules, if implemented, could be the start of whittling down a program that provides early education and other wraparound services for about 70,000 children across the state.

“It's a holistic program really designed to lift kids out of poverty and to set them up for future success, so what's at risk when the standards are changed are a lot of those elements and guidelines that support the program quality,” said Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start California.

For example, Head Start provides support services beyond education, like developmental screenings and dental care, which would no longer be required under the Trump administration’s plan. The new rules would also require documentation beyond self-attestation for families experiencing homelessness.

“Putting a lot of documentation requirements in place would be very onerous for people who are in really difficult circumstances,” said Donna Sneeringer, president of the Child Care Resource Center, which serves about 2,000 kids in its Head Start programs in northern L.A. County. The program opened up a Head Start center at a family homeless shelter last year.

The administration’s proposal also sets a 5% cap on administrative costs, down from the current 15%, which Sneeringer said will be hard for nonprofits to implement.

“I think many Head Start operators are really going to struggle to even keep their programs open,” she said.